Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Guest post: Step away from the “middle ground”

    Originally a comment by maddog on Make do and mend.

    Steve Allen coined the word Dumbth, and wrote a book of the same title, about American prideful, willful pig-ignorance, and absurd levels of hostility to intellectual accomplishment and technical or scientific expertise.

    Trying to find a middle or common ground with everyone leads to compromises like “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” That “finding middle ground,” or “both sides-ism,” is what has led American journalists to pussy-foot around calling a spade a spade, and treating one party’s lies, evasions, and disinformation as if it were of equal standing with another’s facts or actual expertise. Too many people think that their ignorance and stupidity are just as good as genuine knowledge. It’s insane. There are things that are actually wrong, and the press should honor its duty to say so plainly.

    Tocqueville noticed a similar anti-intellectual streak in the American character. It’s the spirit that gives rise to the myths of American self-reliance (“Yankee ingenuity”), pioneer independence, and “Manifest Destiny,” all rolled into “American exceptionalism.”

    I remember being taught “Manifest Destiny” as if it were an obviously honorable and patriotic thing. Then you look at the consequences — direct effects, not “side effects” — including genocide, displacement, enslavement, racism, theft and treachery. That’s the legacy of “Manifest Destiny” and “American exceptionalism.”

  • Continuity

    Frivolous interlude. I’m watching the movie A Walk in the Woods, in which Bill Bryson and a friend walk the Appalachian Trail. I’m at the bit where they stop at a small rural motel overnight for a bit of a break. Bryson (Robert Redford) goes to take a shower but there are no towels. Next scene: he goes to the front desk seeking towels. He’s wearing a very nice very clean thick fluffy bathrobe and a pair of thick leather slippers. Wtf??? How the hell is there room in his pack for those?

    So I asked. AI totally agrees with me.

    In the movie adaptation of A Walk in the Woods, Robert Redford’s character having a plush bathrobe and leather slippers in his motel room is widely considered a massive Hollywood movie mistake and continuity error. [1]

    From a practical hiking standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense. Real Appalachian Trail hikers have pointed out the absurdity of this scene for a few reasons:

    • Pack space and weight: Backpacking requires minimizing every single ounce. A bulky, heavy, plush bathrobe and slippers would take up half an expedition pack and add unnecessary pounds.

    Wull exactly. How dumb can you get?! The whole point so far has been what a big undertaking it is and then how difficult and exhausting they find it from the start – but ooh hey suddenly luxury bathrobe and thick sturdy slippers appear.

    I wonder if Redford tried to talk the bosses out of it. It’s such a howler.

  • Who needs science anyway?

    One thing about Trump, the guy is consistent. He wants to destroy everything. Even with all the campaigning he has to do and insults he has to fling, he still finds time to pour scalding water on US scientific institutions. Who needs science, amirite! Guesswork is better.

    The warning, buried in an obscure government report this summer, was unflinching.

    The Defense Department’s vaunted network of research laboratories — whose scientists helped develop satellite communication, radar technology, and even the computer mouse — was in trouble.

    The labs lost a significant share of their staff last year, largely in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to thin the federal work force, the report found. Refilling critical positions was proving difficult due in part to President Trump’s demand that new hires be screened for their loyalty to his goals. The report, issued by the Pentagon, pointed to “potentially grave consequences for the future of national defense.”

    Nah, just round up some good loyal Republicans and give them their instructions. Problem solved!

    The turmoil inside scientific research has extended beyond the Pentagon. The Energy Department, a key hub of nuclear and quantum research, has lost more than 1,000 scientists and technical staff. The National Science Foundation, for decades a primary backer of long-term, foundational research, has withheld more than $1 billion in funding. And at the National Institutes of Health, the biggest funder of medical research, officials delayed or canceled more than 2,000 grants to biomedical researchers focused on topics such as Alzheimer’s, cancer and other diseases.

    Fraud waste and abuse. All these pesky scientists are just lining their pockets on the taxpayer’s dime.

    The damage is the byproduct of three pillars of Mr. Trump’s broader agenda.

    One is the sweeping job cuts and grant cancellations engineered last year by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led effort that viewed much of federal spending as wasteful and whose effects are still reverberating across the bureaucracy.

    Of course it’s wasteful. It’s the government. Only entrepreneurial guys like Trump know how to do everything the right way and for pennies.

  • Make do and mend

    Oh who needs to know anything about climate. It’s sunny, it’s raining, boom, you’re done.

    Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter.

