When you can't live without bananas

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Saturday, July 30, 2022

Links - 30th July 2022 (2)

Malaysian authorities mocked for attempting to extradite its transgender national from Thailand - "the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) is applying for an extradition order of cosmetics entrepreneur Muhammad Sajjad Kamarul Zaman, a transgender who is now known as Nur Sajat from Malaysia from the authorities in Thailand. Federal Police (Bukit Aman) Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk Seri Abd Jalil Hassan said the (extradition application) also involved various other agencies in Malaysia, including the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC)... two local broadcasters were recently instructed by the Film Censorship Board (LPF) to stop displaying male and female underwear in their respective home shopping segments. LPF claimed that displaying the garment, even when a model was never involved is allegedly indecent and offensive, and therefore goes against its guidelines and code of conduct... a sanitary pad maker Libresse published an advertisement using the theme “V-Kebaya”, where it launched a limited-edition line of sanitary pads using packaging that was decorated with floral pictures, inspired by the Malay Nyonya kebaya and vulva.The new theme was aimed at breaking encouraging women to feel confident about their bodies, including their private parts.Despite being forced to remove its advertisement due to uproar from a religious group, female hygiene product maker Libresse Malaysia received support on social media for its courage in starting a conversation over menstruation and vaginal health."

Pending court case will proceed if Nur Sajat extradited - "Nur Sajat is also being investigated under Section 10 of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Selangor) Enactment 1995, after several complaints were made against the entrepreneur in 2018 and 2020. Section 10 refers to the Syariah offence of insulting Islam or causing Islam to be insulted either by mocking or blaspheming the faith and its associated practices and rituals either in a written, pictorial or photographic form. It carries the penalty of fine not more than RM5,000, no more than three years' imprisonment, or both. Nur Sajat is sought by the authorities after the Shah Alam Syariah High Court issued an arrest warrant on Feb 23 for failing to attend proceedings over a charge of dressing as a woman. The entrepreneur is also required by the police to attend proceedings at the Ampang Jaya Court over a fraud case involving MyKad details"

Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the United States. Why? - "Bill Gates has never been a farmer. So why did the Land Report dub him “Farmer Bill” this year? The third richest man on the planet doesn’t have a green thumb. Nor does he put in the back-breaking labor humble people do to grow our food and who get far less praise for it. That kind of hard work isn’t what made him rich. Gates’ achievement, according to the report, is that he’s largest private owner of farmland in the US. A 2018 purchase of 14,500 acres of prime eastern Washington farmland – which is traditional Yakama territory – for $171m helped him get that title. In total, Gates owns approximately 242,000 acres of farmland with assets totaling more than $690m. To put that into perspective, that’s nearly the size of Hong Kong and twice the acreage of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, where I’m an enrolled member. A white man owns more farmland than my entire Native nation!... Like wealth, land ownership is becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, resulting in a greater push for monocultures and more intensive industrial farming techniques to generate greater returns. One per cent of the world’s farms control 70% of the world’s farmlands, one report found. The biggest shift in recent years from small to big farms was in the US."

Why the Bill Gates global health empire promises more empire and less public health - "As the second-richest person on Earth, Bill Gates has no reason to crave money. This is a common response to claims that Gates’ philanthropy isn’t motivated solely by the kindness of his heart. But despite these frequent characterizations of Gates “giving away” his fortune, his net worth has actually doubled in the last two decades.  At the same time, strong evidence suggests that the Gates Foundation functions as a trojan horse for Western corporations, which of course have no goal greater than an increased bottom line.  Consider the revolving door between the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma...  the foundation has owned stakes in several drug companies. A recent investigation by The Nation revealed that the Gates Foundation currently holds corporate stocks and bonds in drug companies like Merck, GSK, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis, and Sanofi...  the WHO took in over $70 million from the pharmaceutical industry in 2018 (the last year for which complete data is available). Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation has provided Big Pharma with the perfect vehicle for influencing the WHO.   In 2018 alone, the foundation gave $237.8 million to the WHO, making it the second-largest contributor after the U.S... When Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus became WHO Director General in 2017, Gates’ influence came under fire again.  Tedros was previously on the board of two organizations Gates founded, provided seed money for, and continues to fund to this day: GAVI and the Global Fund, where Tedros was chair of the board. Today, Tedros, the first WHO director general who is not a medical doctor, can be found tweeting praise for Bill Gates’ op-eds...   As the UK-based NGO Global Justice Now noted, “the Foundation’s influence is so pervasive that many actors in international development which would otherwise critique the policy and practice of the Foundation are unable to speak out independently as a result of its funding and patronage.”  “The World Bank and the IMF look like midgets in front of the Gates Foundation, in terms of power and influence,” Dr. Vandana Shiva remarked...   The Gates Foundation has also directed its wealth toward influencing news coverage of global health policy – and to perhaps suppress criticism of its more unsavory activities.  The foundation has donated millions to major media outlets, including NPR, PBS, ABC, BBC, Al Jazeera, the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, Univision, and The Guardian...   The Gates Foundation has helped engineer global health policy for poor countries for over 20 years, working mainly in Africa and South Asia. Its close relationship with the drug industry seems to have colored that work... The foundation appears to see the Global South as both a dumping ground for drugs deemed too unsafe for the developed world and a testing ground for drugs not yet determined to be safe enough for the developed world.  The so-called “flagship of Bill Gates’ / WHO African vaccine program” is the diphtheria tetanus pertussis (DTP) vaccine. It is a bundle of three immunization shots given to virtually every child on the African continent, but not currently administered in the U.S. or in most other developed nations.   As far back as 1977, a study published by British medical professionals in The Lancet established that the risks of the whole-cell pertussis jab (used in the DTP vaccine) are greater than the risks associated with contracting wild pertussis. After mounting evidence linking the drug to brain damage, seizures, and even death, the U.S. and other Western countries phased it out in the 1990s and replaced it with a safer version (called DTaP) that did not contain the whole pertussis cell.   However, African nations are still being financially incentivized to continue... There is perhaps no more famous element of the Gates Foundation’s work than its polio eradication effort. Yet once again, the polio drugs the Western world uses and the drugs given to the Global South are dramatically different.  The foundation has spent more than $1 billion distributing an oral polio vaccine (OPV) that contains a live polio virus to African and Asian countries. This live virus can replicate inside a child’s intestine and spread in places with poor sanitation and plumbing. That means people can contract the virus from the vaccine... professor of microbiology Raul Andino said, “It’s actually an interesting conundrum. The very tool you are using for polio eradication is causing the problem.”... Oxford’s Clinical Infectious Diseases Periodical contended that polio outbreaks in China, Egypt, Haiti, and Madagascar were also caused by the OPV, declaring that “the time is coming when the only cause of polio is likely to be the vaccine used to prevent it.”... the OPV is not only giving kids polio, but also “seems to be ineffective in stopping polio transmission” to begin with.  As the British Medical Journal reported in 2012, “the most recent mass polio vaccination programs [in India], fueled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, resulted in increased cases [of polio].”... 70 Indian feminist groups and scholars signed a statement protesting the regulatory approval of Depo-Provera, citing side effects like excessive bone density loss, weight gain, excessive bleeding, and depression... “there are risks that the women are not given enough information to make an informed choice of contraceptive method.”  Despite widespread domestic opposition and the mounting evidence of negative side effects, the Gates Foundation continues working with USAID to distribute drugs like Depo-Provera... a South African newspaper once declared, “We are the guinea pigs for the drug makers.”... According to Global Justice Now, the foundation’s “heavy focus on developing new vaccines… detracts from other, more vital health priorities such as building resilient health systems.”   As Dr. David Legge explains, Gates “has got a mechanistic view of global health, in terms of looking for silver bullets. All of the things he supports are largely framed as silver bullets … That means that major issues that have been identified in the World Health Assembly are not being addressed, including in particular the social determinants of health, and the development of health systems.”... the Gates Foundation actually influences African governments to change laws to accommodate the agriculture industry"

Bill Gates held wild naked pool parties with strippers: Biography | Toronto Sun - "That was even after he married wife Melinda, according to a biography of the Microsoft founder.James Wallace wrote in his 1997 biography on the tech mogul, Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace, that his hormone-charged hijinks were hidden by newspapers like The New York Times. [“The Times] didn’t report on the wild bachelor parties that Microsoft’s boyish chairman would throw in his Seattle home, for which Gates would visit one of Seattle’s all-nude nightclubs and hire dancers to come to his home and swim naked with his friends in his indoor pool,” Wallace wrote. During his time at Harvard, Gates was also allegedly a frequent flier in Boston’s once notorious red-light district, the Combat Zone. As Gates and his wife head to divorce court after 27 years of marriage, more alleged details are emerging about the squeaky clean Gates. Among those details are his alleged friendship with disgraced sex trafficker billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and his arrangement with his wife for one weekend per year with former girlfriend Ann Winblad. “He continued to play the field for a while, especially when he was out of town on business, when he would frequently hit on female journalists who covered Microsoft and the company industry"... “His womanizing was well known, although not well reported” and his wife “was well aware of Gates’s womanizing.”And Gates was reluctant to commit causing the pair to break up for a year.“When they got back together again in 1992, however, the relationship grew closer and stronger”"

Bill Gates 'disappeared from work in a Porsche to meet women, and forced staff to sign NDAs' - "Bill Gates would drive to work at Microsoft in his Mercedes before driving off in a golden brown Porsche that an assistant brought for him, in what staff believed was his system for meeting women, it has been claimed... 'I knew there were many offsite meetings that were not on his calendar.'... Two sources told the magazine that someone in Melinda's circle worked with a private investigator leading up to divorce filing, and the PI's findings will form part of the case... Gates, a father of three, pursued women who worked for him a few times when he was the chairman of Microsoft.He once emailed an employee to ask her out to dinner, and another time told a woman who worked for the Gates Foundation that he wanted to take her out to dinner while they were on a business trip to New York. In 2019, Microsoft's board of directors opened an investigation into his behavior after it was notified about his advances on an employee in 2000, and Gates stepped down from the board the following year, after the company hired a law firm to look into the allegation... French Gates hired divorce lawyers in 2019 after meetings that Gates had with Jeffrey Epstein became public... French Gates was also said to be unhappy with an investigation into Bill Gates' money manager Michael Larson, in 2018, which ended with the woman involved receiving a payoff."
"Bill Gates's longtime money manager 'rated the looks of female colleagues, showed nude photos of women in the office, bullied staff and made a racist remark to one employee'"

