Caro 🇿🇦🍉

Stubborn optimism built on delusion isn’t virtue—it’s hubris.
We’ve been “doing something” for decades—and the planet keeps unraveling. Collapse isn’t inevitable because people give up—it’s because people keep refusing to face limits. Hope without honesty is just denial in disguise.

Shots fired, Neil.

Eight weddings and two funerals

Trans activism is Progressive Man’s manosphere | Victoria Smith | The Critic Magazine Of all the frat boy-style responses to the UK supreme court’s recognition that women exist, there’s one that’s stuck with me the most: “JK Rowling is Andrew Tate for women.” It’s a line that’s been…

Innit. Like a Twitter time capsule c. 2016
thecritic.co.uk/trans-activi...

Forrest Gum

A post by Marco Rubio attacking Germany for tackling the alt right extremism of the AfD. The German foreign office responds. Rubio’s posts says: Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That's not democracy—it's tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD-which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment's deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course. The German foreign office responds with: This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.

We are at the point in history where Germany is having to lecture the US on the need to fight fascism.

Saudi Arabian envoy asks World Court to condemn Israel's 'hideous conduct' in Gaza Meanwhile, Spain, Belgium and Latin American states highlight the illegality of Israel's ban on humanitarian aid as ICJ hearings enter second day

Saudi Arabian envoy asks World Court to condemn Israel's 'hideous conduct' in Gaza - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-spain-columbia-speak-icj-advisory-opinion-unrwa

Their guidance isn’t out yet. GR is still a protected characteristic.

for them or deny them hospital treatment etc.

We’ll have to wait for their guidance to come out, but there is no chance that discrimination on the basis of GR has gone away. So an org can lawfully exclude a trans person from the opposite single sex space (which is basically what the EqA exemptions said) but it can’t refuse to provide a toilet

What is now very clear is that a service provider cannot claim to offer eg a single-sex rape survivor’s group if it is actually mixed sex.

(this could apply possibly in something like a rape survivor’s group) but then the onus would be on the service provider to provide a 3rd space, otherwise they would be discriminating against him on the grounds of gender reassignment.

Nope. Had a discussion about this yesterday with @audreysuffolk.bsky.social and a trans man who was anxious about precisely this. He can be excluded from a men’s facility for being female, there is a possible proportionate reason to exclude him from the women’s if he was too masculine ,

The Observer view on Equality Act ruling: A dignified compromise that respects the rights of everyone | Editorial The supreme court judgment gives protections to women at the same level as other groups

This editorial is legally spot on … better than many lawyer written pieces on linked-in
“the supreme court has emphasised the balancing nature of the Equality Act, which adjudicates between the rights of different groups.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It turns out that telling people what you want the law to be does not make it the law. Who knew?

State Terror A brief guide for Americans

"the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man mistakenly sent to a gulag... and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps.
This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped"
snyder.substack.com/p/state-terror

Judith Butler: Speech, Censorship, and the Goddamn Pope On what feels like an annual basis, Judith Butler is dispatched to the British press, mostly for the purpose of reminding us that anyone who thinks that humans come in two sexes is basically the Pope.

New post on Judith Butler's critique of Trumpian authoritarianism, but refusal to understand her own.

open.substack.com/pub/culturew...

I’m sorry. They leave such a big hole in your life. My two are both elderly…

I wish people hated fascism half as much as they hate feminism

Red Pill Propaganda A Journey Into the Mirror World

New post on populist 'red pill' propaganda.

Am very interested in the way that the populist right is using the old form of the lefty critique of ideology, while peddling patriarchal domination and racism as if it is countercultural and cool.

open.substack.com/pub/culturew...

'Heat is the final boss. Heat is a different beast': The planetary peril no one will be able to avoid "What will be new about heat deaths is the extent to which the lived environment will become physically uninhabitable for everyone, old and young, middle-aged, healthy and ill."

Your 'moment of doom' for Mar. 20, 2025 ~ Every living thing.

"What will be new about heat deaths is the extent to which the lived environment will become physically uninhabitable for everyone, old and young, middle-aged, healthy and ill."

www.livescience.com/planet-earth...

The evil at your door The deportation action as regime change

Language used by individuals associated with the federal government who deported people without trial or due process to a concentration camp in El Salvador, defying a court order, has a specific resonance that, historically, has been used to change regime type.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-evil-a...

Many said the Starmer era would be just Tory-lite – now it’s worse than that. Time to stop the pretence He’ll be radical, the PM’s allies vlaimed told us. Well, look now, as the poor are targeted and ministers boast of wearing Tory clothes better than the Tories, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

Many said the Starmer era would be just Tory-lite–now it’s worse than that. Time to stop the pretence.“He’ll be radical, the PM’s allies claimed.
Well,look now,as poor people are targeted and ministers boast of wearing Tory clothes better than the Tories” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🤭😜

My controversial opinion on young men’s right wing radicalization is that we should not undo the second wave and sacrifice women’s rights, dignity, freedom, and access to the public sphere for the sake of men’s feelings.

Amazing: of all the books in all the world Mr Free Speech Zuckerberg wants to ban, it’s the one about him | Marina Hyde Whether the Meta boss and his ex-lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg are truly beyond awful is neither here nor there. I thought he was done with factchecking, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

Amazing: of all the books in all the world Mr Free Speech Zuckerberg wants to ban, it’s the one about him | Marina Hyde

Mural featuring a woman in blue hijab standing holding a keyboard to her chest while a row of ominous looking men with guns in black stand in a row behind her

" I believe there are many who forget all the tragedy women face in Afghanistan, that is why I use my paintings as a mean to remind the people"
- Shamsia Hassani
Afghan Artist #InternationalWomensDay

Yay!

Yikes