Hmmm yeah people don’t get to declare other people’s countries’ airspace closed. That’s not how that works.

Trump said on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety”, but gave no further details as Washington ramps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

A fool shouting something on social media is just a fool shouting something on social media.

What he means is that he’s planning to shoot down planes in Venezuelan air space. He’s not allowed to do that either.

U.S. forces in the region have so far focused on counter-narcotics operations, although the assembled firepower far outweighs anything needed for them.

They have carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, killing at least 83 people.

Also illegal.

It’s called escalation.

A judge has told a non-binary health worker who tried to sue their NHS Trust over being ‘deadnamed’ and ‘mis-pronouned’ that they should not have been so offended.

Using preferred pronouns to live as non-binary does not have the same protected status as reassigning sex, employment judge Ann Nicola Benson found.

Ooooooooooh you’re not allowed to say that. Living as non-binareee is SACRED and nobody is allowed to say it’s not as anything as anything else.

The case was brought against Cheshire and Wirral NHS Foundation Trust and six staff members by Haech Lockwood, a cognitive behavioural therapist.

Rilly? Who wants cognitive anything from an egocentric loon?

‘We therefore find that the claimant does not have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment,’ the judgement added.

Among the claims from Lockwood, who was born female and was previously known as Heather, were that they were referred to as ‘her’ on a series of IT servicedesk tickets and as ‘she’ or ‘her’ by colleagues during several interactions.

They were also sent employment contracts with their ‘deadname’, despite having changed it by deed poll and having previously brought grievances about similar issues.

Babe, nobody cares. Nobody has the time or attention to keep track of your boutique idenniny. We’re busy with other things. How about you get busy with other things yourself.

‘All staff involved demonstrated a real intention to do their best to ensure they get it right going forward and propose and, in most cases, put in place positive steps to achieve this,’ the judgement found.

Despite this, Lockwood would not accept an apology unless it showed a ‘deep understanding’ of the impact it had on them. And they demanded an apology from the IT team, instead of the apology on its behalf that had been issued.

‘We consider that the apologies given by every member of the Trust were genuine and heartfelt, and such as to seek to ensure the claimant’s concerns were appreciated and understood by them,’ judge Benson wrote. ‘It is unfortunate that the claimant was unwilling to accept them as such and take such an inflexible stance.’

Which is why it’s a mistake to humor this bullshit at all ever. Just say no, or you’ll be bogged down in absurd quarrels for the foreseeable future.

One of the complaints related to an IT ticket Lockwood received after flagging an issue on July 5, 2023, which used the pronoun ‘her’ to describe them.

Lockwood responded to say the misgendering had left them distressed, and the IT technician immediately emailed to apologise, changed the pronoun ‘her’ to ‘their’ and left a note for the next person so they would be aware of Lockwood’s non-binary status.

The tribunal found that Lockwood had not told the IT technician of their non-binary status when they made the call, and the technician had taken steps to remedy the situation at the time.

‘Although the claimant says that it was not up to them to, for example, tell someone their pronouns, that takes away their opportunity to influence the environment and educate colleagues as to the environment they seek to create – particularly where the social norms are binary, and there are such a small number of non binary people in the organisation,’ the judge said. ‘The claimant approach has, as indicated by one of the witnesses, been unforgiving.’

Of course it has, because that’s the fun of it. Fuss fuss fuss pay attention to me me me no not that way but a different way, and more, and better, according to me, look at me now and also tomorrow and forever. That’s how you be a good ally.

To the surprise of no one, Trump is doing what Trump does.

Trump is doubling down on the aggressive anti-immigration policies that helped deliver him a second term, launching an interagency federal investigation into the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, while also directing his administration to take steps to stem migration into the US.

In the hours following the shooting, an emboldened Trump addressed the American public. He painted a picture of a country overrun with “cuckoo” and “unvetted” migrants and he vowed a crackdown to expel them from the country and “permanently pause migration” from others – a priority he’s centered in his return to the Oval Office.

…

Hours later, the president intensified his rhetoric, calling for what he described as “reverse migration.”

“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” Trump said in a lengthy post to social media late Thursday evening, adding that he would “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”

And how are we defining asset? Is Trump an asset? What are the criteria?

From SEEN in Journalism:

We’ve contacted BBC Scotland about the trigger warning, or ‘content signposting’, on Scotcast with Naomi Cunningham.

The use of signposts on content based on the reality of sex is unique in this debate.

We’re pleased that Scotcast conducted and published this interview even though the other side did not respond to an invitation.

This is in line with Editorial Guidelines: items must not be vetoed because one side does not take part.

