Is this a joke?

President Trump wins inaugural Fifa Peace Prize

The guy who kills civilians in lifeboats wins a peace prize? The guy who responds to protests by sending soldiers to terrorize the protesters? The guy who is helping Putin gobble up Ukraine? The guy who cheers on violence provided it’s his team perpetrating it?

Trump is not a good symbol of peace or peace seeking or peacemaking.

Trump received the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize before the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup.

The award has been introduced this year by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, designated for a person who has “taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace” and “united people across the world”.

Description does not match perpetrator.

As well as receiving a large golden trophy, Trump was also given a medal and certificate by Infantino before making a speech.

Are we sure this is not a transcription of Trump’s diary?

Just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you – I’m at my employer’s other place, on the Monterey Peninsula, doing strenuous employee activity like taking a puppy out for walks. The internet connection is slow as frozen molasses in Greenland, so posting may be a bit sparse for a couple more days.

This morning while puppy was sleeping off the first morning walk I zoomed off to Asilomar State Beach, and there staring out at the ocean I saw little white puffs in the distance so I looked harder and you know what, I think they were whales blowing. I’ve never seen THAT before. I watched and watched, and there were a couple that just had to be that, so the others – not quite as distinct or high or emphatic – must have been too. Whales do hang around here, so it’s not a supernatural claim.

More on the ballroom saga – or should that be the ballsroom saga?

Trump has hired a new architect to oversee the construction of a vast ballroom at the White House, officials said.

Following reports that Trump had clashed with the previous architect, James McCrery, over the size and scope of the addition, the White House said architects Shalom Baranes Associates will take over the project. Mr McCrery will remain as a consultant.

Ah the size and scope. Do they think it’s too small and modest? Do they think it ought to be huger and more self-aggrandizing?

According to US media, Mr McCrery was concerned the ornate 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) project would overshadow the rest of the White House. The house where the president lives and entertains is 55,000 sq ft while the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and other work spaces, is 40,000 sq ft, according to the White House Historical Association.

Well of course it would – and will. It will be grotesque.

On Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill that would require NCPC approval before tearing down a historic federal building.

Blumenthal pledged that the bill, the No Palaces Act, “prevents future presidents from recklessly destroying historic sites like the East Wing without approval from the independent National Capital Planning Commission or consideration from Congress.”

Door potentially closed. Horse long gone over the horizon.

When in doubt, punish the nearest women. Don’t ask any questions about who did what to whom, just punish the nearest women. It saves time in the end.

Bristol city council has banned two gender-critical women from stepping foot in City Hall after they asked Green Party councillors if the Supreme Court judgment on trans identity was “offensive or transphobic”.

The council alleged the questioning of the two councillors in the public lobby after a heated council meeting last month, in which Green councillors staged walkouts and held trans rights placards, was carried out “in a way that they found intimidating”.

Did they though? Or did they just say they found it intimidating?

Men don’t usually find women talking back intimidating. They find it outrageous, yes, but intimidating, no. Broadly speaking, men are not fearful of women’s voices.

The council has banned Wendy Stephenson, chair of the council’s independent remuneration panel, and Phoebe Beedell, a retired academic researcher, from attending any council meetings for six months because of their “unacceptable behaviour”.

But Greens staging walkouts is not unacceptable behaviour?

A number of “trans activist” placards were raised by Green councillors during a full council meeting on November 4 whenever a member of the public asked a question about women’s safety and the council’s criticism of the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case that “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act refer to sex at birth.

The placards read “trans women are women”, “trans men are men”, “protect the dolls” [a reference to hyperfeminine trans women], “trans rights are human rights”, “trans is beautiful” and “trans people always have and always will exist”.

In short the placards brandished the usual collection of falsehoods and flattery.

Trans journalist: not a real journalist.

He writes things. Nobody pays him to do so. He’s not a journalist.

Ah the good old days.

President Donald Trump uploaded a series of wistful posts on Thursday evening that included photos of a younger Trump standing next to celebrities, civil rights leaders, musicians and artists during “the good old days,” some of whom he said no longer want to spend time with him.

Well, Don, think about why that might be.

I can just tell you why: it’s because you’re a bad man who does bad things. It’s also because you’re not a good (or wise or amusing) man who does good (or wise or amusing) things. Sensible people don’t want to spend time with you because you do harm and because you’re not quality company.

Breaking from his line of Truth Social posts earlier in the day about immigrant-related conspiracy theories, Trump appeared to end his Thursday by reflecting on bygone encounters with left-leaning cultural figures, including artist Andy Warhol, Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and singer James Brown. His apparent fondness for a time in which he was friendlier with creatives and activists contrasted with his ongoing campaign as president to topple arts institutions and wage war against political figures who oppose his agenda.

