Friends of Pallywood, their bloopers and some historical truth

To the people who follow various failures of the "anti-Zionist" propaganda, this case might not be anything special at first.

At issue is a tweet that COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) shared with its 120,000+ followers in order to commemorate the plight of Palestinian refugees on World Refugee Day. The tweet included an iconic photograph from 1950 depicting a group of Jewish refugees who had been placed by the Israeli government into a refugee absorption center, known as a ma’abara.

But the lazy "anti-Zionism" of COSATU is only part of the story. The other part is about a related matter:

Stories abound about one of these groups of refugees—the Palestinian Arab refugees. Even Israelis learn about the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis in their schools. But, as is clear from COSATU’s blunder with the appropriated photo, many Palestinians and their global supporters aren’t aware of the other refugee population—the “forgotten exodus” of Jewish refugees and the suffering that Jews in nearly a dozen Arab countries experienced on account of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the very creation of the state of Israel.

Read the whole article, it is worth your time.

The bizarre bloopers of the computer age

The strange affair of two Spanish women flushing an impressive quantity of roughly €100,000 down the toilet might remain unexplained yet.

This, however, is not the point of the post. Take a look at the article chosen by the artificial intelligence behind CNN website as related to the above mentioned story:

While I wouldn't dare knock buses running on crap, the associative choice made by the AI in question is quite wondrous nevertheless. Unless, of course, you recall that one:

Freud famously retells the tale of the devil whose gifts of money turn to excrement upon his leaving. He uses this myth to buttress his findings from analysis which associate anxiety concerning money with an anal stage anxiety over excrement. Thus psychoanalytically speaking, money equals shit.

A Freudian AI behind the scenes in CNN? No shit?

CNN invents a new source of energy - and more

When not preoccupied by inventing  vulgar headlines, the busy bees of CNN seem to make inroads in one of the more painful aspects of our existence, namely non-existence of clean sources of energy. This time they have revolutionized an already revolutionary (according to them) new design of a blimp, developed by Lockheed Martin. Here is the punch line:

The Hybrid Airship is a helium-powered craft that can cover thousands of kilometers in a single journey, with a top speed of 60 knots.

Just to think that until now no one, Lockheed Martin's boffins included, had thought to use helium as fuel! I bet that even helium itself hadn't a slightest idea of its ability.

I would also add another, less novel idea: why don't CNN anchors use helium for major announcements like that revolutionary one. It will sound much better, judge by this example:



And I promised more: here is another revolutionary discovery, about hitherto unknown quirks of modern geography:

I bet they are. After all, Aussies are so used to privacy, and now they have to have borders with all kinds...

Shark attack and the expert

I can't really blame CNN for that one:

It is not a CNN invention, they just interviewed some British shark expert. Anyway, if I ever see a great white circling me in the water, not peeing will be... how to say it... OK, only the second most important issue, I am sure.

What's better: our health system or my English?

My initial confusion when reading a passage in this article was gradually replaced by self-loathing. When will my English improve sufficiently to grok what is written? Oh, here is the passage in question:

According to the two reports, the numbers of hospital beds in Israel is relatively low compared to other OECD countries (third from the bottom) – 1.9 hospital beds per 1,000 people, compared to an average of 3.3 hospital beds in OECD countries.

Despite the shortage, the hospital beds occupancy rate in Israel – 94.1 percent – is the highest in the organization, compared to an average of 76.1 percent among OECD members.

Tricky word that "despite", ain't it?

Another blooper from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the wannabe Caliph

As presented by JP:

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan viewed an armored 4X4 Humvee at the International Defense Industry Fair in Istanbul this weekend, and bragged about Turkey’s new “global brand.”
...
The only problem was that Erdogan had unveiled the Hurricane, a vehicle that was manufactured jointly with an Israeli firm...

No worries. A mouth of this size could accommodate a lot of feet.

Jordanian Air Force according to CNN

Sloppy, CNN, very sloppy. Click on the image to see the caption too...

Try it again, please?

This headline (Yahoo News) is unique by any measure:

Hm... a double negative. That means... let me see: if US foreign policy will not be guided by counter-terrorism, will it then be guided by terrorism?

Or what?

P.S. To be fair to President Obama: he didn't say this.

Roi Kais of Ynet: three Hamas VIPs in one blow

This must be a classic achievement for a newspaperman: to rope in three Hamasniks for an interview that took all of six lines (seven, if you count the headline). Here is a snapshot of the piece:

So: a Hamas dignitary named al-Rishq says "Dignified deal – or no deal at all".
Another one, named al-Rishak, adds that "the purpose of the Palestinian delegation in Cairo is to get a dignified agreement for the Palestinian people".
And the third one, Al-Rishk, completely confused the picture, claiming that Hamas "wants to give the negotiation a chance".

No wonder we can't get a handle on all that..

