Not the Onion

"Israel is the only occupier that’s completely convinced of its own present ongoing victimhood" - Gideon Levy

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/31769267

A B.C. man convicted on child pornography charges has been allowed to serve his sentence in the community, in part because of the “relatively modest” size of his collection, a judge has ruled.

“Although there is no strict mathematical relationship between the size of the collection and the length (or indeed type) of sentence, the size of a collection has often been held to be an aggravating factor,” Tam wrote.

Despite pleading guilty to the charges, Keenan maintained that he is not sexually attracted to children, and had only stumbled upon the child pornography in 2017 while “searching for other images such as sunsets and beaches,” according to the decision.

Keenan said was appalled by what he found, and decided to start a Tumblr blog to lure out paedophiles so he could report them to the site’s moderators in a kind of “undercover sting.”

The judge was not convinced.

Berlin (Quds News Network)- Jewish psychoanalyst and activist Iris Hefets was arrested today in Berlin. German police detained her over a protest sign that read “Jews Against Genocide ✡” — a sign they claimed resembled a “Hamas triangle” inside the Star of David, according to journalist James Jackson.

Journalist James Jackson, who spoke with Hefets, said she was detained because her Star of David included a triangle, which police claimed mimicked a “Hamas symbol”.

cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/27969382

Story from 2011

Ebrahim Moghisseh, who leads agricultural research programs in AEOI, said on Wednesday that Iran has been using various forms of nuclear irradiation to produce crops that are resistant to drought and have better yield potential compared to varieties used in traditional agricultural techniques.

Moghisseh said two cotton seed varieties developed by the AEOI, which he identified as Fakhr and Jahesh, have shown better performance in the farms where they have been planted in the past year.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said on Fox News Thursday morning that he is certain Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, died by suicide while in federal custody — and there is video that supports it.

"There is nothing in the file at this point on the Epstein case — and there is going to be a disclosure on this coming shortly... there is video. That is something the public does not know," Bongino said in an interview on Fox & Friends.

Bongino clarified that the video in question does not show the "actual act" but proves that Epstein was the only person who came in or out of his cell on the night he died, on August 10, 2019.

Japan’s agriculture minister has resigned after saying he never buys rice because he gets it free, a remark that drew public fury in a country facing soaring food prices.

Taku Etō’s resignation has added to pressure on the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, whose failure to rein in soaring rice prices and address a wider cost of living crisis has angered voters ahead of upper house elections in July.

“Just now I submitted my resignation to prime minister Ishiba,” Etō told reporters at the prime minister’s office.

Etō had faced calls for his resignation after claiming that he never had to buy rice, relying instead on gifts from supporters.

Etō had initially sympathised with the “hardship” felt by consumers after the government released about 300,000 tons of rice from emergency stockpiles earlier this year in the hope of bringing down prices. But speaking at a fundraiser last weekend, Etō said he had “never bought rice myself because my supporters donate so much to me that I can practically sell it”.

https://archive.is/i6S6H

As the Saudis work to impress Trump during his trip to Riyadh this week, they're focusing on even the smallest details—like his fondness for the Golden Arches—by setting up a custom-built mobile McDonald's truck designed to support the presidential visit and the throng of journalists in tow.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28675429

One of the stupidest things I've heard.

I also would like to attach the bluesky repost I found this from:

https://bsky.app/profile/leyawn.bsky.social/post/3lnldekgtik27

A comment by White House science adviser Michael Kratsios has gone viral after a speech in which he claimed U.S. technology can "manipulate time and space," prompting online speculation.

Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, made the remark during a policy address at the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin, Texas on April 14.

"Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity," Kratsios said during prepared remarks published on the official White House website.

While the statement was likely intended as aspirational language about technological progress, it has since circulated widely online, with some interpreting the comment literally.

Archive

The Trump administration has doubled down on its position that Hamas is to blame for Israeli troops executing 15 Palestinian medical workers in Gaza, even after a video showed that the Israeli military was lying about the incident.

The Israeli soldiers tried to cover up the crime by burying the 15 medics and their ambulances in a shallow grave. The army has since changed its story, acknowledging the lights were flashing and that they opened fire on unarmed men but claiming six of them were linked to Hamas while offering no evidence.

Despite the clear evidence of a war crime, the US is still backing the Israeli army’s conduct. “Hamas uses ambulances and more broadly human shields for terrorism,” White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told Reuters. “President Trump understands the impossible situation this tactic creates for Israel and holds Hamas entirely responsible.”

Only now, having reached the age of 80, is Tom Segev ready to admit that he was brought up on a lie. In recent years, the longtime historian and journalist who published numerous books and articles about the lives of others, has reexamined his own biography and discovered a few intriguing details. Ever since his father was killed, during the War of Independence, Segev believed that he was the son of one of the fallen in Israel's wars – Pvt. Heinz Schwerin, who was "struck by a murderers' bullet while on guard duty" in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood. That's the text that appears on the Defense Ministry's Izkor commemoration site.

One person knew the truth all those years but kept it to herself: his older sister, Jutta, who left Israel in 1960 and moved to Germany – the country from which their communist parents had fled the Nazis, in 1935. Jutta, who went on to become a member of the Bundestag in The Greens party, was 7 during the 1948 war. On February 3, 1948, her father was assigned guard duty on the roof of a residential building not far from their home. Jutta accompanied him.

When they reached the building they found the front door locked. Jutta related that her father, 38 at the time, decided to climb up the drainpipe. When he had almost reached the third floor he lost his grip and fell to his death. Schwerin was laid to rest on the Mount of Olives. His name is inscribed on the monuments commemorating those who fell in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the fighters who were killed in the battle for Jerusalem.

France has awarded a top human rights prize to two broadcasters who have been accused of anti-Muslim racism and discrediting critics of Israel by labelling them as antisemites.

Sophia Aram and Jacques Essebag, who is better known by his stage name "Arthur", received the Jean Pierre-Bloch Prize from President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday.

In recent years, Aram has increasingly hit back at "woke" and branded leftists and pro-Palestinian campaigners as antisemites or Hamas supporters.