Is the Apple iPhone 4 still the best smartphone?

Samsung don't think so...

Should I rename this blog? If so what should I call it?

Should NotaSheepMaybeaGoat become the Rosie Huntington-Whiteley blog? Have the public spoken?

A very impressive 'Rule 5' Saturday night post

That's Jessica-Jane Clement with her best assets on display...

It's image quiz time (the answer)

It's an electron micrograph of vinyl groove by Chris Supranowitz.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the image spot.

And well done to Petr who answered 'Groove in one of them there LP records they used to make?' just 17 minutes after I posted the question...

The real aim of the Free Gaza movement, including the flotilla

'What we’ve been doing over the last ten years with the International Solidarity Movement, Free Gaza, and all the other outgrowth organisations and movements and groups is to ...work with Palestinian society to ramp up the resistance. This is all part of a Palestinian movement for Palestine...This is truly an international movement ... It’s only Palestine, this cause that has been going on for over 60 years, that generates this kind of activism, this kind of resistance...

Free Gaza is but one tactic of a larger strategy, to transform this conflict from one between Israel and the Palestinians, or Israel and the Arab world...to one between the rest of the world and Israel... [applause]

It’s not just the conflict, it’s not just the siege, it’s not just the home demolitions, it’s not just the wall on the West Bank, it’s not just the effort to continue to dispossess Palestinians of their land...it’s also the attempt to define a place where 20 per cent of the population is Palestinian, to define the land underneath their feet as Jewish, to further dispossess them and subject these people to permanent second third or fourth class citizenship...Free Gaza is a tactic...all of it is part of a strategy now to transform the conflict and internationalise it and really undermine Israel where it gets its most support...

Our ground is the whole world. And that’s where our resistance has to be. The whole world... We already have a third intifada. It’s going on right now. It’s going on all over the world.'

Here's the video that transcipt is taken from and here is Melanie Phillips excellent article about the flotilla and how 'a bunch of young Israeli lawyers working round the clock sustained only by Diet Coke, falafel and cigarettes about to pull off the legal equivalent of the Six-Day War?'.

An excellent read and some news that the BBC will not ever report.

The sort of satire that you won't find on the BBC

Latma's take on the Gaza flotilla mk2.

Where is the last ever Space Shuttle now?

Here...

A truly sad week for manned space flight as the USA exits the field. Somehow I think they will come to regret relying on the Russians to act as paid taxi drivers.

Should I be looking at one of Miley Cyrus's nipples?

I know that Miley Cyrus Tweeted this picture and so it is OK to be 'out there' but should I really be looking at her right nipple? Will the left one get upset? Will Mrs NotaSheep?

Following from my Rosie Huntington-Whiteley experience, will traffic to my site increase due to the presence of Miley Cyrus's nipple?

It's image quiz time

What's this?

Answer tomorrow afternoon...

Lord Ashcroft thinks that people who live in glass houses, should not throw stones

A fascinating piece by Lord Ashcroft that raises questions about Ed Miliband's judgement in employing ex News International Tom Baldwin. Lord Ashcroft makes some accusations about Tom Baldwin that shocked me. If true I do not see how Ed Miliband could do anything other than sack him. If this was about David Cameron and Andy Coulson then it would be headline news on the BBC but as it relates to the Labour leader I doubt that the BBC will even mention the story. It has been interesting to see over the past week how the BBC have described Tom Baldwin, I have yet to hear his very relevant News International past mentioned at all.

The history of flight

I couldn't have put it better myself; is the retirement of the Space Shuttle really the end of American manned space flight?

Thanks to Abstruse Goose for the cartoon.

The conspiracy theory of the day!

'Under British law, Stephens explained, all of the assets of the shuttered newspaper, including its records, will be transferred to a professional liquidator (such as a global accounting firm). The liquidator’s obligation is to maximize the estate’s assets and minimize its liabilities. So the liquidator could be well within its discretion to decide News of the World would be best served by defaulting on pending claims rather than defending them. That way, the paper could simply destroy its documents to avoid the cost of warehousing them—and to preclude any other time bombs contained in News of the World’s records from exploding.'

Alison Frankel at Reuters has an interesting piece of news:

'Here’s some News of the World news to spin the heads of American lawyers. According to British media law star Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent (whom The Times of London has dubbed “Mr Media”), Rupert Murdoch’s soon-to-be shuttered tabloid may not be obliged to retain documents that could be relevant to civil and criminal claims against the newspaper—even in cases that are already underway. That could mean that dozens of sports, media, and political celebrities who claim News of the World hacked into their telephone accounts won’t be able to find out exactly what the tabloid knew and how it got the information.

If News of the World is to be liquidated, Stephens told Reuters, it “is a stroke of genius—perhaps evil genius.”'

