Mick Hartley

Blog

  • Korean women in power

    er of the opposition Democratic Party, her husband’s chief antagonist. “Honestly, I just want to shoot Lee Jae-myung and then take my own life,” she is alleged to have said….

    Ever since his emergence on the political stage five years ago, Kim, 52, has lent much-needed glamour to Yoon, a solemn and austere former prosecutor. But from the beginning, she has been a figure whose strong opinions have sometimes eclipsed the conservative political agenda pursued by her husband.

    During the presidential election campaign in 2021, she apologised publicly for “exaggerating” her academic achievements. In conversations covertly recorded by a journalist, she implied that she was the power behind the throne and would remain so if Yoon was elected president.

    “Have you heard of ‘the second VIP’?” she asked, referring to the role of first lady. “I don’t think Yoon Suk Yeol is really the president. That fool is just a puppet.”

    With personal assets of close to 50 billion won (£28 million) in 2018, her wealth as a businesswoman far exceeds that of Yoon.

    She spoke of her interest in “dosas” or spiritual gurus. Her doctoral dissertation was about fortune-tellers and all of this played into claims, always denied, that Yoon was employing supernatural techniques on the campaign trail, such as writing a mystically charged Chinese character on his hand.

    Strange. Very strange.

  • The Teeside sex offender

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    A registered sex offender put her phone under public toilet cubicles to secretly record men using the loo.

    Chleo Sunter, 37, was caught with 790 pictures and 15 videos of men inside toilet cubicles and standing at urinals. She took the photos in the men's loos at an Aldi supermarket and a shopping centre in Middlesbrough, and at Darlington Train Station.

    Chleo? Can't the idiot even spell Chloe?

    Sunter, previously known as John Leslie Graham, admitted her latest offences at Teesside Crown Court on Wednesday.

    Still a man. Always a man.

    She pleaded guilty to two counts of voyeurism; "recording a person doing a private act with the intention that she herself, for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, would look at the image of this person knowing they did not consent to her recording the act" between January and November 2023. She also admitted six breaches of a sexual harm prevention order.

    Why can't they just report honestly? Does pandering to his ridiculous "Chleo" identity override the requirement to report accurately? – especially when it comes to sex offences. 

  • Chatham Square and ‘El’ tracks

    Manhattan ca. 1900. "Chatham Square and 'El' tracks, New York City, N.Y."

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Photographic Company]

  • The new IOC president

    n men's competitions, which underlines the need to protect women's sport. Her comments place her at the centre of the ongoing debate about the participation of transgender people in elite sport. Although she does not agree with the most intransigent views, her support for the ban underlines her commitment to ensuring competitive equality in women's categories.

    Coventry went on to claim that "transgender women have an inherent physical advantage in women's categories, potentially reducing fair opportunities for biological women".

    Which is all very encouraging.

    On the other hand there's this, from Mohamed Keita of the Human Rights Foundation, in today's Times:

    Coventry’s positive international image contrasts with the highly controversial figure and poor-performing minister she has become since crossing into politics in her native Zimbabwe in 2018. It also obscures her role as the soft-power ambassador of one of the world’s longest-ruling and most brutal dictatorships, which has been under UK sanctions for years.

    Coventry belongs to Zimbabwe’s first post-independence generation and no Zimbabwean athlete has come close to her achievements as she swam in five Olympics from 2000 to 2016. She became a national sensation, a symbol of hope for Zimbabweans amid repression and economic collapse. Robert Mugabe exploited her popularity and amid his strident rhetoric against western imperialism and the violent expropriation of farms, he called her Zimbabwe’s “golden girl” and fêted her. Coventry trod carefully, expressing support for positive change, donating some of Mugabe’s prize money to charity, or calling for peace and unity.

    But the 2017 coup that ousted Mugabe and brought to power his deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa marked a significant turn for Coventry. She joined his already repressive government as minister of youth, sport, arts, and recreation. She rejected calls on her to resign in protest at gross human rights violations; she attended ruling Zanu-PF party functions. She was embroiled in a scandal and lawsuit involving farmland seized by Mugabe during the height of his catastrophic land grab.