Trump followed his post on Thursday featuring Sharpton, Jackson and Brown with a photo of himself and Warhol walking alongside a horse as Trump holds its reins.

“Donald Trump talks with Andy Warhol as he holds the bridle of a polo pony, Nov. 4, 1983,” read the photo’s description, written by social media poster MythoMAGA. “Trump was often seen at Studio 54, the infamous New York celebrity club.”

Warhol met with Trump on several occasions in the early 1980s, when Trump attempted to commission a painting from Warhol to hang over the entrance to a residential portion of his Trump Tower, which was still under construction. Their relationship soured, however, when Trump rejected Warhol’s paintings for not being color-coordinated and never paid for them, according to The Andy Warhol Diaries, a published collection of the late artist’s personal journals.

Well, yes, that will sour things.

Over the next few years, after the commission fell through, Warhol repeatedly expressed disdain for the Trumps. When he was invited to judge cheerleading tryouts at Trump Tower in 1984, he slighted them by intentionally showing up late.

“It was the first tryout, and I was supposed to be there at 12:00 but I took my time and went to church and finally moseyed over there around 2:00. This is because I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower,” he wrote.

Poor lonesome Don.

Hmmm.

One of the arguments defense officials have been quietly pushing in response to heavy criticism of the killing of the two survivors in a second strike on 2 September, is that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup.

But Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the GOP chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted to CNN this morning that he didn’t see evidence of the men on the boat trying to use a radio to call for help.

He went on to defend the second strike, saying:

They were clearly not incapacitated. They were not distressed.

They were trying to get the boat back up and to continue their mission of spreading these drugs all across America.

That’s what they were doing and that’s why Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike.

They were not distressed?

Whether you interpret that as the ordinary “unhappy” meaning or the narrower meaning of in distress/in trouble/in danger – how can you possibly think they weren’t it?

Jill Lepore has a good essay in the New Yorker on living in trumpworld.

Peer into the dark. Earlier this fall, Trump reposted on Truth Social a four-minute news clip generated by A.I. The clip purported to be a segment from Lara Trump’s Fox News show, reporting on Trump’s announcement of the launch of “medbeds . . . designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength” at special hospitals about to open all over the country. Medbeds, which can cure all ailments and reverse aging, appear regularly in science fiction. (Think of the “biobeds” in the “Star Trek” sick bay.) They began featuring in online conspiracy theories in the early twenty-twenties; QAnoners claim that medbeds exist, and have existed for years, and that the rich and powerful use them (and that J.F.K. himself is on one, still alive), and that soon Trump will liberate them for use by the rest of us, as if Trump were Jesus opening the gates of Heaven and medbeds eternal life.

Take out your flashlight and ask the inevitable question: Is there any precedent for a President of the United States doing such a thing? Is American history any guide to understanding why Trump, or someone on his staff, posted (and soon afterward deleted) a fake video about a nonexistent news report concerning a fictional miracle cure, an episode whose political significance strikes me as asymptotically approaching zero?

I missed that. I’m ignoring much of Trump news, because I’m a brat.

Even if early American Presidents had wanted to speak directly to the public, they would have found it exceedingly difficult, not to mention exhausting. But, with the rise of railroads, travelling to meet your constituents soon got easier. John Tyler went on a thirteen-day tour in 1843, during which he made seventeen speeches. Trump, of course, likes to make speeches, too, and for hours on end. But the likeness ends there because, to be clear, Tyler did not use the occasion to tout patent medicines. After the Civil War, Presidents travelled more, not least because they had to try to stitch the country back together. That meant, in particular, touring the South. In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes went on a speaking tour, whereupon an account was published that included every word he said, titled “The President’s Tour South. A Triumphal March Through the ‘Solid South.’ Enthusiastic Reception of the President and Cabinet at All Points Along the Journey. Speeches, Sayings and Doings of Those Who Participated in the Ovation to the President.” And, still, he hawked neither gold coins with his face stamped on them nor silver ones.

Yes but who remembers him now?

Historians will need to account for Trump when, as Gerald Ford said when he succeeded Nixon, “our long national nightmare is over.” Analogies won’t help them. Because nothing in American history anticipates or explains the way Trump speaks to his supporters at his rallies—or his use of Twitter, between 2015 and 2021, and Truth Social, beginning in 2022. He riffs; he cusses; he dodges; he weaves; he raises money; he spreads lies. He is lurid and profane. He targets his political opponents, threatening them with prosecution, prison, and execution. He is the world’s most outspoken troll, and its most dangerous. He posts day and night, about everything from taco bowls to possible ceasefires. He is getting worse. In his second term, he has posted three times as often as he did during his first. Tonally, nearly everything he posts is unhinged, even when it’s a simple endorsement or amplification of a policy, like tariffs:

THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!

