A short history of the Trans movement

Roman times

Trans woman: I like to wear dresses
Man: Dude, we already wear togas
TW: I'm a woman
Man: if you've cut your balls off, you're a eunuch, not a woman. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Woman: a big strong man with no interest in women to guard the harem - what's not to like?
TW: I want to have babies!
M: Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?

Middle Ages

TW: I like to wear dresses
M: The Catholic Church might be just the thing for you
TW: I'm a woman
M: I'd keep that quiet while you're leading Sunday Services
TW: Though I still do enjoy perving on and bullying women from time to time
M: Like I said, Catholic Church
W: (told to keep her mouth shut)

Late 20th century

TW: I like to wear dresses
M: Seems to work for the Scots
TW: With nothing underneath
M: As I said...
W: At least, shave your legs
TW: And wear makeup!
M: The major advantage of men in getting ready quickly in the morning, and you just piss it away
W: Top tip: use about 80% less. And don't steal my stuff.
TW: I'm actually a woman
M/W: Sure, Jan

Early 21st century

TW: I like to wear dresses
W: How bold! How brave! How lovely!
M: You look ridiculous, but that's up to you
TW: I'm really a woman
W: Yes, yes, of course
M: You're really a loony
TW: I want to use women's bathrooms
W: Err... should I say something? Mustn't look judgemental
M: Weirdo
TW: I'm actually a woman
M/W: You don't have a vag
TW: I've got them to make me a vag
M/W: Oh my. Ewwww

2010s

TW: I am woman, hear me roar!
M/W: Okay ...
TW: Call me Agatha
M/W: Okay!
TW: Address me as "Miss"
M/W: Wut?
TW: Haters! BLASPHEMERS! I'll get you fired
M/W: Okay, "Miss"
TW: Time to start picking up easy trophies in womens' sports
W: What the hell?
TW: Haters! BLASPHEMERS!
W: (shuts up, simmers)
TW: Ah, a woman's locker room. Please admire my penis
W: Get out!
TW: Haters! BLASPHEMERS
W: I'm starting to think we made a mistake
TW: Hmmm... how to reproduce given the obvious but unfortunate biological obstructions ...?

2020s

TW: I am woman, hear me roar!
W: But... (Gets punched in the mouth)
M: That's not very lady-like
TW: Haters! BLASPHEMERS
Antifa: We'll burn your fuckin' city to the ground, transphobe
TW: I'm enjoying my new job as an elementary school teacher
M: What in the name of X is this 1st grade lesson plan about anal sex?
TW: All your kids are belong to us
M: (starts building up his household armory)
W: Wait, what's going on here?
TW: I'm taking all your sports trophies, and cancelling you if you object
W: (weeps)
TW: full public obedience and obeisance to the Trans cause, or we'll destroy you
M/W: (moves out of California, Oregon, NY, DC if they can)
TW: Christians? Legit targets. Let's leave the Muslims alone for now, they look like they might be a bit challenging.
W: (insists that husband purchase pastel grips for her pistol)

I don't know where this ends, but it's not going to be pretty.

When seconds count, the police are minutes away

After last night's terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, the main lessons I took away were:

1. Anyone who's motivated can execute this kind of attack: get 1-2 buddies who are similarly motivated - for maximum efficiency - some long knives, and a rented van are all that's needed;
2. Civilians were reduced to throwing bottles and drinking glasses at the attackers to try to keep them away;
3. Unarmed officers were effectively powerless during the incident, reduced to trying (extremely bravely) to distract the attackers from civilians;
4. In the heart of the nation's capital, at near-maximum terror alert, with the densest national concentration of armed officers, the attackers had 8-10 minutes to rampage unimpeded before the armed police turned up and whacked them in short order.

Contrast this with the May 2015 attack in Garland, TX where the heavily armed gunmen just made it out of their car, managed to slightly wound a security officer, and then promptly expired in a hail of bullets. I can't help but notice the complete lack of follow-on terror attacks in Texas since then; presumably word has got around the terror community that it's a poor choice of location.(Glasgow is probably number 2 on the do-not-terrorise list after the terrifyingly vicious response of the residents.).

I can't help but think that the complete dis-arming of the UK civilian population is not working out quite as well as most of its proponents expected.

Hillary Clinton to give counter-terrorism speech at Stanford University

"Do as I say, not as I do!" Hillary Clinton will urge listeners to stand in solidarity with Europe in order to defeat the Islamic State group:

"Today's attacks will only strengthen our resolve to stand together as allies and defeat terrorism and radical jihadism around the world."

Heaven forfend that we strenuously deny any connection between organized terrorism and this event and instead speciously blame random YouTube videos for incitement.

Hillary certainly has balls. She probably took Bill's in exchange for keeping quiet about his dalliances...

ISIS and the matriarchy

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams has stuck his oar into a conjunction of the current fiery discussions around a) the treatment of women in the workplace and b) how to handle ISIS with a blog article titled, discretely, Global Gender War:

Now compare our matriarchy (that we pretend is a patriarchy) with the situation in DAESH[ISIS]-held territory. That’s what a male-dominated society looks like. It isn’t pretty. The top-ranked men have multiple wives and the low-ranked men either have no access to women, or they have sex with captured slaves.

