BBC Apostrophe 'A Cheap Cop-Out'

Hear ye, hear ye: Unto us a young hippo is born!

Verily, a Happy Little Hippo. Which goes some way towards explaining why we have not been posting, and also why this is going to be a short post.

The emergence of a next generation always tends to put all experiences into perspective. Also, in very real terms, we realize that this mudflat is doomed; thus, we are biased as to posting comments on the world in general and the world of security policy specifically that might be read, if not by anyone now, then possibly 25 years hence by a bright young lady in the throes of a struggle with her parents, in a world much worse than the present one.

Having framed the matter in terms of generations and eons to come, it seems frivolous now to comment on punctuation. Nevertheless, on this Friday night of our Lord 2010, I would like to say why I am bothered by quotation marks in headlines, especially RSS feeds. First, some examples, all culled from the BBC:

• Germany in 'record' 2.2% growth
• Plea for 'blood diamonds' return
• Israeli 'agent' freed in Germany
• Meteors set for 'good show'
• Iraq 'not ready' for US pull-out
• Iran stoning woman 'confesses'
• Afghan army offensive 'ambushed'
• Fox outlines 'leaner' MoD plan

Writing headlines is a difficult and delicate matter, subject to the dictate of pithiness - accuracy and brevity. Not everybody can do it. Nevertheless, we would like to think that the legions of highly trained hacks at the Beeb would be the masters of this art. Not so.

There are basically three reasons for placing apostrophes in a news headline. The first is when the headline consists of a direct, highly relevant quote by somebody cited in the article (Defense Minister: Trident 'Not Needed'). The second is when the information cited in the headline is attributed to a source considered unreliable, and the authors wish to distance themselves from the claims stated therein (Iraq Had 'Flying Saucers', Said Curveball). The third is when the author chooses to highlight a specific phrase used by somebody in the article because the wording, rather than the substance, of the citation is highly unusual (British Economy 'Fucked', Says UK Treasury). Let us consider the examples cited above - all picked at random on a slow Friday news night in the midst of a summer slump on 13 August 2010. They account for eight out of 27 headlines tonight, just under 30% of the top RSS feeds on the BBC website.

The first, Germany in 'record' 2.2% growth, refers to the latest GDP figures in the German economy, based on official figures. Why the quotation marks? When we look at the article in question, we see that the stats are attributed "to the national statistics office, Destatis". Destatis is the Deutsches Statistisches Bundesamt, or the German Federal Office of Statistics, so the source is prima facie a credible authority. Is the author questioning the legitimacy of the source? If so, we are not told so, or why.

The second headline is Plea for 'blood diamonds' return. One might think that the author disagrees with the term "blood diamond" or wishes to make clear that this is a non-scientific term. Such a view would seem to be supported by the fact that the phrase is once again placed in quotation marks in the article itself:

The war crimes trial of Liberian ex-President Charles Taylor has heard claims he gave [supermodel Naomi Campbell] "blood diamonds" thought to originate in Sierra Leone.

But why use the quotation marks in the headline? The term itself has entered common parlance, and if anywhere, a condensed headline would be the appropriate place to use it without punctuation, while the body of the text could make clear that questions remain over the assertion that the diamonds were given to Campbell. The term blood diamonds per se is uncontested. Further complicating matters, the headline should have a possessive plural apostrophe (diamonds' return). Did a junior copy editor make a mistake here?

Headline number three is a simple cop-out: Israeli 'agent' freed in Germany. The BBC has so far not made up its mind, and failed to research, whether the person in question is an agent or not. Some say yes, others say no: how would the Beeb know? This would be fair enough if the story were breaking news and all other news outlets apart from the one that published the scoop were following up on the first report. But the Dubai assassination story has been public knowledge since January of this year. Should the BBC not at this point have determined whether or not there is any substance to the "agent" angle of this story? Also, if we are giving Israel the benefit of the doubt in this report, why not say 'Israeli agent' rather than Israeli 'agent'? It's a small, but essential difference.

The next headline is simply a lame attempt at humour, with "good show" being a direct quote attributed to the BAA...

John Mason from the British Astronomical Association (BAA) told BBC News: "Weather-permitting, we should be in for a very good show across the UK.

... as well as a common phrase suggesting gentlemen at the races at Ascot or at a pugilistic competition under the Marquess of Queensberry's rules. "Good show, old boy," indeed, but the implied bathos does not do the story, or the BBC, justice; that is, unless Pimm's and strawberries with cream be served during observation of the Perseid shower.