True? Wow, if so?

Ed Miliband speaks...

'I am proud of Labour’s record in government. We saved the NHS, negotiated peace in Northern Ireland, created Sure Start and the National Minimum Wage, cut crime and child poverty. Until the global financial crisis, we had overseen an unprecedented decade of prosperity with more people in work than at any time in Britain’s history. There is no doubt in my mind, that Labour served our country well.'

If you want to read more delusional rubbish then Liam Byrne's 'A better future for Britain'  is available. It looks as though Ed Miliband wants to both celebrate Labour's achievements whilst accepting that 'we had lost touch and trust with the people.' Reality and Ed Miliband look like they are still strangers.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley drives traffic

Since I posted this article  on Friday about how hating 'posh people' is acceptable on the BBC and illustrated it with some comely photos of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley I have seen a noticeable increase in visitors to this site (up around 60%) and most of the increase have been hitting that page. So it seems that posting photos of scantily dressed models on your blog increases traffic; who would have thought that? In fact "No shit, Sherlock"!


Oh and here's Rosie...

The 'News of the World' is on its way out, so what will replace it?

I was quite shocked to hear that this Sunday's News of the World will be the last ever issue. However it seems beyond belief that a replacement paper will not be brought out by News International. So what will the paper be called? well domain names may give us a clue...The Sun's URL has the definite article so how about those?
Domain name: thesundaysun.co.uk
Registrant: Bridgeport Enterprises Limited
Domain name: thesunonsunday.co.uk
Registrant: Mediaspring

I wonder if one of those might be a clue. well there is no company registered at Companies House with the name Bridgeport Enterprises Limited

 We won't have long to wait. The News of the World sold in huge numbers and Rupert Murdoch will not want them to move to another organisation's paper. The problem News International will have is in convincing people that any new paper is not just The News of the world Mk2.

At least the BBC are consistent

Yesterday I blogged about the BBC's deliberate misrepresentation of which countries border Gaza, here's the relevant map that does not identify Egypt as the country bordering Gaza to the south west.

Today I notice in this article the same omission.

Why do the BBC not like to show the fact that Egypt borders Gaza on their maps of the Middle East? Are they trying to further their narrative of a bullying Israel dominating the immediate area, even though that is at variance with the facts. Here's a map of the Arab World showing how large Israel really is...

The seventh of July some six years on from 7/7

Please spare a minute or two today to remember the men and women whose lives were ended by the murderous actions of four home-grown Jihadis six years ago today.

Those that died are listed here but also think about those that survived, some very badly injured. At the time around 700 people were injured; some 350 were treated on the scene, and 350 in hospital. 100 required overnight hospitalisation or longer and 22 were seriously or critically injured (I believe a few may still be hospitalized but cannot confirm this). Many of these people will still bear the scars both physical and mental, as will many who although not injured were on the trains or the bus that were bombed and of course the family & friends of the dead and injured.

I am sure that many Londoners still remember the pain of that day and the fear that pervaded London that week and beyond as they had to travel to work on a London transport system that now seemed oh so dangerous.

When people try and justify terrorism because 'we invaded Iraq, or because 'Israel stole Muslim land' or whatever remember this photo of Dan Biddle. What part did Dan Biddle play in these 'offences'? What part did the others who were injured on 7/7 play in these 'offences'? What part did those who died on 7/7 play? Terrorists are terrorists and deserve no sympathy at all.

I have blogged about those events before and commend those articles to you.

Weasel words from a rat?

UN Watch have been harrying the United Nations' Human Rights Council’s expert (sic) on Palestine over his reproduction of an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog. You can read the full story by following this timeline - Starting here with this piece:

'GENEVA, July 6 – UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group, today called on UN rights chief Navi Pillay to condemn the publication of an anti-semitic cartoon by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s expert on Palestine.


“For the UN human rights system to be credible in the fight against racism, its own representatives must not be allowed to incite hatred and racial discrimination with impunity,” wrote UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, in a letter sent today to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“Depicting Jews as dogs and bloodthirsty has a dark history,” said Neuer. “We urge Ms. Pillay to condemn this incitement to racism by a UN rights official, and to demand that Mr. Falk immediately remove the offending caricature and apologize.”'

Moving on to this piecewhich includes Richard Falk's total denial:

'It is a complete lie. I know nothing about such a cartoon, and would never publish such a thing, ever.'

This was promptly followed by his deletion of the offensive cartoon.