'WELL HE'S DEAD': Bill Gates pooh poohs questions about Epstein | Toronto Sun

Sabrina Maddeaux: How billionaires like Bill Gates use taxpayer-subsidized charity to influence politics - "Prior to two weeks ago, had aliens landed on Earth, they may have assumed Bill Gates was not just our Supreme Leader, but also a modern-day saint. Not only do major newspapers speak his name in the same breath as Mother Teresa, touting him as one of the most generous people on the planet, he controls large portions of the world’s essential energy, education, and healthcare sectors. Had the U.S. withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gateses would’ve become the agency’s top funders... today’s Big Billionaires are the new Big Government, threatening democracy and individual liberty with their overreach... . Studies show most charitable giving doesn’t target the neediest; less than one-third of donations are given to help the disadvantaged. Actually, the wealthier a donor is, the less likely they are to donate to those in need. Most funding goes to education, health, and religion... large donors may worsen social inequities by giving to areas where wealth is already concentrated, whether that be to prestigious schools or medical research that targets ailments suffered by the upper classes. So they’re not perfect, but surely private foundations are more efficient than the government? Increasingly, the answer is no. There’s growing concern about private foundations that hoard wealth and keeping massive reserves rather than spending it. In an exceptional case, WE Charity made headlines for sitting on $40 million worth of real estate. While billionaires’ public promises to give away all their money may seem wonderful, this often actually means creating private foundations — or even limited liability companies (LLC) — in which to store said wealth. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, pledged to donate 99 per cent of their Facebook fortune, currently valued at around $45 billion. However, their money will actually go to the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, which isn’t a charity. It’s a LLC, which can invest in for-profit companies, make political donations, and isn’t subject to the rules and oversight of a charitable foundation. There are zero transparency requirements. The foundation, and its power, can be passed on to their children. As for supporting a wider variety of worldviews, mega donors may be handing over more money, but they’re giving it to a smaller cohort of causes. Since Canada changed its tax laws in 1996 to incentivize high-worth donations over ordinary donations (generally considered to be $250 or less), small and rural nonprofits felt the squeeze. Urban, institutional entities see the bulk of funds. The reality is fewer people are engaging in philanthropy, resulting in a lack of diversity. Stats Can reports a small group of donors is responsible for an increasing overall amount of donations, a trend that began after the Great Recession in 2010 as billionaires’ fortunes soared. More worryingly, donor-advised funds, which shield the names of donors from the public and have been used to “donate” to hate orgs in the U.S. and Canada, are the fastest growing method of charitable donations eligible for tax benefits... So if mega donors don’t effectively combat inequality, aren’t more efficient than the government, and don’t support a wider spectrum of worldviews, why should taxpayers pay (via tax incentives) for billionaires to accumulate power? The bill isn’t cheap. Canadian taxpayers will subsidize charitable donations at an estimated rate of $4.2 billion this year. For American taxpayers the bill is $50 billion... If we don’t want to simply replace Big Government with Big Billionaires, we must rethink our system of tax incentives, demand more transparency from donors and institutions alike, and erect reasonable barriers to the amount of influence funders can have over essential infrastructure. Philanthropy should not be used by billionaires as a pathway to super citizenship."
Of course, to many Americans, it is an article of faith that the private sector is always better than the public

Food Deserts and the Causes of Nutritional Inequality - "We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy eat more healthfully than the poor in the United States. Exploiting supermarket entry and household moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments contribute meaningfully to nutritional inequality. We then estimate a structural model of grocery demand, using a new instrument exploiting the combination of grocery retail chains’ differing presence across geographic markets with their differing comparative advantages across product groups. Counterfactual simulations show that exposing low-income households to the same products and prices available to high-income households reduces nutritional inequality by only about 10%, while the remaining 90% is driven by differences in demand. These findings counter the argument that policies to increase the supply of healthy groceries could play an important role in reducing nutritional inequality."
Victim blaming! Time to cancel them
On the myth of food deserts being due to evil companies not giving poor people nutritious and fresh food

Thousands of Brazilian Prisoners Escape After Xmas Leave - "Over 2,400 Brazilian prisoners escaped after being given leave to return home over the Christmas and New Year's Eve period, in another indictment of Brazil’s malfunctioning penal system.In total, 47,531 prisoners were granted a temporary release over the holidays, 5.1 percent of whom -- 2,416 -- did not return. In 2011, almost exactly the same proportionabsconded... The temporary releases are granted as a reward for good behavior for prisoners housed in semi-open prisons who have served at least one sixth of their sentence, for first-time offenders, or a quarter, for repeat offenders.Prisoners are able to claim up to five releases a year to spend time with their family, usually for Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Children Day, Christmas and one other day of their choice... This could be curbed by the increased use of electronic tagging devices -- a nascent technology in the Brazilian penal system."

This girl escaped a kidnapping attempt and helped catch the suspect by using a trick she saw on "Law and Order: SVU" - "Alyssa struggled, but managed to kick at his legs which caused him to fall to the ground... "I was able to get the slime onto his upper arm and a little bit on his lower arm, I knew that might be better evidence if the cops do find him.""

Microsoft is making it easier for employers across the world to spy on staff - "Two quietly announced Microsoft 365 updates have huge implications for employees of many organizations – and will go a long way to preventing leaks of damaging material, even in cases of serious criminal conduct.Microsoft 365 – formerly Microsoft Office – is depended upon by private and public sector organizations of every ilk and size. In the US alone, upwards of 730,000 businesses utilize Excel, Outlook, Teams, Word, and the like on a daily basis. Now new “insider risk management” tools are set to radically overhaul how these resources work, although the average employee may be none the wiser. Take for instance “increased visibility on browsers,” set to come into force in February next year. This will grant organizations intimate insight into precisely what staffers are up to on the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome web browsers, enhancing their ability “to detect and act on browser exfiltration signals,” including “files copied to personal cloud storage, files printed to local or network devices, files transferred or copied to a network share [and] files copied to USB devices.” Further enhancing these intrusive spying capabilities, as of April 2022, Microsoft will also deploy machine-learning robots into all of its devices to monitor and report “risky” actions taken by employees, with dedicated alerts for each one detected, and daily analytics reports, with “insights and recommendations for potentially risky activities by your users.” However, this update goes even further than surveilling potentially damaging activities by staff."

Prince George's County reveals new plan to catch loose zebras - "Prince George's County officials have revealed a new plan that they hope will lead to capturing two zebras that have been on the loose since the beginning of September.Three zebras escaped from a farm in Upper Marlboro and the group has been roaming around the area ever since... According to a press release from Maryland's Department of the Environment, the new plan involves using more zebras... Officials say the owner and caretaker have taken two zebras from the herd and are keeping them in an enclosure in the center of a corral. The hope is that by utilizing food and the other zebras, the loose zebras will return to the corral and the herd."

Beverly Hills City Council Unanimously Backs Recall of Soros-backed DA George Gascón - "The Beverly Hills City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to support recall efforts aimed at Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, whose “criminal justice reform” efforts coincide with a violent crime wave... Several high-end Beverly Hills retailers were targeted late last year in “mass looting” events, similar to those in San Francisco and Chicago.Others who have backed the recall include Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has often clashed with left-wing Democrats in the area over their lenient policies toward crime, drugs, and homelessness. Last month, Gascón held a celebratory press conference to tout his achievements as district attorney, including reducing prison sentences for accused murderers and other violent criminals — and was met with a barrage of questions from reporters about the ongoing violent crime wave. Gascón blamed the recent murder of Jaqueline Avant, a prominent philanthropist in the African-American community and the wife of music legend Clarence Avant, on the “system” that had allowed the alleged murderer “to be cycled in and out of prison with little or no meaning intervention to be able to gain access to an AR-15 military-style weapon.”"

Relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: literature review - "From the clinical studies, we conclude that the implementation of intuitive eating results in weight maintenance but perhaps not weight loss, improved psychological health, possibly improved physical health indicators other than BMI (e.g. blood pressure; cholesterol levels) and dietary intake and/or eating behaviours, but probably not higher levels of physical activity... Extant research demonstrates substantial and consistent associations between intuitive eating and both lower BMI and better psychological health.""
This suggests that calorie counting etc leads to worse outcomes. There were 8 RCTs so causation is unlikely to run the other way

Calorie Postings Don’t Change Habits, Study Finds - The New York Times - "people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008."

Why Aussies Can't Pay At The Pump For Petrol - "for the most part, Aussies are still expected to fill up their tanks and then mosey on in-store to pay with a real, breathing, living clerk. And Australians have just about had enough of it...
"It's the 'We want people in store to buy shit' bit which applies. The profit margin on fuel is minimal. They bargain on people making impulse buys while they go to pay for fuel. That $7 coke-and-chocolate combo or the sneaky sausage roll, or the packet of smokes — they all add to the bottom line. It's not people planning to buy stuff. It's impulse buying, which is a proven technique.""

Andy MacKenzie 💙 on Twitter - "Confusing trip to the petrol station: @BP_plc pleads “download our app!” while stating “no mobile phones”. Come on, make up your mind."

BP and Shell stations sue rival for selling petrol too cheaply - "the companies that own the Wisconsin-based petrol stations - one a BP and the other a Shell - want NZ$116,420 in damages from a nearby Woodman's outlet, local news station WISN reported. Woodman's is a regional supermarket franchise that also sells petrol. The documents allege Woodman's is underpricing its petrol and "illegally" outpricing the BP and Shell stations. The three outlets are all based in the city of Waukesha."