The age of computers and the free (unfettered) press

By now you all are undoubtedly familiar with the habit of online newspapers to add to each article a few links that ostensibly lead to other articles on same subject. It is not a secret that in many media outfits this bit of work is computerized. Which means that a piece of software scans additional material, looking for some keywords picked up from the article in question and tries to match other articles to it. Here is a hilarious example of that job gone awry. Ynet of January 6, 2014 (click for comfortable viewing):

I bet the computer misunderstood the meaning of the word "schnozzle" in the lede of the article. Oh well...

So who was clipped? AP or AFP?

From the same page of Yahoo News:

Go figure...

But at least we know now who is making all these giant waves:

 As suspected all along.

A nice juicy blooper from Tehran

From the site of Iranian Press TV:

Me too, me too...

A whole series to skip

From the Amazon's blurb of the author's CV:

He served three years in the army, and the GI Bill paid for his college education, helping him earn degrees from Fort Steilacoom Community Collge, Central Washington State Collage, and the University of Puget Sound School of Law.

Well, you know, I think I'll wait a bit before committing myself to these books, if it is all the same to you...

What an expert sez...

After browsing through the CNN article by Matthew Teller* 10 things to know before visiting Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, I have one additional thing to add to the list. This regarding the item 9. When you visit Israel, you're also visiting biblical Palestine: when you dial the next destination on your time machine, don't use the term "biblical Palestine". Time machines are known for their capricious behavior, and you may find yourself invited to a dinosaur family lunch. As a delicacy, of course.

(*) From the linked article:

About the author: Freelancer Matthew Teller writes and broadcasts on the Middle East for media outlets around the world. He's an award-winning travel writer and a long-standing author for the global travel publisher Rough Guides.

Yeah. Beware of guide books, all I can say...

Update: It must be said that the headlines of the articles, like the unfortunate one discussed here, are usually done up by the editors. So it's unfair of me to blame the author for something done by a rather ignorant git in CNN's offices. Apologies where apologies are due.

Not an urban legen: just an on-line editor

Click on the picture below, read it and then proceed to the post.

When you read the first few lines of the WaPo article, it is not difficult to understand that the main participants of the story are: a monitor lizard, police officer that shoot it, police Lt. Michael T. Finkelstein and a resident that called 911.

Wouldn't you assume that the picture, seemingly attached to the article, should depict one of the four heroes of that article? Using the elimination method, one can easily conclude that a) this is not a monitor lizard, since the latter usually locomotes on all four; b) it is not a patrolman, since no mere patrolman will allow himself to appear on a photoshoot out of his uniform; c) this could hardly be the anonymous 911 caller, they are usually too shy to appear in newspapers.

So the picture is obviously of the somewhat eccentric Lt. Michael T. Finkelstein... Right?

No, because only after wasting your precious time on that superbly executed logical exercise, you notice the words: Photos of the day under the picture and realize that the picture, after all, doesn't have anything to do with the article.

Now, if you try to match the picture to the following text that offers a few possibilities: Syria agrees to..., Mubarak on trial, Yosemite fires, March on Washington..., you shall find yourself facing the same conundrum as before. No match, right? Unless March on Washington... nah.

So, all things considered, I prefer the eccentric Lt. Michael T. Finkelstein version. The least damaging to my sanity, I say.

I am, probably, going to raise myself a monitor lizard, training it from scratch. When it grows to the length of 8 feet, I shall take it to visit the WaPo building in search for the people responsible for the design of that page. Then we shall see...

Annette Bosworth and Che Guavera, her personal bacon

The Babalu blog noticed that Annette Bosworth, "Mother, Wife, Physician, Small Business Owner, (Republican) Candidate for United States Senate", hearts the dead sponsor of T-shirt industry.

When I've seen the picture of Ms Bosworth, I assumed first that she is just into the colors or design of her T-shirt, without really understanding the message.

But the good bloggers of Babalu didn't leave a stone unturned and discovered that the tee wasn't just a random fashion item. They found on her Facebook an entry (now erased) that reads:

"Che Guavera- You are my beacon!"

So, not a spelling Nazi myself, besides being softhearted where a nice looking lady is concerned, I have changed it a bit for the headline of this post. Let it be known that not only Republican candidates are prone to typos - or to a stupid act here and there.

Here is a snapshot of the original FB page (click to read):

Hat tip: Andrew Ian Dodge.

Aliens, other scientific wonders and the Pravda way

The Pravda (meaning "truth" in Russian) newspaper, which in modern times became a regular yellow tabloid (but still exceedingly loyal to whoever is at the helm) continues to provide fun and game with its headlines and scant reading comprehension. Which is what happened to an innocent celestial mechanics research titled Slingshot dynamics for self-replicating probes and the effect on exploration timescales by two Scottish doctors: Arwen Nicholson and Duncan H. Forgan from the University of Edinburgh. Their result could indeed provide a sound theoretical basis for a future deep space exploration project. For Pravda, though, it provided a basis for a sensational headline: Alien space probes visited Earth many times. Go figure. Now, it is not that other journos and the scientists themselves are must better. You can see the speculations about alien visitations in other articles on the subject, such as this one. And Dr Forgan himself just had to step into it:

Dr Forgan said that the fact that we have not detected or seen any evidence of alien probes in the solar system suggests there have been no probe-building civilizations in the Milky Way in the last few million years or that the probes are so hi-tech we are unable to detect them. Another possibility is that probes could be programmed to make contact only with civilizations that pass a set measure of intelligence, which could be the ability to detect the probes.

