Mick Hartley

Author: Mick Hartley

  • Olympic boxing

    raph.co.uk/olympics/2024/08/01/olympic-womens-boxing-live-imane-khelif-paris-2024/”>Update: 

    The controversial fight between Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who failed a sex test at last year’s World Championships, and Italy’s Angela Carini has been abandoned after just 46 seconds after the Italian suffered a suspected broken nose.

    This fight had already detonated ferocious controversy, with the International Olympic Committee under mounting pressure to explain how a woman could be allowed into a boxing ring unsure of the sex of the person she was facing.

    Khelif was banned from competing in a gold-medal bout in Delhi by the International Boxing Association, who said that the fighter’s “elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility criteria”.

    And yet she was still permitted by the IOC to fight at these Olympics and the difference in power was clear from the beginning, with the Italian taking a punch to the face and immediately walking to her corner to signal she would not carry on.

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  • Night rail yard

    Jack Delano, March 1943. Kansas City, Kansas. "Argentine Yard, Santa Fe R.R. — Night view of the departure yard on the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway."

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Jack Delano for the Office of War Information]

  • The anti-imperial, anti-Zionism of fools

    ting it for freedom and dignity, is perhaps the single most egregious mistake currently made by the ‘social warriors’ who support Hamas. Hamas, and the entire spectrum of Palestinian parties, all openly fight to take away Jewish freedom and dignity, which the Jews defend with exceptional restraint. The anti-imperial, anti-Zionism of fools repeats the Jihadi imperial, irredentist chant, ‘Min el–maiyeh lel mayieh, Falasteen Arabiya’ (From water to water, Palestine will be Arab) imagining they are partaking in a global struggle for freedom and dignity, and certainly not – heaven forbid! – strengthening the most ruthless, religious imperialism on the planet, which has them on their target list.

  • BBC bias revisited

    k environment. Mostly they whisper painfully, "It's an absolute sh*t show". A few are still wondering whether they can stay.

    For some Jewish BBC staff, the corporation has an unconscious bias to always see Israeli as the aggressor, and the Palestinians the victims.

    No surprise, then, that the BBC is lost for words at the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Why would the Israelis do such a horrible thing? Haniyeh was "moderate and pragmatic"; he was  "involved in the ceasefire and hostage release talks", which of course were going so well. Yes, he had $4 billion to live on in his life of luxury in Qatar while he happily sacrificed the people of Gaza as martyrs in the cause – "we need this blood so that it will ignite within us the spirit of revolution". – but no need to mention any of that when they have the bad guys, the Israelis, clear in their sights.

  • Good news from the gender wars

    search data (survey). I am extremely pleased with the resolution that we have reached….

    I hope shortly to be able to publish on all the data from my 'gender wars' research project. My latest article, entitled Let Us Be Free from ‘Academentia’, explores the detrimental impact of queer theory and politics at universities and beyond. Those of you interested in my work can check for updates on my X account, @DrLauraFavaro, as this CrowdJustice page will close today.

  • Back in the USSR

    arance of the Soviet Union is a testament to the disenchantment of Western liberals with what they should have remembered as a heroic and deeply meaningful struggle that rescued close to a billion people around the world from totalitarian slavery. It also testifies to the enduring utility of anti-Zionism as a political tool. Throughout the Cold War, this ideology helped unite political actors with agendas so different as to be virtually irreconcilable; it continues to do the same today. Anti-Zionism allows the Western left to ally itself with jihadists, who stand against everything the progressive left has ever claimed to represent. That these crude, immoral politics and ideology, shaped by illiberal, anti-Western, anti-democratic regimes with the blood of millions on their hands, are being presented to young Americans as the main paradigm to make sense of the world is a scandalous historical irony.

    Young Americans and young Brits.

  • Intermission

    Off for a week. Back Thurs 1st August. [Well OK, Wed 31st July as it happens.]

  • How extreme ideology infects and then destroys organisations

    nothing even when faced with situations that – to most voters – are, at best, absurd and, at worst, downright dangerous.

    Not only was Ms Wadhwa involved in an ideological campaign against a devoted and experienced support worker, but under their regime Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre appears to have offered support to a biologically male sexual predator with “hostility towards women”.

    Last week, Cameron Downing, a former equalities officer with the SNP who identifies as ‘non-binary’ was given a nine-year prison sentence for a catalogue of sex attacks. A video later emerged in which he thanked ERCC for its help.

    To the list of statements which should, surely, be uncontroversial might we add “dangerous male predators should not have access to support services for vulnerable women”?

    It should be pointed out that ERCC’s service, according to the organisation’s website, is open to anyone who ‘self identifies as a woman, trans woman, trans man or non-binary person’.

    It is a sign of how tight the activists’ grip is on government that no minister has felt the need to say much about the scandal at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre….

    Mridul Wadhwa should never have been put in charge of a service for vulnerable women.

    Those responsible for the appointment would very much like us all to forget what they did. We must not do so.

    Some incredibly vulnerable women have been failed by a service corrupted by a pernicious ideology. The employment of Mridul Wadhwa as chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre was an experiment that went badly wrong.

    It's an extraordinary story – and it's not over yet.

  • Hulking transgender athletes

    From the Mail – Hulking transgender athletes take gold, silver and bronze spots on female podium at Washington cycling championship. That "hulking" gets the point across: these are men, stealing women's prizes. 

    Transgender athletes swept the board in a 1-2-3 at a prestigious women's cycle race over the weekend, infuriating fans and leaving female competitors in the shade.

    Every medalist in the elite women's Madison at Washington's Marymore Grand Prix on Friday had a trans athlete on the two–person team, marking the first time trans women are known to have had a place on every podium spot in a race.

    Race venue the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome in Redmond warns it will not tolerate 'bullying or derogatory comments especially related to race, creed, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, physical or mental disability'.

    But the sight of the heavily-built winners towering over their rivals and teammates on the podium has dismayed fans of the sport.

    'This is so egregious I can't imagine how people watched this happen and thought this was ok,' wrote one.

    Give men an opening like this and some will take it. That, sadly, is the way it is. Everyone can see it's crazy – but still it continues.

  • Aesop was right

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