andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2012-06-14 12:00 pm
andrewducker) wrote2012-06-14 12:00 pm
Interesting Links for 14-06-2012
- Coventry launches electric bus services
- Goodfellas mobster Henry Hill dies aged 69
- The BBC block UK access to some pages produced by BBC Worldwide. What the fucking fuck?
- Some interesting discussion/analysis of the new top level domain applications.
- An editor explains how ebook licensing works, and why you can only buy most ebooks in some countries.
- Is the Guardian the most bigoted newspaper in Britain?
- What happens when the DRM on digital projectors kicks in (a terrible tool-chain)
- 35mm Film is About to Die – Studios Plan to Go With All Digital Projection by 2014
- The govt’s work programmes are pure exploitation: here’s the evidence (anyone got some counter-evidence?)
- Skype to feature massive in-call ads. Microsoft tries to sell this as a _good_ thing.
- Chinese mindfulness meditation improves brain white matter and mood.
- Windows Phone market share expected to surpass Apple's iOS in 2016 (expected, in this case, by analysts on crack)
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Saying "Pieces like this skew their facts." or "The people that publish on this site are lunatics." isn't actually an argument against anything this piece says. If the piece says things that are untrue, then they should be rebutted. If the things it says are true, then they should be believed. Anything else is just handwaving.
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I don't think any of the actual facts are in question. The guardian did publish that article. The guardian's stance on Israel is somewhat racist. The Hamas documents do say all those things about wiping Israel out.
But I think he's trying to smuggle in non-factual premises like "obviously everyone agrees that publishing that article was totally unforgiveable, it's so obvious I don't even need to justify it". Or "the guardian giving a platform to Haniyeh is characteristic of their level of bigotry and everything else they say is suspect."
For instance, wikipedia says Haniyeh is "a senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority". The article mentions the first (with possibly a mild exaggeration), but not the second. Is publishing an article by someone who's been a terrorist leader AND a democratically elected prime minister better than publishing an article by a terrorist leader? I think most people would say it's a lot more understandable, because whether the views are heinious or not, if they're widely represented in the population, they almost certainly will have to be engaged with somehow, not just ignored out of existance.
For instance, he says "Is the guardian the most bigoted newspaper?" He obviously wants to implicate the guardian's bigotedness as much as possible. I agree the guardian is rather racist about Israel. But I'm not sure that's clearly worse that people (such as Robin Shepherd himself) who automatically assume Muslim citizens of Britian are a dangerous reactionary problem to be fixed, rather than possibly equal members of society with everyone else.
For instance, the caption to the picture implies that the guardian probably agree with everything in the Hamas agenda, but even if they're wrong to be sympathetic to Hamas and very anti-Israel, I think that's unlikely.
Unfortunately, this sort of implication can be made faster than it can be rebutted, which makes talking about it especially time-consuming.
If we ignore Robin Shepherd, would you characterise the main question as "was the guardian wrong to publish something by Haniyeh?" I think it quite probably was, but I'm not positive.
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(Mine boils down to "Oh for goodness sake, can you people not all just get along?", and wanting to bang all of their heads together.)
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I think people have done that quite well already so will just say for the record that I do think any article that decries the Palestinians as anti-Semites without acknowledging the harm done to them by the Zionists should be intrinsically read with a wary eye.
You see, your problem, Andy, is that people set so much store in your posts. You may think you're sharing an 'Interesting link' but to the rest of us these are rules to live our life by. 'Hey!' we shout. 'Why is Andy telling us to live our lives according to some fact-skewer who is morally dubious [which, let's face it, is what most of your friends mean by 'right-wing', I certainly do]?!'
With great power comes great responsibility.
PS Spiderman could *so* sort out the Palestine problem.
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Sometimes, I even post links so that other people can point out the inaccuracies in them!
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Of course, I have no idea if people reading my linkposts get that, or have no idea.
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I tried to add the geek tag "</ spiderman>" above, 'cause I'm dead cool and that.
LJ tried to parse it as actual html so stripped it.
Awesome.
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I liked it :->
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Opinion, as you have said quite flatly to me before when I've linked you to contentious opinion columns, is just opinion.
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Whether they add up to a reason to not publish the piece is, of course, just opinion.
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