UN Watch then have two catch-up pieces - here and here before reporting the US Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtine's condemnation Richard Falk for reproducing the cartoon:

'“We should demand that the United Nations stop its relentless activities to demonize Israel and the Jewish people, and put our money where our mouth is. The most recent example of this bias is a cartoon posted by Richard Falk, which was apparently taken down just minutes ago, and the UN Human Rights Council has appointed Mr. Falk as an ‘expert’ to investigate and condemn Israel.

“And I’m sure that the viewers can see, or they can look it up on the internet, what this cartoon depicts. It depicts Americans and Jews as bloodthirsty dogs. And that is not the first time that Mr. Falk has spread such venom. He has compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust and questioned the veracity of the 9/11 attacks. But he continues to work for the UN Human Rights Council, with over 20 percent of his expenses and staff paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

“And has the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ever condemned Falk and demanded that he resign his UN post? Never. To the contrary, her office has published an attack by Falk on his critics. And, I understand that he says now that his account was hacked into, and he has taken that drawing down, but I say enough is enough.”'

  Finally UN Watch are able to report Richard Falk's very grudging 'apology' which is a master-class in weasel words:

'With apologies, I realize that the cartoon that originally appeared on my blog devoted to the arrest warrants for Qaddafi and two others issued by the ICC had strongly anti-semitic symbolism that I had not detected before it was pointed out to me. I posted the cartoon to express my view that double standards pertained to the American and ICC approach to international criminal accountability. As soon as I was made aware of the anti-semitic content of the cartoon I removed it from my blog, although initially I denied such a posting because I did not realize that it was anti-semitic and was mistaken as to what was being referred to. My intention has never been to demean in any way Jews as a people despite my strong criticisms of Israeli policies, and some versions of Zionist support. My interest and commitment has always been directed at finding a just and sustainable peace for both peoples, although I believe that this must be based on a belated recognition of Palestinian rights, and not on power relationships.


To be clear, I oppose any denigration of a people based on ethnicity, race, religion, stage of development, and believe in the human dignity of all people in their individual and collective identity. Beyond this, if we are to have a sustainable human future we must also make peace with nature, and treat animals with as much respect as possible. This is both a sacred imperative of my idea of a spiritual life, but also an integral aspect of species survival on an increasingly crowded, overheated, and endangered planet.

Returning to the cartoon, I regret my carelessness, and apologize for any unintended hurt and outrage caused thereby. At the same time, I am quite aware that many of the messages were motivated to discredit me due to my views of Israeli policies and behavior.'

So Richard Falk moved from denial that he posted the cartoon to, according to Committee Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtine, claims of hacking, to removal and to grudging apology - all within a day.

In fact Richard Falk has recently posted a final clarification and here it is:

'Because this unintentional posting of an anti-semitic cartoon has attracted such attention to my blog, and elicited a stream of venomous comments, I want to explain my mistake one last time. I do this without trying to excuse the carelessness involved, although I would point out that I removed the cartoon as soon as I became aware of its real content.

Even now I needed a magnifying glass to identify the anti-semitic character of the dog. My vision (at 80) is pretty good, but not good enough. It looked like a helmet to me, and the main visible symbol on the dog was the USA midriff covering. I found the cartoon through a Google image search on the page devoted to the International Criminal Court. Almost all the images there were about the Court or justice, and I assumed that this blindfolded goddess of justice was being led around by the USA. I am quite sure this cartoon would never have been allowed on the Google page if its true content had been realized, and it should be removed. Without a special effort, which admittedly I did not make, this true content is easy to overlook, and even when the initial objection to the cartoon was brought to my attention, and I looked at it, I did not appreciate the objectionable character of what was intended to be communicated.'

 I leave it to you to read through the links, look at the cartoon and draw your own conclusions as to wheter Richard Falk made a mistake, was careles as to what the cartoon portrayed or originally thought there was nothing wrong in portraying the USA as a vicious and bloodthirsty Jewish dog.

For my part I doubt Richard Falk's explaiantion mainly becasue of his initial denial and the weasel woirds of his apology.

Here I reproduce a comment on Richard Falk's blog which I think deserves wider reading:

'Ken July 6, 2011 at 7:00 pm #
Moderator: If you are willing to publish my comment at all, please publish this one. The first attempt was riddled with typos. I think your critics are being very hard on you. You were merely “careless.” You did not notice that the cartoon portraying a dog wearing a kippah devouring bones with blood dripping from its murderous lips was antisemitic. You undoubtedly also didn’t notice it was viciously antiamerican, portraying America as the modern incarnation of the blood dripping Jewish dog. No doubt you merely thought, in your “carelessness” that you were posting a benign feel-good image of Lady Justice taking her puppy for a walk in springtime.

Sarcasm aside, if anyone who worked for me brought embarrassment to my organization the way you’ve brought it to the UN they’d be looking for work before sundown.'

Sarcastic yes, but also right on the money.

