Good news Thursday: Bats!

Hurray! Local biologists discovered the hibernation location of an endangered cutie-patootie Albertan bat species (undisclosed, obviously). The team that discovered the location say that this will help them pre-empt aid for the bat colony should it be infected with white nose disease, which wakes up bats during their hibernation and results in their starvation before spring.

The discovery of a large population of hibernating bats in a cave in Alberta’s boreal forest is a breakthrough for biologists, says one of the people who discovered the cave.

The cave — in an undisclosed location — is home to the largest hibernating bat colony discovered in Alberta outside of the Rockies.

“It demonstrates that this kind of bat habitat may well exist in other non-mountainous areas throughout the boreal forest,” said David Critchley, co-coordinator of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada’s BatCaver program in the province.

The cave is home to more than 200 endangered little brown myotis bats, Critchley told CBC’s Radio Active on Monday.

While First Nations people and Alberta Environment officials have known about the narrow, muddy cave for decades, it was never visited in winter until a four-member crew entered it last month to check for bats.

The crew collected DNA and guano samples and placed monitors to record temperature and humidity and bat vocalizations.

Finding hibernation spots has become urgent in Western Canada since the discovery in Washington State last year of white-nose syndrome.

The fungal infection awakens the bats during hibernation, forcing them to burn through their stored winter fat long before the return of insect season.

The disease spreads through hibernation sites and can kill more than 90 per cent of resident bats.

Critchley said understanding where Alberta’s bat species are living is crucial in protecting habitats and preventing the spread of white-nose syndrome.

“If they end up having white-nose syndrome, which they don’t at this stage in Alberta, then we need to know where they are,” he said.

Kill the skeeters, you adorable flying rat things!

-Shiv

Jason Kenney is official

It’s official: My all-time best friend and favourite politician ever Jason “I don’t get caught up in the details” Kenney has been elected as the leader of Alberta’s currently defunct Progressive Conservative party. Now, in case you need a refresher for what this might mean for Texas North, here’s a list of Jason Kenney’s votes and political positions in no particular order:

And many, many more!

How many crimes can he commit before the police finally get off their arse? Who knows! Do any of the Albertan conservatives care that their messiah is an addled mess of corruption? Probably not! Will the PCs have a single rally without at least one jackass chanting “lock her up” referring to Premier Rachel Notley? I wouldn’t bet my boots on it!

Trump has officially come to Alberta.

-Shiv

I’m not the only one who notices this shit, right?

Ralph Shortey.

Political positions: Forced birther, pro-Christian theocracy, “family values.”

Latest headline: Sex, drug allegations part of investigation of Oklahoma Sen. Ralph Shortey

MOORE — An Oklahoma state senator offered money to a teenage boy for “sexual stuff” and was found with him in a hotel room that reeked of “raw marijuana,” authorities said.

Surely this must be a space on Republican bingo or something.

-Shiv

What fresh cis nonsense is this

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An otherwise sharp-witted feminist has a very public and very unnecessary meltdown after being posed with a question in the vein of “are trans women real women?” As if this were kryptonite, all of the critical thinking skills she ordinarily exhibits will shrivel up and die, reducing this feminist to an incoherent blubbering mess who can’t argue herself out of a wet paper bag. Instead of identifying the appropriate rhetorical error (define “real”), they happily and freely frolic into a minefield performing a response that could only be described as “interpretive dance.” Wells are poisoned, dictionaries are consulted, ontologies are confused with empirical fact, migraines are had, shots of rum are quaffed, questions are dodged, and my eyes roll out of my head because I can’t believe people haven’t figured out that the rhetoric of realness is a dead, dead horse.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place!” And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked. “And ain’t I a woman?”

–Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”, 1851

Eighteen fifty one. I’m sure Truth’s speech is far from the earliest example.

And yet, here we are, 166 years later.* Apparently we haven’t learned a fucking thing.

Jenni Murray…

Murray, writing in the Sunday Times magazine, said that she was “not transphobic or anti-trans” and called for respect and protection from bullying and violence equally for “transsexuals, transvestites, gays, lesbians and those of us who hold to the sex and sexual preference assumed at birth”.

However, the piece appeared under the less nuanced heading: “Jenni Murray: Be trans, be proud – but don’t call yourself a ‘real woman’. Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and makeup”.

Murray wrote: “I know that in writing this article I am entering into the most controversial and, at times, vicious, vulgar and threatening debate of our day. I’m diving headfirst into deep and dangerous waters.”

And Chimamanda Adichie…

In the interview, broadcast on 10 March, Adichie said “I think the whole problem of gender in the world is about our experiences. It’s not about how we wear our hair or whether we have a vagina or a penis. It’s about the way the world treats us, and I think if you’ve lived in the world as a man with the privileges that the world accords to men and then sort of change gender, it’s difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are.”

