There is a campaign to demand removal of certain antisemitic word meanings from the Real Academia Española's dictionary of Spanish.

This campaign is foolish and harmful. Yes, those meanings are antisemitic; they express bigotry. Yes, their existence comes out of a long tradition of antisemitism in Spain — naturally it does. People should not those meanings, or any other way to express bigotry.

But that is a separate matter from what words the dictionary should define. To use those meanings endorses bigotry, but citing them in a dictionary does not.

A dictionary should contain all sorts of words and meanings, including those that you or I disapprove of — and if the meaning expresses bigotry, the dictionary should say so. That is part of the dictionary's mission: to document the language fully.

You can't stop bigots from using prejudiced insults by omitting them from the dictionary — that is not where they learn those words. But if they are omitted from the dictionary, we who have not grown up in a milieu of antisemitic hispanophones could not find out what they mean when we want to know.

To start trying to cleanse language by denying or hiding the existence of words and meanings whose usage we condemn is to open dictionaries to culture wars. Then the most powerful political forces will weaponize them. They might be censored by racists, antisemites and Nazis, and sooner than you think. Instead of legitimizing censorship of dictionaries, we had better fight now to protect dictionaries' freedom to fully document language as it is used,

I looked in my copy of the Real Academia dictionary; it does not have the definition of "judío" that the campaign condemns. It is the 1992 edition; perhaps that definition was added subsequently.

The Labour Party is receiving donations at the highest rate ever, now that plutocrats are donating to it.

I think they recognize that it is now almost as plutocratist as the Tories, but more competent.

China is considering a vague law to prohibit anything That "Hurts The Country's Feelings".

Since countries do not actually feel anything, the only way that phrase can be interpreted is as a metaphor, so it can be stretched to prohibit almost anything. I suppose that's the purpose of it.

Car manufacturers tell purchasers that they intend to collect wide varieties of personal data. Most say they will sell the data and use it against the purchaser.

I can see why the company would like to get information about the owner's sex life and politics. What I don't see is how they can make the car get that sort of information for them, Perhaps they hope to trade car data with other snooping companies for that data.

The important conclusion of this information is that these companies don't respect you. That leads to the question: how can you stop them from getting data about you. That requires at least a little skill — perhaps enough to find and disconnect the car's antennas.

Modi boasts about "India's democracy" while covering up India's spreading repression of Muslims (and other non-Hindus including Dalits). Other countries support the false front in order to do business with India.