Oh well... at least Dr Forgan understands that there is a very simple explanation: a serious reluctance on the part of the E.T.s to have anything whatsoever to do with us.

And from this relatively simple example of yellow journalism to a less explicable example of a famous person either making a monkey of himself in public or hinting at some revolutionary discovery in physics that will overturn... well, the seats we are used to sit in. This example was provided, wittingly or not, by no other than famous Elon Musk, an entrepreneur of a star caliber indeed. In an interview on his plans for a Hyperloop Alpha design, Mr Musk stated, according to the above linked:

But passengers won't feel the speeds. "The g-forces would always point down," Musk said in a Monday conference call about the design. "It should really feel just super smooth and quiet. And there'd never be any turbulence or anything."

I was kinda flabbergasted by that frivolous attitude to the "g-forces" which are supposed to point exclusively down. Flabbergasted so seriously that I just had to look up the transcript of the original speech, and here we are:

The g-forces would always point down. In other words, you wouldn't really feel any turning.

Hm... Elon Musk's bio data points to a bachelors degree in physics. Either since his graduation our subject made a super-spectacular progress in this discipline and discovered a way to neutralize acceleration, or he found some papers of the late Tesla, where the old genius put paid to all that classical mechanics nonsense.

But at least the journo what wrote the article may consider herself exonerated.

For now.

Swimming in strait of Oresund with testicle-biting Pacu fish? No way.

CNN was one of the first to sound the alarm on that Pacu story. Unfortunately, they have backpedaled, replacing the link with a retraction, which will be discussed later, so here is the gist from another source:

Pacu, a South American fish known to be related to the piranha, was found by fishermen in the Danish/Swedish strait of Oresund, according to the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

According to the museum, the Pacu's big teeth are not as pointy as the piranha's but they're certainly strong enough to sever fishing lines and fingers. And even though the fish is vegetarian it often confuses the male reproductive organs with its favorite snack, nuts.

So skinny-dipping in the strait of Oresund became a doubtful enterprise, apparently.

Coupled with this picture, the story even could give a man nightmares even when entering a jacuzzi. Common sense, though, says that (if you are not a Scandinavian man) skinny dipping in the strait of Oresund may have the same effect on a male swimmer as a ravenous Pacu. Taking into account the water temperature.

And then there is CNN. They have published a retraction, titled Warning over testicle-biting fish in Denmark? It's all wet. The retraction, however, leaves its reader with a feeling of a poorly veiled warning - or continued leg pulling. Consider this:

"We did say that we recommend men to keep their swimsuits tied up until we know if there are more pacus out there in our waters," Moller told CNN by e-mail. "Of course, this is half a joke since it is very unlikely that you would actually meet one here and that it would bite you. It's up to people themselves how careful they want to be. I'll keep my shorts on, though."

And see how does this one grab* you:

And unlike piranhas, which have rigid, razor-sharp interlocking teeth, pacus have teeth that resemble human molars and fit together in a similar bite, Fisk said. The pacus use those teeth to crush their food, not to rip it apart -- or off.

Clearly a man must be mightily relieved, knowing that his testicles are not going to be ripped off but only crushed instead. And of course, the parting admonition of the learned professor is a breath of fresh air:

"The story about the 'nuts' was never meant to be the headline. But it certainly got people's attention," Moller told CNN. "I'm sorry if it has caused you any trouble. It was a bit of a joke, but I still will keep my swimsuits tied up, and I will never swim in an aquarium with these fishes."

Oh well, the warning was anyway meant only for a small elite group of real men, the ones who will go skinny-dipping in the strait of Oresund.

So there. Take it easy, take a deep breath and remove you hands from your lap. 

(*) No pun was intended, it just happened this way, I swear.

Who runs what?

Another nice blooper, from Ynet this time:

Anyway, what it says in large font is not what they meant. I think so, at least. Because what they meant is:

IDF's new media unit launches website offering in-depth information, analysis on Hezbollah, in bid to push additional countries to add group to terror list. 'Just a compilation of anti-Hezbollah propaganda,' Lebanese media say.

Let's hope IDF propaganda is better than Ynet's headlines editing.

Although... oh well.

Octomom Nadya Suleman and the journo's arithmetic

One of the more wondrous sentences produced by the media lately:

Suleman was dubbed Octomom because she has 14 children.

Anyway, the whole article is about numbers. Probably too many for the author.