Notices by The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)

@KeepTakingTheSoma @MrAndyNgo It's absolutely not a good move. Even thinking from a tactical pov alone.

There's that saying "better to stay silent and let everyone think one is a fool, than to open one's mouth and prove them right".
Shutting someone up by force is essentially doing them a favour.

@mar77i @MrAndyNgo @KeepTakingTheSoma Or:
It's ok when we do it.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @MrAndyNgo That too.
Though Germany has a very specific reason for banning nazi parties.

Having said that, I think I've seen some people suggest that some of the enforcers from the East Germany slotted quite comfortably into the bureaucracy of the unified Germany, and the results can be seen in how willing the state is to do things like this now. I have no way of ascertaining how true that speculation is, though, so treat it as speculation.

My prediction:
If AfD is formally banned, it's only a matter of time before another party rises up in its place.

Designating the party as "right-wing extremists" officially, or even banning it will do nothing to quell the dissatisfaction that drives people to support the party. This is the case, no matter what one may or may not personally feel about the AfD platform.

If AfD is taken out as a channel for that dissatisfaction, the dissatisfaction will just find another channel.

Also, it's amusing to me that I'd bet this is the same people who are against legislating against prostitution by instituting the Nordic model, on the basis that "it will just drive prostitution underground". But the possibility that banning right-edge parties might drive that movement underground - with very much unpredictable consequences - doesn't even seem to be considered.

RT: https://hell.twtr.plus/objects/e57c780e-83c5-4673-8019-dbde1e2d47b2

Oh good grief. Watching Jack Jewell and Eldur Kristinsson talk about clips filmed at a pro-Trans demo after the court decision, and one of this clips has this young woman.

She says (emphasis mine):

At the end of the day I just think maybe we should just have unisex toilets and be done with, because we don't need exclusively female spaces or exclusively male spaces anyway.

The interviewer then says but there are reasons, and says that for example there are reasons why there are femals sports and male sports. She goes "what are they".
Interviewer: You know, men are typically faster, stronger than women.

This woman puts on a smirk and goes:

Are they now? No, that's just your perception.

And then she says that Serena Williams would "of course" win if she were to play against Rafael Nadal.
At this point I should point out that at least judging by her physical shape, this is not a woman who has competed in sport in adulthood. Likely also not in her late teen years. Quite possibly never.

HOW does one reach and more importantly retain this level of detachment from reality?

And then a man in a lipstick, who seems to be with this young woman, starts going on about how Williams sisters could totally beat any male tennis player on the right day. I guess we know where she gets her ideas from. But does she live in a world of videogames or something to not question any of it?

(source with timestamp - i hope - lest someone think I'm misquoting her or lying https://youtu.be/FPQ83c98W9Y?si=Nbg0lRzMRbsTJrfh&t=1838 )

@HebrideanHecate @Flick I have more patience for genuine stupidity, it's the wilful stupidity that really grinds my gears.

If someone is just stupid because they're simple, they can't really help it. But if they're stupid because they refuse to, well, try not be stupid, that's infuriating.

@KeepTakingTheSoma Yeah, I suspect that would bomb even in the wokest comedy club.

It's much like their policies. Grasping the basic building blocks of a joke but then not having any idea how those building blocks actually form a joke.

They could always fall back on bailing out banks after the banks themselves screwed up their own finances. That always gets a laugh!

@KeepTakingTheSoma Interesting text, but I'm having a near overwhelming impulse to go in with a red pen and insert all the missing capital letters.

@ninapaley because I actually saw this in her repost.

Here's a thought.

The identitarian left speaks of "identity" in near-sacral tones, in that they seem to consider it a fundamental, immutable part of a person, perhaps even a foundational part of the human psyche.

But we know very well that in practice identity is anything but immutable. This is especially the case with identity concepts beyond just "I, me and myself", concepts that denote belonging in this or that thing or group. At best it has some sort of long-term stability (in some cases life-long), but it can also be fleeting and situation-dependent.