    Tsss what hazards. A little snow or breeze never hurt anyone.

    From the start of his second term, the president has taken aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), slashing staff levels, canceling contracts and grants, and shutting down databases and research laboratories. The agency that has long been considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025.

    The National Weather Service, which is housed within Noaa, has also taken a hit. Weather stations have had to delay data collection and cut operating hours, with hundreds of meteorological and other technical positions still vacant across its 122 forecast offices.

    Ok so just make sure you always have a rain hat with you when you leave the house. Problem solved.

    This year’s super El Niño, a climate phenomenon characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface temperatures, has the ability to fuel extreme weather events around the world. It’s already climbing off the charts and is expected to strengthen through the northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter.

    Along with dangerous spikes in temperature, El Niño will supercharge storms in parts of the American west, raise sea levels in California by up to a foot, and set the stage for debris flows, landslides and flash floods.

    Ok add a shovel to the rainhat. You’ll be fine.

    Already, staffing limitations have shown up in delayed or limited weather balloon launches that left parts of the Great Plains unprepared for tornadoes and limited warnings to rural communities in Alaska, where more than 1,500 people were displaced by floods earlier this year.

    Um…I guess…have an inflatable raft with you at all times?

  • Only the clown shoes are omitted

    This is what I’ve been saying. It’s not just the huge fake tits.

    It’s the huge fake tits AND the cleavage AND the lipstick AND the revolting “beard” AND the smirk.

  • Large?

    The Telegraph on the giant boobies guy:

    An Oxford University college has been accused of neglecting the welfare of its female students by allowing a male lecturer to teach while wearing large prosthetic breasts.

    It’s interesting how the respectable media keep downplaying it. The breasts aren’t “large”; they’re absurdly grotesquely huge. “Large” could be an accident; grotesquely huge is a deliberate insult and taunt and dare. “Look at me, look at what I’m doing, I’m making fun of women and their stupid bodies, aren’t I hilarious?”

    St Hilda’s College has received complaints about Matt Rattley, a lecturer in biochemistry, but has cited the need to “protect and promote freedom of expression”.

    Really? If a lecturer dressed up as a penis or a turd or Al Jolson in blackface would St Hilda’s college protect that variety of freedom of expression? I don’t think so.

    It’s childishly evasive, is what it is. What this horrible man is doing is nothing to do with freedom of expression, it’s to do with freedom of insults and punching down. Manly men don’t like women cluttering up their famous Oxbridge so they get busy taunting and insulting those pesky female people with their tampons and tiny hands and giant breasts.

  • Wear your mittens

    AND ANOTHER THING.

    A small thing perhaps, but not all that insignificant.

    The cleavage. The another thing is the cleavage. I’ve mentioned the smirk, but what about the cleavage?

    Is that really how academics dress on the job? With dramatic cleavage? Do men teach in muscle shirts?

    I don’t think so. As I keep saying, they’re there to teach, not to flirt or solicit or parade. Matt Rattley is not Playing the Game, old chap.

  • All money belongs to him

    Trump doesn’t like it when other people do it. Other people are not Trump, so they don’t get to do it. If they do it, they have to give him a big cut. It’s only fair.

    Trump erupted last week after he learned that one of his former lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, secured a contract worth more than $50 million to work for a billionaire Venezuelan family.

    Angered at the size of Mrs. Mildon’s deal, Mr. Trump has told aides and allies that she should donate a portion of that money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity, according to multiple people briefed on the conversations.

    Size is everything! Don’t be telling us size doesn’t matter, it does!! Nobody gets to have a $50 million dollar deal unless that nobody’s name is Donald Trump.

    His fury came in response to reporting by The New York Times that Mrs. Mildon, while working as an adviser at the Justice Department, had signed on last year to serve as an extraordinarily well compensated general counsel for a company started by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, who at the time was seeking a pardon from Mr. Trump.

    Mr. Trump told at least one ally that the Herrera family should not pay out the rest of the contract, a message that got back to them, the people said.

    Did he spell out the reasons for that “should not”?

    Mrs. Mildon, who had served earlier as a personal lawyer to Mr. Trump and then briefly as U.S. attorney in New Jersey, signed a four-year contract, and it is unclear whether the family could terminate it early. Mr. Trump also called Mrs. Mildon to discuss the contract, but it is not known whether he explicitly asked her to make a donation or only suggested it to others.

    I have to wonder how a call like that goes. How he explains to people why he gets to say what contracts they can or cannot sign. How he replies when they tell him to fuck off.

