Matt Frei visits the home town of the American held hostage in Iraq. Amidst much tired hackish blather, he informs us that over 200 westerners have been kidnapped in Iraq, and that:
“…one in three have been executed by their captors.”
What a putz. Have the berks at the BBC no decency? To any reasonable human being these people were murdered – there is no other word for it. Simple as that.
Lead item today was, of course (for seasoned BBC monitors), the UN climate change conference in Canada. Much general blather about how the Americans have refused, so far, to agree on draft plans for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, though strangely, no clear explanation as to what the American’s objections actually are.
That said, the reporter, David Shukman, did refer to China as being similarly unencumbered by the Kyoto Protocol – voiced over film of a Chinese coal mine with, we are informed, a methane capture system – so they’re obviously doing their high-tech bit.
Unfortunately, doubtless for reasons of space, David was unable to explore the Chinese aspect of this story, to inform us, for instance, that China has, er, 24,000 coal mines (all kitted out with methane recovery systems?) or that China has “plans for 544 new coal-fired power stations to meet an insatiable demand for energy”. Must try harder David – if you’re not going to tell us the whole story you might as well not bother!
Exactly right Andrew when you say that there is no clear bbc explanation of exactly what U.S. objections are concerning the plans for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
If the beeboids weren’t so intent on finding fault with America they could have spent a second or so making things clear, as did this bit I found in today’s New York Times:
The original treaty – since ratified by 189 nations, including the United States – has no binding restrictions. The Kyoto pact does impose mandatory limits on industrialized nations, but they do not apply to developing nations, including China and India. The United States and Australia have rejected that pact.
“…one in three have been executed by their captors.”
There are only two possibilities here: either Matt Frei genuinely doesn’t know the difference between ‘execute’ and ‘murder’ – in which case he is an ignoramus – or he is following standard BBC soft-on-Islamic-terror propaganda.
Whatever the case, this is not journalism.
This whole blog is so very sad. Why don’t you go and get a life ?
Anonymous, if you had a life you wouldn’t be reading an entire blog just to reach the profound conclusion that it is so very sad.
Well, I will brave Anonymous’ ire and continue (I think he’s probably Matt Frei)…
Using the word ‘executed’ is quite bold from the BBC in ths context. I would have thought they would have written “one in three have died in Iraq”, allowing us to choose for ourselves the reason for their death, e.g. global warming, Zionist agents, multi-national pharmacutical companies, the Catholic Church’s stand against contraception, you get the picture.
Yeah, but in the context of hostage-taking, even BBC staff realise that it’s absurd to talk of hostages that ‘died’.
They have to maintain at least a semblance of logic.
But, of course, the most they’ll stretch to is the wimpy passive voice, as in have been executed.
I wonder how many people watching that programme just sighed as the usual lies and evasions and structured incuriosities were tricked out once more.
As for Anonymous, what’s sad is that he has so little knowledge about the rest of the world and how it thinks, that he can’t see or feel the ideological bubble within which our dominant media provider operates.
As for Anonymous… given where anonymous posted from, he/she and his/her compatriots aren’t paying for the BBC anyway, even though most of them choose to watch it.
As an aside, I daresay that were our arrangement with the EU as generous as that English speaking country’s arrangement, we’d all be quite keen on the EU too (six pounds back for every one they put in, as I recall from a few years back).
Anonymous, given your tone and location, you’re not John Simpson, are you? 🙂
It’s not just Frei and the BBC that refer to ‘execution’.
I’m afraid that even the Telegraph is guilty of such sloppiness:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/10/uhostage.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/12/10/ixportaltop.html
I bet they’ll somehow come up with the term “murder” when Tookie Williams gets executed next week!
It’s not just Frei and the BBC that refer to ‘execution’.
even the Times are unable to call a spade a spade…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1918836,00.html
An environmental crisis which the BBC somehow doesn’t blame on “Yankee Imperialists”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4516430.stm
I wonder if Iran signed the Kyoto protocol?
Is nukeing Israel covered by Kyoto?
Where are the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad = Chimp jokes so beloved of BBC funny men?
Here’s something else Shukman and all the “global warming” nutters also never mention in their delusions that mankind has any effect on the world’s climate.
95% of the carbon dioxide, now “identified” by Greens, i.e., U.S. and worldwide environmentalists, as a form of pollution, is produced by natural sources such as evaporating seawater, decaying organic matter, and from plant and animal respiration.
