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Let’s ask this fella

Here is the Woman’s Hour segment in case you’re interested. I could only manage a couple of minutes because the guy has nothing to say and he says it excruciatingly slowly and mumblingly in a silly Minny Mouse voice. A car-crash on all criteria.

“Women’s voices” it says there. Well, women’s voices interspersed with some men’s. Women can’t have things all to themselves, obviously. … Read the rest

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Let’s ask this fella
By Ophelia Benson, March 17, 2026

Here is the Woman’s Hour segment in case you’re interested. I could only manage a couple of minutes because the guy has nothing to say and he says it excruciatingly slowly and mumblingly in a silly Minny Mouse voice. A car-crash on all criteria.

“Women’s voices” it says there. Well, women’s voices interspersed with some men’s. Women can’t have things all to themselves, obviously. … Read the rest

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

Let’s ask this fella 

Here is the Woman’s Hour segment in case you’re interested. I could only manage a couple of minutes because the guy has nothing to say and he says it excruciatingly slowly and mumblingly in a silly Minny Mouse voice. A car-crash on all criteria.

“Women’s voices” it says there. Well, women’s voices interspersed with some men’s. Women can’t have things all to themselves, obviously. … Read the rest

In today’s misogyny segment In today’s misogyny segment 

Why do they do this?

I suppose I shouldn’t even ask. I suppose they do it for the obvious reason: to insult and harm women. But then why not call it some other kind of hour? Misogynist Hour would fit.

The usual stupid mistake in the title – not Trans Sociologist but Trans Woman aka Man.

Moving on – why do they do this?

They should just admit: because it makes you bitches furious and that makes us laugh. See you tomorrow.… Read the rest

There is only one man 

Of course he said that.

That’s Trump in a nutshell. You don’t need to talk to other people, you’re the boss, you decide everything all by yourself, you don’t need a team, you don’t need information, you don’t need advice, you don’t need understanding, you don’t need a range of views, you don’t need to think … Read the rest

Block those cuts 

A bump in the road for Bad Kennedy:

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.

The decision halted an order by Kennedy — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

On the one hand you have your medically trained people and on the other hand you have a stupid conceited hack who thinks he knows better than everyone despite having zero medical training or education. … Read the rest

Join now Join now Join now Join now 

Sale ends at midnight! Don’t delay! Offer comes with bag of popcorn!

… Read the rest
They responded coolly 

Nyah nyah I didn’t want to ride your rusty old bike anyway.

Trump on Monday disparaged American allies who have responded coolly to, or outright rebuffed, his call to send warships to escort merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf, complaining that the United States had been defending other countries for decades.

“You mean for 40 years we’re protecting you, and you don’t want to get involved in something that’s very minor?” Mr. Trump said, speaking about the war at a White House event with the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

He went on to say, “We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” adding that his request

… Read the rest
Ranty McRantface 

Unhinged rant time.

Trump says reporters who cover his war on Iran in a negative manner should face charges of “TREASON”—a crime punishable by death.

The 79-year-old president posted a nearly 400-word Truth Social rant on Sunday slamming Iran for “feeding” the “very appreciative Fake News Media” in the U.S. and even resorting to AI to spread “false information.”

Nobody can compete with Trump in the false information department.

The president also took swings at a reporter from ABC, calling them “one of the most corrupt news organizations on the planet” before refusing to take any more questions from the outlet. When a female reporter asked Trump why the U.S. is sending 5,000 marines and sailors, the president shot

… Read the rest
Yet it led to bitter recriminations 

George Chesterton at the Telegraph talks to Rachel Rooney about the Trans Board of Censorship.

“This is the book that ended my career,” says Rachel Rooney, holding a copy of My Body is Me, a picture book for three to six-year-olds published in 2019. You could not find a more innocuous, inclusive and warm-hearted children’s paperback if you tried, yet it led to bitter recriminations for its award-winning creator, a torrent of abuse and ultimately her cancellation by the publishing world.

Her “crime” was to be a gender-critical feminist voice in an industry that was, and largely remains, adherent to a rigid gender ideology.

Rigid, yes, but more to the point, batshit crazy. I think the batshit … Read the rest

Women float free of their sex 

Is that true?

It’s true that Ireland is very…shall we say delayed, on this matter. That’s why it’s been known to let women die rather than terminate a premature birth. But is it so very delayed that women have no rights specific to women at all? Is rape legalized then?… Read the rest

Guest post: A cosmic calamity for which nobody was responsible 

Originally a comment by Tim Harris on Bureaucracies love euphemism.

[“Kinetic”] could certainly be an abbreviation of “fucking hectic”, but what interests me about the word (in the way it’s used by Hegseth & others) is its scientific aura, its suggestion that what is happening is both violent and an index of overwhelming, god-like power, but also that it is mindless (which of course it is in a sense other than the sense I am trying to establish) and mechanical and has nothing to do with human intentions, decisions or responsibility (“kinetic energy” is, according to the OED, “energy which a body possesses by virtue of being in motion”), and so cannot be understood at all in human terms. … Read the rest

To keep it open and safe 

The Facebook commentator I Fucking Love Australia is not unduly impressed by Trump’s efforts to summon help with the Strait of Hormuz thing.

BREAKING: President Trump says the US in conjunction with “many countries” is sending war ships to the Strait of Hormuz to keep it “open and safe.”

Trump also calls on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others to send war ships to Hormuz.