However having to ‘empty chair’ the other side does not justify repeated content warnings, which imply potential offence, abuse, discrimination, extreme or hateful speech or misogyny.

We’ve asked the BBC never to use trigger warnings for ‘gender critical’ content again, unless it’s also prepared to add them to every article which describes people as if they were the opposite sex, which could equally be considered offensive or discriminatory.

That would go a long way to establishing fairness, balance and consistency, while also protecting presenters, who can be very exposed on this issue.

We’ve also asked them to support programme teams and presenters editorially by producing fact checks on which they can draw, concerning biological sex and related issues.

Belief in gender identity should never be presented as equivalent to the understanding that sex is a reality. This does not prevent any presenter legitimately explaining that people do have a range of alternate beliefs.

As the BBC moves towards neutrality on this issue, its presenters specifically are vulnerable to the sort of vitriol from activists that women have suffered for years.

Guidelines are needed from the top to ensure that they are editorially protected and able to conduct their work with the accuracy and impartiality required.

No more trigger warnings on reality-based content around sex and gender. They are not necessary, and they frame ‘gender critical views’ as outside appropriate and socially acceptable discourse.

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Who just went along with it.

I’ve heard working-class women come out very strongly for “the ideology”. I’ve heard a female friend saying that she would have no issue with sharing a changing room with a trans-identified male, even if he still had male genitalia.

Perhaps this is an illustration of how memes work, right? There is this idea that a female mind (and mind is ill-defined) can be trapped in a male body, and since it’s the male mind that is most likely to commit sexual abuse then such women feel safe with an intact male who has a female mind in their space. So, for Brian Wu to go in and trade lipstick tips, well that’s just being “one of the gang.”

I think that the second issue that’s blocking people from thinking skeptically is the association that people have cultivated between right-wing ideology and being anti-trans. So, any sort of objection to men in womanface in women’s restrooms is dismissed as being MAGA or UKIP. Also, I see people making the ludicrous suggestion that if their only goal is to molest women, they wouldn’t go through the whole womanface thing. A rule isn’t a barrier.

The third is that skeptics skew left politically and there are many topics which left-leaning people adopt prima facie and that is the idea that the transgender experience is as much a natal characteristic as is sexuality. If one can be born gay, lesbian, or bisexual, then it is very much the same thing to be born trans or enby. Questioning that is as bigoted as questioning any other innate characteristic. And the problem is that by adopting this uncritically, bystanders who lean left follow along.

I don’t know how much sociology is taught in secondary education, and I took it as an elective back in the 1970’s; but we learned very clearly the difference between sex and gender roles. We learned that even though gender roles are founded on sex difference, they varied from society to society. My anthropology course confirmed that. Logically from that, I do not see how gender identity can be innate. It’s not a leap to understand how certain aspects of personality are innate, so that if someone has preferences that are considered to be more characteristic of the other sex one might be scorned for acting on those preferences. Suppression of those preferences might express as a sexual fetish in a Freudian world, and as we know, gender is a trap that reduces our options for expression. My impression is based on several courses in psychology, even though I am not a trained psychologist. But my conclusion is that by tying gender directly to sex in a way that leads people to believe that they will be whole by modifying (here used as a synonym for mutilating) their body to match the appearance of the gender whose roles one prefers to express, is a result of toxic masculinity and a symptom of regression. It is an affirmation of the gender trap, rather than a refutation of it.

Things have gotten so tangled and gnarled that those who would prefer to express as androgynous now call themselves “Non-binary” and that is considered a third choice on the forms where we report our sex. I think that the “Free to be, you and me” program was a great start in attacking the gender trap, but it seems to have been abandoned. Sociobiology from the seventies and eighties, and evolutionary psychology in the current century, seem to create the meme that sex and gender are irrevocably intertwined and that to have feminine characteristics a male must be truly female, and vice versa.

I don’t think that most of those good-meaning people who “support transgender kids” hate girls or women consciously. I don’t think they are stupid. I do recognize that many men who demean women as “ugly TERFS” hate women and find this another issue on which they can shout women down and tell them they are stupid and ugly. But for the large part, those who adopt the ugly adaptation of the rainbow flag do so out of a desire to be more inclusive, and the meme has replaced their skeptical thought patterns on this issue.

Last weekend I came out as being pro-Title IX at an atheist meeting and was being shouted down by someone who demanded to know if I know anyone who takes cross-sex hormones. I know that person doesn’t hate women, and I know she considers herself a skeptic. But, I think she was infected by the transgender meme.