Maybe, and maybe not.

Ugh.

This is indeed magic.

OJ is very sarcastic about women’s rights.

Boys booted out of Girlguiding – I’m not seeing the problem. Girlguiding is for girls. There are organizations for children and adolescents of both sexes, and there are organizations for one or the other sex. That’s ok; we can do that.

We probably ought to do that. It’s just a fact that humans are sexually dimorphic and that male humans have a lot of physical advantages over female humans. That’s not the case for all animals, but it is for humans. If we female humans had had a vote we would have voted for “make us equal in strength!!” but we didn’t. Nobody consulted us. Nobody consulted men either. Who knows? Maybe men would have preferred equal strength too. It must have its downsides, being the physically dominant sex. Being subject to the draft is a biggy.

But we didn’t have a choice. It is what it is and we’re stuck with it. Given that fact, it is permissible for girls and women to meet without any boys and men around. It’s permissible and it’s not an injustice. Men should not try to get around it by claiming to be trans women.

She “thinks” in slogans and blurts.

Is there a “right” to change sex? No, just as there is no “right” to fly like a bird or live underwater or run faster than a cheetah. It’s absurd to blather about rights to do the impossible.

Trans people have human rights. Nobody says they don’t. Trans people don’t have a right to force us all to agree with their fictions. It’s pretty simple.

Originally a comment by maddog on Utmost regret and sadness.

Never mind that WI can celebrate and fawn over the completely ignored part of the “transgender communinny,” the transgender people who are actually women, i.e., the “trans men.”

They wail and gnash their teeth about how tragic and unfair it is to make them exclude “trans women,” who are men, and pretend that the new landscape forces them to discriminate against the “trans communinny,” as if there weren’t an existing component of the “trans communinny” who actually belong in the Women’s Institute: the women who so deeply feel the oppression of women that they seek to escape it by pretending to be men.

The Women’s Institute can be incloosive of the trans communinny by welcoming the trans people who actually are women, but no, they ignore the women’s branch of the trans communinny as if it doesn’t exist.

Transgender ideology is a men’s rights movement.

Ashley Louise James is resigning as Girlguiding ambassador.

Yes, these spaces make a difference to girls. What about these spaces makes a difference to girls? The fact that they don’t include boys. Boys can bully or intimidate or out-compete girls in ways that are generally out of reach to girls. That means girls need to be away from boys at times in order to do their best work.

The fact that boys are every bit as bright, joyful and deserving as any other child is beside the point. The point is that boys are not every bit as strong as girls: they are stronger.

It’s not entirely true that boys who claim to be trans girls, and their families, never asked to be part of the “culture wars” over whether or not it’s fair for boys and men to invade all spaces for girls and women on the pretext that they are trans. Nobody forced them to invade all spaces for girls and women on the pretext that they are trans. Lots of people asked them not to.

The thing is, the unfairness of it is obvious. The pro-trans ideology team pretends it isn’t, but of course it is. Why are there not women clamoring to be included in men’s football? Everybody knows why. Now apply that to all the sports.

The fact that the trans communinny simply want to live their lives, be included, and have access to safe, supportive spaces shows that they know the girls’ side is safer and more supportive – and they want to help themselves to that. By doing so, they make it much less safe and supportive for its original members – the girls. Girls are not shields for boys.

Thank heaven for little girls, yeah?

The Telegraph on the WI ructions:

The Women’s Institute (WI) has banned transgender women from becoming members.

The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI), the WI’s umbrella organisation, revealed on Wednesday that, in light of a Supreme Court judgment on gender, it could not legally offer formal membership to biological males from April 2026.

Pathetic that they want to offer membership to males. It’s not the Men’s Institute.

The announcement by the WI – the UK’s largest women’s membership organisation – has prompted calls for public bodies to also comply with the Supreme Court ruling. Many have refused to change their policies and prevent trans women from using women’s facilities, such as toilets and changing rooms.

They have said they are waiting for Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities, to publish updated guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality watchdog.

Oh get a grip. It’s not rocket science. Yes, people have been erecting a huge edifice of lies and absurdities for the past ten-plus years, but the lies and absurdities are just that. Put them aside.