Man who used commemorative coin to pay for petrol wins payout - "A commemorative coin collector who was arrested after attempting to pay for his fuel at a petrol station with a £100 coin, insisting it was legal tender, has been awarded a £5,000 compensation payout. Brett Chamberlain, 54, a carpenter and father-of-four, had attempted to pay for £60 of diesel at a Tesco Extra filling station in Exeter in July 2020 using a silver coin commemorating London’s Trafalgar Square, only 45,000 of which were issued by the Royal Mint when it was released in 2016. His offer was rejected by staff, leading to a row in which Mr Chamberlain, from Tiverton in Devon, argued that the special edition memento was valid under the 1971 Coinage Act. The police were called and the tradesman was arrested on suspicion of “making off without payment” and interviewed by officers at Exeter Police Station for four hours before being released, subsequently receiving a letter saying he would not be charged. Not satisfied, Mr Chamberlain commenced legal action, complaining that he had not received “an adequate apology or an assurance the incident would be removed from the police national computer”... “They wanted to prosecute me for using Royal Mint coins... “Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury’s have taken them but Tesco are always difficult,” he added. Tesco has said it will not accept commemorative coins as it is not considered to be circulating legal tender... Under UK law, a person cannot be sued over a debt if they have attempted to complete the transaction in question using legal tender. All Royal Mint coins would be considered as such in the eyes of a court. However, a shop or bank is not obliged to accept cash payments in any currency larger than a £50 note.Equally, they do not have to accept payments in 1p and 2p coins for anything that costs more than 20p, although they might choose to do so at their own discretion - and had infinite reserves of patience"

Mobile phones and petrol stations - "Every month or so, I get an earnest email warning me of the hazards of using my mobile phone on the forecourt of a petrol station. Usually, the email mentions the Shell Oil Company as its source, and quotes the same three incidents of petrol fires while refuelling. The first one has the mobile phone sitting on the boot - the phone rings, generating an instant ball of fire. The second episode has a person speaking on the phone, leading to nasty facial burns. The third occurrence has the phone in the pocket suddenly ring, causing unfortunateß burns to the groin and thigh.  This email has been traced back to a hoax email that landed in the inbox of a Shell employee in Jamaica . He rebroadcast it, but with the Shell Company signature now on the email - and this accidental non-approved signature gave the hoax more credibility.   So, has a mobile phone ever set off a petrol station fire? No, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, who looked at 243 petrol station fires worldwide, happening in the 11 years between 1993 and 2004. And no, according to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, and no, according the Robert Renkes, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, who said, “We have not found a cell phone responsible for any fire since the beginning of mankind” . And finally no, according to the popular Mythbusters TV show, which tried mightily to make a mobile phone explode a chamber full of petrol vapour, and failed.  It is theoretically possible to set off a petrol fire with a phone. The amount of energy needed for a spark to ignite petrol vapour is 0.2 mJ, which is roughly one five-millionth of the energy stored in a fully-charged phone battery. The difficulty is that the phone is not designed to make sparks.   The lithium battery could explode while charging if its internal regulator circuit was very faulty. But you don't normally simultaneously charge and talk on your mobile phone while refuelling your car. The internal electronics of the phone could fail and make a spark - but the spark would be too small.  And why worry about the phone battery when you have batteries in your iPod, CD player, mini-torch, and yes, don't forget the big 15 kg car battery that powers the electrics of your car?   Well, what about the electric field put out by your phone? Yes, the electric field has been measured at 2-5 volts/meter, and has been known to interfere with heart monitors and infant incubators in hospitals, and various electronic equipment in planes. But the electric field from a mobile phone has never been known to set off a fire in a petrol station. And consider that in the UK , some 200 Shell petrol stations have mobile phone towers in the tall petrol price indicators, which stand right there on the forecourt, a few metres from the petrol pumps. The towers put out a lot more grunt than your small mobile phone.  So what did set off those 243 petrol station fires? Most of the time, static electricity was the culprit...   The phone companies post warnings about using phones in petrol stations for two reasons. First, mobile phones are not designed with “Intrinsic Safety” to make them able to operate safely in truly hazardous inflammable vapour situations, and second, fear of legal liability, despite all the evidence showing that mobile phones don't cause fires in petrol stations."

Ryan Reynolds Brings Rick Moranis Out of Retirement for Mint Mobile Commercial - "Once Reynolds welcomes Moranis into the frame for the Mint commercial, he reveals that he really doesn't have anything for him to say. Moranis simply shrugs and gives the camera one of his patented bewildered looks and walks away."

Tombstone goes viral after LOL written on Lawrence Wainwright headstone - "Lawrence Wainwright died over ten years earlier, but his gravestone has gone viral this week for all the wrong reasons after Cain Unable noticed “LOL” had been written on there too.  Although LOL used to mean ‘lots of love’, it has a very different meaning today."

Scientists Find Sharks Living Inside Active Underwater Volcano - "When scientists started studying the murky orange waters around the Solomon Islands’ submerged Kavachi volcano, the last thing they expected to see was schooling sharks...   Kavachi is active, and eruptions are common. But the sharks are not scared off by the underwater explosions or submarine boiling lava. It is theorized this may be due to special pores near their snouts, called ampullae of Lorenzini, which scientists believe allow them to sense changes in Earth’s magnetic field. Sharks use the information for homing and migration, and may also use them to avoid dangerous situations."

The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear - "The great white shark—a fast, powerful, 16-foot-long torpedo that’s armed to the teeth with teeth—has little to fear except fear itself. But also: killer whales...  Killer whales have a friendlier image than great white sharks. (Perhaps because of their respective portrayals in movies: Jaws 2 even begins with the beached carcass of a half-eaten orca.) But orcas are “potentially the more dangerous predator,” says Toby Daly-Engel, a shark expert at the Florida Institute of Technology. “They have a lot of social behaviors that sharks do not, which allows them to hunt effectively in groups, communicate among themselves, and teach their young.”  Combining both brains and brawn, orcas have been known to kill sharks in surprisingly complicated ways. Some will drive their prey to the surface and then karate chop them with overhead tail swipes. Others seem to have worked out that they can hold sharks upside-down to induce a paralytic state called tonic immobility. Orcas can kill the fastest species (makos) and the largest (whale sharks). And when they encounter great whites, a few recorded cases suggest that these encounters end very badly for the sharks. In October 1997, fishing vessels near Southeast Farallon Island observed a young white shark interrupting a pair of orcas that were eating a sea lion. One of the whales rammed and killed the shark, and the duo proceeded to eat its liver. More recently, after orcas passed by a South African beach, five great-white carcasses washed ashore. All were, suspiciously, missing their liver.  A great white’s liver can account for a quarter of its body weight, and is even richer in fats and oils than whale blubber. It’s “one of the densest sources of calories you can find in the ocean,” Jorgensen says. “The orcas know their business, and they know where that organ lies.”  Rather than ripping their prey apart, it seems that orcas can extract livers with surprising finesse, despite lacking arms and hands. No one has observed their technique, but the wounds on otherwise intact carcasses suggest that they bite their victims near their pectoral fins and then squeeze the liver out through the wounds. “It’s like squeezing toothpaste”... killer whales don’t have to kill many white sharks to radically change their whereabouts. In 2009, for example, orcas passed by Southeast Farallon for less than three hours, but the great whites stayed away for the rest of the year. For the elephant seals, the island became a predator-free zone. “The two predators faced off, and the winners were the seals”"

Man who lost leg in great white shark attack wins 'stupid' six-year legal battle to keep its tooth - "A surfer who had his leg bitten off by a monster six-metre shark has finally won a 'stupid' six year legal battle allowing him to keep the man-eater's tooth.  Chris Blowes, now 32, was viciously attacked by the 'massive' great white at Port Lincoln's Fishery Bay in South Australia on Anzac Day, 2015... Mr Blowes asked to keep the shark's tooth as a souvenir in the wake of the near-fatal incident, but was not allowed due to the strict laws around protected species... 'I'm just happy to have it back – a tooth for a leg, surely that's a fair swap.'... Despite the horrifying experience, Mr Blowes is still able to surf with a prosthetic leg"

VIDEO: Lawsuit Filed After Alleged 'Baby Shark Torture' in Oklahoma Jail - "“In October of 2020, two former Oklahoma County detention officers and their supervisor were charged with four counts of cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate, and conspiracy”... former detention officers Christian Miles and Gregory Butler were accused of taking approximately five inmates from their cells, handcuffing them with their arms behind their backs inside an attorney booth, and forcing them to stand.  “In some cases, the inmates were forced to listen to ‘Baby Shark’ for up to four hours at a time”"

Woman is shocked to see photo of her and her boyfriend on Chinese TV show but with her head edited out - "A Dutch influencer was left speechless when she discovered that a Chinese drama used a picture of her and her boyfriend that had her face replaced with the show’s lead actress’ face.  Rianne Meijer, a social media influencer with over 102,000 followers on TikTok and more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram, shared the hilarious discovery in a viral TikTok"

Jews and the 109 Countries they have supposedly been expelled from (Part 3)

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

37. 1453 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - France
This doesn't seem to be a real expulsion, but an artefact of the English having control of Gascony (Bordeaux) until 1453, at which point the prevailing French laws on Jews applied.

38. 1453 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Breslau
In modern day Wroclaw, 41 Jews were burnt at the stake and the rest expelled for desecrating the Host (with fanciful allegations), according to John Capistrano, a foreign friar who had a record of spreading anti-semitism.

39. 1454 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Wurzburg
I can't find anything about this at all.

40. 1462 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mainz
41. 1483 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mainz
Note that these are the third and fourth times Mainz is appearing on this list, after 1438 and 1012, so it is a good example of triple (or even quadruple) counting.

42. 1484 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Warsaw
I cannot find anything about this.

43. 1485 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Vincenza (Italy)
This was due to the blood libel and a friar, Bernardino da Feltre, who went around Northern Italy trying to get Jews expelled.

44. 1492 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Spain
This was Ferdinand and Isabella's (in)famous expulsion. Jews were allowed to convert if they didn't want to be expelled. Besides anti-semitism, this was partly motivated by economic reasons - seizing their property.

45. 1492 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Italy
I cannot find anything about this. Indeed, quite a few Italian states welcomed Jews who had been expelled from Spain.

46. 1495 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lithuania
Alexander Jagiellon expelled them due to "the international situation of that time, the circumstances surrounding the economic activities of financially competent Jews, and the financial status of the Grand Duke’s estate". Yet, they were allowed back in only 8 years later in 1503, so it wasn't much of an expulsion.

47. 1496 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Naples
Some sources say that this was when Naples was conquered by Spain in 1495 (and Malamat and Tadmor's A History of the Jewish People adds that it was only implemented in 1510). Neapolitan history during the Italian Wars is complicated, but regardless this is another example of double counting since Spain had already expelled them.

48. 1496 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Portugal
This is conventionally believed to be because Manuel I wanted to marry the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. And they were given a choice to convert.

49. 1498 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nuremberg
In the years leading up to the expulsion there had been much anti-semitic sentiment fanned. There were also claims that they were involved in crime.

50. 1498 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Navarre
As with Portugal, King Johan and Queen Catalina expelled the Jews due to Spanish influence, partly to get their help to ward off France. Again as with Portugal and Spain, they could convert - and most did (because they had no way out, as they were not allowed in Spain). Jewish property was also seized. This didn't stop Navarre being taken over by Spain, unfortunately.

51. 1510 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Brandenberg
This was due again to allegations of desecrating the Host but was not strictly enforced.

52. 1510 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Prussia
The Duchy of Prussia was only created in 1525 from the territory of the Teutonic Knights, and the area was later known as Brandenburg-Prussia, so this is double counting with the 1510 Brandenburg expulsion. In any event I can't find any records of Jewish expulsion from Monastic Prussia in 1510.