There's no way this could possibly be controversial, amirite?

Adams has started a new blog series today on the question "Is the United States a Patriarchy or a Matriarchy?" where his evidence for "Matriarchy" is moderately compelling so far: "Women have the most political power in the United States because more women than men vote". True, we haven't had a female President yet, but it's not obvious that this is because they're being discriminated against. Personally, I'm astonished that Hillary Clinton has got as far as she has given all the shenanigans she has been involved in, which would have torpedoed any other candidate's aspirations before starting, and how astonishingly un-gregarious and un-likeable she is.

Anybody remember Democrat hopeful Gary Hart in the 1988 campaign? Sunk without trace by an accusation of marital infidelity. Michael Dukakis who eventually became the nominee? Lost mostly because of an insufficiently warm personality. Hillary should have sunk without trace by now, and the fact that she's still the Democrat front-runner by far is a sign of how much leeway the population - and the media - is giving her. One can only surmise that it's because she is a woman.

Returning to Adams' original article, he points out that the gender pay gap in the USA doesn't really exist - as the estimable Tim Worstall has pointed out time and time again with respect to the UK, which (if anything) is more traditional than the USA. He addresses the assertion that women are interrupted more in meetings by pointing out that people who talk more are more likely to be interrupted, and while this is not a slam-dunk answer it's at least a point that suggests a need for more analysis. He also points out the strong societal push to give sanctuary to women and children from Syria, as opposed to young single men.

It's quite possible that Adams is completely wrong and that women are systematically discriminated against in the USA, but it's not obviously false.

Anyway, the point of the article is to contrast the USA against the vast majority of Middle East states which are indisputable patriarchies - really, would anyone like to argue the opposite? - and to hypothesize that one way that the Daesh/ISIS leadership are controlling their low-level followers is to restrict their access to good nookie on Earth with the promise of wonderful nookie in Heaven if they blow themselves up in the right place, with appropriate Koranic citations to back this up. Again, Adams' thesis is not obviously wrong. These men seem to have significant "issues" with women and something is motivating them to suicide, while the harems for their leadership are a matter of record.

If you're in any doubt about the position of Western women in the Middle East, read the travel guidance for women in Saudi Arabia:

- Women traveling alone are not allowed to enter the country unless they will be met at the airport by a husband, a sponsor or male relative.
- Women relocating to Saudi Arabia to marry, study or stay with a Saudi family need to be aware that leaving the country requires the permission of the Saudi male head of their household.

So if the hormone-crazed late-teen ISIS recruits can't get access to women because of the restrictions that their leadership imposes, Adams' assertion that he as a teenager in the same position would gladly strap on explosives to get access to the forbidden fruit is not obviously insane. Deliberately provocative, yes. But can those piling on Adams provide a more plausible explanation of the current suicide bombers' motivation?

Soft and hard targets

The ever-enlightened Simon Jenkins in the Guardian has a fascinating insight into how to deal with terrorist attacks:

The modern urban obsession with celebrity buildings and high-profile events offers too many publicity-rich targets. A World Trade Centre, a Mumbai hotel, a Boston marathon, a Nairobi shopping mall are all enticing to extremists. Defending them is near impossible. Better at least not to create them.

Is it just me, or does this sound awfully like "women shouldn't wear short skirts, because it's provocative and makes men want to rape them?" It's a rather odd sentiment, coming from the Guardian of all newspapers.

But let's run with Sir Simon's argument and see where it takes us:

A shopping mall not only wipes out shopping streets, it makes a perfect terrorist fortress, near impossible to assault. There is no defence against the terror weapons of guns and grenades.

That does rather assume that the terrorists can take over the mall in the first place, of course. I invite the gentle reader to consider how far al-Shabaab would have got in a Texas mall. Remember that both the Washington Navy Yard shooter and the soon-to-be-very-ex-Major Nidal Hassan's Fort Hood shooting were only able to carry on as long as they did, and shoot as many people as they did, because both areas were gun-free zones. In both cases, once armed police officers turned up they engaged the gunman and ended up shooting him. From this we can deduce that if you want to stop a determined shooter, having guns and the training to use them is rather important.

You'll never be able to stop a determined shooter from getting off his or her first few shots at innocents. The difference is that in a Texas mall the volume of retaliatory fire will drastically limit the number of casualties, and give the gunman very little time to pick their shots before defending themself from imminent death becomes their overriding concern. For the record, despite the above video, I'd rather the civilians use pistols in a mall - high-powered rifles are probably not the best firearm in a crowded environment with solid flat surfaces everywhere.

As for bombs, it seems that Sir Simon would rather people didn't go to church because it's a near-irresistable target for bombers. I invite the reader to consider where such an approach would lead, and wonder at what an Oxford PPE must do to one's brain, not to mention spine.