    The contract calls for the Herrera family to pay Mrs. Mildon $10 million a year for four years along with a variety of bonuses. In total, including bonuses, she was guaranteed more than $50 million over four years, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times.

    Mrs. Mildon formally began her work for the family on Jan. 1. Weeks later, Mr. Trump granted Mr. Herrera a full and unconditional pardon for his misdemeanor campaign finance violation. Mr. Herrera had faced felony bribery charges but struck an unusually lenient plea deal in 2025. Mrs. Mildon previously said she played no role in Mr. Herrera’s pardon.

    And we absolutely totally believe her. Honor among thieves doncha know.

    In calls with allies last week, Mr. Trump raged about the scale of the contract and said he wanted Mrs. Mildon to give a portion of the money to one of his causes.

    I suppose his “thinking” here is that she got the contract because she had worked for Trump so she owes him a cut, kind of like the way the bank robber owes a cut to the driver of the getaway car.

    Mr. Trump has, at times, chafed against the idea that his advisers are making money by selling their access to him — and has lashed out at aides when their hefty consulting fees become public.

    Earlier this month, Mr. Trump distanced himself from two of his top advisers who are guiding the Republican Party’s midterm strategy after The Times reported that the men, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, were each paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide counsel to Republika Srpska, a pro-Russian Balkan government.

    All that money should be going to him! Any other outcome is shockingly immoral!

    After Mr. Trump’s public condemnation, Mr. Blair and Mr. LaCivita said they were donating the consulting fees they earned for advising the government to Mr. Trump’s presidential library fund.

    Mr. Trump suggested to reporters that he did not explicitly ask the two to make the donations.

    “They took the money and they gave it to essentially a charity,” he said, adding, “I think it was a very nice thing to do.”

    Yup uhuh that’s what it was, very nice, very nice and sweet and kind and lovely.

  • On the summit of Mindless Mountain

    Megan Rapinoe pulls up the ladder that she no longer needs.

    There is a reason that Megan Rapinoe only does interviews with people she knows won’t challenge her. It’s the only way the former soccer star won’t end up red-faced or storming off in a fit of rage. Her answers leave her too vulnerable. Her comments sit on the summit of Mindless Mountain.

    Her recent sit-down with comedian W. Kamau Bell proved as much.

    Among the topics the pair discussed was trans people in women’s sports, which Rapinoe has been a staunch advocate for. Here’s how it started.

    Bell: “There’s a lot of talk about how damaging trans women are to sports, so I give you credit for not being afraid to stand with trans people of all types, but also trans women in sports.”

    Rapinoe: “I am appalled, I think at just, like, the lack of basic humanity and empathy that people are showing and just the amount of fear and hate, and I just think the silence of athletes is a lot.”

    So Rapinoe would have been fine with it if a man had bumped her off a team? She would beam with humanity and empathy and not mind at all that he was taking the place she should have had?

    Excuse me for not believing it.

  • About the boob man

    Janet Murray writes:

    I’ve now been contacted by numerous people about the ‘Boob Man of Oxford’.

    Those who work or study at Oxford have asked for anonymity, so I can’t share identifying details.

    But some common themes have emerged:

    – Unsurprisingly, women describe feeling uncomfortable about a male lecturer wearing what appear to be oversized prosthetic breasts in their place of work or study

    – Some question whether there is a sexual element or whether it is a ‘power play’. These are their concerns, rather than established explanations for his behaviour – but are legitimate concerns nonetheless –

    They say they’re afraid to raise concerns because he is surrounded by ‘allies’, including staff, who defend his appearance as ‘self-expression’

    One source has even wondered whether this is an elaborate stunt to embarrass the university – along the lines of Josh Seiter, who pretended to be a trans woman as an ‘experiment’. Another source says this has been going on for three years – which does seem a long time to keep up the act.

    It also turns out that he doesn’t get paid.

    I suppose they want the prestige.

  • Wake up!

    Oh great, another way to mess up our one and only planet.

    Locals in a rural area of California were recently startled to see dazzlingly bright light shining down from nearby mountains at night, illuminating a swathe of the desert below.

    Unbeknown to them, the strange nocturnal illumination was the latest step in a company’s plan to erect thousands of giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight on to the Earth during night-time.

    What could possibly go wrong? Besides everything?

    A coalition of environmentalists and astronomers are far less excited about Reflect Orbital’s ambitions, however. These groups have criticized the company and the FCC for threatening a harmful change to the separation of night and day that will affect everything from people’s sleep to wildlife and the ability to see the stars from Earth.