Rosie Duffield MP, who sits on the Commons women and equalities select committee, said: “I am really glad that finally the Women’s Institute has seen sense and realised that they exist primarily as a women’s organisation. It’s time other bodies, such as the NHS, the Civil Service and gym groups, followed their lead, and the law.”

Damn right.

Ms Green, of the NFWI, said the future of the charity relied on acting on the Supreme Court’s judgment.

She said: “As an organisation that has proudly welcomed transgender women into our membership for more than 40 years, this is not something we would do unless we felt that we had no other choice. To be able to continue operating as the Women’s Institute – a legally recognised women’s organisation and charity – we must act in accordance with the Supreme Court’s judgment and restrict formal membership to biological women only. However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women.”

Well don’t brag about it. You might as well brag about your firm belief that a large man in red pajamas comes down your chimney every December 24th.

The announcement from the WI follows confirmation from Girlguiding leaders on Tuesday that the organisation had made “the difficult decision” to prevent biological boys from becoming members.

Oh dear oh dear it’s so difficult to decide not to let boys be members of an organization for girls. The fact that the boys have their own organization is entirely beside the point.

The Beaumont Society, the longest-established transgender support group in the UK, said of the decision of the NFWI and Girlguiding: “This is a backward step in both the law and in society and will, in time be found to be as unsupportable as similar pseudosciences such as vaccines causing autism, or phrenology, or polygenism or injecting bleach to cure Covid.”

Wut? We’re the pseudoscience? Magic gender is as scientificky as not injecting bleach to cure anything?

Helen Belcher, Chair of the TransActual campaign group, accused the Government of allowing the ECHR to “impose the most extreme interpretation of the supreme court ruling”.

She said: “This is the second national charity in as many days which has been pushed to force out trans people, against the organisation’s will and at great cost. If these changes must be forced on organisations, then it’s clear this is the result of a handful of extremists imposing their views on groups which have been very happily trans inclusive for many years if not decades.

The reversal yet again. We’re the extremists, we’re imposing our doolally beliefs on everyone else.

Can we speed up the recovery a little?

Even more weeping and wailing about no longer being able to let men into organizations for women. The Graun:

The Women’s Institute will no longer accept transgender women as members from April following the UK supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, the Guardian can reveal.

Melissa Green, the chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, said the organisation had taken the decision with the “utmost regret and sadness”, adding it had “no choice” but to exclude trans women from its membership.

“Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year,” Green said. “But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.”

Utmost regret n sadness, inCREDibly sadly, our firm belief that men are women doesn’t change. What is WRONG with these people?

Membership of the 110-year-old organisation will be restricted to those who are registered female at birth, with new members or those renewing expected to confirm that they meet the criteria.

That’s because it’s the Women’s Institute and always has been.

Green said the organisation wanted trans women to remain “part of the WI family” and that from April it would launch new “sisterhood groups”, open to all and which would be “a place where we will recognise transgender women as women and explore what it is to be a woman in the 21st century”.

In other words Green said, no doubt proudly, that the organisation would continue to insult and abuse women for the sake of being inclooosive of men.

In 2023, the WI said it would continue to “celebrate” the lives of the transgender women enriching its membership, after reports it was facing an attempt by an internal group to overturn inclusive policy – in place since the 1970s and made official in 2015 – which allows transgender members to join the organisation of more than 175,000 members.

Inclusive inclusive inclusive. Shut up with your inclusive. Not everything has to be inclusive. Being inclusive is NOT A GOOD THING in all cases and circumstances. It’s not good to be inclusive of bosses in labor unions. Not good to be inclusive of pyromaniacs in the Fire Department. Not good to be inclusive of high school dropouts on the surgical team at your local hospital. Many forms of groups and teams and organizations have specific criteria for membership and that is not only allowed but necessary.

Green said that while some would welcome the decision she was aware it would also prompt “anger, sadness and disappointment”. The organisation said it had “a large transgender population” in its membership, but did not have exact numbers of how many people would have to leave.

Men. How many men would have to leave. Note the Guardian helping Green to lie about this. Note how pervasive that sloppy annoying trick is.

“My hope is that the message that the transgender community gets from this is not one of betrayal, but is one of our desire to continue to maintain those friendships and that support,” she said. “This has been a very difficult year for everybody, particularly for the transgender community, but I hope that when that anger subsides the transgender community will know that we stand with them.”

Why is she so passionately embracey of the tranzgenner communniny and so disdainful of the women communniny when it’s a women’s organization she’s at the top of which?

On Wednesday, the WI will tell its members – who are part of 5,000 independent local WIs – of the decision in a statement, which reads: “It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that from April 2026 we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women.”

