No French Fry for Moussaoui

French national Zacarias Moussaoui, and convicted 20th 9/11 hijacker will not be executed. We watched the jury verdict roll in on the BBC.

I generally oppose the death penalty, but I wouldn’t shed too many tears for Zac. However, I think the jury almost certainly reached the right decision here.

Part of me – the cold, unfeeling, disrepecter of human rights part of me says that the prime consideration (after guilt, of course) of the penalty hearing should have been whether or not he poses a greater threat to US security alive or dead.

On the one hand, keeping him imprisoned and alive might fan the flames of radicalism, but I think the Bush administration has done a cracking job of that already. And it’s not like we don’t have a bunch of similar folks locked up in Guantanamo already (except a number of them might just have done nothing). On the other hand, since we can’t seem to execute anyone in the US without ten years of appeals, he’d probably be even a great symbol with the threat of execution hanging over him.

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I sure hope the recruiters over at London South Bank University can make the most out of this one…according to the website unofficial-guides.com, LSBU has a very short list of notable alumni. Of the four “famous” past students, two I’ve never heard of, one is Norma Major the wife of the former British Prime Minister John Major and the other is Zacarias Moussaoui.

To be in such lofty company, I’m almost tempted to sign up for a short course.

…and guess who else is running locally?

I blogged recently about the BNP running candidates in the local elections in England (tomorrow!). But today we got a leaflet from the Communist Party. I wasn’t aware there was a Communist Party in Wandsworth, but there you go – if it’s not reds under the beds, it’s reds shoving leaflets through our letter box.

Though I hesitate to give the candidate the oxygen of publicity…I simply cannot resist. His name is Phil Brand. And even though I cannot vote, I will use his brochure to tally up his electoral worth.

Pro:
Strong local ties (born and raised locally)
Opposes public funding of faith schools.

Con:
Backs the Palestine and Cuba solidarity campaigns
Opposes the action in Afghanistan (though I oppose the poor execution of it)
Supports Babar Ahmad
Almost everything else on his leaflet
IS A COMMUNIST

Still, best of luck Phil – every vote for you is vote against Labour.

You can fool some of the people…

Who do you trust most for news?

According to a recent cross-country poll of 10,000 people, most trust national tv.

The Reuters headline was Fox, BBC and Al Jazeera most trusted Dang! I thought lies, lies and more lies.

But there’s good news in there – only 11% of Americans really trusted Fox (which actually led the most trusted broadcast news) and nearly a third of Britons most trusted the BBC.

I watch both the BBC and Fox – and it’s twist from the left and lies from the right. But in a way, Fox is somewhat more reliable – it may not be fair and balanced, but they’re pretty up-front and in-your-face about their bias – at least it seems that way to me. The Beeb (as it is affectionately known) hides behind their “scrupulous objectivity” and their hard-left slant is much more subtle.

For all anti-Beebery all the time, check out The American Expatriate blog.