Iraq 'not ready' for US pull-out is a difficult one. On the one hand, this story is based on a specific accusation of coitus interruptus made by an Iraqi general, as the full headline (Iraqi general says planned US troop pull-out 'too soon') on the BBC website makes clear. However, the story again fails to take a stance on what is actually happening in Iraq. All three subheaders in the story also have quotation marks, seemingly absolving the unnamed reporter of the responsibility to establish the truth for the benefit of his/her readers:
Security 'void'
(according to Iraqi top army officer Lt Gen Babaker Zebari)

'Significant improvements'
(according to US Gen Ray Odierno)

'Wrong signals'
(according to Faleh Abdul-Jabbar, the director of the Baghdad-based Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies).

Who is right? Well, the BBC won't tell you.

Even more ridiculous, misleading, and uninformative is the headline Iran stoning woman 'confesses'. Here, the quotation marks serve as a "wink, wink" to the reader, so that the BBC journalist can infer, without saying it in so many words, that the confession was obtained under duress. But apparently it is too much to ask for the journalist to stake out a position on whether or not the confession - sorry, 'confession' - was legitimate. Most laughable is this section:

The woman, whose face was pixelated, admitted her part in the 2005 killing, despite Ms Ashtiani having earlier told Western media that she had been acquitted of the charge.

The accompanying footage shows a pixelated person (woman?) wearing a chador, speaking in Azeri, dubbed into Persian, allegedly confessing complicity in her husband's killing. Also, the accused (who may or may not be the person in the video) has since reportedly denied any part in the murder; she now accuses her lawyer, who has fled to Norway, of releasing the video against her wishes; she now may be hanged, according to the report, which further calls into question the already outrageously stupid epithet Iran stoning woman. Thus, considering all the uncertainties involved here, a slightly less misleading headline might be 'Iranian' 'woman' 'retracts' 'confession'.

Did I say this was going to be a short post? Let's leave the other headlines for now and conclude that the quotation mark is grotesquely misused by the BBC and other news outlets (yes, I'm looking at you, Guardian: Gulf oil spill 'may be over' and Telegraph 'Dead girl' [i.e., not-dead girl] sparks panic after photographed lying down). First of all, journalists: Do your job and research what happened. Then tell us what really transpired, not what somebody may have said or thought they had seen. Is that too much to ask? Thanks.

UPDATE: While I was writing this, the BBC outdid itself with this cretinous headline: Obama backs 'Ground Zero mosque'. Referring to Obama's backing for religious freedom, in the case of the not-exactly-mosque, to be built on the hallowed ground of the former Burlington Coat Factory. Thanks for pointing that out, Beeb!

Money Talks: The Riyal Truth

Ingenious Iranian opposition members are apparently using paper money to disseminate anti-regime propaganda and challenge the authority of the state on its very own symbol of power, the national currency. According to the Iranian exile website Payvand.com, run from Mountain View in California, opposition activists

"have taken their expressions to another high circulation mass-medium, banknotes. The Central Bank of Iran has tried to take these banknotes out of circulation, but there are just too many of them, and gave up. For the activists’ people it’s a way of saying “We are here, and the green movement is going on”.

In times like these, the "green movement" idea of letting the money do the talking might be worth a try in other countries too. Certainly, this type of free speech is a most felicitous marriage of form and substance - the medium is the message.

Assuming that these sample images are genuine and represent a sense of what a significant part of the Iranian public think, it is particularly interesting to see that the regime is being challenged on the basis of its deals with other countries. Khamenei is accused of being a "servant of Putin" and the government is charged with having passed on the nation's oil revenues to Chavez. The government's relations with China (from where it imports garbage) and India (to where it exports gas) are also slammed.


But the slogans also hit pretty close to home on domestic policy issues. Particularly irksome must be this quote from Ali Shariati, the chief ideologue of the 1979 revolution (all quotes based on the info provided by Payvand.com - I don't claim to know any Farsi):

"Don’t believe what a government says if that government is the only entity that has the right of expression."

Ouch... it's got to hurt for any corrupt, violent, fundamentalist regime that draws its legitimacy from a revolutionary heritage when it is reminded by its own population of its long-lost ideals from 30 years ago. Meanwhile, in my own neighborhood, I will be looking out for Swiss franc banknotes with hand-scribbled demands for nationalization of UBS and Credit Suisse, and calling for the head of Marcel Ospel.

In other news from the Siamese twins of crime and politics (conjoined at the head), The Observer reports that over US$350 billion of drug money were injected into legal circulation (read: laundered) at the height of the financial crisis last year when no other liquid assets were available, keeping several unnamed banks afloat; and last night, somebody wiped that smirk off Silvio Berlusconi's face - throwing shoes is so 2008:


Not that I endorse that kind of behavior. Pronta guarigione, Silvio!

Did Nokia Siemens Network Give Iran Surveillance Technology?