…are apparently uninterested in how this dialogue has played out before–and no, I’m not merely referring to Ophelia Benson.

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Public asshole discovers public assholery has consequences

Poor Persecuted Patrick Fucking McCrory is back in the news again, whinging about how no one wants to work with him after engineering one of the most scientifically illiterate, unenforceable pieces of hot garbage that has ever hit a law book:

Former Gov. Pat McCrory says the backlash against House Bill 2 is making some employers reluctant to hire him but he’s currently doing consulting and advisory board work.

Yes, well, if I babysit for a neighbour and burn their house down, I don’t bloody well expect a glowing fucking review from them, do I.

McCrory has been appearing frequently in interviews with national media outlets to defend the controversial LGBT law, but he hasn’t announced what’s next for his career. In a podcast interview recently with WORLD, an Asheville-based evangelical Christian news website, McCrory talked about his challenges on the job market.

The former Republican governor says HB2 “has impacted me to this day, even after I left office. People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ – which is the last thing I am.”

People are reluctant to hire you? I wonder what that feels like.

McCrory explained more about his current situation in an interview Monday evening with The News & Observer.

“I’ve currently accepted several opportunities in business to do work that I’d done prior to becoming governor in consulting and advisory board positions, and I’ve also been exploring other opportunities in academia, nonprofits and government,” he said. “And I’ll hopefully be making some of those decisions in the near future.”

McCrory declined to name the companies he’s working for. But the former governor said that he’s been considered for part-time university teaching positions – he wouldn’t say where – but that academic leaders “have shown reluctance because of student protests.”

“That’s not the way our American system should operate – having people purged due to political thought,” he told The N&O.

Ah–I see. When it happens to trans people, it’s “business freedom” and “common sense.” But when it happens to you, you’re being “purged.”

McCrory said he’s also “had ongoing discussions with the Trump administration, but at this point in time nothing has come to fruition.”

In the earlier podcast interview with WORLD, McCrory said the liberal groups opposing HB2 have harmed his reputation. “If you disagree with the politically correct thought police on this new definition of gender, you’re a bigot, you’re the worst of evil,” he said. “It’s almost as if I broke a law.”

You probably did, judging by the prevailing legal opinions on Title XI. But I digress.

McCrory made the case that the core of the HB2 debate is an attempt to redefine gender. “You ask the doctor if it’s a boy or a girl; you don’t ask the baby,” he said.

HB2 struck down local nondiscrimination ordinances and requires transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate while they are in schools and other government facilities.

You ask the right doctor if it’s a boy or a girl, because the wrong doctor is going to point out you’re full of shit.

Feel free to continue presenting your foot for shooting. I’d be happy to oblige.

-Shiv

 

Laniakea

A few days ago, I came upon a Nature summary of the astrophysics research of Helene Courtois and R. Brent Tully in their attempts to describe the universe. As it turns out, despite the enormous distances between galaxies, many celestial bodies “near” the Milky Way are all being sucked in to the same location, which for Courtois and Tully defines a superstructure of galaxies. See more about it here:

-Shiv

The Netherlands shows us how it’s done

In Canada’s last election, a voter turnout of 68% was considered astonishing. Then the Netherlands has their election and cranks out a whopping 81%.

There were some murmurings worried about Geert Wilders’ potential success, but it looks like the impending government will be a centrist (relative to Dutch politics) coalition.

I don’t know much else other than, “the Dutch fascists lost.” So hurray! Plus there’s this… delightful interview from an exit poll:

If other parties would offer, for example, an approach against groups of youths showing disrespectful behaviour, they could lure away a lot of PVV voters. It’s not that hard: more money for 24/7 police surveillance and social work, for example. People need anything that shows that the government cares.

Try not to have existential crises every time you glimpse into the mind of an authoritarian.

-Shiv

 

 

Trans 101: Put Down the Map

[Note: This post was revised on August 7, 2018. You can find the previous version here.)

One common theme you’ll see throughout the work of some trans feminists is a distinct reluctance or distaste for ever broaching the topic of “Trans 101.” Asher explicitly says as much in his “Not Your Mom’s Trans 101” (which is officially recommended by me) when he says “Trying to teach a new perspective to the victims of this extremely aggressive brainwashing can be daunting.” Cristan Williams, whose work is exemplary within The Discourse, makes no explicit sentiment in this vein–but her Trans 101 is also enormous, and the lack of brevity is itself a message that we resist quick and easy reductions.

This is in my estimate because “trans” isn’t a 100-level topic. Embedded in the culture in which we live are many assumptions which often muddy The Discourse, rendering productive conversation impossible, causing countless instances of two people talking past each other. This does not mean that my attempt will be overly complex, but it’s probably not something that could be captured in a Twitter hashtag.

To bring us to the task at hand, we must first acknowledge a few guiding principles:

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