Each year, 157 billion metric tons is released in the atmosphere. Of this amount, 457.2 million tons comes from cars and trucks.
According to American Enterprise Institute researcher, James Johnson, “Eliminating all U.S. gasoline powered vehicles would reduce worldwide carbon dioxide emissions by 0.18%.” Less than one half of one half of one percent.
Alternatively, imagine a mountain made up of 157,000 M&Ms, remove 458 from the mountain. That’s how much carbon dioxide emissions come from US cars, the world’s biggest car nation.
If you want to know how much the UK is boasting it reduced its carbon emissions by in 2004, take away 14 from 157,000. Impressive huh? Well for people who don’t engage their brains, the Watermelons, Blair’s chief “scientific” advisor, Sir David Tosspot, et al, it’s impressive.
They also never mention that any treaty has to be ratified by the US Senate, who voted against the Kyoto fraud by 97 to ZERO, with 3 abstentions. That’s 97 Republicans and democrats.
Iran has money for nukes but no money for car exhuast filters, I see.
I wonder how the IBC will blame this one on the US?
Oh, I get it now — we’ve been embargoing car exhaust filters from the poor widdle helpless Iranian polluters!
You heard it here first!
Interesting news here regarding Cameron’s effect on the opinion polls.
http://headlines.virgin.net/story/HHH/A6006581134236874A0
Don’t expect to see it on BBC website – Move along Nothing to see here.
Jack Bauer.
Thanks for the info, I’m always willing pick up on simple facts to bash an eco-weenie round the head with.
OT Still nothing on the BBC about the shooting dead of 20 villagers in China by the Police….
dave t writes:
” OT Still nothing on the BBC about the shooting dead of 20 villagers in China by the Police….”
They’re probably busy studying the video footage to see what they can learn for dealing with license ‘dodgers’.
Jack Bauer,
Nice one. You might also ask how the beeboid eco warriors explain the “mini” ice age that began in the 1500’s and continued for about 300 years. Also how do they explain the four great ice ages that ended about 12,000 years ago when humans were barely learning how to cook?
Off topic
BBC News reports that a China official is held over shooting of protestors in Shanwei, claiming that “Local residents have alleged that up to 20 people were killed.” Note that, despite the officials having actually killed protestors, BBC News chooses to refer to a “shooting” in the wording of the article’s title. Worst is the reporting that residents allege that “up to 20 people were killed”, when The Epoch Times indicates that “One villager reported that 33 residents had been shot dead and more than 20 were still missing, most of whom were in their twenties” and previously that “as many as 70 villagers killed in the incident.”
Commendable journalism from the Beijing Broadcasting Corporation.
Biggie and Pete
Thanks. Again the important “fact” to throw in the mental enviros’ faces is that 95% of carbon dioxide (the so-called greenhouse gas) is produced by “nature”.
No that this will make any difference because the problem with the mental enviros, watermenlons and assorted leftoids is their lack of nuance, their globalist closed minds and their blind faith in the unprovable.
Like the 14th Century Catholic Church who put the Earth at the centre of the Universe, they put mankind at the centre of everything.
Just look at the Spanish Inquisition, or the Salem Witch Trials for clues into odd behaviour. Like them, the watermelons are in the grip of a mass psychosis that precludes rational thought. How un-nuanced can you get?
Global warming is such an issue because it can be used as an easy swipe at America, The Great Polluter. These people have never heard of the “South East Asia Brown Cloud” caused by wood burning stoves used for cooking and heating. Look it up on the Internet. India and China haven’t even started yet, the Greens will have apoplexy when the car economy gets going in these countries. Overlooked of course is Americas green credentials, I understand that they have more electrical vehicles by a long way than any other country. The US military even has an electrically propelled battle tank under development. The sub-text appears to be “Global Warming? Blame America” How naive.
Our children are being brainwashed into believing that nature is the victim of man, when, in fact man is a victim of nature, as it proves daily. I bet the greens wish they could pin earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on global warming caused by America.
The greens love trees, won’t they don’t admit is that the average oak tree sucks up eighty gallons of water a day. The eucalyptus tree (available in a garden centre near you) sucks in oxygen and exudes carbon dioxide. This double speak is evident in the UK when every year the Water Boards talk of water shortages and impose hose pipe bans while the oak trees at the bottom of the garden are sucking the garden dry.