If you want an idea as to where Richard Falk is coming from in his world view, especially in relation to Israel and the Palestinians, then a perusal of his blog will make his standpoint on these issues abundantly clear.

Is calling Richard Falk 'a rat' offensive? I do not know, but what I do know is that if I am challenged it will apparently be perfectly acceptable to Richard Falk to first deny that I ever used such language, then edit the header to remove that description before finally apologising for any inadvertant offense to Richard Falk or rats.

Finally do note that in contrast to the BBC's wall-to-wall coverage of the Mohammed Cartoons affair they seem blissfully unconcerned with this reproduction of an anti-Semitic cartoon; I wonder why...

Deliberate BBC misinformation re Israel & Gaza?

In case you missed the ending of my last post, I thought that I would emphasise the point here.

In the BBC article headlined 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza'', the BBC include this map

This map makes it seem as though Israel is both enormous and surrounds Gaza thus explaining how Israel has been able to blockade it for some years now. There is of course a problem with this - Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South West is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is...

So why have the BBC omitted the word Egypt from that first map? If the BBC come back and say it was an unfortunate accident due to the scale of the map I will not believe them...


A complaint has been lodged...

'Complaint type: BBC News
Location: England
What is your complaint about: BBC News Online
Address of the page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14035536
Complaint category: Bias
Complaint summary: Deliberate misdirection of readers of article
Full complaint: In the BBC article headlined 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza'', the BBC include a map. This map makes it seem as though Israel is both enormous and surrounds Gaza thus explaining how Israel has been able to blockade it for some years now. There is of course a problem with this: Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South East is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is... So why have the BBC omitted the word Egypt from that first map?
Receive a reply: Yes
Contacted us before: Yes
Complaint related to previous contact: No
Title: Mr
First name: NotaSheep
Surname: MaybeaGoat
Email address: notasheepmaybeagoat@gmail.com
Under 13: No'

More on the BBC's story of 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza''

I have been busy all day but have just returned to the BBC's article headlined 'Israel forces 'kill two militants in central Gaza''. It's a more fascinating piece now than it was this morning, not because of any changes but because more than ten hours after it was put up it still reads very oddly. Here's the article as it reads, with my comments in italics.

'Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians and wounded another in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and Israeli sources say.
A bare statement of fact although if the Palestinian sources are identified as 'medics' why are the Israeli sources so identified?

The incident took place near the border fence with Israel after a two-month lull in violence along the border.
Has there been a ceasefire or a 'lull'? How often has the 'lull' been broken? What actions preceded the lull? After 10 hours surely some more meat could be added to this story.

Israeli military sources said the army had targeted militants who were trying to fire rockets into Israel.
Did the Israeli army say they had targeted 'militants' or did they say 'terrorists'? See my earlier complaint for why this is an example of the BBC breaking its own editorial guidelines.

They seem to be the first deaths since an unofficial April ceasefire between Israel and most Gaza militant groups.
Would a mention of the Fogel family who were massacred in their sleep by Palestinian terrorists in March not be in order here, a s a reminder of which side are the aggressors?

"Two people were killed and one was injured in an artillery shelling east of the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip," emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya told the AFP news agency.
Did the 'emergency services spokesman' not identify who these people were, or what organisation they worked for?

Those who were killed are believed to be from a small militant groups sometimes called Salafist jihadis, says the BBC's Jon Donnison in Gaza.
Would a description of what these groups want and/or believe in be in order? Who says these people are Salafist jihadis? Could Jon Donnison not provide a bit more detail after ten or more hours?

Salafists did not sign up to the ceasefire but since then, Hamas - which governs in Gaza - has reined in smaller militant groups, our correspondent adds.'
Why did the Salfist jihadis not sign up to the ceasefire? How does anyone sign up to an 'unofficial ceasefire' anyway, for that is what we were told it was a few paragraphs previously? If Hamas has reined in the smaller 'militant groups' (I presume militant is the BBC's preferred word) and the BBC seems to want to give them credit for that, then what happened here?

Why is this article so sparse so many hours after it first appeared? Am I being cynical in assuming that if there had been some negative news to reflect on Israel, for example unarmed civilians or children killed that the article would have been expanded to include tales (and maybe pictures) of the weeping wives and/or mothers but as these were 'militants'/terrorists that were killed the BBC will just let this story wither away.

Finally, there is the map that the BBC choose to illustrate the article with...

It is incredible how the BBC can make Israel look so enormous and also as if it surrounds Gaza, thus being able to blockade it for all these years.

There is just one problem with this - Israel does not surround Gaza. The country that borders Gaza to the South East is Egypt not Israel, that is where the Rafah Crossing is...

So why the omission of the word Egypt from that first map?