Jump to conclusions much?

Trump vowed on Thanksgiving to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations in a blistering late-night, anti-immigrant screed posted to social media.

The extended rant came in the wake of the Wednesday shooting of two National Guard members who were deployed to patrol Washington, D.C., under Trump’s orders, one of whom died shortly before the president spoke to U.S. troops by video on Thursday evening.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War is facing charges for the shooting. The suspect emigrated as part of a program to resettle those who has helped American troops after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One Afghan national faces charges for a shooting. One. Not a hundred, not fifty, not ten, but one. Does it make sense to ban all Afghan nationals as a result? It seems unlikely, seeing as how Trump doesn’t rush to deport, say, all Americans, even though there have been mass shootings carried out by Americans in recent years.

The Society of Authors is hemorrhaging members.

A number of writers have quit the Society of Authors after the literary union was accused of failing to defend members, The Telegraph can disclose.

The literary union, which has around 12,000 members, has been at the centre of a series of “cancel culture” rows involving Sir Philip Pullman, Kate Clanchy and Rachel Rooney.

Critics have also accused the union of failing to defend prominent authors, including JK Rowling, who were attacked over their gender-critical views.

Which is to say, their views that men are not women.

Now members of the society’s management group have quit over its perceived failure to speak out against cancel culture. The union has also been accused of failing to bring in reforms to ensure it does not become partisan in national debates such as the trans rights controversy.

Is the problem being partisan? Or is it being on Team Irrational while abusing members who know that men are not women? The “trans rights controversy” boils down to Deranged Fiction That Pretends Men Can Be Women versus sane people. Is that really partisan? If a coterie of nutcases decided humans can fly by deploying their wings, would it be partisan to say no we can’t?

There has been growing frustration that the Society of Authors has refused to apologise for its role in a spate of literary cancellations in recent years.

Among them was the case of [Kate] Clanchy, who was ostracised by fellow writers and effectively dropped by Picador, her publisher, after she was accused of using racist language in her book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me.

The Orwell Prize-winning author has claimed that she was told to apologise by Chocolat author Joanne Harris, the society’s then chairman.

Sir Philip, the author of His Dark Materials, sought to defend Ms Clanchy in his capacity as president of the society by comparing her critics to the Taliban.

Ms Harris then apologised for Sir Philip’s remarks, stating that the society deplored “racism and prejudice in all its forms”.

Including the forms that are non-existent.

It’s interesting and sad that Pullman was right about this one and so wrong about trans ideology.

Aaaand there it is – the Central Park 5 writ large.

Trump says U.S. to ‘permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries’ after DC shooting

[Note the bonehead mistake. You can’t “permanently pause” something. It’s one or the other, not both. A pause is temporary by definition.]

Trump on Thursday announced sweeping plans to tighten immigration rules, including a suspension on migration from “Third World Countries” and cancellation of all federal benefits and subsidies to “noncitizens” in the country.

Of course he did. One, he’s too dense to grasp that one murder doesn’t establish anything about all people from whatever he chooses to consider third world countries. Two, he’s more than evil enough to punish millions or billions of people for an act by one person.

The president said he would also terminate “millions” of admissions under his predecessor Joe Biden and remove “anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country.”

Trump added he plans to end all federal benefits and subsidies for noncitizens, “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility,” and deport any foreign national he described as a “public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

What will the test be for people “incapable of loving our Country”? By many measures he’s incapable of loving the US. It’s way too various for his taste.

Oh Thomas.

Is he not aware that wrongful or targeted or political prosecutions and imprisonments have been a leftwing cause for generations? Is he not aware that the police can get it wrong, that prosecutors can get it wrong, that judges can get it wrong, that juries can get it wrong? Can and do?

Yes, bro. Some “convicted criminals” are our heroes.

Does the name “Nelson Mandela” ring a bell?

Sacco and Vanzetti?

Joe Hill?

Is Thomas Willett a spy for the secret police?

The invader reminds us he’s not doing all this for the hell of it. If he doesn’t profit what was any of it for?

Vladimir Putin has said that the outline of a draft peace plan discussed by the US and Ukraine could serve as a basis for future negotiations to end the war – but insisted Ukraine would have to surrender territory for any deal to be possible.

It’s like when you rob a bank, or a woman walking down the street. You do it because you want their money. If you don’t get any money, you’re not going to stop, are you. You’re there for a reason.

Speaking to reporters during a working visit to Kyrgyzstan, Putin said Russia would halt its offensive only if Ukrainian forces withdrew from unspecified areas currently under Kyiv’s control. “If Ukrainian troops leave the territories they occupy, then we will stop fighting,” he said. “If they don’t, we will achieve our aims militarily.”

