Advarselsskilte til aviser

Den britiske komiker Tom Scott har designet nogle mærker til advarsel for forbrugerne, som aviserne burde sætte på deres artikler. Man skulle tro, han havde hørt om Politiken:

This article is basically just a press release, copied and pasted.

Oh yeah, that’s what they use. I forgot.

Medical claims in this article have not been confirmed by peer-reviewed research.

The Daily Mail’s attempt to classify everything as either ‘causing’ and ‘curing’ cancer is already well documented, but there’s plenty of wacky medical claims in all the newspapers. Ooh, look, some healing crystals.

To meet a deadline, this article was plagiarised from another news source.

To be fair, newspaper journalists have far too little time to do far too much, particularly with the steadily collapse of print circulations. If a story breaks just before the deadline, they may just copy it: but it seems only fair to require labelling in a case like this.

This article contains unsourced, unverified information from Wikipedia.

…and we all know what happens when you do this.

Journalist does not understand the subject they are writing about.

Now this’d be fine, if journalists were willing or able to call upon expert sources to verify claims, and then to quote their responses. Otherwise you get front-page headlines about cures for cancer based on small irrelevant studies on mice.

Link: Journalism Warning Labels (via Boing Boing).

Konservative – dummere og mere racistiske end loven tillader

Ser ud til at de konservatives nye officielle holdning til Romaer, er at de er småkleptomane. Og Henriette Kjær stiller sig undrende for at Romaer skulle føle sig kede af og stigmatiserede af denne holdning(!):

Henriette Kjær håber, at romaer også i højere grad vil blande sig i debatten.

– Det er selvfølgelig alvorligt, når der er nogen, som føler sig trådt over tæerne. Og de har så lagt sag an ved politiet. Jeg synes i stedet de skulle kaste sig ind i debatten, og argumentere for hvorfor de bliver kede af og følger sig stigmatiserede over at blive kaldt småkleptomane.

link til konservative – dummere end loven tillader

Jyllands Posten og tendensen til ærekrænkelser

Mikael Jalving, har det bedst med at træde på folk der ligger ned. De slår ikke igen og man kan bedre hævde sig i forhold til dem. Manden der startede som souschef på Berlingske Tidende og siden er blevet degraderet med jævne mellemrum og nu er endt som blogger på Jyllands Posten, har store mindreværdskomplekser og har droppet alle tanker om at gå efter bolden. Der skal karatespark til – og helst i nyrehøjde.

Hans “offer” er denne gang Jørgen Dragsdahl, der for nyligt fik rettens ord for at “historikeren” Bent Jensen havde lavet en alvorlig ærekrænkelse ved sprede løgnagtige påstande om hans fortid. Et krænkelse der blev takseret til en kæmpebøde da den fik alvorlige konsekvenser.

Mikael Jalving mener ofre for æreskrænkelser er flæbende tabere. Og Jyllands Posten har ingen problemer med at han trykker sin tilsviner på deres hjemmeside. Utroligt hvor lavt en blogger og den avis kan stræbe.  Man fattes ord.

Obama – den alt for lille forskel

Glenn Greenwald har fundet disse eksempler frem:

Robert Gibbs:

I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it’s crazy.

TPM:

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Charlie Savage, The New York Times:

Bob Herbert, The New York Times:

Anthony Romero:

The Hill:

NYT Editorial Page:

I hope there are enough drug testing facilities to accommodate Talking Points Memo reporters, Charlie Savage, the lawyers from EFF, Bob Herbert, Anthony Romero, Russ Feingold, and The New York Times Editorial Board.  I don’t know anyone who asserts that Obama is the same as Bush — I don’t believe that and never asserted that — but if anyone needs to be “drug tested,” it would be those denying that many of Bush’s most controversial policies and actions have been embraced in full by Barack Obama.

Læs det hele. Læs endelig det hele (via Lenin’s Tomb).

Sol, sommer og stanken af racisme

– af Lars Henrik Carlskov

Gør klar til at holde dig for næsen. For udover sommervarme har den sidste måned budt på et sandt amokløb i racistiske udmeldinger fra Christiansborg-politikerne, og her er et lille udvalg – hvis du ellers kan klare stanken.