Oh. Oh this is beautiful. This is the geopolitical equivalent of the guy who starts a bar fight, gets his head put through the pool table, and then looks up at the bouncer with blood pouring out of his nose going “Are you gonna DO something about these guys?!”

Let me get

… Read the rest
Guest post: Bureaucracies love euphemism 

Originally a comment by Artymorty on An unusually crass opinion.

I’m of the mind that crass language and blunt, confrontational talk is a great tool for smashing bullshit. Too often, people use politeness and euphemism as a shield to hide behind, as deflection to avoid responsibility. When confronted with blunt reality it’s often a lot harder for people to avoid facing their complicity in bad things. I see it in office culture all the time, and I can’t stand it. Bureaucracies love euphemism and they hate bluntness. Especially bureaucracies that are propping up bad things.

In the 2000s, for example, it was euphemism and politeness that enabled unscrupulous financiers to repackage and sell junk mortgage debt: they danced around … Read the rest

A snip at $220 million 

Why did Trump fire Kristi Noem?

Her tenure was marked by high-profile immigration enforcement operations that were often publicised on social media, with Noem at times accompanying federal agents during arrests.

During this sweeping immigration crackdown across the US, two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Not fatally shot in self-defense or to defend others, but fatally shot for no detectable reason other than panic and/or bad temper.

The announcement came following controversy over a $220m border security advertising campaign featuring Noem on horseback. After Noem told Congress that Trump had approved the campaign, Trump denied involvement.

In a phone interview with the Reuters news agency, he

… Read the rest
Funzies 

Yes that’s the way to talk about the slaughter of war.

Trump says US strikes have “totally demolished” much of Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub and threatened that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun”.

It is fun, isn’t it? It’s as much fun as driving Dad’s car into a brick wall.… Read the rest

His own stamp 

Ick.

The administration plans to issue a $1 coin with President Donald Trump’s likeness on it next year, despite a century-old precedent of not honoring sitting, or even living former, presidents on coins.

Instead of quarters honoring the abolition of slavery, granting women the right to vote and the Civil Rights movement, the Treasury will instead issue historical quarters featuring white men from the 18th and 19th centuries who were already well represented on currency and in historical tributes.

It’s DEI-evil to honor the abolition of slavery, granting women the right to vote, and the Civil Rights movement.

The new coins, coming after the administration stopped issuing new pennies earlier this year, underscore Trump’s drive to put his own

… Read the rest
An unlikely shine 

From the Broadcast News Gossip department:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani pulled out of an appearance on the now Donald Trump–friendly CBS News because of the actions of the network’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss.

The progressive Democrat Mamdani, to whom the president has taken an unlikely shine, had been in talks to do a sit-down interview with Robert Costa for CBS News Sunday Morning.

However, Mamdani has now backed out because Weiss has stirred CBS News to launch wave after wave of negative press coverage of the mayor, Vanity Fair’s Aidan McLaughlin first reported in his Party Animals newsletter.

Hostile press coverage, they mean. The euphemistic word “negative” is so useless there; I wish journalists or their … Read the rest

Bribe the cap guy, get security briefings 

Peak trolling. The world points out how disgusting it is for Trump to exploit one of the soldiers he got killed by wearing one of his own vulgar baseball caps while saluting the coffin, so Trump exploits the disgust at his disgusting behavior.

Not content with wearing his own merchandise at a dignified transfer, President Donald Trump is now doubling down on the “shameful” insult by attempting to cash in on the controversial photo op.

In a twisted turn of events, the 79-year-old has used an image of himself saluting the coffin of a soldier killed in his war on Iran to drum up cash for his own campaigning.

Last week, Trump became the first president in history

… Read the rest
Without exception 

Reduxx has news from Brazil:

A trans-identified male politician who previously attempted to have a woman imprisoned for “misgendering” him was elected as president of the Women’s Rights Committee. Felipe Santos Silva, who has adopted the name Erika Hilton, told the Chamber of Deputies that the Committee should focus on women “without exception in their dignity and plurality,” and included transvestites in his definition.

Plurality is one thing and calling men “women” is another.

“We will discuss projects here, we will discuss the lives of women here, we will remember that, whether they like it or not, cis women, trans woman and travestis [transvestites] will not be abandoned in this discussion, and I don’t care about anyone’s wishes,” Hilton,

… Read the rest
An unusually crass opinion 

And so they fall into the trap.

A Donald Trump-appointed federal appellate judge invoked the term “swinging dicks” three times in an unusually crass opinion involving a nude, female-only Korean spa, drawing sharp rebukes from 29 of his colleagues.

“This is a case about swinging dicks,” began a Thursday dissenting opinion from Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the US Court of Appeals. He said he would have ruled in favor of Washington state’s Olympus Spa, which had sought to bar transgender women from its spa facilities on free speech grounds.

“You may think that swinging dicks shouldn’t appear in a judicial opinion. You’re not wrong,” he wrote. “But as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely

… Read the rest
Up 

Just don’t do it again, ok?

A serial upskirter whose phone contained more than 100 videos of young women secretly filmed in public toilets has heard of his lecherous behaviour’s “profound impact” on one of his victims.

Bao Phuc Cao, 23, a Vietnamese biomedicine student at The University of Melbourne, appeared for sentencing in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court after he was caught filming a woman in a public toilet at a Docklands shopping centre in February 2025.

Cao pleaded guilty on Thursday, March 5, but his hearing was adjourned as the court awaited a victim impact statement…The statement was not read before the court, but magistrate Michelle Mykytowycz said Cao’s victim had been deeply affected by the incident.

“This has had

… Read the rest