The Wall Street Journal and WIRED magazine are reporting that Nokia Siemens Network, a subsidiary of the German and Finnish telecom companies, supplied technology for monitoring and censoring communications as part of a larger deal for a mobile phone network with the Iranian government late in 2008. According to the WSJ, the deal included provisions for "deep packet inspection", which involves not only the ability to block or restrict access to specific websites, but also the capability to inspect the content of individual communications. The company confirms the deal, but denies that the technology provided allows deep packet inspection, instead claiming that the contract included what it refers to in lovely newspeak as "provision of Lawful Intercept capability":

In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran.

Whether the requirement by EU and US bureaucrats to include spying/censorship backdoors for law enforcement in telecommunications software is itself legitimate and commensurate to democratic standards relating to the rule of law is of course highly questionable (for the record, I say no). Another matter is whether a European company should sell such equipment to a regime with a record like that of the Islamic Republic, which suppresses free speech (and may have manipulated the elections of last week) as a matter of course. Yet the two issues are closely related. Had the European and US governments decided to defend democratic/civil-rights principles even under pressure from "security experts", it would be much more difficult for companies like Nokia Siemens Networks to defend their decision to trade integrity for profit.

I found this an interesting question to consider in the context of the important role of mobile communications technology for documenting eand coordinating events during the current unrest in Iran.

N.b., not to unfairly single out Iran for violations of privacy, whether clandestine or "legal": It turns out that the NSA, which is able to read the e-mails of all US citizens without court orders using the Pinwale software, has also been accessing the personal communications of former US president Bill Clinton.

Feel free to communicate with Nokia Siemens Networks and their damage control man Ben Roome at this address or via e-mail at ben.roome@nsn.com. They will certainly be delighted to hear from you provided you state your opinion respectfully.

Manboobs for The Filipino Monkey

The year 2008 is only two weeks old and already it looks like it's going to be comedy gold. But first, let us welcome the new year with this bit of good news from the civil liberties/topless Swedish women department:

A swimming pool in northern Sweden has said it will allow women to bathe topless, following a campaign by feminists.

Since I am very much in favor of civil rights in general, and of womens' lib in particular, I would like to state that I support the stance taken by the Sundsvall municipal leisure center wholeheartedly.

A spokesman for the pool (...) said that employees there had decided they would not act if women tried to bathe semi-naked.

The Bara Bröst (Bare Breasts) Blog offers the following manifesto:

Bara Bröst is not committed to any political or religious views.

We demand:

• That women should be allowed to be topless in situations where it is accepted for men to be topless.
• That the breast should not be considered to be a part of the female genitalia.
• That the gender discriminating rules at the swimming pools are removed.
• That the norms that discriminats against women are worked with in schools and at workplaces and so on.
• That the politicians take their responsibility and act in this question.

Our goals:

A gender equal society where

• it is socially accepted for women to be topless in situations when it is accepted for men to do so.
• male and female bodies get an equal amount of space and on the same conditions.
• female bodies are not sexualized.
• no one has to feel like an object.
• women are not being discriminated against.

Seriously, it's hard to argue with any of the above points. Women should be allowed to go topless in all situations where it's OK to do so for men, without being gawked at. Since most men are now able to handle the sight of bare female ankle without spontaneously blowing their wad, there is no reason why we shouldn't come to terms with the sight of female breasts too. OK, it may take a while, but experience shows that if we stop making a big deal about bare skin, our libido learns to handle itself. It will be a good day for all of us (including men) when "no one has to feel like an object". Amen.

The alternative course, in the interests of fairness, would be to consider the male breast part of the masculine genitalia and ban the public display of manboobs.


A proposal that also has its merits. Anyway, more power to the ladies of Bara Bröst... oh, and I almost forgot: stick that in your pipe and smoke it, fundies. European values at their best.

Having thus inaugurated the new year in a way that will hopefully endow this blog with an agreeable level of karma, let us now turn again to the usual survey of human idiocy... as so often, displayed in admirable fashion by the US armed forces. The latest call for tenders by the Freedom Fighters of America is for a celebrity rock band to entertain US forces in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of "war". Nothing wrong with that, after all, a hard-working occupation force needs to unwind after a long day of getting its ass whupped by the locals (see the USO scene in "Apocalypse Now"), but is this really what the troops want to see? A "Celebrity Rock Music Tour - QUANTITY 1" whose show will be subject to the following restrictions:

Any criminal conduct, unexcused tardiness or absence which prevents timely starting of the performance(s) required hereunder, indecency or obscenity, drunkenness, damage to Government property, failure to discharge indebtedness to the Government, influence of narcotics or hallucinatory drugs, threatening breach of national security, violation of the rules and regulations of the Host Nation, Government or TFF MWR are grounds for termination of this contract.