Venstres integrationsordfører Karsten Lauritsen foreslog, at udlændinge de første seks måneder på arbejdsmarkedet skal nøjes med det halve af minimumslønnen, altså en løn på ned til 50 kr. i timen. At dette er en fuldstændig grotesk idé, fremgår af, at selv Dansk Folkeparti afviste den som diskrimination. Lauritsen ønskede desuden at indføre en ”hollandsk model”, hvor familiesammenføring tildeles på baggrund af om ansøgeren kommer fra et land med risiko for tvangsægteskaber. Det viste sig dog, at denne ”model” ikke findes i Holland eller noget andet sted, bortset fra i Karsten Lauritsens egen diskriminerende fantasi. De Konservatives integrationsordfører Naser Khader vakte opsigt, da en stening i Iran fik ham til at udtale, at ”mange af verdens største idioter er muslimer”, og at han derfor overvejede at forlade islam. For Khader er det åbenbart lige så let at skifte religion som politisk parti, og sidstnævnte har han da også en vis erfaring med.

”Der skal ikke være nogen blødsødenhed”
Spørger man regeringspartierne, findes der dog næsten ikke racisme i Danmark. Da regeringens rapport til FN’s komité til udryddelse af racediskrimination blev kritiseret for at udelade en lang række sager, forklarede Karsten Lauritsen således, at racismen i Danmark er ”meget, meget lav sammenlignet med andre lande”, mens Naser Khader mente, at FN i stedet skulle koncentrere sig om ”racisme i Iran eller Saudi Arabien, hvor man hverken må medbringe Bibelen eller bygge kristne kirker”. I juli måned skete der også det, at 23 rumænske romaer udvistes fra Danmark. Deres forbrydelse? De havde overnattet i en park og en nedlagt fabrik. Men ”sigøjnere stjæler jo”, som en gammel fordom lyder, og derfor krævede Københavns socialdemokratiske overborgmester Frank Jensen dem udvist, og ”der skal ikke være nogen blødsødenhed”, erklærede justitsminister Lars Barfoed. For at pågribe disse farlige roma-campister mente politiet i øvrigt, at det var nødvendigt at sende en hjemmeværnshelikopter på vingerne. Heldigvis har romaerne efterfølgende anlagt sag mod den danske stat for diskrimination.

”Homoseksuelle har løse håndled og elsker tæsk”
Dansk Folkeparti har – blandt meget andet – krævet indførelsen af billeder på sygesikringsbeviset (for at ramme ”illegale” indvandrere), en undersøgelse af om muslimske buschauffører diskriminerer blinde med førerhunde, en undersøgelseskommission af udgifterne til udlændinge, et stop for al ”ikke-vestlig” indvandring og at erstatte den nuværende 24-årsregel med en 28-årsregel. Det sidstnævnte blev kritiseret som grænsende til det racistiske af Folketingets øvrige partier, men nøjagtig det samme kan naturligvis siges om disse partiers, inklusive De Radikale, Socialdemokraterne og SF, accept af 24-årsreglen. Da en intern DF-mail ved en fejl slap ud i pressen, blev det endegyldigt dokumenteret, at DF ikke bare er et racistisk, men også et homofobisk parti. Her kalder partiets pressemedarbejder Helene MacCormac en angiveligt homoseksuel mand for ”journalisten med de løse håndled” og forklarer, at ”de ekstremistiske homoseksuelles fraktionsgrupper skal have nogle tærsk (Jeg håber de ikke kan lide den slags!)”. Efter sådan en sommer er der mere end nogensinde brug for et klart socialistisk alternativ til DF’s og de andre partiers racistiske politik.

Kashmir

– af Shuddhabrata Sengupta

Fra kafila.org, en god beskrivelse af en nylig demonstration og dens baggrund. Denne baggrund er blodig alvor: “The occupation of Kashmir by India and Pakistan is an immoral and evil fact of our times“. Men læs nu selv:

Kashmir Jantar MantarLast evening I went to Jantar Mantar after many years. It is a road I pass often, looking at the sad and melancholic little protests that line the kerb, whispering to an indifferent Capital the million mutinies of our banana plantation republic.