53. 1514 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Strasbourg
I can't find anything about this. In the notes to Chava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt's edition of The Historical Writings of Joseph of Rosheim: Leader of Jewry in Early Modern Germany, she notes that "At the close of 1515, William, bishop of Strasbourg, received a charter from the Emperor authorizing both him and the Lords of Andlau and their favourites to expel the Jews from a number of specified villages, including Mittelbergheim. This apparently is what R. Joseph was referring to in section 7 of the Chronicle (for 1514/ 15): “. . . and the Bishop was with them in their plan to chive us out of the land”. He states there that the Bishop and the Lords of Andlau cancelled their expulsion plan, and from the tenor of his words it seems that at that time there was no expulsion from his town. Nevertheless, it is possible that the expulsion threat was one of the reasons for R. Joseph’s change of abode."

54. 1515 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Genoa
Genoa was occupied by the French during this time, so it makes most sense for this to be classified as double counting. The Jewish Virtual Library says they were expelled in 1515 but allowed back in a year later. The Jews in Genoa: 507-1681 by Urbani et al on the other hand reports that "In 1516, however, Ottaviano Fregoso, governor of the city under the French dominion, expelled all of the few Jews living in Genoa, even though a few documents seem to prove the contrary.” Thus Joseph"

55. 1519 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Regensburg
This was due to the blood libel.

56. 1533 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Naples
57. 1541 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Naples
Even ignoring how Naples supposedly already expelled them in 1496, the 1541 expulsion here was just the implementation of the 1533 expulsion, and Naples was under Spain all this time.

58. 1542 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Prague & Bohemia
At this time, Bohemia was ruled by Ferdinand I (who had been reared in Spain) in the name of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, so this is arguably double counting with Spain. Since this came 23 years after Regensburg in 1519 (the last entry from the Holy Roman Empire, I will generously count this as a separate item).

59. 1550 -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Genoa
Coming only 35 years after the listing for Genoa in 1515, this is definitely a double (or triple) count.

(Part 4)

(Part 5)

Links - 30th July 2022 (1 - Trans Mania)

Royal Academy pulls artist’s work from gift shop over ‘transphobic’ views - "The Royal Academy of Arts has pulled an artist’s work from its gift shop following claims she expressed “transphobic” views.  Jess de Wahls was found to be in “conflict” with the values of the institution over opinions expressed in a 2019 blog criticising “gender identity ideology” and the LGBT charity Stonewall... The artist wrote a blog in 2019 which said that a woman is “an adult human female” and “not an identity or feeling”, adding: “I can not accept people’s unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born.”  She argued that the “ideology” of gender politics placed people into reductive boxes, enforced censorship akin to that found in her birthplace of East Germany, and had a detrimental impact on the rights of women and girls...   The campaign groups Sex Matters has written to the director of the RA in a letter stating: “The Royal Academy is carrying out an egregious and blatant belief discrimination against textile artist Jess de Wahls.”  The letter claims the decision to pull the artist's work came after a “handful of coordinated complaints”, adding that the decision goes against “your values as a forum for artistic expression”."

Alaska Airlines flight attendant says uniform 'discriminates' - "A nonbinary Alaska Airlines flight attendant is alleging that the company’s uniform policy discriminates against workers “who do not conform to gender stereotypes,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.  “When I am working as a flight-attendant instructor and allowed to wear regular business attire, I am not forced into Alaska Airlines’ ‘male’ or ‘female’ uniform policies — neither of which fit me because I am non-binary,” Seattle-based Justin Wetherell said in an ACLU news release.   “But when I work as a flight attendant, I am forced into one of two standards, often for up to four days at a time. I am willing to follow all of the elements of the uniform policy for professional attire, as I do when I work as an instructor, but I don’t want to be forced into a binary uniform that excludes me and leads to me being misgendered at work,” the seven-year employee added.   The ACLU wrote the letter on behalf of Wetherell, whose gender identity is not strictly male or female — and whose gender expression “is fluid” and can change over time.  It argues that the company’s uniform policy violates the Washington Law Against Discrimination and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...   “The uniform policy has one set of ‘male’ dress and grooming requirements and another set of ‘female’ dress and grooming requirements,” the letter states.  “Although the uniform policy allows transgender men and transgender women to adhere to the uniform standards that match their gender identity, Alaska Airlines requires all employees to conform to either the ‘male’ or ‘female’ category”...   “Each uniform is made up of several pieces of clothing that flight attendants can choose from, but flight attendants cannot mix and match ‘male’ uniform pieces and ‘female’ uniform pieces.”"
I remember when liberals were complaining about gendered toys and saying that unless a toy is operated by your genitals, it cannot be for boys or girls (too bad, that's now transphobic). And I said you might as well say that clothes aren't gendered either
Clearly we either need to abolish uniforms or come up with one for each of the 192383289 genders, just so that people with mental illness don't feel discriminated against

Meme - "I was accidently transphobic to myself
So tomorrow I'm helping a student at the university I go to with ultrasounds, and I was asked to fill out a form. In this form, one of the rules was if I was found to be pregnant, the test will be canceled, and the student would have to find someone else... The thing is... When I saw this my mind instantly said "oh, thats fine, i can't get pregnant, I'm a trans woman, not a real woman"... And now I'm mentally bashing my head against a wall. anyone else has this accident? That one thing took a huge toll on my dysphoria"

Meme - "TAYLORMAYSILVERMAN
My name is Taylor Silverman. female athlete. I have been skateboarding for eleven years and competing for several years. I have been in three different contests with trans women, two of which I placed second. At the last contest series I did for Redbull, I placed second. The trans competitor who won took $1000 dollars in qualifiers, $3000 in finals, and $1000 in best trick. This totaled to $5000 of the prize money meant for the female athletes. I took $1000 in qualifiers and $1750 for second place, so $2750 in total. The girl who took third received $750. The girl who deserved $1000 for best trick took nothing along with whoever would have placed third. I deserved to place first, be acknowledged for my win, and get paid. I reached out to Redbull and was ignored. I am sick of being bullied into silence."

Meme Kree_Darnor: "My 5 year old just told me I'll never be a real girl. I'm very upset. She also said she didn't want people to think she had two moms because that would be weird. So she refers to me as "her dad" to classmates. I'm really very upset"
Out of the mouth of babes...

One-third of Americans believe trans acceptance has gone too far, NBC polling says - "The latest numbers from NBC also show a quarter (25%) of respondents to its questioning on trans acceptance said the country has “reached a reasonable balance,” while 35% said the country has not gone far enough in promoting it. NBC’s polling has tracked Americans’ thoughts on trans acceptance since 2015. That year, the number of survey respondents who believed the country had gone too far in relation to trans acceptance was 24%."

British transgender couple say a nurse did not let them see their newborn baby - "A transgender couple who went into hospital to visit their newborn baby said a nurse did not let them see their daughter because they were “not the legal parents”.  Jake and Hannah Graf, from south London, said that they were both “nearly in tears” in the hospital car park after the nurse said that they would not be allowed to meet the baby girl... A surrogate is the legal parent in the UK unless she signs a parental order transferring her rights, or the baby is legally adopted, as a surrogacy agreement is not enforceable by law. It is also illegal to pay a woman to carry and birth a baby, except for medical expenses."
Being trans means the law doesn't apply to you

No One Is Born in ‘The Wrong Body’ - "The idea that all people have an innate “gender identity” recently has been endorsed by many health-care professionals and mainstream medical organizations. This term commonly is defined to mean the “internal, deeply held” sense of whether one is a man or a woman (or, in the case of children, a boy or a girl), both, or neither. It also has become common to claim that this sense of identity may be reliably articulated by children as young as three years old... Developmental studies show that young children have only a superficial understanding of sex and gender (at best). For instance, up until age seven, many children often believe that if a boy puts on a dress, he becomes a girl. This gives us reason to doubt whether a coherent concept of gender identity exists at all in young children. To such extent as any such identity may exist, the concept relies on stereotypes that encourage the conflation of gender with sex. However, starting at a young age, children do tend to exhibit preferences and behaviors that we associate with sex (as distinct from gender). For example, male children display more aggressive behavior than female children. In addition, “cross-sex” behavior—or, more accurately, cross-sex stereotypical behavior—often is predictive of later same-sex attraction... It comes as no surprise then that population-based studies have demonstrated sex-related differences in personality and preferences that are independent of social influences. When social influences are weakened (in more egalitarian societies such as the Nordic countries of Europe), the sex-related differences in personality and preferences actually increase (the opposite of what one would expect if men and women were wired in an identical fashion). This suggests that as environmental pressures become relaxed, innate sex-specific preferences surface. A closer look at personality traits shows that when data is analyzed in aggregate, there is a roughly 30% overlap between sexes, as schematized in the accompanying figure. The consequence of this overlap is that adolescent males who fall on the left end of the male (blue “masculine”) curve, and adolescent females who fall on the right end of the female (pink “feminine”) curve, will exhibit personality traits that diverge from the majority of other members of their own sex. In fact, due to the overlap of personality traits between males and females, the personality traits of some females will be more “male-like” than those exhibited by some, or even most males’ and vice versa.  In the case of an adolescent female whose behavior, personality traits and preferences are more “masculine” than most girls and most boys, she could be led to incorrectly conclude that she is really a male, born in the wrong body. That child’s parents could become confused as well, noticing how “different” their child’s behavior is from their own, or from that of their peers. In reality, that child simply exists at the end of a behavioral spectrum, and “sex-atypical” behavior is part of the natural variation exhibited both within and between the sexes. Personality and behavior do not define one’s sex... The broad, but normal distribution of personality traits also explains studies showing a 28% concordance of transgender identity in twins. Twins have identical chromosomes, and so likely will have similar sex-related behaviors, as well as experience similar environmental influences in regard to those behaviors. Using twin adolescent males as an example: If their behaviors are at the “feminine” end of the male-typical distribution, they could both become confused as to what their behaviors and preferences mean about their sex... Historical data suggests that about 0.5% of children develop gender dysphoria—distress caused by a perceived incongruence between one’s biological sex and gender presentation. Reinforcing studies in the medical literature show that, as children get older, childhood-onset gender dysphoria resolves (i.e. ends) in most cases. As two authors put it in a 2016 International Review of Psychiatry article, “the conclusion from these studies is that childhood GD [gender dysphoria] is strongly associated with a lesbian, gay or bisexual outcome and that for the majority of the children (85.2%; 270 out of 317 [studied individuals]) the gender dysphoric feelings remitted around or after puberty.” Yet instead of offering counseling, medical professionals now are commonly telling children that they may have been “born in the wrong body.” This new approach, called “gender affirmation,” makes gender dysphoria less likely to resolve, pushing children down the path toward irreversible medical and surgical interventions. If aggressive transition options are pursued early in puberty, the combination of puberty-blocking drugs, followed by cross sex hormones, will result in permanent infertility.  The growing population of transgender-identifying high school students now is estimated to comprise about 2% of all students—a three-fold increase over the baseline 0.5% figure cited above. Many adolescents now are presenting to gender clinics, with some clinics seeing a 10-fold increase in new cases. Many of these adolescents have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Higher rates of autism-spectrum conditions have been described in many of these adolescents, and the controversial “affirmation model” is being applied to this unstudied cohort as well. Not surprisingly, reports of transition regret, and de-transition, are growing in number."
An alternate explanation for why twins often both are "trans". Of course, the fact that the twin trans concordance isn't 100% must be due to suppression of transgender identity by an oppressive, transphobic society

If you want nothing to do with these crazy trans videos, please listen to this woman explain how her girlfriend convinced her she was male and her warning for kids today - "Nearly everyone reading these words has sympathy for the small number of people who genuinely suffer from gender dysphoria. No one wants to deny they exist or keep them from getting compassionate care. We merely disagree on what said care looks like.  But there's a horrible monster out there that's grabbing kids and twisting their minds and bodies to feed the power of a delusional cult that, like medieval alchemists, wants to achieve some gender-bending influence over the fabric of reality itself in pursuit of political and societal power."