Asian brown cloud
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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The Asian Brown Cloud is an enormous three kilometre thick layer of haze covering the northern Indian Ocean, India, Pakistan, and much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. It is created by a range of airborne particles and pollutants, characteristic of biomass burning and industrial emissions. A notable example is the burning of cattle dung as household fuel by people in rural India. The cloud can last for up to four months, most commonly in the winter (December to April). The haze is toxic in itself and has an adverse impact on rainfall and sunlight.
It was properly defined and measured by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) INODEX (Indian Ocean Experiment) running from 1995.
The BBC likes to bring us every suggestion of “rip off” by those nasty supermarkets that take trade away from nice bijou grocery stores by the underhand tactic of charging less.
But if there is 1 thing worse than supermarkets in general, it is Wal Mart/Asda in particular.
So this story makes the NEWS pages on ceefax (but not carried elsewhere per Google news search).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4518696.stm
Asda believes Sainsbury’s may retake its position as the UK’s second largest supermarket, its chief executive Andy Bond has warned.
Under the circumstances the BBC does not want to add comment to the fact that Asda’s competitors are gaining market share by most specifically targeting those food boutiques.
(Asda) has previously focused solely on large out of town stores, despite both Sainsbury’s and market leader Tesco opening a network of smaller inner city or convenience outlets.
(but not carried elsewhere per Google news search).
sorry, a better reading of the BBC article shows the information has come from the FT (but behind the subscription wall).
OT
If you want to get an inkling of what goes on at protest marches etc, check this out.
It only covers demos in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it gives you an idea of the sort of people the BBC are siding with when they promote their pet causes.
zombietime is a great site. These people really are lunatics.
Dan, for once I share the BBC’s attitude. I worked for Asda for a long time and, after what I saw in the back of that place, I decided to never shop in an Asda store ever again. Tesco is a little better…
Fortunately I don’t have a state-funded media organisation that I can use to push my view on other people. 🙂
“…the problem with the mental enviros, watermenlons and assorted leftoids is their lack of nuance…”
Classic.
.
O/T
The IBC’s favorite ethnic group is rioting and rampaging in Sydney, Australia right now. I couldn’t find anything so far on the “Asia-Pacific” page about it.
Reason for the delay? Probably called an emergency meeting of the top marketing directors (er, editors) to figure out how they will spin the story.
Meanwhile the blogsphere has already seen the photographs and bought the t-shirt.
And I wodner if the BBC will tell us that the reason there has been rioting is because for months now certain ethnic groups have been attacking or slagging off women for wearing swimsuits on the beach and they also attacked and hospitalised two lifeguards which was the last straw for many. Of course booze played a part but the whole situation has been boiling for a while. Go read Tim Blair
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/member/2/
[Shouldn’t this link to:
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/beach_trash_duke_it_out/ ?]
PJF – thanks..
Isn’t it great to use their own leftoid jargon against them. As we know, leftoids suffer from what nuthouses call “projection”, in that they’re always accusing others of their own glaring faults.
Acting like good little Nazis, so they call anyone else a Nazi.
Having a monlothic, one world answer to everything (socialism) they accuse eveyone else of being “globists.”
Seeing everything in black and white, they accuse others of lacking nuance.
And so on!
Sorry got my link switched by some damm purple lizard dressed as a member of the Royal Family/BBC staff…thanks to the moderator who sorted it.
*soggy thumping sound is my head bouncing off nearby wall*
Well said Jack Bauer.
Here`s Times columnist Gerhard Baker on a recent trip to Brussels, home of the European Union;
“The mise en scène for a start is quite brilliant. The skies can’t really be that grey; the shop workers can’t really be that malevolent; the buildings can’t really be that monstrous. It all must be some ingenious but slightly implausible parody of a grim post-industrial northern European conurbation in the grip of a humourless bureaucratic elite: George Orwell as realised by Fritz Lang, a cautionary metaphor for all that can go wrong in the human spirit”
The World as The BBC and the Global (Luke)Warmers would have it.
The BBC have finally picked up the riot story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4519818.stm
Read it for yourselves – the usual agenda and bias is there for all to be seen.
Just look who gets his comments highlighted in a box!
off subject i know
Note how attacks by whites are reported as fact, whereas attacks by youths ‘of arabic or meditteranean appearance’ are doubted, i.e. “reportedly by”. Also note that the ethnicity of the groups who destroyed cars is not mentioned, nor is that of the two stabbing victims. The absence of this information gives us a very large clue as to what they actually were.