Last evening was different. There were perhaps four to five hundred people, many, but not all Kashmiri, men and women, who had gathered to protest against the wanton destruction of life in the Kashmir valley by the security apparatus of the Indian state in the last few weeks and months. 45 civilian deaths in 8 weeks signals a state losing its head. Especially when the deaths occur when the police and paramilitaries fire live bullets on unarmed or stone pelting mobs. When stones, or unarmed bodies are met with ammunition, you know that the state has no respect whatsoever for bare life. That this should happen in a state that calls itself a democracy should make all of us who are its citizens reflect on how hollow ‘democracy’ feels to the mother or friend of a young boy or girl who is felled by a ‘democratic’ bullet.

Protests in Delhi often have a routine, scripted quality. But this one was different. Professor S.A.R Geelani was level headed and dignified, as he spoke to the assembled, visibly upset young men and women, introduced each speaker in turn and appealed to people to stay calm, and not get provoked.

I don’t think that there has been a public gathering of young people from Kashmir in such numbers in Delhi, and the occasion had a cathartic, almost therapeutic character, as if the acknowledgment of each others presence could also make it possible for many amongst those gathered to say what needed to be said, loud and clear, in public, what they had only kept as a secret in their hearts.

As a citizen of the Indian republic, I can only hang my head in shame at the venality of the state, and at how it openly sanctions the murder of Kashmiri men, women and children on the streets of the valley. Even a leading member of the Israeli military establishment (not known for their kindness towards occupied Palestinians) has recently admonished India’s hard-line militarist mandarins in Kashmir on the appalling conditions that they administer in Kashmir.

I stood in silence at the meeting. Listened to the slogans, the chanting, the statements, some made by friends like Sanjay Kak, others by people I do not know personally, but whose work and politics I have an interest in, even if I do not agree with, such as the poet and ex-political prisoner Varavara Rao. I met some old friends, talked quietly to strangers, and felt a momentary twinge of pride in Delhi, at least about the fact that so many of us were reclaiming a space on Jantar Mantar, for once to break the enormously deafening silence about Kashmir in a public and peaceful manner.

There were different kinds of slogans that were heard. Most resonant of all was the slogan that has now become the signature of all protests in Kashmir, ‘Hum Kya Chahtey – Azaadi’ (‘What do we want – Freedom’) which speaks to the wide spectrum of sometimes disparate political currents and opinions which is together only because of one common objective – rightful anger at the continued occupation of Kashmir by the armed might of the Indian state. Some slogans stressed the unity of all Kashmiris – be they Pandit, Muslim or Sikh. Occasionally, the air did reverberate with slogans that some might interpret as having a more secterian tinge – the ‘Nara e Taqbeer – Allah o Akbar’. But the vast majority of slogans had simply one motif – ‘Azaadi’. Sometimes spoken with joy, sometimes with anger, sometimes as a lament, sometimes with hope – with the vowels elongated to mean a myriad complexities that are rendered unspoken by the simplifying violence of the occupation.

Many speakers, including Professor Geelani, and men and women people from the crowd, repeatedly made appeals not to ‘communalize’ the issue, and the same people who said, ‘Allah o Akbar’ also immediately switched to slogans emphasizing Kashmir’s secular fabric, and called for Pandit-Muslim-Sikh unity in Kashmir.

I did not feel perturbed by the airing of the ‘Allah o Akbar’ slogan, as I am not when I hear people say ‘Vande Mataram’ or indeed, ‘Jai Shree Ram’. I am not a believer, and the fervent expression of belief on the part of those who do believe, neither enthuses, nor disturbs me. In each case, I am more interested in what lies behind the passion. And I believed that what lay behind the passion last evening, despite the anxiety on some of the faces in the crowd, was an appeal to the divine as the final arbiter of justice and peace in a deeply violent and unjust world. I can understand what motivates people to make that claim, even if I cannot make it myself, especially in a situation, where all appeals to mundane, worldly power, seem to have exhausted themselves. A situation where stones are met with bullets and grenades can make even the most sceptical of us lose faith in the grace of the mortals who rule, ultimately, only with the force of arms.