The Big Questions Of LGBTQ History | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘You know, part of what complicates this question for me is the role of homophobia and transphobia. Because while we are immersed in this material and care so much about uplifting, you know, queer and trans pasts, and we want to do it respectfully, and in, you know, as so many of you have already said, contextually, and in a rich way, there are homophobic and transphobic people who just want to silence and suppress these pasts and say, well, no, you know, if you there's a burden of proof demand, in terms of evidence about queer and trans lives, and that if you can't provide the document, you know, then you, how dare you, you know, reference this person as a part of the queer community or queer past, you're imposing your activist agenda on history. And, you know, that's a really powerful, destructive force that has, kept, you know, queer history marginalized. And I would say, out of schools, in many ways, you know, for decades, and it's something that we have to fight against’"
This is basically an admission that "queer history" is about making stuff up for a political agenda and that they want to indoctrinate kids in school

Nick Freitas on Twitter - "Any male owned small business not immediately re-certifying as “woman owned” with the SBA right now is missing out on contracts and set asides. And if anyone on the Left gives you grief about it, ask them exactly why you don’t qualify."

Kevin Sorbo on Twitter - "So 19 year olds shouldn’t have to pay student debt because they can’t understand the student loans they sign. But 4-year-olds can change gender whenever they feel like it. Got it"

Netflix Under Fire—Again—Over Trans Jokes, This Time By Ricky Gervais - "Describing how Kevin Hart lost his Oscars hosting gig in 2018 due to resurfaced tweets, Gervais again brings up trans women, saying “the worst thing you can say today is, ‘Women don’t have penises,’ right? ….There are no 10-year-old tweets saying [that]. You know why? We didn’t think we fucking had to!”    In another part of the special, Gervais says he “support[s] trans rights. I support all human rights, and trans rights are human rights,” and urges his audience to “live your best life” and “use your preferred pronouns,” before joking “but meet me halfway, ladies. Lose the cock.”  In a statement to Variety, LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD called SuperNatural “graphic, dangerous [and] anti-trans” and questioned Netflix’s policy against content “designed to incite hate or violence,” saying, “we all know that anti-LGBTQ content does exactly that.”...   Gervais is no stranger to controversy surrounding the trans community. In a 2018 Netflix special Humanity, Gervais made remarks about Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender. In 2019 he came under fire for a series of tweets some critics called transphobic. Speaking on The Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast in 2020, Gervais defended his jokes, saying “most offense comes from people who mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target. And they’re not necessarily the same… you know, ‘He’s making fun of a trans person, therefore he’s transphobic,’ which is very odd. That would suggest that you can never make fun of a trans person for any reason. Even if it had nothing to do with their trans-ness.” When his critics add “-phobic” to the end of a word, Gervais said he believes it means “they want you to shut up.”"

Ricky Gervais has broken the spell of wokeness - "the genius of Gervais’ trans gags is that they largely just relay the actual, insane situation that the trans ideology has ushered in. He captures perfectly how the world is being reshaped around the demands of ‘women with penises’, while the ‘old-fashioned’ women who object to this are being told to shut up and disappear.  As you’d expect, for telling the truth about trans ideology, Gervais has been denounced as ‘dangerous’, ‘bigoted’ and ‘hateful’. The trans movement relies on these slurs to shame its critics into silence. But Gervais has made it abundantly clear that he will not be silenced or shamed merely for telling jokes. Plus, he does not stand alone. Gervais has officially, in the words of one LGBT outfit, joined the ranks of those ‘so-called comedians who spew hate in place of humour’ (translated, that means comedians who are brave enough to mock and scrutinise gender lunacy).  Most infamously, this group includes Dave Chappelle... there is also Bill Maher, whose warning against the trans movement’s medicalisation of children went viral last week. Challenging trans ideas is still risky, but the pushback is clearly gathering pace. That Gervais has added his voice to the cause of reason can only be a good thing. By joking about trans ideology, without fear or favour, Ricky Gervais has shown how easily the spell can be broken. He is like the small child who has told the crowd the empress has a penis. And now no one can pretend not to see it."

Remove Sex From Public Birth Certificates, AMA Says - "Requiring it can lead to discrimination and unnecessary burden on individuals whose current gender identity does not align with their designation at birth, namely when they register for school or sports, adopt, get married, or request personal records... 48 states (Tennessee and Ohio are the exceptions) and the District of Columbia allow people to amend their sex designation on their birth certificate to reflect their gender identities, but only 10 states allow for a gender-neutral designation, usually "X," on birth certificates...   "Assigning sex using binary variables in the public portion of the birth certificate fails to recognize the medical spectrum of gender identity," Underwood said, and can be used to discriminate."
Brilliant. Clearly sex has no medical use. And the increase in numbers of trans people receiving substandard care (like that transman who lost a baby) can only be due to more "transphobia"
Weird. I thought sex and gender were supposed to be distinct concepts and only the ignorant thought that gender activists were claiming that sex and gender were the same. As if "assigned male at birth" and "assigned female at birth" weren't referring to sex

Giggle App Uses AI to Exclude Trans Women, CEO Says - "An app marketed towards "females" has faced a barrage of online criticism for excluding transgender women with its use of artificial intelligence... "The way the app works is when you install it, you have to take a picture of yourself and it uses AI to analyze your face," said Jenny, a 23-year-old trans woman from California. "And if it decides you're a woman, it will let you in. If it decides you're a man, it will reject you. But if it rejects you, you can just submit another picture."... Grover, who has embraced being called a "TERF" — trans-exclusionary radical feminist — told Insider that she decided to exclude trans women from the platform once trans activists began using it.  According to Giggle's website, the app sends a new user's selfie to the facial-recognition AI company Kairos, which analyzes the photo... If the Kairos AI is 95% certain the person is female, the person is allowed to create an account"
So much for sex and gender being different

Meme - "Gender identity is a pseudo scientific hoax like flat earth teory but it is so popular because it allows mediocre people to customize their identity in the cheapest and most effortless way, that is, through self proclaiming identity"

Meme - "YOU MATCHED WITH PETER"
"U sexy as fuck for a schizophrenic"
"why on earth would you say schizophrenic"
"Oh my bad i dont know what agender means. And i thought because u said that u thought u were more than 1 person
My bad i dont understand alll the terminology
I just got out of a 6 year relationship im new to this"

TERF is a slur | Documenting the abuse, harassment and misogyny of transgender identity politics

Meme - "Can't tell if this is bait or not."
"Cis womanhood is violence. Cis women's attachment to genitalia is violence. Cishet women's pandering to patriarchy is violence. Cis women's notions femininity are violent. Womanhood is a construct that is not exclusive to cis women."

Former Virginia Tech player, 19, CLEARED of beating Tinder date to death - "A former Virginia Tech football player was acquitted of beating his male Tinder date to death after claiming the hook-up had lied about being a woman then performed oral sex on him.   Isimemen Etute, 19, was found not guilty of a charge of second-degree murder in the 2021 death of Jerry Smith, 40, of Blacksburg, Virginia.  Etute says he visited the victim last year to engage in oral sex with a woman he believed to be named 'Angie,' but who was actually Smith. Etute told police Smith was hiding his face during the intercourse, and paid him $50 at the end.  The athlete also said he stopped messaging Smith after the interaction because he wasn't sure 'Angie' was telling the truth about their identity  But a month later, Smith reached out to him again and invited him over, telling him to bring some friends... Etute had testified that Smith reached for what Etute thought was a gun. Smith did not own a gun, but police reported finding a knife between the man's mattress and box spring... The former Virginia tech player also testified that he felt 'violated' after Smith lied to him... Smith was 'controlling the entire environment and the entire episode.' He added that Smith had 'demanded that it be dark' and had hidden a knife under his mattress 'in case there was something awry.'"
Of course, if a man tricked a lesbian into sex by pretending that he was a woman, the feminists would be very upset at him
It helps that the accused is black and the date was probably white, naturally

Some move to change ‘breast’ milk to ‘chest’ or ‘human’ milk in effort to be more inclusive - "There is a new push by some health care professionals to change the term “breast milk” to “chest milk.”   In the United Kingdom, one hospital made international headlines for changing the term “breast milk” to “human milk.” It’s an effort to be more inclusive to transgender and non-binary parents"
But when you have prostate milking...

Meme - ">be me
>eating breakfast with my 16 blue-haured year old daughter
>starts talking about cultural appropriation and other bullshit to me
>whatever jpg
>she starts going off about trannies and pronouns
>can't help it, i start to laugh
>she asks why
>tell her trans people don't get to dictate my language
>daughter literally starts crying
>tries to argue, but can only stutter
>runs off to her room
>wife just shakes her head at me
>daughter locks herself in her room for 3 fucking hours
>when she finally comes back, her eyes are still bloodshat from crying
>has a shit eating grin on her face
>starts referring to me with pronouns
>whatever2bigigloo jpg
>follows me around all day going out of her way to misgender me
>right before I lose my patience, i get an idea
>i just roll with it
>tell her to not refer to me as 'dad', but 'mom'
>she looks confused
>tell my wife to start calling me Davina instead of David
">daughter is visibly uncomfortable
>i start talking in an obnoxious effeminate voice
>daughter waddles back into her room in tears again
>wife is still unamused
>stop off at party city on the way back home from work the next day
>buy a cheap ass blonde wig
>start wearing it around the house
>daughter can't take it anymore Stop it dad, this isn't funny!
> tell her to stop being a bigoted transphobe
>she is trapped, doesn't know what to do or say
>wife tries to keep a straight face
>might just have her teach me how to put on makeup
>this is not over yet"

Meme - "Stop calling us females, you're reducing us to our genitals" - To man
"Hiiiiii Vagina-Haver" - Transwomen
"OMG that's me Hiii"

Meme - UN Women: "Auto-reply inspiration."
"From: Working Parent
Sent: Any day of the week
To: Co-worker
Subject: RE: URGENT REQUEST
Thank you for your message. Due to the patriarchy. I'm currently unable to respond immediately. Like many women, I'm working full-time while taking care of my children and household, Please note that women do times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. Feel free to forward this email to help recognize and redistribute unpaid care work once and for all"
"What about men who menstruate and get pregnant?"