Boooo-oring! Also,

The Offeror shall submit details, such as a biography or other promotional or media articles relating to the proposed Professional Celebrity Rock Group, identifying the “professional celebrity” status of at least one member of the group.

So if you were hoping to make a quick buck with your buddies in the garage band, forget about it, unless you believe you can get Paris Hilton to sing (the chihuaha would qualify as a promotional article identifying the "professional celebrity" status under the above guidelines). No, I think the setup they are thinking of is more along the lines of The Halliburtons, Inc., or maybe Capitol Offense feat. Mike "End Times" Huckabee on bass.


However, The Huckster's proposal is likely to be rejected due to violations of Clause 2.4.4.1 of the solicitation:

An acknowledged deity will not be referred to in a manner that would offend a follower of any faith.

So maybe HQ USAREUR should try out a local band that has had many years of experience playing both large and small venues all up and down the Fertile Crescent, has a strong fanbase both in Iraq and in Afghanistan as well as that one country in between... what was it called again... ah, never mind. You know, of course, who I am referring to: That blockbuster boy group The Rolling Imams that has recently landed another top ten hit with "You Will Explode In A Few Minutes" (apparently a coded reference to premature ejaculation in the presence of uncovered Swedish ankles). They are reportedly bidding to appear at USOs in the region with their new frontman, The Filipino Monkey, who is filling in the professional celebrity slot due to the unavailability of singer and guitarist The Imam, currently in occultation due to previous engagements.


To round off the latest news in security-related lunacy, here are a few small choice bits that may make you look afresh with wonder and amazement at your fellow human beings. The first story comes to us from China, where Wang Zhendong has been sentenced to death for bilking more than 10,000 investors to the tune of US$390 million with a giant ant farm scam. It was both a giant scam involving ants, and a scam involving giant ants (used in traditional Chinese medicine). That's really all I can say about this sad story.

The next report lacks a dateline, but is almost certainly from the US.


Bullet Proof Baby Stroller Product Test

While I am not certain that this is not a bogus video, the depressing thing is that you can never know. It might be real. This even as the American obsession with guns is reportedly "fading":

The number of households with guns dropped from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006, according to NORC, and the percentage of Americans who reported personally owning a gun has shrunk to just under 22 percent. (...) President George W. Bush this week signed into law a bill meant to prevent people with a record of mental disease from buying weapons.

I will refrain from making the obvious joke at this point and simply point out that you don't need a firearm to settle your differences, as one unfortunate young man in Vienna found out the hard way over the weekend:

The body of a young man was found in an elegant Vienna square with a rake embedded in his head, Austrian police said Saturday.

So please, my fellow Europeans, stop pointing fingers at the cousins over in the US of A for just a very brief moment of silence while we consider the fate of this poor soul, at least until the next submachine-gun killing spree at an American primary school/ university/ McDonald's/ post office reminds us that the advantage of rakes is it's hard to run amuck with one.

I'm still waiting for your feedback. Remember that the first person to comment on this or another story in the next few days gets a free piece of artwork plus the right to choose the topic for the next post. Come on, you can do it. My hit counter went over 400 (!!) for the first time this week, so I know you are out there.

Update: Check out Steve Bell's cartoon on Bush's Middle East visit and The Filipino Monkey.

Marg Bar Amrika!

In the careers of almost all more or less successful bands, there comes a time when one or several members are sick of playing the same old sh*t over and over again. Every night, the fans will be clamoring for the greatest hits, even though the group may think it has moved on and would like to try out some new stuff. Internal disagreements over how to deal with this situation may then lead to the dreaded "creative differences", as often as not causing hiatus or breakup of the whole project. Everybody who has ever played in a band (including this Hippo) can tell a story or two about this phenomenon.

The popular boy group "The Islamic Republic of Iran" is no exception, apparently. In a new biography of the combo, which reached the apex of its popularity under founding member and frontman Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi "Imam" Khomeini, it is revealed that the ayatollah was tired of playing that hoary old chestnut “Death to America” and "favoured dropping the mantra". This is according to Khomeini's successor as band leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has just published his memoirs of The Republic's hard-prayin' and hard-rockin' days on the road.



In the end, it was the untimely demise of The Imam that prevented a fatal falling-out among the band members and cleared the way for Rafsanjani to succeed him as singer and lead guitarist. The velvet-voiced Rafsanjani was later ousted from The Islamic Republic by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose gritty singing has been received by rapturous fans as a return to the band's former "ass-kicking" sound. "Marg Bar Amrika" remains the signature tune of "The Islamic Republic" and is heard every Friday in stadiums all over Iran.