We know this, because we see it all around us. Yet, the identitarian left has made the questioning of any identity into something akin a new mortal sin.
Yes, some identities are very dear to people, and having the basis of those identities be compromised can be very uncomfortable. And if one hasn't yet grasped the idea that other people's opinions on one's identity don't really matter, questioning can also be very uncomfortable.
But such discomfort does not justify treating personal identities as inviolable, innate truths.

Where did this idea come from?
And how come practically nobody points out its obvious counterfactual nature?

Question.

Is the German sound written as "ch" genuinely so difficult for English speakers to pronounce, or have they just bee conditioned by ortography to pronounce it as a variant of /k/?

In my very amateurish opinion, it would be more correct if they pronounced the "ch" as /h/ as in the word "hint", instead of /k/. But I almost never seem to hear that.

This is relevant to mostly because of my interest in WWII history, and the insistence among almost all English speakers of pronouncing the relevant words as, essentially, "third reik".

Why?

@TriptychTwinsRidesAgain It has, hasn't it!

@TriptychTwinsRidesAgain Well, I for one find it absolutely hilarious when they TELL ON THEMSELVES like this.

Go on. Go "advocate" for your lot more. In public.
You're doing So Well.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick Good luck with that one.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick Well, no, as far as I can tell there is no such body anywhere.
The legislators, their support staff, and civil servants are supposed to police themselves on this, which they clearly are not doing.

What I'm talking about is a strictly separate body, that would only be tasked with this single thing and nothing else, and tied neither to political parties nor the rest of the civil service establishment.

Regarding the latest stupid law suggestion @Flick just linked to, here's an idea.

ALL legislative bodies should have attached to them a team of devil's advocates, whose sole job would be to find and publicise ways in which any proposed law could go wrong, lead to overreach or be misused.
They should be thoroughly apolitical and consist of cantankerous, yet rigorous contrarians who don't give a damn and delight in tearing apart stupid ideas. Bonus points if they could do it in an entertaining manner.

It wouldn't stop all stupid ideas from becoming laws, but it would at the very least guarantee someone with an official position would always be there to naysay.

An intimate image would have to show someone without their 'particular attire of religious or cultural significance' and be taken 'in circumstances in which an ordinary reasonable person would reasonably expect to be afforded privacy'.

So if I'm in a female-only space where there are also muslim women, and I take a photo of my friends and some muslim woman happens to be in the background without her modesty cage, I would according to this definition be guilty of creating AND possessing " non-consensual intimate images" equal to CP.

That's not chilling at all, nope.

'The Government should be cautious about creating yet more criminal offences.' (David Spencer, of the think-tank Policy Exchange)

When I was reading the article, I was reminded of a sign Mark Thomas saw in one of his mass lone demonstrations, reading "for goodness sakes stop making up crimes".
I see I wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.

@KeepTakingTheSoma @HebrideanHecate That's the million pound question everyone should be asking her, isn't it.

@HebrideanHecate I mean, really, it's not like there are a whole host of other healthcare professions this woman could go into, where she would never need to deal with the possibility of abortion at all... 🙄 /s

@HebrideanHecate Exactly. She's already demonstrating her unfitness, not by her opinions, but by prioritising her own desire to be a midwife, over the needs and desires of the patients. Before she even gets into the profession even!

Imagine a doctor wanting to become a heart surgeon, who was against bypass surgeries on people over a certain age, for whatever reason. In a sane world that person would never be allowed to specialise in that field.

@HebrideanHecate If she genuinely was an ethical person, she would not put herself in a position, where she might encounter an abortion in a professional setting.

I.e. if she really wanted to deal with child bearing issues, she would stick to things like routine monitoring of easy cases, nutrition and other health education etc. The fact that she still wants to be a full midwife, AND says there's no situation where she would "not object to" abortion, means she's putting herself and her own wants ahead of the needs of the potential patients.
That's not something a healthcare professional should do.