    “This is an idiotic project,” said Jan Hasselman, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental group. “There are a huge number of unresolved questions and significant potential impacts. Literally all of life on Earth evolved based on the rhythm of day and night and there is a ton of data showing that messing with this is not a good idea.”

    Oh but darkness is dark. Ew. It’s much better to have bright light every hour of every day all year long. It’s also better to eat nothing but candy forever.

    In August, four groups represented by Earthjustice asked the FCC to reconsider its approval, citing concerns that opening up the skies to mirrored satellites, which would ascend to about 400 miles (645km) above the Earth’s surface before reflecting light back, would cause a litany of problems.

    Animals such as birds, insects and mammals rely on the reliable change between day and night to feed, shelter and mate, with any change to this being potentially disastrous for some species.

    Astronomers, meanwhile, have complained that this night-time glare would worsen existing light pollution and spur an overall rush to add more satellites to orbit – Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to place 1 million celestial datacenters around Earth – that will obscure the stars and cause more space debris that could descend as pollution back to our world.

    There are also concerns that the scrambling of night and day will harm people’s health by disrupting their circadian rhythms as they sleep. Looking directly at the unusual glaring sunlight at night would also, much like doing so during a solar eclipse, harm people’s eyes.

    Pff. Details. All that can be worked out later. Let’s do away with nighttime right now!

  • Bro you are Humbert

    Here’s a nice sharp photo of the school bus driver. Navel and thighs included, no extra charge.

  • He called his bus the Lolita Line

    Even more of This Kind of Thing.

    One, he’s male. Two, women bus drivers do not, repeat DO NOT dress like that. Ever. They wear uniform, and they do not wear skirts. Wearing a skirt as a bus driver would be extremely awkward and risky. A lot of physical jobs just plain require pants/trousers, because of the physical part. Skirts are not on the menu at all.

    Two, oh get out of here. Teeny pink dress? Kink stockings gartered above the knees? Pink shoosies? Get tf out of here. Trans shmans; get out.

  • Make way for the Islamophobia tsar

    The Free Speech Union writes:

    Angela Rayner is expected to appoint an “Islamophobia tsar” by the end of this week, to help enforce the Government’s “anti-Muslim hostility” definition — Islamophobia by another name.

    As the Free Speech Union warned from the outset, the definition has been used to silence people who criticise, debate or mock Islam. Those targeted include politicians such as Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy, Rupert Lowe and Robert Jenrick, as well as private citizens.

    It is a state-approved Islamic blasphemy code.

    Islam, like the other religions, is a set of ideas and imperatives. We human subjects must be free to question and criticize and reject any or all of those ideas and imperatives.

    Earlier this year, FSU Policy and Research Director David Rose exposed troubling connections between Islamist organisations and all five individuals the Government hand-picked to sit on the working group that drafted the definition.

    Now the Government is refusing to say which organisations took part in the consultation that shaped it. Nick Timothy MP submitted a Freedom of Information request and was initially told that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had deleted every submission — in apparent breach of the Government’s own data policy.

    The Department later admitted that it does hold the responses, but it still refuses to say which organisations or individuals took part and influenced the definition.

    What is the Government covering up? Did Islamists help to create a state-approved blasphemy code? Angela Rayner has serious questions to answer.

    What next? Letting the Vatican tell UKnians what they can and can’t say?

  • He’s surrounded by allies

    Janet Murray writes:

    I’ve now been contacted by numerous people about the ‘Boob Man of Oxford’.

    Those who work or study at Oxford have asked for anonymity, so I can’t share identifying details. But some common themes have emerged:

    • Unsurprisingly, women describe feeling uncomfortable about a male lecturer wearing what appear to be oversized prosthetic breasts in their place of work or study
    • Some question whether there is a sexual element or whether it is a ‘power play’. These are their concerns, rather than established explanations for his behaviour – but are legitimate concerns nonetheless
    • They say they’re afraid to raise concerns because he is surrounded by ‘allies’, including staff, who defend his appearance as ‘self-expression’

    STOP RIGHT THERE.

    Jesuschrist on a raft has everyone forgotten everything we all used to know? He’s not there to fucking express himself, he’s there to teach. Teach teach teach – ever heard of it? At a university? At, in fact, a fairly well-known university? Not a bible college in Alabama but a rather large institution in a town some 50 miles northwest of London? Dreaming spires and whatnot?

