Latest Blog Post:

Stupid rules he said

Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules

… Read the rest

More Blog Posts

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

Stupid rules he said
By Ophelia Benson, March 3, 2026

Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules

… Read the rest

Archives
Bad Moves
Articles
Flashback
In Focus
Latest News
Letters
Notes and Comment Blog

Stupid rules he said 

Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.

Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules

… Read the rest
It grew up – or did it? 

The funniest thing about this is that it’s not parody.

About Robin

Robin Gow is a poet, educator, and witch. It grew up in rural Pennsylvania and lives with his queer family on unceded Lenape land also called Allentown Pennsylvania.

Quite the medley of deliberate annoyingness in 28 words. There’s the “it”, the instant switch to “his”, the “queer family”, and the obligatory pious smug pretense of giving a shit about forcibly removed native people.

Awarded the Jerry Cain and Scott James Creative Writing Fellow, Gow earned faer MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University where fae also taught as a professor of English.

What is even the point? Other than extra added attention?

Fae is a managing editor The

… Read the rest
Numbers 

Never mind.

A councillor who was investigated over a possible breach of Cornwall Council’s code of conduct will face no further action. The council received ten complaints concerning comments Cllr Dulcie Tudor made about trans people.

…

The complaints largely stemmed from a post Cllr Tudor made on social media which said: “Men claiming trans identity are not more vulnerable than women and girls. This is what they claim but it’s simply not true. A woman dies at the hands of a man every three days in this jurisdiction. Nine men who pretend to be women have been murdered in the last ten years in the UK.”

A woman every three days in that one jurisdiction, compared to nine … Read the rest

Challenging times 

It’s all in the family.

Melania Trump presided over a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday focusing on children in conflict, one of her signature issues, and acknowledged she was doing so in “challenging times” as the United States has joined Israel in attacking Iran.

Did she acknowledge she was doing so with no apparent qualification or reason?

Melania Trump was the first spouse of a world leader to take the president’s seat at the United Nations’ most powerful body, which is charged with ensuring global peace and security, according to the U.N.

Not the good kind of first. We don’t need spouses of “world leaders” to horn in on Security Council meetings. That’s called nepotism and it’s not … Read the rest

Are you trans or are you trans? 

Don’t be shy – just erase women entirely.

The only option for women is the one that includes men, so there is no option for women.

And what’s the “Trans” for? What’s the point of checking that? What even is the question? Trans is neither a sex nor a gender, it’s a modifier.

Back to Ontology 101.… Read the rest

Jeez anointed the wrong guy 

Jonathan Larsen tells us:

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

Great. That means there are way too many military commanders who think … Read the rest

Goldy gold 

Meanwhile, in the corridors of power…

The occasion was actually a medal of honor ceremony.… Read the rest

They will find ways 

Pink News is ecstatic that women can never have anything just for women now.

Women’s Institute vows to ‘find ways to keep welcoming trans women’ after ban 

WI vows to keep forcing men on women who want to do something without men.

On 16 April 2025, the Supreme Court judgement in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers decided the protected characteristic of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act means “biological sex” only and does not include trans people.

In the wake of the ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the UK’s human rights watchdog – drafted interim updates to its Code of Practice on single-sex spaces. 

How dare they? How dare they … Read the rest

Equipment 

Trump to Iran: Ok we fixed that for you, now get on with it, kthxbye.

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked the latest decapitation or defeat of a bitter U.S. adversary overseas, following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq two years later, the breaking of Moammar Gaddafi’s grip on power in Libya in 2011 and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro just two months ago.

The United States has often followed such triumphant moments with attempts to fill the void — deploying thousands of troops, spending billions of dollars, seeking to nurture fledging democracies or, in the case of Venezuela, leaving the decapitated government in power. But those efforts

… Read the rest
2 or more 

That’s another thing. Even if you do think it’s worth burbling about idennniny all the time, it doesn’t follow that idennniny=ONE thing about you. The odds are good that there’s more than one thing about you.

But even when trans people are being questioned about their very idennniny as trans people, that doesn’t mean their very idennniny itself is being questioned, because there is more to their idennniny than that one thing. Nobody is just one thing. It’s not even physically possible, let … Read the rest

A mother wrote to her, heartbroken 

Helen Webberley is economical with her words. She omits a lot of words that would make her meaning clearer.

A mother wrote to me recently, heartbroken. Her ten-year-old transgender daughter had been told, just two weeks before departure, that she could not go on her school trip. The reason given was that she could not share a room with her friends because of new legislation. Her daughter was inconsolable. And her mother wanted to know: how can this happen? What can I do?

We can guess at her meaning because we know something about her, not because she makes it clear. She makes it the opposite of clear. That’s not random. What does she mean “she could not share … Read the rest

omigod, not concerns! 