So the WI will take pains to insult and belittle its own membership. Women at the top of an organization for women will go out of their way to cuddle men while kicking women in the teeth. Might as well rename it Misogyny Institute.

The Guardian version:

Trans girls will no longer be able to join Girlguiding, the organisation has announced, saying it has made the decision after seeking legal advice as a result of the supreme court ruling on gender earlier this year.

Blahblah. The question is why were boys allowed to join in the first place? What’s the point of having Girl Guides if you let boys join? This business of boys joining relies on the presence of girls, after all. If all the girls leave then what are they left with? Another thing for boys. Don’t they have enough yet?

The statement from the top people

added that Girlguiding “believed strongly in inclusion” and would continue to support young people and adults in marginalised groups through a new taskforce.

But if your goal is inclusion then you should never have had Girl Guides in the first place. It should have been just Guides. Open to girls and boys, women and men, big and small, cats and dogs, goats and sheep, elephants and lions.

What they mean of course is inclusion where possible, inclusion where it makes sense, inclusion of people the organization is meant for. They don’t mean inclusion of everyone and everything – so why bring it up at all?

Because it’s manipulative, that’s why. It makes people feel guilty. It makes it sound as if Girl Guides is excluding clumsy girls, malnourished girls, girls without money, girls with the wrong accent, girls who don’t own a tennis racket. But excluding boys from a group for girls is not like excluding girls without money or expensive clothes. It’s like excluding adults, or professional athletes, or serial killers. Some exclusions are necessary, and not all inclusions are safe or fair or reasonable.

Girlguiding had been facing legal action from a parent over its policy allowing transgender girls to join as members and trans women to volunteer in roles reserved for women, claiming it “exposes girls to harassment”, the Times reported.

Its policy allowing trans members was introduced to some criticism in 2018, but Girlguiding defended its decision by saying: “Simply being transgender does not make someone more of a safeguarding risk than any other person.”

Same old cheap trick. Yes we know that; the point is that being male does make someone more of a safeguarding risk.

Ew. Yet another horrible man I didn’t know about.

It’s a bit late to stop buying Harry Potter.

More seriously, what horseshit. No we’re not “wealthy.” No this is not plutocrats grinding the faces of the poor. What an idiotic thing to say. Trans ideology is not progressive or socialist or socialist-adjacent or leftwing in any other way. It’s an absurdity adopted by a lot of gullible wannabe radicals who don’t know their ass from their elbow.

“some isolated billionaire”? Meaning JKR? Jeez, we should all be so isolated. More centrally, we’re not talking about “a little girl” here, we’re talking about boys who pretend to be girls and want to invade Girlguides. It’s not sheer, pointless cruelty to tell boys no, they can’t invade Girguides. The pointless cruelty would be allowing them to.

Apparently the Ness guy writes books. I look forward to not reading them.

She’s right.

From the start, a key tactic of the gender identitarians has been linguistic prescription, and it’s proved shockingly successful. Trans activists’ shibboleths and euphemisms have been allowed to penetrate the upper echelons of our culture with devastating consequences to freedom of speech and belief. Huge swathes of liberal media, the arts, academia and publishing have thrown themselves with gusto into the defence of a quasi-religious belief causing provable real world harm, and in their arrogance they’ve been outraged when people they assumed were part of their In Group have refused to march meekly along in lock step.

Time and again, I’ve seen and heard well-educated people who consider themselves critical thinkers and bold truth-tellers squirm when put on the spot. ‘Well, yes, maybe there’s something in what you’re saying, but it’s hateful/provocative/rude not to use the approved language/pretend people can literally change sex/keep drawing attention to medical malpractice or opportunistic sexual predators. Why can’t you be nice? Why won’t you pretend? We thought you were one of us! Don’t you realise we have sophisticated new words and phrases these days that obviate the necessity of thinking any of this through?’

I actually have an answer to these questions. Why can’t I be nice? I’ll tell you why. Because this whole campaign is so ridiculous, so insulting to our intelligence, so destructive to women’s rights, so stupid, that in its presence niceness shrivels and disappears in an instant, like a drop of water on a red-hot stove burner.

Either a man can be a woman, or he can’t. Either women deserve rights, or they don’t. Either there’s a provable medical benefit to transitioning children, or there isn’t. Either you’re on the side of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose falsehoods on society through the threat of ostracisation, shaming and violence, or you’re not. The alternative to being ‘blunt’ – using accurate, factual language to describe what was going on – was to surrender freedom of speech and espouse ideological jargon that obfuscated the issues and the harms caused. We’ve always needed blunt people, but we need them most of all when being asked to bow down to a naked emperor.

Corporal Blunt here, at your service.