Perhaps, not airing such slogans would have been tactically more intelligent. But I did not get the sense that those who had gathered in Jantar Mantar last evening had come to score intelligent and sophisticated political points. They had come to express their anger and their sadness, they had come to cease, for a brief moment, to be the anonymous, anxious Kashmiri in Delhi who is always worried about being labelled a ‘terrorist’ by a prejudiced neighbour, a callous policeman or a random stranger. They had come to be themselves, to mourn, and to tell the world of their mourning. I can only feel grateful that they could gather the courage to do this. There is an urgency, as Sanjay Kak reminded the gathering for forging an intelligent politics in response to what is going on in Kashmir, and that politics must not rest only on the engine of pain and anger. I totally agree with this, at the same time, I also know, that without an occasion like what we witnessed yesterday, when Kashmiris can openly express their desire for liberation and their anguish in the heart of India, in the vocabulary and language that has sustained their struggles over the past decades, it will not happen. I remain hopeful that it will.

Some speakers, including Varavara Rao, Mohan Jha (from Delhi University, I hope I got his name right), Sanjay Kak, and a sikh gentleman from Amritsar whose name escapes me, spoke of the fact that there was a great deal of solidarity in India for the just demands of the Kashmiri people. The occasion did not, at any instance, degenerate into a vulgar clash of competing nationalisms.

Outside the perimter of this protest, stood another – a small group of people associated with organizations that claim to represent the Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora, who were ‘protesting’ against the protest. I recognized a face in this crowd, I follow his self-righteous online outpourings quite regularly. Some of the speakers, including Mr. Geelani, alluded to them, saying that they shared in their pain, and even invited them to come and address the gathering. They however, remained aloof. Holding their placards, with their claim to monopoly of the pain and anguish of Kashmir. Ther stirred to life, when Sanjay Kak, spoke, heckling him, in a now familiar and churlish manner. I felt sad to see them, because they could make claim to suffering only as a means to divide people, not bring people together in solidarity.

Just before I left, a young woman who had recently come to Delhi to study, spoke eloquently about what it means to have lost a childhood in Kashmir, to have seen brothers and friends shot. I do not know who she is, and I could not catch her name, perhaps it was ‘Arshi’, but I wished I could apologize to her personally, because I know that her childhood has been robbed by people speaking in the name of the state that claims my fealty.

The occupation of Kashmir by India and Pakistan is an immoral and evil fact of our times. The sooner it ends, the better will it be for all of us in South Asia. True ‘Azaadi’ in Kashmir, for all its inhabitants, and for all those who have been displaced by more than twenty years of violence, can only help us all, in Delhi, and elsewhere, to breathe more freely.

Læs også: Kashmir på vej mod kanten

Støt Jørgen Dragsdahl

Den tidligere journalist og redaktør ved Information Jørgen Dragsdahl vandt for nylig en injuriesag mod professor Bent Jensen, som havde beskyldt ham for at være KGB-agent. Dragsdahl vandt sagen i retten, eftersom Bent Jensen ikke havde skygge af belæg for sine påstande.

Desværre løb omkostningerne til Dragsdahls egen advokat så højt op, at han i dag er ruineret. Det er ikke rimeligt, og der er derfor oprettet en støtteforening, der har til formål at dække Dragsdahls sagsomkostninger.

Foreningen forklarer selv formålet på sin hjemmeside:

Journalist Jørgen Dragsdahl vandt sin injuriesag mod professor Bent Jensen, som i 2007 i Jyllandsposten beskyldte ham for at have været agent for KGB. Dommen betyder, at man ikke behøver at finde sig i at blive beskyldt for landsforræderi alene fordi man kritiserer sit lands udenrigspolitik.

Bent Jensen har fået en bøde og skal betale erstatning. Alligevel risikerer Dragsdahl at blive ruineret af retssagens million-omkostninger. De kan blive endnu større, fordi Bent Jensen nu har anket dommen til Landsretten.