"This is a nightmare": Female Inmate Speaks Out Against Trans-Identifying Male Transfers - "incarcerated woman Miseka Diggs explained that the female inmates in EMCFW are “scared to death” of the men. Under the current policy, the men do not need to undergo any surgery, and Diggs asserts that most of the men are not on hormone replacement therapy. She stated that a majority of women incarcerated at EMCFW have past trauma, with many being victims of male violence, and the presence of men in the facility is causing them severe distress. According to a 2016 report from the Vera Institute of Justice, 86% of incarcerated women have a history of abuse and 77% have a history of experiencing intimate partner violence. Women’s rights advocates have described this situation as a “sexual abuse-to-prison pipeline.”... Diggs described her anxiety at having to share a shower with one of the male transfers, whom she identified as Nikita Selket. Selket, formerly Neil LaBranche, is a 6′ 7″ man serving a thirty-year sentence for the murder of his roommate in 1995. The New Jersey Department of Corrections has recorded LaBranche as “female.” He is one of 27 men who have been transferred into the women’s facility since last year. The decision was the result of a legal settlement between state officials and ACLU New Jersey.  “When [LaBranche] came in and got into the shower next to me I felt violated in every form possible! I couldn’t believe that I was showering with a person with genetic male parts,” Diggs said. LaBranche is allegedly also watching women as they shower, with a “smile, as if [he] liked what was happening.”   The first male inmate transferred to EMCFW was Perry Cerf, who uses the name “Michelle Hel-loki Angelina.” As previously reported by Reduxx, Cerf is serving a 50-year sentence for the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Flor Andrade. He accepted a longer sentence to have his rape conviction removed from his record.  “Going to prison on a sex charge would be a safety concern for me,” Cerf said at the time. He boasted of drinking the woman’s blood after killing her. Cerf was later found wearing her clothing, driving her car, and had placed his own photograph over hers on the victim’s identification.   Diggs told Reduxx that the day Cerf was transferred into the facility, she witnessed him being escorted by approximately 15 guards. As he was being moved down the corridors, she saw him attempting to kick down doors to women’s cells. While incarcerated in the men’s facility at New Jersey State Prison, Cerf assaulted other male inmates and at one point was placed in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day...   Diggs went on to say that during altercations with the women, several trans-identifying transfers have reminded them that they are men in order to threaten them.  “This is a behavior and [statement made] by most of the transgenders. ‘I am a man and I will knock you out'”... Moreover, some men have identified into the prison, only to identify out again. “I know of two transfers that went back to the male prison on their own. They identified as trans, came here for whatever reason, and then decided they wanted to go back to the men’s facility. They were sent back. That is exactly where the problem lies: they come and go as they please.”...   Speaking on the settlement between state officials and the ACLU, Diggs remarked that she believed women’s rights were being “tossed out the window” in order to secure votes and political careers...   “The women that were sentenced to the only female prison in the State of New Jersey didn’t get sentenced to be housed with people that prey upon them and manipulate them, and [serve as] triggers of the trauma that put them here.”"
It is interesting that women are always victims - even if they are convicted criminals

Two women at N.J. prison are pregnant after consensual sex between inmates, DOC says - "Two women incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility — the state’s only female prison — have become pregnant after having sex with a transgender inmate... The developments follow a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey last year, which stipulates that transgender prisoners should be housed in line with their gender identity.  That settlement stemmed from a lawsuit by a transgender woman who was sent to a men’s prison, where she alleged she received inadequate medical care and was abused by male inmates and staff.  Advocates hailed the agreement as necessary reform that moved New Jersey to the forefront of trans rights along with states like California and Massachusetts that have implemented policies on how transgender prisoners should be housed and medically treated... two Edna Mahan prisoners filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to immediately remove “any and all male pre-operative transgender inmates,” alleging that some had harassed them and engaged in sexual contact with other women.  In an affidavit filed in support of the lawsuit, one transgender prisoner who had gender-conforming surgery before she was incarcerated said the DOC’s current policy is “very questionable.”  “I believe it is highly inappropriate for the NJDOC to place pre-operative male-to-female allegedly transgender inmates in a women’s prison,” said the woman, who has been locked up for more than 20 years."

'Transphobic' Harvard professor slammed for not using the term 'pregnant people' - "A Harvard professor is facing blowback from her department’s head of diversity for using the words “male” and “female,” and declining to use the term “pregnant people” in her classes on hormones, sex, and human behavior... professor Carole Hooven said being mindful and respectful of other people’s choices and teaching scientifically accurate biology courses are not mutually exclusive. “Understanding the facts about biology doesn’t prevent us from treating people with respect”... The Ivy League school discourages the use of words like “male” and “female,” labeling them as transphobic, but Hooven, who has taught at Harvard for 20 years, strongly believes in scientific accuracy taking precedence in the classroom.  She said in the interview that infusing the current standards of political correctness into course material is “incredibly confusing for science educators and for students trying to learn about the world and learn the tools of science and critical thinking.”... While Hooven encourages other teachers and professors along with the media to “start backing away from using certain terms that they are afraid people will find offensive,” she acknowledges that the consequences of doing so are certainly real, and include social and employment repercussions.  A Harvard student identified only as “Lauren” agrees. She said that there have been multiple petitions just in the span of the last few months which sought to crucify various instructors for “wrongspeak” by publicly identifying and shaming them.   “I think there’s a small percentage of instructors who are true believers [in woke ideology], but most of them are probably just scared of their students”... Hooven stated that teaching anything other than accurate biology is “doing students and the public a great disservice.”  She continued, “Part of that science is teaching the facts. And the facts are that there are in fact two sexes – there are male and female – and those sexes are designated by the kind of gametes we produce. Do we make eggs, big sex cells, or little sex cells, sperm? And that’s how we know whether someone is male or female.”  She feels that in the current “woke” political climate, “the ideology seems to be that biology really isn’t as important as how somebody feels about themselves, or feels their sex to be.”"
The side of "science" strikes again

Friday, July 29, 2022

Links - 29th July 2022 (2 - General Wokeness)

People's Association withdraws offer to meet couple over wedding photo incident - "The People's Association (PA) has withdrawn its offer to meet a Malay/Muslim couple whose photo was used as a standee for Hari Raya Aidilfitri decorations without permission, citing disagreements with them over the purpose of the meeting and how they had characterised the incident.  Communications specialist Sarah Bagharib, 30, had posted on social media on May 28 about the inappropriate use of her wedding photograph at a Housing Board estate in Radin Mas constituency.  This drew a public apology from the PA and an offer from the government agency to meet her and her husband, Mr Razif Abdullah, to apologise in person for the distress caused by its mistakes... Ms Sarah had shared claims that the incident "perpetuate(s) the racist culture" and was "racist".  The agency rejected these claims, saying: "While the error was culturally insensitive, it was certainly not racist. It is not right to raise the allegation of racism, without basis, to stoke emotions and sentiments." It also noted that she had made a public call for messages and suggestions ahead of the meeting. "We find this odd. We do not see why our meeting should be appropriated as a platform for her to funnel the views and comments of persons unrelated to the incident," the PA added.  "All these lead us to believe her purpose in agreeing to meet us has gone far beyond the Radin Mas incident. We therefore see no point in proceeding with the meeting." The couple's wedding photo had been used by a vendor to create a standee alongside a decorative platform and banner depicting Radin Mas MP Melvin Yong and his Hari Raya Aidilfitri greetings to residents... User @jeanpsychologist thanked Ms Sarah for posting on the incident, and called for Chinese Singaporeans to "educate ourselves on our conditioned racism", saying this is "long overdue towards our friends in minority communities who have to put up with our ignorance - which continues to perpetuate the racist culture that hurts them".  In the second Instagram Story, Ms Sarah penned a series of reflections on the incident, and said she was thankful to those who had stood in solidarity with her and her husband as well as other ethnic minorities in the aftermath of "this incident (and other racist attacks and incidents that have been filmed)".  The PA also claimed Ms Sarah had insinuated in an online talk show on June 7 that PA's staff and volunteers did not find anything wrong with the standee as they might be "blind to racism"...   She also referred to someone's comment about internalised racism, and spoke about how some people are blind to racism, or feel there is nothing wrong with racism as it does not impact them."
We don't even know the race of the people involved, but SJWs in Singapore never miss an opportunity to bash Chinese people
Anyone who disagrees with a SJW - even a minority - must be racist himself

Suhaimi Yusof Explains The Differences Between Malay Costumes In Response To PA's Hari Raya Standee Blunder - "actor and The Noose star Suhaimi Yusof, who is of Javanese descent, waded into the conversation by posting his personal response to the incident on his socials.  “The recent error by PA when they used the wrong costume for the wrong occasion upset the community a bit. Well everyone makes mistakes. Look on the bright side, now we know each other better,” he wrote, sharing a collage of himself in various types of Malay traditional attire according to the corresponding occasion to show non-Malay folks the differences...  “There’s a Malay proverb that translates as, ‘Don’t draw charcoal on my face’, which means ‘Don’t embarrass me’ and has something to do with face value. So if you’ve done something embarrassing, it’s very hard to face others, so I symbolised that by using that huge songkok to cover my face.”   Brilliant meme aside, Suhaimi also saw the whole debacle as “a great opportunity to educate” the non-Malay community about his culture.  “If you fight fire with fire, you won’t come to a solution and will only make the fire bigger. So pour the water on it slowly, and people will tend to have a bit more respect and listen to you,” he said. “Of course, you can throw in a joke or two, not to trivialise the matter, but to loosen people up. This was clearly a misunderstanding, so the solution is to make people understand! And what better way to do that than to use humour?”...   Although Suhaimi clarified that he isn’t defending the PA for their mistake, he also doesn’t think they were being offensive on purpose...   He then got candid about one of his own cultural boo-boos.  “I once made the mistake of sending my friend a Chinese New Year greeting dressed up as what I thought was the God of Fortune, but he said it wasn’t! I’m so lucky it was a personal thing and wasn’t made public. (Laughs)” (From Suhaimi’s description, it sounded like he had channeled Justice Bao instead.)  “So it’s the same thing,” he continued. “If I sent the wrong costume for CNY and someone came up to slap me in the face, I wouldn’t even know what happened, right? So the best solution is to counter [ignorance] with education, and since everyone is paying attention to [the PA’s mistake], it’s a good opportunity to do it right now.”   So why was it inappropriate for the PA to use a photo of a bride and groom for their Hari Raya celebration? As Suhaimi explained, during a Malay wedding, the couple dresses up like royalty and is treated like a king and queen for the day. The groom will also carry a traditional dagger called a keris as a symbol of manhood and protection.  “Do you know what my wife would do to me if I wore that outfit for Hari Raya? She would slap me and ask if I’m getting married again!” Suhaimi laughed. “It communicates a totally different intention, like, are you visiting relatives or marrying another woman? So we don’t go out to celebrate Hari Raya like that. I won’t even be able to come home. (Guffaws)”...   At the end of the day, Suhaimi personally thinks that the PA crossed more of an “ethical line” than an “ethnical” one, that is to say, the bigger issue was stealing someone’s photo and cutting out their faces before using it as a prop."
Luckily he didn't try to literally depict "Don’t draw charcoal on my face", since that would be interpreted as blackface