Same old story.
Area residents accuse the visitors of being disrespectful and of sometimes intimidating other beach-goers.
Sometimes being intimidating?
–they called little girls at beach swim classes “little tarts” just for wearing Western-style bathing suits
–they threatened to rape a group of 16-year-olds
–they stabbed a young man trying to protect several young girls from being raped
–they beat up a Maori while rampaging in a suburb destroying cars
–they beat up several life guards whose only “crime” was trying to save peoples’ lives
I don’t approve of the mob action of the non-Muslims trying to “take back” their beach, but let’s face it: knowing what I do about the Aussie Lebanese/Muslim gang rapes and gang attacks on non-Muslim Australians, especially on young and vulnerable femalesI fully understand the “root causes” of their anger.
Or doesn’t the “root causes” excuse count for non-Muslims who behave badly? (Rhetorical question for the IBC lurkers — I already know the feckin’ answer.)
O/T
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4514414.stm
Occasional Biased-BBC commenter Paul Reynolds is mentioned in the piece:
The BBC News website’s World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says the survey shows a degree of optimism at variance with the usual depiction of the country as one in total chaos.
Of course, it is the Beeb that is responsible for the “usual depiction”.
You want more proof that al-beeb is stranger than strange? Check this out:
The BBC describes Iran’s appointed President Ahmadinejad as “conservative,” but a democratically elected Israeli politician as “right-wing.”
Ahmadinejad just publicly denied that the Holocaust ever occurred, called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel, and in October demanded that Israel “be wiped off the map.”
So, in the BBC’s eyes, a transparently elected official who has never made such inflammatory statements is further to the “right” than a genocidal maniac pursuing nuclear weapons?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4506348.stm
The BBC will never talk about “root causes” in connection with racial groups that they would love to uproot and cast aside.
Here’s a glaring contradiction from the mayor:
It is the actions of a few, but let’s not kid ourselves that people didn’t come from far and wide to participate.
The mayor is so wrapped up in PC that he’s not making any sense.
But I’m sure he makes perfect sense to the BBC.
BM,
I think you’re confusing your terminology. In the Iranian context Ahmadinejad is indeed ‘conservative’ in the non political sense as he seems to favour an extremely traditionalist, restrictive interpretation of Islamic rule. As I’m sure you’ll agree, there’s nothing ‘right wing’ per se about being anti-Israeli or indeed apparently being a bit of a twat all round. I suppose you could argue that nationalistic, islolationist projects such as the nuclear policy are right wing but economically he’s more left wing as he was elected on a populist platform of throwing some of Iran’s oil wealth at the poor.
Likud is right wing on the economic and nationalistic fronts (i.e. an entirely understandable aggressive defence of what they perceive to be national interests irrespective of international opinion).
Cockney,
So what does that make a National Socialist? A Nazi ( surely extreme right wing) was a member of the German WORKERS National SOCIALIST Party.
Well, I seem to recall that there was a purge of the genuinely socialist element of the Nazi party pretty soon after they assumed power and that the party wasn’t hugely sympathetic to organised labour thereafter. There was also a distinct lack of equality of economic outcome in Nazi Germany, particularly if one happened to be Jewish or indeed a member of a genuinely left wing party. So in this respect the Nazi’s name had all the accuracy of the German Democratic Republic’s. There was certainly fairly rigid centralist control of the economy although Hitler was content to let private companies drive much of this forwards in a way that would excite PPP fans immensely.
Kind of highlights the limitations of left/right labels really (see also the Bush administration’s extremely left wing approach to public spending and fiscal discipline).
It’s far from clear what happened in the Australian riots, however there does on the face of it seem to be a bit of an Islamic angle as well as a yob angle. I wonder how it will be spun by the Beeb….
Cockney: “Kind of highlights the limitations of left/right labels really …”
Indeed it does. If you look at Nazi Germany it was highly developed industrially, it would have been counterproductive to the aims of the Nazis to dismantle the whole German industrial base in order to start again with full control of the means of production, bla bla bla. Compare them with the Soviets, who took over a largly peasant economy with a few industrial cities. The Soviets forcibly took over the ‘means of production and enslaved the peasant population. The end result, was the same, repression of individual expression and elevation of the State as the sole reason for the existence of the individual.
That, is where National Socialism and Communism are similar. They both use the same tools, repression of the indivudual, elevation of the state above all else, they both have outward militaristic aggressive manifistations.