Culture

Insanity & Doom Update LIX

Item Student editor who tweeted that ‘women don’t have penises’ is fired from university journal in transgender row

A student editor at a top university has been fired in a transphobia row after he tweeted that ‘women don’t have penises’.

Angelos Sofocleous, assistant editor at Durham University’s philosophy journal ‘Critique’, was sacked from his post after just three days for writing a tweet deemed ‘transphobic’ by fellow students.

Mr Sofocleous, 24, from Cyprus, faced disciplinary action last month after he re-tweeted an article by The Spectator on his Twitter titled ‘Is it a crime to say women don’t have penises?’, with the comment: ‘RT if women don’t have penises’.

The postgraduate philosophy and psychology student was dismissed from his position at the university after the tweet sparked outrage.

We’ve had many other items proving Reality is now illegal in England. This one is not surprising.

What’s unique about this item is that the “outrage” (acknowledging most who use the word are lying) came from the “free speech society Humanist Students.” Seems “former chair of LGBT Humanists Christopher Ward” said Sofocleous’s tweet “was ‘factually incorrect’ and not ‘worthy of a debate’.”

Factually incorrect? Yes, sir. Factually.

Everybody knows, and it’s true here anyway, that “humanist” is a euphemism for atheists. So we have atheists leading the way in denying Reality. Now we have atheists insisting that some women have penises is a fact.

Atheism is, of course, a triumph of the will. If you can willfully deny God, you can deny Reality with ease. Even a moment’s thought will confirm to you that it is those people who deny God who lead the way in denying Reality.

Item Beware: transparency rule is a Trojan Horse (Thanks to Jonathan Witt for the tip.)

Last month, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a new rule to “ensure that the regulatory science underlying Agency actions is fully transparent, and that underlying scientific information is publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation”. The alleged justification is a crisis in science over replicability and reproducibility.

At face value, the proposal might seem reasonable. It isn’t.

Many EPA watchers believe that the rule targets long-term epidemiological studies that linked air pollution to shorter lives and were used to justify air-quality regulations. In my view, the rule could keep that and other high-quality evidence from being used to shape regulations, even if there are legitimate reasons, such as patient privacy, why some data cannot be made public. It could potentially retroactively exclude an enormous amount of respected evidence. This would make the EPA less able to serve its function “to protect human health and the environment”. The window for speaking up is closing fast.

In other words, please don’t them look at the evidence because when they do we might have to abandon the policies we claimed flowed from that evidence. “Trust us,” she seems to be saying, “For we know what is best for you. And we don’t want you to know why we know.” Also, it can’t be a coincidence that a woman who looks like a horse warns of horsiness.

Item One-third of adults may need blood pressure drugs under new guidelines (Thanks to Forbes Tuttle for the tip.)

One out of every three U.S. adults has high blood pressure that should be treated with medication, under guidelines recently adopted by the two leading heart health associations.

The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association redefined high blood pressure at 130/80 in November, down from the previous level of 140/90, based on new evidence supporting a lower threshold.

Under the new guidelines, nearly 46 percent of U.S. adults now would be considered to have high blood pressure, a new study reported.

Further, 36 percent would be recommended for blood pressure medication, the study authors said…

Full implementation of the new guidelines would mean 156,000 fewer deaths each year, and 340,000 fewer heart attacks, strokes and other heart-related ailments, the researchers concluded.

Well, why not lower it to 125/75 and be even extra super safe? We will have 156,387 fewer deaths each year (based on my statistical estimate). And 156,387 is more than 156,000. And really, isn’t it worth it if we save even one life? Of course, even more will need medication, which either they or the government will have to pay for. Americans are increasing fat and unfit as all know. But why not insist they get off their duffs and stop eating crap instead of ingesting expensive drugs?

Categories: Culture

5 replies »

  1. “The Spectator on his Twitter titled ‘Is it a crime to say women don’t have penises?’, ” That will all change when Sharia Law is implemented and the most shocked (and jailed and dead) will the alphabet soup groups that thought they were so open-minded and reasonable. Nature corrects stupidity and it’s not pretty.