Amrin Amin - "There’s a lesson here. It’s wrong to use someone’s photo without permission. And of course, wedding does not equal Hari Raya - but that’s not ‘racist’. As we call out racism, we must be careful not to label every error as borne out of racism or ‘racist culture’.  It’s important to point out shortcomings, but we must not be too quick to cancel and always be on the lookout for opportunists eager to score points in their desire to gain mileage at any cost, without regard to sincere ongoing ground efforts.  Grace is important in building harmony in a diverse society. No one is perfect. It’s a work-in-progress. Not every slip is Armageddon."
Minority voices only matter when they push the liberal agenda. Of course, if you want to create division and strife, anyone who stands in your way is evil

Woman 'of Malay ethnicity' under police probe for allegedly promoting enmity between different races, after posting offensive tweets against Malays - "The police are investigating a 27-year-old Singaporean woman "of Malay ethnicity" for allegedly promoting enmity between different racial groups.  In a news release on Thursday (Sept 2), the police said that they were doing so after a report was lodged on Sunday relating to offensive content allegedly posted against the Malay community on Twitter by a user who goes by the moniker “Matilda Lee”... 35-year-old Zainal Abidin Shaiful Bahari was sentenced to three weeks' jail after posting multiple racially insensitive tweets under the pseudonym “Sharon Liew”."
When a Malay woman pretends to be Chinese to insult Malays, this is the fault of Chinese men

Supreme Court rules for former coach in public school prayer case - "The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a former Washington state high school football coach had a right to pray on the field immediately after games.   The 6-3 ruling was a victory for Joseph Kennedy, who claimed that the Bremerton School District violated his religious freedom by telling him he couldn’t pray so publicly after the games. The district said it was trying to avoid the appearance that the school was endorsing a religious point of view... One issue in the case was whether the coach’s decision to pray in such a prominent place, on the 50-yard line, amounted to a private moment of giving thanks or a public demonstration of his religious faith that his players may have felt compelled to join."
Of course, liberals are upset, since what they dislike is not state-sanctioned religion, but Christianity (you can see this from how they keep demanding that churches pay taxes, even if that would mean charities - as non-profits too - would need to pay taxes). And they claimed *criticising* Kaepernick for protesting on the job was racist, so their current protests are rich

Football Coach Fired for Praying Hopes Supreme Court Allows Him to Thank God - "in 2015, the Bremerton School District learned about the prayers and told Kennedy he no longer could pray with students.    “It was really simple for me to agree with them and say, ‘That’s not a problem.’ I never prayed with the kids ever again,” Kennedy recalls.    Kennedy continued to pray by himself after games, he says, but soon “school lawyers got involved, and they kind of kept moving the goal post.”    Supervisors told Kennedy that he could “no longer pray even by myself if people could see me,” he says. “And that’s where I just had to draw a line.”"
A lot of liberals are claiming Christian teachers are now allowed to lead students in or invite students to prayer. I wonder if they have believed the fake news from other liberals are they are deliberately misunderstanding what happened

How the Woke Virus Infects Academia and our Covid-19 Response - "How to Insert Wokeness into Any Field of Study in Three Straightforward Steps
A Genome Map of the Critical Social Justice Virus in Academia and Beyond
Step 1: Turn the field of study at hand into the sociology and cultural anthropology of that field, including in the education of that field
Step 2: Claim that the systemic problems in the field manifest from the nature of the field itself
Step 3: Call to remake the field itself as a critical theory...
       And note: Not a single expert in the field is needed to do any of this, and the most likely people to do it reside among the ranks of failed experts in the field."

For UN, A Single Mosque Attack Outweighs Countless Church Massacres - "The United Nations recently named March 15 as "international day to combat Islamophobia." That date was chosen because it witnessed one of the worst terror attacks on Muslims: on March 15, 2019, an armed Australian, Brenton Tarrant, entered two mosques in New Zealand and opened fire on unarmed and helpless Muslim worshippers; 51 were killed and 40 wounded.  Not only has this incident been widely condemned throughout the West — and rightfully so. It has also caused the UN to single out Islam as needing special protection.  This response, however, raises a critically important question: if one non-Muslim attack on a mosque is enough for the UN to institutionalize a special day for Islam, what about the countless, often worse, Muslim attacks on non-Muslim places of worship? Why have they not elicited a similar response from the UN?   Consider some of the fatal Muslim attacks on Christian churches — many, to underscore the religious animosity, occurring just on Easter or Christmas — in recent years"

Rebecca Wragg Sykes On The Movie Ammonite | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "'The choice to give a lesbian context to this in the film has, you know, ruffled a lot of people's feathers. And there's many reasons for that. But in terms of who Charlotte Murchison really was to Mary Anning, she was one of a network of women who Mary, you know, knew, corresponded with, shared her collections and discoveries with and that included, you know, women from the region who will also collectors and women like Charlotte Murchison, who were richer, who lived in London, who were much more involved with the, you know, the scientific, I guess, intelligentsia of the day, they were right in there having salons, you know, with with all the people who were publishing the big papers and books. So, Charlotte Murchison was sort of, in that upper echelon of women that Mary knew and did interact with. And so, the reality is different to the film. But what the film does reflect is that Mary did have, you know, friendships with many different sorts of women.'"
So since men were involved with many other men, they were gay? "Queer history" is about making things up, once again

Black woman's first-time car buying experience turns sour with 'racist' dealership Facebook post - "A North Carolina woman said her first car-buying experience was tainted because of an offensive Facebook post made by the dealership.  Trinity Bethune told our sister station WTVD that she purchased her first car at Lumberton Honda, about 30 miles south of Fayetteville... "Congratulations to Bon Quisha on her 2016 Toyota Camry.""
All jokes involving black people are racist

Thread by @MsMelChen on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Asian American Twitter (which I just discovered is a thing) is very angry about @AndrewYang's latest op-ed saying the best way for AAs to tackle discrimination is to dig in to "American-ness" and fight for a cure.  Unsurprisingly, he got "Cathy Newmanned."... He underscores that racism is immoral, but highlights that simply yelling "don't be racist" to someone who is actually being racist is not effective.  He's a solutions guy. He calls for a pragmatic approach to "improve the encounter" he described.  People are mad, I think, because he doesn't immediately take a victimhood posture, and rather, looks inward and asks, what can *I* or *we* do differently?  Perhaps he didn't show sufficient anger about the depravity of racism.  This is anathema to modern social justice activism. Here's where he gets Cathy Newmanned. The reading is that Andrew thinks Asian Americans have to prove their loyalty to Americanness.  That's not what he's saying.  He's saying that it *helps* change the circumstances in which racism flourishes. His essay is a call from within the community (not imposed from outside) to be aware that our identities are pawns in a larger geopolitical game. After all, national solidarity matters most at times like this. He's asking: is there anything we can do to reinforce it?"
SJWs don't want solutions, since if there's no more problem they need to look for new things to bitch about

Facebook - "I’m not really bothered by whatever anyone’s sexual identity is, that’s your business…. but I feel like history has taught us this is not a great look 😂😂"
This is allegedly a photoshopped image of London during the Platinum Jubilee - a street full of draped Pride flags (the latest version representing intersexed people). But I've seen other photos from other angles

It’s time to take down the Pride flag - "London feels like a city under occupation. Cycling through town yesterday I saw a foreign flag fluttering from every major building... Honestly, I have never seen anything like it. The entire boulevard was festooned with the new standard. Scores of them hung above the street, from building to building, in perfect militaristic formation, as far as the eye could see. It felt chilling... Quite why I must be reminded with every corner I take that a few unfortunate babies are born each year with malformed testes or ovaries is a mystery to me. The Pride flag has become an eyesore. Not only because of the addition of yet more garish shades and now a triangle and a circle too – it’s a wonder I didn’t come off my bike gawping at this kaleidoscopic monstrosity – but also because it is so clearly an ideological flag. It might not be the flag of a conquering foreign army, but it is the flag of a conquering elite. It’s the flag of a new identitarian establishment that is determined to let the little people know whose ideas rule in the 21st century.   I’m old enough to remember when the Pride flag was just a gay symbol that you’d see at gay events and gay establishments... Aside from a few blue-rinse traditionalists, no one really had a problem with the rainbow stuff back then. Tolerance of homosexuality has sky-rocketed in the UK in recent decades. A 2019 Pew poll found that 86 per cent of Brits think homosexuality should be accepted by society. A few years ago the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association gave the UK the highest score of any country in Europe for achievements in gay equality... The rainbow standard is no longer the flag of choice of a voluntaristic movement for equality. Rather, it has become the prime emblem of our intolerant woke rulers. There is a palpable compulsion now to wave the Pride flag. Pity the business, bank or government building that fails to display this symbol, especially during Pride month. Indeed, Ockbrook and Borrowash Parish Council in Derbyshire landed itself in hot water when it refused to fly the flag. ‘Anger as Pride Month flag snubbed by Derbyshire council’, said a BBC News report last year. That’s right – these days you’ll make the news if you fail to raise the rainbow. One observer said the absence of a Pride flag in Ockbrook and Borrowash meant some people would not ‘feel safe to come to the village’. In short, Pride-less towns are suspect. They’re heathen territory. Venture there at your peril.   Clearly the Pride flag means something more than ‘I support gay equality’. It has now become the means through which individuals and institutions advertise their virtue. More importantly, it’s how they demonstrate their devotion to the politics of identity, to the woke worldview. Fundamentally, waving the Pride flag is an oath of allegiance to the new ideologies of the ruling class... Clearly rattled that ‘their’ flag has been so feverishly embraced by the boss class and the military industrial complex, woke leftists say: ‘They’re only doing it to distract attention from how awful they are!’ No, that’s not it. Rather, the Pride flag really has become the rallying symbol of the new elites. This strange, fragmentary and globalist flag really does represent their post-national, hyper-individuated belief system. It’s their flag now, whether you like it or not. The hectoring, ideological element of the Pride flag is even clearer in this current Pride month. For now, the trans colours have been added. And the trans ideology is something that many people feel uncomfortable with... Perhaps it is fitting that the trans colours in the new Progress Pride flag seem to stab angrily at the gay colours of the old Pride flag. And yet people’s discomfort with the trans ideology – or with the identitarian ideology more broadly – counts for nought in the eyes of the new elites. And in this sense, the Pride flag really has become a hostile flag. It is an elite-designed flag that is hostile to us and our apparently old-fashioned preference for sex over gender, science over feeling, and solidarity over the Balkanising dynamic of identity politics. This is why traversing London under the watchful glare of this arrogant new standard feels so discomfiting... They call us flag-shaggers if we wave the national flag or the English flag, because in their eyes the only flag that matters today is the one that emphasises our differences and which elevates personal identity over national identity. This is now an arrogant, divisive and fundamentally foreign flag – take it down."
What starts off as a gesture for "inclusion" ends up being mandated, and you cannot refuse to take part. How "inclusive"