Vi er en kreds af borgere, som ikke finder det rimeligt, at man for at rense sig for falske beskyldninger må gå fra hus og hjem. Derfor har vi startet en indsamling til dækning af Jørgen Dragsdahls sagsomkostninger.

Bidrag indbetales på foreningens konto i Nordea: Reg.nr.: 2252 Konto nr. 0722-248-783. Et eventuelt overskud vil blive doneret til den danske PEN-klub

Jørgen Dragsdahls støtteforening

ved Søren Møller Christensen, Forlaget Vandkunsten

Et vigtigt aspekt af sagen er, som det antydes, at Jørgen Dragsdahl nu én gang har fået fastslået, at man ikke behøver at finde sig i at blive kaldt “landforræder”, bare fordi man er uenig i regeringens politik. Det er en ikke uvigtig detalje at få på plads, og det fortjener Dragsdahl faktisk stor anerkendelse for. Så … støt ham. Giv selv et bidrag, hvis du har råd, og giv ordet videre.

Link: Støtteforeningen for Jørgen Dragsdahl

DF kræver 28-års-regel som belønning for ‘tro tjeneste’

Dansk Folkeparti kræver nu, at 24-års-reglen bliver lavet om til en 28-års-regel – ingen familiesammenføring med ægtefælle, med mindre begge parter er over 28 – og mener, at regeringen umuligt kan afvise kravet, når nu de lige har stemt for regeringens “genopretningsplan“. Heraf kan man jo i hvert fald konkludere, at Dansk Folkeparti altså ikke selv troede på genopretningsplanens påstået gavnlige virkninger, for hvis de havde gjort det, ville de selvfølgelig have stemt på den uden at forlange noget til gengæld. Det påstod de ellers dengang, at de gjorde …

Men får DF så deres vilje – kommer det til at gå glat igennem også denne gang? Vi vil ignorere kynikerne på bagerste række og i stedet se på de hårde og kolde fakta. Babsalicious rapporterer:

After all, Denmark is really similar to most other non muslim lands isn’t it?  We are all the same non muslims aren’t we?  And we all eat pig.  Let’s face it.  Theres a desirable foreigner (one who will slot into what is Dannish) and there is the undesirable foreigner, who won’t.

And we all know what the dirty foreigners do don’t we?  They rape their young daughters and marry them off to their uncles who circumcise them with rusty tins and bottle tops.  This is the way of the dusky dirty foreigner who won’t gobble our pork scented demands OR get the Danish flag tattoed on the asses of themselves and/or offspring.  To curb this dirty foreign influx, and in the name of the Righteous Fight against Terror in Afghanistan and the disease of Muslim Horror threatening to burn down Fastelavn and JUL,  we shall have the laws tightened,  and one of the best ways to do this is to hit them where it hurts, in the dirty foreigners organized crime of arranged marriage.

I digress.

Kristits Thickhead Dahl Weinerbrain of the DFP is quoted as saying, and i restrain myself by translating it word for word because the DFP are transparent and basic, he says:

“The ’24 Years Law’ has had a collosal positive effect against forced marriage and arranged marriages. It will, therefore, be natural to open up to a 28 year ruling, so we can reap the rewards to an even higher level.”  Says Kristits Thickhead Dahl Weinerbrain of the DFP.

At the same time, Kristits Thickhead Dahl Weinerbrain of the DFP, made it clear that the rest of the poxy Danish government cannot say no to the demands because the DFP, just a few months ago, gave their Danish government buddies a really long hard suck on the knob of the ‘Economic Recovery Package.’

“We bent over for you, and made like we LIKED it, now you give us a bit of that Danejuice what we like back!”  Say The DFP, or words to that effect.

“Something for something.”  Said Kristits Thickhead Dahl Weinerbrain of the DFP. (ACTUAL QUOTE).

Det kan godt være, at Kristen Pulesen Gahl ikke udtrykte det helt så firkantet, men vi ved jo godt, at det er, hvad det kan koges ned til. DF lod regeringen og dens rige venner gøre det, de ville, og nu kræver de så deres betaling. Jeg tror egentlig gerne snart jeg vil vågne op, så jeg kan prøve et nyt mareridt i stedet.