Death Sentence in the Palestinian Authority

… And the BBC have also done that yet again: Palestinian handed death sentence.

The article is more or less OK. It says that the sentence is not actually expected to be carried, which is good. (Although similar cases have already ended in executions in the past.) But why does a half of the article discuss the “occupation”? And why does it have a photo of an Israeli soldier with the caption “Israel has settled hundreds of thousands of its citizens on occupied land” instead of a photo of a man who was sentenced to death for selling land to Jews? Many countries have border conflicts – Armenia, Serbia, Russia, China, India, the UK, etc. But what other country has a law that says that anyone who sells land to Jews, must be killed? (Oh, and the PA is not exactly a country.)

That’s exactly why i think that Israel, despite its demographic problems, should not have laws that prohibit selling of land to non-Jews. Such laws are discussed in the Knesset, but implementing them would be badly racist. The right thing to do is not to be like the PA.

Barzdukas

“We have made IE 8 the best browser for the way people really do use the web,” said Microsoft’s Amy Barzdukas. “We have long advocated providing choice to customers and respect peoples’ ability to choose.”

Of course, as long as they choose Microsoft.

Sex

Have i ever told you how much i love some BBC headlines? For example: Sex smell lures ‘vampire’ to doom.

Livingstone

Don’t believe media lies, Ken Livingstone is an evil cunt.

(Mogwai, All Tomorrow’s Parties 2000)

Rock musician Moore dies

If i would see such a headline, i would immediately read it, ‘cuz i would have thought about Thurston.

Now if i see on BBC the headline “Dave Matthews Band founder dies”, what am i supposed to think? Who would be the founder of, eh, Dave Matthews Band? Dave Matthews, maybe?

Well, no—it’s LeRoi Moore, a founding member of the Dave Matthews Band.

Such headlines are very common on Russian news websites. They would say something like “Shocking: Super-Model Larisa Kuznetsova is no more!!!” to make people click the link expecting to read a yellowish report about the death of a super-model, but the article would actually tell that she decided to pursue a career in accounting. Or: “Alla Pugacheva burned alive!!!”. And indeed, some woman whose name is Alla Pugacheva, but not the famous singer, was burned alive in a fire in her house. (Sadly, that’s a true story.)

Well of course, when the band saxophonist dies and not the singer, it’s still a tragedy for his family, but such headlines do mislead (human) news readers. This is not cynicism, this is media commentary. Russian news websites are crap; but the BBC followed them.

No Nukes, part 5 – Scientist

The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.

(Israel ‘has 150 nuclear weapons’, BBC News, 26 May 2008)

BBC is very careful about quoting—they put ‘has 150 nuclear weapons’ in quotes because they don’t claim that this is true, but because it’s just something that Jimmy Carter said. I’m not sure that all BBC readers actually understand this subtlety, but it’s good that they do it.

However, they say that ‘a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.’ Obviously, they refer to Mordechai Vanunu, but he wasn’t a scientist, just a technician. According to vanunu.org, a website that supports Vanunu, it is an “important point often misunderstood or forgotten”; quoting that site, “Vanunu was not an advanced scientist, but a subordinate technical assistant.” But BBC misunderstood and forgot.

I don’t strongly support Vanunu, because he makes too much of a joke out of himself, but i do support nuclear disarmament.