Of course he said that. He’s not there because he got confused. He’s there to grab as much of Ukraine as he can. Stalin would be proud of him. Trump is proud of him.

The anticipation is intense.

It’s SO VERY Euan to 1 use a tiresome cliche and 2 get the tiresome cliche wrong. Where exactly do you place the dot on the T? Except it’s not the T, it’s the t, because the dot on the i is not on the I. Two stupid blunders in one six-word semi-sentence.

Also, he’s cheerfully telling us his previous work was sloppy. You don’t say.

Michael Deacon at the Telegraph asks an important question:

How did something as self-evidently bonkers as trans ideology gain such a powerful grip over our society?

Or to put it another way, how did and do so many adults manage to believe, or act as if they believe, such a self-evidently bonkers claim?

(Which claim? The claim that sex is not in the body but the mind; that people can be the opposite of the sex they obviously are; that sex is a matter of idenniny as opposed to fact; that genitalia have nothing to do with which sex a person is. That claim.)

Over our politics, our universities, the BBC and countless other institutions? Funnily enough, the people I blame most are not the fanatics who actually believe in this nonsense – for the simple reason that there are, in reality, very few of them.

No, I think the real blame lies with a group of people who are rather more numerous. That is: the cowards who just went silently along with it all, or even pretended to believe in it, because they didn’t dare speak out.

But we don’t know, do we. It’s another black box. We don’t know how many are just obeying as opposed to genuinely believing. We can’t tell. The perps have arranged it so that we can’t tell.

To be clear, I’m not having a go at ordinary people in ordinary jobs. I’m talking about the cowards who are rich and successful: big-name figures in everything from publishing to pop. Such people could, like JK Rowling, have used their influence to help defend women’s rights and everyone’s free speech. Overwhelmingly, however, our elites kept their mouths shut and their heads down.

Or they in fact busied themselves shouting at JKR and all the rest of us evil refuseniks.

A long title:

Trans activists trying to ban feminist book for a SECOND time by claiming its return makes national library ‘unsafe and hostile’ for staff

Well it didn’t work the first time, so might as well try again, right? The project of silencing feminist women is not for the faint-hearted!

Trans activists are trying to force the National Library of Scotland to ban a feminist book for the SECOND time by claiming its return has made the building an unsafe and hostile space for staff.

The Mail has seen an open letter signed by publishers, academics, as well as book festival staff demanding that the library’s board, who after a public outcry reinstated ‘The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht’, immediately ‘change course’.

Because I say, look here, it won’t do you know. It isn’t on. Women cannot be allowed to defend their rights just because their rights are being stifled. Where would it end?

It states:’ ‘We stand in solidarity with queer and trans staff at the National Library of Scotland, who in recent months have been subject to harassment and bigotry in their workplace.’

Evidence?

It won’t surprise you to learn that no evidence is offered.

‘We call upon the Library urgently to change course, to make a strong public commitment to ensuring that all staff and visitors are able to access the Library without fear. We condemn the series of decisions by the board and senior leadership that have led to a hostile environment for queer, trans, and allied staff of and visitors to the library.’

So they’re saying that the presence of a single book in the library – one of many thousands of books – makes it impossible for some staff and visitors to enter or use the library without fear. How can that be true? How does it even make sense? Books don’t sit there pulsating and exuding contaminating vapors, you know. Books sit on the shelves or the tables, until someone picks them up and reads them. They are physically inert, and they are also reproducible. Removing one from a library is a symbolic act, not a literal removal of a jug of poison. These goons want the book removed pour encourager les autres.

Co-editor of the book Lucy Hunter Blackburn said: “This letter is an outrageous and unwarranted attack on a major cultural institution. It makes a number of bizarre and unsubstantiated claims about the effect of including the book in the exhibition and unfounded and insulting comments about the book and its writers more generally.”

Like the bizarre and unsubstantiated claim that the book emits poisonous vapors just by being on the shelf.

Oh honestly.

I haven’t read a single book by a delusional person about what it’s like to be a tree or a toad or a 747 or a library or New Jersey. Should I feel ashamed? Should I rectify the error? No and no. We don’t have to read about every possible delusion there is. What’s necessary is to grasp that delusions are delusions, which means they’re not the beginning of a new way of being human. They’re just delusions. In the end they’re pretty boring.

BBC Sport admits:

Briton wins world’s strongest woman after trans athlete disqualified

Not the clearest title ever. The Briton didn’t win a woman; the Briton is a woman and she won the strongest woman contest after a male athlete was disqualified.