    Self-expression doesn’t matter. The self doesn’t matter. The ego doesn’t matter. Forget about it. Put it aside. Look outward, instead. Consider other people, people who are not you. Do justice to them first, then if there’s time left over you can preen yourself over your exquisite fascinating unique ego. Your job is to teach students, not to taunt and embarrass them with your gruesome mockery of female bodies. Do. your. job.

  • First Mech lecture

    Speaking of breasts…

    Janet Murray at UnCaptured informs us:

    A bearded Oxford lecturer has shared new photographs of him wearing prosthetic breasts – following criticism over professional standards.

    Biochemistry tutor Matt Rattley posted the lecture-theatre photograph on LinkedIn on 14 October, describing the students behind him as “my freshers for their first Mech lecture of the year”.

    Their first Mech lecture of the year, given by a huge man wearing huge fake breasts.

    What would have happened if he had given that lecture dressed up as a singer in blackface?

    Two days earlier, he shared a photograph wearing a fitted burgundy top alongside an update about the beginning of Oxford’s academic year.

    “First week is upon us in Oxford,” he wrote, adding that he had “already had a couple of teaching sessions” and would be meeting tutors later that day.

    The fitted burgundy top:

    Cold-blooded insulting mockery of women?

    Obviously.

  • To soothe the savage breast

    Who knew tigers liked music?

  • The joker

    Trump and his lackeys have found a new sadistic game.

    Over a 10-day period, the Trump administration sent more than 100 deportees from Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and other nations to eight countries across Africa, expanding its “third country” deportation campaign, according to internal U.S. government documents obtained by CBS News.

    Across Africa? Why not send them back to their own countries?

    Just kidding. We know why. The cruelty is not a mistake; the cruelty is their amusement.

    Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights, the government documents show, dropped off dozens of men and women expelled from the U.S. in Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

    None of the deportees were from the countries where they were deported, according to the documents. In addition to Afghans, Cubans and Nicaraguans, the ICE flights over the past week and a half included deportees from Iran, Nepal, Turkey and Venezuela, as well as African detainees who are not from the nations where they were sent.

    …

    More than 30 countries across the globe have agreed to receive such deportations from the U.S., including some in Latin America like Costa Rica, Panama and Paraguay. But a growing number of African countries have brokered third-country deportation deals with the Trump administration, including nations like the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, plagued by armed conflict, political tumult and human rights abuses.

    Pour encourager les autres to stay far far away from Trump’s US.

    The latest of three ICE flights to Africa dropped off detainees in Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, where longstanding armed conflict and Russian mercenaries have made the landlocked country one of the most dangerous in the world. A “Level 4” U.S. State Department advisory warns Americans to avoid traveling there for any reason, given widespread violence and insecurity.

    I get it that people can’t just immigrate to wherever they want, but Trump is a sadist.

  • But…………….

    The Guardian croons:

    UK government to give £15m to anti-misogyny fund amid ‘manosphere’ concerns

    The chancellor will give £15m to a dedicated fund to tackle misogyny in workplaces, schools and public places amid concerns in government about the rise of “manosphere” influencers.

    The women and equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson, will helm the UK-wide fund, announced last month, marking the first time there has been specific national cash to address misogyny.

    But Bridget Phillipson. She thinks some men are women. She thinks men are women if they say they are. What’s to stop her giving all the money to men who say they are women?

    Phillipson, who announced her misogyny prevention taskforce last month, said the fund’s aim was to educate and prevent everyday sexism.

    “Day to day misogyny – from sexist slurs and harassment to workplace discrimination – quite simply has no place in modern Britain,” she said, announcing the funding.

    “The time for talk has long passed, which is why this government is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting women and girls. This funding is a critical step as we work to confine misogyny to the history books, where it belongs.

    “Government is leading from the front, but we all have a role to play. Everyone – from big business to members of the public – can do their bit to stamp out misogyny and improve the lives of women and girls everywhere.”

    Unless they insist that men are women if they say they are.

    The chancellor, John Healey, who is expected to confirm the £15m in the budget on Wednesday, said: “Every woman and girl deserves to feel safe, respected and able to pursue their ambitions – at school, at work and in their communities.”

    But that’s not possible when the government insists that men who claim to be women really are women.

  • No you won’t

    Really? But she thinks men can be women. She thinks men who say they are women really are women, or at least she claims to think that. She encourages men to take everything that belongs to women, provided the men claim to be women. That is misogyny, in its most grotesque form to date.