Hayley Dixon in the Telegraph on the throttling of an academic who doesn’t subscribe to magic gender beliefs:

The health official behind the pause of the NHS’s puberty blocker trial is blocked from any further involvement amid accusations of bias.

Prof Jacob George is said to have raised concerns over the trial after taking up his role as the chief medical and scientific officer at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) earlier this year. The regulator’s subsequent intervention in the debate led to the Department of Health announcing that the experiment would be paused.

But Prof George is now removed from any further involvement after social media posts emerged of him praising JK Rowling and criticising people for

… Read the rest
Careful careful careful oops 

Again. Same problem. How is awareness of very basic facts “bias”? Surely the denial of very basic facts is a better candidate for accusations of bias.

A health official who reportedly intervened to pause a clinical trial on the use of puberty blockers has been removed from any further involvement due to accusations of bias.

Prof Jacob George, who was appointed chief medical and scientific officer at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in January, raised concerns that led to the Pathways trial being put on hold by the government, according to the Sunday Times.

But the regulator announced on Saturday that George would recuse himself from involvement in the trial after gender-critical social media posts made

… Read the rest
Irreversible 

Sonia Sodha writes

This row has emerged from one of the most contested issues in medical science today: whether gender-questioning children should be put on an irreversible medical pathway, taking drugs to block puberty and ultimately progressing onto cross-sex hormones. I’ve written about the background to this here: an independent review undertaken by the paediatrician Hilary Cass called an overdue halt to this practice in the NHS. But her review controversially left the door open for a clinical trial of puberty-blocking drugs.

That trial is controversial because many experts (in my view, rightly) think it is impossible to to run an ethical trial of puberty blockers on gender-questioning children. I highly recommend this post from Genspect, and this open

… Read the rest
Opinions v facts 

SEEN in journalism points out, and underlines, that what sex people are is not a belief or opinion.

For those catching up on the drama, here’s an overview of what happened last night and this morning (February 27 – 28) with Cathy Newman, Economist Health Editor Natasha Loder, and Professor Jacob George.

At tea-time yesterday Cathy Newman announced on X that she’d seen social media posts from Professor Jacob George, the recently appointed Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the medical regulator the MHRA, and that after they were brought to the attention of the MHRA he was recused (according to Loder, by the MHRA, indicating it wasn’t voluntary) of oversight of the Pathways puberty blocker research.

…

… Read the rest
Guest post: He wants to be capo di tutti capi 

Originally a comment by Steven on A war of choice.

Iran responds by…attacking Saudi Arabia. Makes sense.

It does make sense.

Trump acts like a Mafia boss. He’s boss of the U.S.; now he wants to be capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses). He is demonstrating his ability to remove other capos. He removed Maduro; now he is going after the Iranian leadership. Pick off the ones who defy you and the rest will fall in line. It is the same tactic that he uses to keep Republican legislators obedient to him: he primaries any who aren’t.

But Saudi Arabia is already obedient to Trump. They do him obeisance; they paid the $1B bribe to be on … Read the rest

Yesterday and today 

The pushback at last.

Yesterday this:

I made a complaint to the @metpoliceuk and today I was called back by one of their officers. Name: Pc/Officer Humphreys.Badge No. 2417.Based at Lewisham Police Station.

@MPSLewisham Officer Humphreys asked what had given rise to the doxing and I told him that I hold the position that men cannot

… Read the rest

A war of choice 

The AP’s live coverage of Trump’s attack on Iran is interesting.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says he supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its government from further threatening international peace and security.

He says Canada is clear in its position that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East.”

Trump is kind of the Iran of this part of the globe.

Britain, France and Germany are calling for a resumption of U.S.-Iran negotiations and condemned Iranian attacks on countries in the region. They did not comment on the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

U.K. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer,

… Read the rest
A puzzle 

What’s the issue? The issue, or question, is whether or not there is a moral obligation to affirm, or at least not deny, people’s claims about themselves.

Put like that, it seems obvious that there can’t be such an obligation without a lot of stipulations and exceptions and so on. People can lie, people can cheat, people can forge – the list is long.

Ok but maybe trans people are exceptions. They’re not trying to empty your bank account or move into your house or turn your brother into a ballerina. At least, not all of them are. Probably not a large number of them are. Why not just give them what they want? Why not just go ahead and … Read the rest

Guest post: That’s the emergency backup system taking over 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The belief is mandatory.

Fred Wallace is of course the man who sends unsolicited dick picks to women. He also sends unsolicited pics of himself in flagrante at men’s fetish dens. I still can’t wrap my head around people who insist this man is a woman even when they know that he knows he’s a fetishistic man, and that they know that he knows that they know he’s a fetishistic man — so much so that he blatantly publishes pornographic pictures of himself engaging in his fetish.

Everybody knows he’s a man, and everybody knows that everybody else knows he’s a man. And yet.

It’s that two-regions-of-the-brain thing: first-order belief (“I believe x … Read the rest