Britain’s Andrea Thompson has been crowned world’s strongest woman after it transpired the original winner was a transgender woman who was not eligible to compete.

Well it didn’t just “transpire” now did it. Many if not all the people in charge must have known, and the man in question certainly knew. Andrea Thompson knew, and she was shown all over social media standing on the podium below the cheating man, and proceeding to say “this is bullshit” and walking away. It wasn’t transpiring, it was cheating, enabled by people who allowed the cheating. Enough with the bullshit.

Thompson, 43, was awarded the title by event organisers Strongman two days after the event was held in Arlington, Texas from 20-23 November. Strongman only permits [should be permits only] competitors to take part in a category which matches their biological sex recorded at birth. Thompson had finished second to the American athlete after the six weightlifting events in the Woman’s Open category.

Strongman said in a statement its officials were “unaware” the original winner was “biologically male and now identifies as female” and had now “disqualified the athlete in question”.

“Had we been aware, or had this been declared at any point before or during the competition, this athlete would not have been permitted to compete in the Woman’s Open category,” the statement added. “It is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.”

Yes it is. Now everyone do that.

A “child”?

This is the “child” he’s talking about:

That is not a child. A minor, yes, but a child, no. He’s large, he’s aggressive, he’s male. He’s what’s colloquially known as a shit – a guy who goes out of his way to hassle and pester and get up in the faces of women who refuse to agree that he’s one of them.

No more “birthing persons” thank you very much.

Kate Forbes has ordered her civil servants to stop using the term “birthing person” instead of “woman” in SNP government documents.

The Deputy First Minister, a devout Christian, objected to the phrase being used in a briefing that dealt with official pregnancy and maternity guidance.

Her religion is irrelevant. Trans ideology is itself a kind of religion; irrational belief is not a compelling reason to reject a different irrational belief.

The SNP’s civil servants initially tried to withhold the term Ms Forbes had objected to but it was published following an appeal under the FoI legislation.

Scottish Government maternity guidance published the month after Ms Forbes’s intervention used the terms “woman/women” instead, noting that “this is the way that the majority of those who are pregnant and having a baby will identify”.

The majority? Try “all but a few loonies in thrall to a loony ideology.” It’s not a mere majority who know that men can’t gestate babies, it’s almost every adult on the planet.

Susan Smith, a director of the For Women Scotland (FWS) feminist group that won the case against the Scottish Government, said: “Pregnancy and maternity represent a protected characteristic under UK law with distinct rights attached.

“It is absurd that insulting and reductive alternatives were ever used to refer to women or mothers: ‘Birthing people’ is an especially dehumanising phrase.

“We are pleased that the Deputy First Minister recognises this, but it is very troubling that this ideological language was ever allowed to infect Government and we trust that, in future, this change will be reflected across all departments.”

This ideological insulting deranged language.

Is that right?

Really? The BBC of all institutions is mean to trans people? You’re going with that?

And how does the example illustrate his point? Where would a pronoun be an improvement in that caption? He’s saying that “Linehan cleared of harassing a transgender activist” should be replaced with “Linehan cleared of harassing a she/her”? Does he not understand what pronouns are? They’re there to simplify things by replacing two or three or more informative words with the much briefer “her” or “him” – but the cluster of informative words has to come first. Willoughby quoted a single 17 word title; there is no space or need to shorten “transgender activist” to “her”.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll discuss what a sentence is.

Trump on “Truth Social” two days ago:

Why yes, exactly. The US military doesn’t swear an oath to you, it swears an oath to the Constitution.

You didn’t read it, did you. Somebody told you to post it and you did. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

More on Trump and Hegseth versus the laws of war:

The FBI is seeking to schedule interviews with the six Democratic lawmakers who, in a controversial video posted last week, urged service members and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders.

…

Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced it will investigate Kelly, a retired US Navy Captain, for misconduct, and warned it may even recall him to active duty to face a court martial or administrative punishment for his part in the video.

“The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false. Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said after news of the investigation.

Yo Pete, guess what, encouraging our warriors to carry out illegal orders undermines every aspect of the laws of war.

Service members are required to follow only lawful orders in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Following an order that might violate the law could open service members up to prosecution, as legal precedent holds that receiving an order alone isn’t a defense, colloquially known as the “Nuremberg defense” as it was deployed by senior members of Adolph Hitler’s leadership team during legal proceedings after World War II.

Yo, Pete, do you really want to go down in history along with senior members of Adolph Hitler’s leadership team? Really?