    The public viewed her as incompetent. Football and boxing were in a dismal state, as were the national stadiums. Fifa banned Zimbabwe for 18 months after the government tried to take control of the country’s football association. Zimbabwean Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) athlete Themba Gorimbo described Coventry as “the worst sports minister ever”.

    Coventry is running for the IOC presidency insisting that “stakeholders must adhere to the highest ethical standards to safeguard the spirit of the Games”. Yet her embrace of one of the world’s most repulsive dictators, her silence at gross human rights abuses and her abysmal performance as sports minister should disqualify her from leading the Olympic movement. Her appointment would be a win for Zimbabwe’s dictator, not for the future of global sport.

    Hmm.

  • Hamas stole the aid


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    Full text:

    “I saw Hamas terrorists carrying boxes with the UN and UNRWA emblems on them into the tunnels, dozens and dozens of boxes, paid for by your government.”

    Will the world listen now?

    Almost certainly not.

  • The first gender-neutral degree ceremony

    Exciting news from Oxford, where moves are afoot to ensure that non-binary students, finally, may not have to suffer the humiliation and embarrassment of a Latin ceremony which includes gendered words. 

    Oxford is set to make an 800-year-old Latin ceremony gender-neutral for the benefit of non-binary students.

    The university has conferred its degrees in Latin since the 12th century, but the wording used could be changed to make it more inclusive.

    Dons will vote on a proposal to change the Latin ceremonial text to cater to those “who identify as non-binary”.

    In a gazette issued to alert faculties to the planned changes, the introduction of the first gender-neutral degree ceremony in Oxford’s almost 1,000-year history is deemed “necessary”.

    The changes involve stripping a Latin message of congratulations of words that are grammatically gendered masculine or feminine.

    This is what progress looks like. 

    Next stop: removing gender from French (and Italian, and Spanish, and German…). They should've done it ages ago. How on earth do non-binary people cope in these ridiculous languages?

  • The gullibility of publicly-funded organisations

    ations when pressured by entitled activists.

    The Government’s failure to act promptly could hardly be more shameful. Public records have in effect been falsified, creating avoidable risks and exposing organisations to ridicule. What’s more, who will now trust official Government data on important subjects? Worse still, institutions have forfeited trust in a way that makes society less safe for victims of crime.

    But will the government act on this? Streeting has said they will, but couldn't resist adding that gender identity could still be recorded and respected – as though he hasn't quite understood what the problem is. 

  • At the Portland Interscholastic League meet

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    Ooh, he's very fast, isn't he? Compared to the girls, that is. Of course compared to the boys he's not fast at all, and wouldn't win. Which is, presumably, why he goes for the girls' race. Much easier.

    It's astonishing that people don't see this…

  • Streeting takes note

    Streeting responds to the Sullivan Review on the erasure of biological sex by UK bodies like the NHS and the Civil Service.

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    Which is very good news of course – but where is this gender identity of which you speak, Wes? Do doctors need special training to locate it? How do I get to know my gender identity? Or is it just a feely thing taken up and pushed by gender cultists who purposefully play on the ambiguity of the sex/gender distinction to pretend that any male who doesn't conform to male stereotypes has a female gender identity, and any female who doesn't conform to female stereotypes has a male gender identity. The main beneficiaries of this – the main pushers – would appear to be autogynephilic men who get a sexual thrill out of pretending to be women, and can now present themselves as brave pioneers of the trans revolution. The main victims are women, and especially troubled young girls who are sucked into this social contagion and persuaded to ruin their lives in the nonsensical belief that somehow they were born into the wrong body.

    It's regressive nonsense.

  • The erasure of biological sex

    egory may result in artificial significant increase in female offending rates”.

    Yes, we had noticed. See under "not our crimes", ad nauseam. Isla Bryson, Karen White….the list goes on and on. 

    Maya Forstater, chief executive of the charity Sex Matters, said the review was “devastatingly clear about the harms caused by carelessness with sex data and a decade-long failure of the civil service to maintain impartiality and uphold data standards”.

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