Blog

  • Asexual studies

    A. As sure as night follows day, a new problem must have its new phobia…so, join the party.

    Also, if these people really have "the worst wellbeing of any group in the LGBQA grouping", maybe that's the nature of the beast. They're miserable because they don't like getting involved with other people.

  • The transgender advisor

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Full story here.

  • Workington 1982-3

    60e1ed15200b-550wi” style=”width: 550px” title=”Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web12004″ />

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web12007

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web12009

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web120010

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web120015

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web120014

    Peter+Fryer+Workington+1982+1983+Part+Two+web120016
    [Photos © Café Royal Books/Peter Fryer]

    [As ever, click on the photos to enlarge]

  • Children “traumatised seeing their first public execution”

    From the Daily NK:

    A young North Korean woman was publicly executed by firing squad in late January in Sinuiju, North Pyongan province, following her conviction for murder, Daily NK has learned.

    The execution was reportedly carried out in public as a deterrent amid rising violent crime linked to economic hardship. According to a source in North Pyongan province, the execution took place on Jan. 20 at an empty lot near Chaeha market, following an immediate public trial by city police and court officials.

    The condemned woman, identified only by her surname Lee and in her early 20s, was convicted of murdering an elderly couple in their 70s last October. The case had initially gone unsolved, with Daily NK reporting in November that authorities had failed to identify any suspects after a month of investigation. Three months later, Lee was arrested, swiftly tried, and executed….

    The sudden execution immediately following the trial shocked onlookers who had gathered to watch the proceedings. Disturbingly, children under 10 were present in the crowd. “We didn’t know there would be a public execution. A lot of children there were traumatized seeing their first public execution,” the source said.

    While public executions in North Korea have decreased in recent years, authorities appear to be returning to harsher measures as economic conditions deteriorate and violent crimes increase. “As people struggle to make a living, more violent crimes are being committed. The authorities are responding with more public trials and firing squad executions, hoping to deter such crimes,” the source explained.

  • Way outside the Overton window

    David Patrikarakos at UnHerd rubbishes the Trump Gaza plan, but then equivocates somewhat at the end. His conclusion:

    But if this idea is dangerous, impetuous and unlikely to see the light of day, the impulse behind it (even though borne from instinct rather than design) — to think about a seemingly unsolvable problem in a new light, however crazed, is perhaps worthwhile. As policy, Trump’s Gaza plan is a disaster; as a thought experiment, it’s absurd. But such an unthinkable suggestion might actually kickstart the sort of unorthodox, disruptive thinking that has eluded more measured, knowledgeable and sharper minds — and which has helped to keep peace so tortuously at bay for almost 60 years.

    Well yes. That is, perhaps, the point.

    A comment on the article:

    I wonder how many Palestinians wouldn’t rather spend their threescore-and-ten building their lives somewhere other than the rubble that Gaza now is, and wouldn’t jump at the chance to move elsewhere for the chance of a better life.
    Maybe they do all desire to return to penury and destitution, living in the ruins of what used to be their houses, ruled by Hamas and seeing their children go off to pointless deaths in a jihadi cul-de-sac. They get bonus payments, apparently, for dead kids. And Heaven awaits, sultanas and all.
    So tough choices.
    But is it really so absurd that Trump is pushing a plan that would at least give individual Palestinians that choice? Or is it absurd that Western liberals would deny them that choice?
    Is it not absurd, in fact, that the UN, and geniuses of similar ilk, has spent decades financing a terrorist government of a quasi-state, seen the consequences, and decided that somehow a return to this situation is in everyone’s best interests.
    Trump’s thinking on this is way outside the Overton window, sure. The author claims that as policy the plan is a ‘disaster’. Take a good long look at Gaza, and tell me what current bien pensant policy is then. Trump’s plan has at least the advantage of looking like good sense at the outset.
    As a thought experiment, it is absurd only to those incapable of seeing beyond the bounds of an Overton window that will leave their lack of imagination behind as it moves.

  • Just Be Kind

    n (the title alone merits an award for mansplaining). “Female,” says Chu, means “any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another … [The] barest essentials [of femaleness are] an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes.”

    Just Be Kind is of course the mantra churned out by those who support trans women (men) competing in women's sport: refusing to be "inclusive" – so cruel – and hey, there are only a few of them so what's the big problem? Just be kind, can't you? Ditto for trans men (more often than not, it seems, sex offenders) in women's prisons. And men like Spanish trans actor Karla Sofía Gascón up for best actress at the Academy Awards. The list goes on. Never works the other way, somehow.

  • Heteronormative Lego

    sides being put together is called mating”.

    No source is provided for the alleged view that people consider Lego to be gendered, or that sticking bricks together is called “mating”.

    Because they just made it up.

  • Paying tribute to Hamas

    From MEMRI TV:

    British-Palestinian academic Ghada Karmi praised Hamas during her speech at the Islamic Human Rights Council (IHRC) Genocide Memorial Day on January 19, 2025. She said that she would like to “pay tribute to Hamas,” which has been “completely demonized.” Karmi said that Israel cannot be accommodated or reformed, nor could it be made to join the human family, and therefore it must be dismantled. She added that it is necessary to work towards ridding the region and the world of Israel. Speakers at the event spoke into microphones of Iran state English-language Press TV and Iran Press news agency. The Islamic Human Rights Council is based in London, and it has been accused of having direct ties to Iran.

     Ghada Karmi at Wikipedia: 

    She has written on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Nation and Journal of Palestine Studies. […]

    Karmi is an associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, and a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University. She is also vice-chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU).

    She delivered the Edward Said Memorial lecture at the University of Adelaide, Australia in 2007.

    According to her website she's currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

    Coming out with unhinged stuff about ridding the world of Israel, and lauding a genocidal antisemitic terrorist group, clearly does wonders for your academic career.

  • Imposed, top down

    previously reserved for women. Others have parlayed their delicious new victim status into an excuse to threaten, assault and harass women. Non-trans-identified leftybros have found a magnificent platform from which to display their own impeccably progressive credentials, by jeering and sneering at the needs of women and girls, all while patting themselves on the back for giving away rights that aren't theirs.

    The actual victims in this mess have been women and children, especially the most vulnerable, gay people who've resisted the movement and paid a horrible price, and regular people working in environments where one misplaced pronoun could see you vilified or constructively dismissed. Do not tell me this is about a tiny minority. This movement has impacted society in disastrous ways, and if you had any sense, you'd be quietly deleting every trace of activist mantras, ad hominem attacks, false equivalence and circular arguments from your X feeds, because the day is fast approaching when you'll want to pretend you always saw through the craziness and never believed it for a second.