    I’m not surprised on the high blood pressure stuff. There is a LYING piece of crap commercial about having 140/90 BP and having a heart attack. This is so dishonest, evil, lying, horrible, etc of the people who obviously care about MONEY and not humans (or are flat out too stupid to breathe). Now, I won’t be back, so I’ll say up front: I DON’T BELIEVE THE BIG PHARMA CRAP AND THINK YOU’RE AN IDIOT WHEN YOU SPOUT IT. Got it? However, humans love shortcuts and quick answers. There was a time when your BP had to be high at three times in a row over a year or more time. It had to be close to 200/100 AND you were supposed to have tried losing weight, eating better and exercise. When those honestly failed, medication was used. Now, NORMAL BP is medicated. Its is rediculous, but in a population that believes a tiny CO2 molecule at .04% of the atmosphere is going to kill us all, stupidity and laziness are to be expected. If patients weren’t so fast to jump onto medications, doctors wouldn’t be. Stupidity has a price.

  2. why not lower it to 125/75 and be even extra super safe?

    They’ve been doing that with cholesterol for years. All of that medication requires prescriptions. Gotta pay for those expensive cars, yachts and other toys somehow.

  3. @DAV
    and diabetes, too. used to be 120 was normal. Now the “target” is ~90. This isn’t surprising. It keeps more “patients” on glucopnages and insulin…

  4. A couple of false statements undermine the message being presented:

    ONE: “…“humanist” is a euphemism for atheists. So we have atheists leading the way in denying Reality. Now we have atheists insisting that some women have penises is a fact.”

    – SOME atheists are so guilty; many (most?) are not. And don’t believe for a second that some people of faith (including “Christians”) do not also believe in impossible realities such as that at the center of the essay.

    TWO: “Atheism is, of course, a triumph of the will. If you can willfully deny God, you can deny Reality with ease. …. it is those people who deny God who lead the way in denying Reality.”

    AGAIN, another sweeping generalization that is fundamentally false. Consider religious-based “reality”:

    There’s one bunch of “Christians” that think Earth is 6000/10,000 years old and all that goes with that–per the Bible–such as the impossibility of evolution (Ken Ham is a leading advocate for this Bible-based view).

    Then, there’s another view that comports with a multi-billion year Earth, evolution, etc — also based on the very same Bible. Reasons.org is one such group that hones to this view, as does the Catholic Church.

    Those are two mutually-incompatible views of reality, then and now, both based on the same Bible and both claiming “Christian” status. One of those views of reality MUST be false, or at least, both views MUST have some fundamental elements that are false.

    The point being that Briggs, by asserting that acceptance of God invariably includes perception of true/factual reality (impossible if an atheist) MUST BE FALSE. Correct view of reality is a result of other factors, faith/belief not necessarily being one of them.

    Though, correct faith might be a key ingredient … but that is always skipped here because the moment that would be addressed one is assaulting and crediting various facets of faith/belief as being true, or, false. And who wants to stir up that hornet’s nest?

  5. A couple of false statements undermine the message being presented:

    ONE: “…“humanist” is a euphemism for atheists. So we have atheists leading the way in denying Reality. Now we have atheists insisting that some women have penises is a fact.”

    – SOME atheists are so guilty; many (most?) are not. And don’t believe for a second that some people of faith (including “Christians”) do not also believe in impossible realities such as that at the center of the essay.

    TWO: “Atheism is, of course, a triumph of the will. If you can willfully deny God, you can deny Reality with ease. …. it is those people who deny God who lead the way in denying Reality.”

    AGAIN, another sweeping generalization that is fundamentally false. Consider religious-based “reality”:

    There’s one bunch of “Christians” that think Earth is 6000/10,000 years old and all that goes with that–per the Bible–such as the impossibility of evolution (Ken Ham is a leading advocate for this Bible-based view).

    Then, there’s another view that comports with a multi-billion year Earth, evolution, etc — also based on the very same Bible. Reasons-dot-org is one such group that hones to this view, as does the Catholic Church.

    Those are two mutually-incompatible views of reality, then and now, both based on the same Bible and both claiming “Christian” basis of belief. One of those views of reality MUST be false, or at least, both views MUST have some fundamental elements that are false.

    The point being that Briggs, by asserting that acceptance of God invariably includes perception of true/factual reality (impossible if an atheist) MUST BE FALSE. Correct view of reality is a result of other factors, faith/belief not necessarily being one of them.

    Though, correct faith might be a key ingredient … but that is always skipped here because the moment that would be addressed one is assaulting and crediting various facets of faith/belief as being true, or, false. And who wants to stir up that hornet’s nest?

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