Sathnam Sanghera On How Modern Britain Is Shaped By Empire | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘You describe British attitudes towards the Empire today, a term you used to describe that is selective amnesia. What do you mean by that?’
‘I guess we see Empire in a combination of nostalgia and selective amnesia. So nostalgia is evident through things like there's tourist companies out there that offer colonial tours of India and Africa, the East India Company has come back, it’s a retail outlet in London and other parts of the country. There was a recent poll which found that 59% of Britons are proud of British Empire. And also any suggestion in public life that Empire was not all great, is seen as unpatriotic. I mean, there was an illustration recently with the rule, Britannia controversy, when Nigel Farage tweeted saying, The woke agenda is to make us ashamed of who we are, kind of British Empire history is seen as an extension of nationalism or patriotism. And you don't have that attitude, say in Germany, where they can talk about the Holocaust, and still, and still be patriotic, you don't see in Japan where you can talk about kamikaze pilots and still be patriotic. But over here, it's seen as kind of a betrayal to dwell on any of the negativity 'of British Empire. But I think the ultimate illustration of the nostalgia is the Indian railways. I mean, it's very hard to put on the TV nowadays at 6pm and not see a middle aged white presenter telling us that the railways were this great gift that the British gave the Indians. The actual story is very different. I mean, if you read Christian Wolmar who's this amazing railway historian, you'll find that actually, the British built the railways, you know, for themselves, it was for military and commercial reasons, and actually held India back...
There's some clearly Imperial events that have shaped post war politics… I think Coronavirus, the way our obsession with being world beating when actually we just need to be average, that would be great. You know, I actually found, I think, almost 20 examples of politicians talking about ourselves as world beating in this pandemic. And I think that goes back to an imperial psychology...
Often Brexiteers talk about us being a colony of the EU. I think that goes back to the fact that we see the world through imperial eyes. You're either a colony, or you're the Empire, you know. There's been this obsession with global Britain, which I think goes back to Empire, I would argue it all goes back to Empire...
There's this idea that if we started giving things back, the British Museum would be empty. Actually, this is just not going to happen. According to some recent research, the British Museum only has 1% of its collection on display. Even if it gave back 2 or 3%, it would still have a lot. And I think giving things back would result in incredible scholarship. And also it would mend relations at a time where Britain really needs good relations with the international community...
I think other countries provide an example. I mean, New Zealand has recently totally revised, you know, its education, and it seems to be having quite a healthy debate. France, President Macron has said some very powerful things about colonialism. And he's getting French museums to repatriate certain items. In Germany provides a great example of how to confront difficult history in that it has an art scene that confronts the Holocaust and Nazi history. Police trainees are made to study Nazi history when they train as police officers, they have some sort of so called stumble stones, it's outside certain building the Berlin, which tell you where Jews were kidnapped and taken to their death. It has a very proactive relationship with its past. And I think there's inspiration to be found in what they do.'"
Ironically, he also has selective amnesia in ignoring (at least in the interview) all the positive aspects of Empire (though he claims he doesn't think it was all bad and it's hard to find nuance). He also ignores that just because you do not engage in one-sided condemnation of history doesn't mean you think nothing bad happened
The poll actually found that 59% thought the Empire was something to be more proud of than ashamed of, but he does a good job at pretending that 59% don't see anything wrong with Empire at all. Of course the same poll also found that more would rather the Empire not exist today than wanted it to still exist, but he ignores that to push his agenda
Weird how the railways held India back, but they still use them today. Of course he conflates the fact of the railways being a boon for India and so colonialism wasn't all bad with the claim that the British built them as a act of charity
Weird. Trying to manage covid well is "imperial" and being "average" on covid is a good thing. Truly, the left reveres mediocrity. Ironic, given their obsession with covid
Not wanting to be ruled by another entity is an "Imperial" mentality. Presumably anti-colonialism is itself evidence of an "Imperial" mindset. Freedom is bad
Of course he doesn't want to admit that museums giving things "back" will just increase the calls to return even more things, since he makes the simplistic assumption that people don't respond to incentives, and he naively claims to believe that grievance mongers will ever be satisfied when they will just be emboldened to complain even more.
Apparently New Zealand enshrining indigenous "knowledge" in the science curriculum is healthy, as if German self-flagellation. But if you want Western civilisation to destroy itself...

Parents furious after students told NOT to call them 'mum' and 'dad' - and use 'grown-ups' instead - "Headteachers at four state primary schools in Brighton said the phrase should be used to avoid discriminating against “non-traditional” families... Parents though reacted angrily to the decision, saying their children had become confused."
To end "discrimination" you need to discriminate against the majority

Israel Boycott: Sally Rooney won’t let novel be published in Hebrew - "Bestselling author Sally Rooney won’t allow her recently published novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” to be published in Hebrew because she supports a cultural boycott of Israel... Rooney’s characters generally have leftist politics, and her books invoke Israel in that context... Ireland has a history of pro-Palestinian sentiment, owing to what many Irish citizens see as a cultural link to their struggles against the British. This summer, the country passed a motion condemning “de facto annexation” of Palestinian land. In 2018, Dublin’s city council passed resolutions endorsing a boycott of Israel and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland."
Apparently all Hebrew speakers in the world live in Israel

Sally Rooney’s hit novel Normal People printed by state-owned Chinese publishing house - "a Chinese translation of Normal People has been available to purchase on Amazon since July after it was published by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approved Shanghai Translation Publishing House. Four of the company’s senior executives are CCP members."

Indonesia charges bar employees with blasphemy for offering free drinks to ‘Mohammads and Marias’ - "Twelve outlets of popular Indonesian bar chain Holywings were sealed in the capital Jakarta on Tuesday after authorities stripped the chain of its operating permit.  In a social media post that has been now deleted, the chain advertised a promotional offer to give a free bottle of gin to men named Mohammad and women named Maria every Thursday.  The drinks promotion prompted outrage among religious groups in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, leading to complaints that prompted an investigation of the bar... The country has so far jailed more than 150 people, mostly from religious minorities, since the law was passed in 1965"
From the home of "moderate Islam"

Meme - *Effectively topless woman with strap-on, Nude man in fishnet stockings and heels*
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! YOU TWO DEGENERATES ARE UNDER ARREST FOR INDECENT EXPOSURE!"
*Pride flag and June 1st calendar*
"UHH, ER.. MY MISTAKE. PLEASE CARRY ON"

Joker 2 Announced By Todd Phillips During Pride Month, of All Times - "The leader of the incels, Monsieur Todd Phillips himself, has crashed Pride Month this year. What a shame. Can’t we celebrate in peace? Is nothing sacred?... Did Todd Phillips realize the harm he was causing when he announced this news?... The timing of this news was seen, by some, as an unwelcome affront during what should be a hallowed time"
January is Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. February is Black History Month. March is Women's History Month. April is Arab American Heritage Month. May is Jewish American History Month. September and October are National Hispanic Heritage Month. November is Native American Heritage Month. So they only get a third of the year to do announcements. SJWs just need to designate a few more months to their pet causes, then nothing they dislike can ever get announced
It's telling that Pride is seen as sacred - literally

Yes, kink belongs at Pride. And I want my kids to see it. - The Washington Post - "Those hoping to oust kinksters often cite the presence of children as their top concern. That was pointedly the case this year when Twitter users argued that kink at Pride is a highly sexualized experience that children should be shielded from. Thousands of users supported these posts, claiming that kink at Pride crosses a line because minors also attend events. I agree that Pride should be a welcoming space for children and teens, but policing how others show up doesn’t protect or uplift young people. Instead, homogenizing self-expression at Pride will do more harm to our children than good. When my own children caught glimpses of kink culture, they got to see that the queer community encompasses so many more nontraditional ways of being, living, and loving... many of the latest objections are coming from self-identified queer people, but that shouldn’t necessarily be surprising. Respectability politics demand that queer people assimilate as much as possible into cis- and heteronormativity, hewing to mainstream cultural standards. Members of the queer community have internalized those norms to the point that we judge ourselves by them, and then criticize and ostracize others if they don’t uphold them, too. This is the same oppressive message that prevented my wife from transitioning for 30 years, and the same message that still keeps marginalized children from coming to terms with their own experiences with desire and embodiment."
Weird. I thought sexualising kids was a pernicious right wing myth
Minority voices only count if they toe the liberal line

Ad agency apologises over Burger King 'top and bottom' Pride whoppers
"Inclusiveness" is a losing strategy, because you're just giving grievance mongers more angles to attack you by

Azealia Banks Tosses Mic, Storms Out of Miami Pride Performance - "  "For the last good, like, month and a half, I've just been being f—ed with. I've been being f—ed around with, you know? Set time's been move and like, 'Oh, you're headlining. No, you're not headlining. Now you're not this.' I'm really not happy to be here"... Although she has identified as bisexual, Banks has come under fire on several occasions for homophobic and transphobic language."

Meme - "AND THAT'S HOW, WITH A FEW MINOR ADIUSTMENTS YOU CAN TURN A REGULAR PRIDE FLAG INTO AN ALT RIGHT DOG WHISTLE."

Meme - "Nobody: Companies on July 1st: *non homo milk, Straight Tea*"

New York City Pride bans NYPD presence to 'create safer spaces for the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities'
Man Threatened NYC Pride Attack to Make Pulse Shooting ‘Look Like a Cakewalk’: Feds - "A Long Island man was arrested after allegedly threatening to launch an attack at the New York City Pride march so devastating that it would make the 2016 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando "look like a cakewalk""
It's ok. They'll just blame the police for making it unsafe anyway
This sort of news exposes how inane the calls for "safety" (i.e. not saying anything you don't like) are

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