Author: Mick Hartley

t the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Also:

The Trump administration is preparing an executive order that would halt federal funding, at least temporarily, for a risky and controversial kind of research into viruses that makes the pathogens more dangerous or contagious.

The goal of the order would be to stop scientists with U.S. funding from conducting “gain-of-function” research on viruses that could endanger human health, people familiar with the plans said….

Some Republicans have blamed the Covid-19 pandemic on gain-of-function research. Defenders say it helps scientists assess the potential of pathogens to infect humans and find ways to combat them.

President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, has expressed support for a pause on the research.

Doesn't seem such a bad idea – considering, you know, that it's quite possible that earlier “gain-of-function” research on viruses shut the world down and caused the death of some 7 million people.

“>The problem — whisper it — is that for many Americans, including a fair swathe of Democratic party voters, their party has become the extremists.

Polls taken during Trump’s first week suggest some enthusiasm for the new world. A CBS poll finds nearly a quarter of Kamala Harris voters declaring themselves optimistic about the next four years. To this cross-party group, Trump is not making America great again. He is making it normal again.

They don’t want to buy Greenland, according to CBS. But the threat has their attention. At the start of the wild ride ahead, they are engaged and holding on tight.

The comments, it's fair to say, are mixed:

"What an appalling, fawning and obsequious article."

"The article is none of these things. It is scarily prescient for those of us who despise Trump, as it recognises that he might actually get some things right."

s Trump era. I hope they find a way to do it with more joy than last time around, when Greta Thunberg’s anxious, unhappy face seemed emblematic of her generation. Say what you want about 1990s magazines as a youth movement, but at least they had a sense of humour. And I hope they find something that allows for a collective experience, rather than the atomised loneliness fostered by the internet. Yes, things are bad, but the style magazines emerged in the Thatcher era, so you can create fun in the bleakest of times. It’s your turn now, Gen Z: put your best Face forward.

Well…we'll see.

Guardian idiot: "The confusing and vague executive order underscores how complex sex is and why it's hard to reduce it to a neat binary"

Me: "Every human on the planet, you and me included, has one female mother and one male father, it is only pretend "complex" for clicks" pic.twitter.com/q1LHn4Hj5Y

— Dennis Noel Kavanagh (@Jebadoo2) January 25, 2025

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Ridiculous Guardian article here.

Ca. 1910. "Schenley Park and vicinity. Panorama shows the University of Pittsburgh, Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, Carnegie Museum and Library, the Hotel Schenley, Forbes Field, Phipps Conservatory and Schenley Park. Also shown are the neighborhoods of Schenley Farms, Oakland, Shadyside, East Liberty and Squirrel Hill."

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Co.]

A composite of four 8×10 inch glass negatives. To be viewed full size (click on image).

"hello police? Come quick, there's been a murder"pic.twitter.com/t17gXNwK5e

— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) January 24, 2025

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he latest figures, if scaled up nationally, would mean that one in every 1,200 kids aged 18 and under had a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. At least the present government has stopped the practice of prescribing puberty blockers, but it needs to go much further.

There will always be young people, disproportionately girls, who find growing up difficult. Encouraging them to think they were born in the wrong body is no more ethical than affirming weight loss in girls who have anorexia. This is an entirely artificial phenomenon, created by activists determined to impose delusional ideas on impressionable young people. The damage is already apparent, and it needs to be removed from the education system without delay.

dressing the situation; we’d be discussing the fact that the Stonewall agenda has grown live ivy into, and around, all the institutions we assume will keep children safe. In schools and in after-school clubs, on TV and online, children are surrounded by adults who actually suggest to them gender dysphoria may be a cause of their ordinary anxieties.

As noted in the previous post, Stonewall may be on the way out, but its influence remains. It's "grown live ivy into, and around, all the institutions we assume will keep children safe", as Wakefield has it.

On Wednesday, members of the Women and Equalities Committee (WESC) met to discuss the “evidence base on the safety and effectiveness of puberty blockers.” As Hannah Barnes, (author of Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service), says, it was an appalling sign of what’s to come.

Dr Hilary Cass spent four years looking into gender dysphoria and puberty blockers, but she was not invited to contribute. Instead, the committee heard from consultant paediatric endocrinologist Professor Gary Butler, who was responsible for prescribing medication, including puberty blockers and hormones, to young people at University College London Hospitals; and from Professor Simon Giordano, who has argued that it is in the best interests of a child to offer puberty blockers early. It seems to me that both of these two are so deep into sunk cost that they’ve almost no choice but to keep sinking.

Barnes said: “That the committee would try to better in two hours what the Cass Review spent four years carefully investigating is incomprehensible.”

If even after the Cass review – even after all the sad, sometimes horrifying stories of people who’ve “detransitioned” – politicians still cling to the idea of gendered souls, what hope do school children have?

Hannah Barnes' article at the New Statesman on the WESC meeting – Are politicians trying to undermine the Cass Review?

tehall.html”>here for more on Eleanor Frances.

et asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451ebab69e202e860f7bf18200d img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mt_imported_image_1758238797.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”Syd_Shelton_Street_Portraits_3web12005″ />
Stamford Hill, London, 1987

The Docks, Dublin, 1985

Sydney, 1975

Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1983

Hare Row, Hackney, 1979

The Falls Road, Belfast, 1979

Dublin 1979

Hare Row, Hackney, 1979 (both)
[Photos © Cafe Royal Books/Syd Shelton]