Well I know Natalie has a substantial post below, and I do recommend you read it and follow the links (and comment), but I notice that we have a little watershed moment to mark: The BBC recognises the work of Biased-BBC. It’ll be interesting for those visiting from the BBC site (a site we don’t yet link to, for reasons I’ve never quite fathomed) to find their arrival anticipated by this post, but that’s the responsiveness of the web for you. Welcome, BBC readers! Yes indeed.
Regular readers here won’t be totally surprised as we’ve had a number of visits from Paul Reynolds where he’s volunteered his thoughts in the comments sections- and I recently recognised his progressive approach in a post here. The article linked above is his, and it is essentially a mix of praise and openmindedness concerning the benefits, current and potential, of blogs like this one. He also recognises the work of some of our friends, like USS Neverdock and the American Expat.
It’s a great read and I fully recommend it as it outlines many of the highpoints of blogging over the last year or two. It illustrates the manifold strengths of blogging, and I might take this chance to point out another case, with current relevance: the October publication of the original Jyllands-Posten cartoons in an Egyptian newspaper, as revealed by this blog here. The cartoons were published in full in the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr- and guess what, no outcry! During Ramadan too, when religious sensibilities might be enhanced. So, er, when the BBC or another media organisation try to pin the current kerfuffle and violence on the intrinsic offensiveness to Muslims of the real Jyllands-Posten cartoons (as indeed they have- in an article quietly updated from the originalto acknowledge the fakes which have done the rounds too), they need to explain that- and I don’t think they could.
Throughout the day on BBC Radio 4 News I have heard reports of this astonishing archaeological discovery in Egypt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4467253.stm
Nothing about the fact that the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr published the Mohammed cartoons in October 2005. Isn’t this news worthy BBC? Would it, perhaps, take the sting out of the massive demo planned for tomorrow? Is that the reason the government & police wish to see M&Ms (Moderate Muslims) out on the street, so as to balance out things in multicultural Londonistan? It seems anything rather than report on the Egyptian publication as a leading story and expose the whole protest planned as fundamentally false, hypocritical and provocative, and that those who participate in this demo tomorrow are really no more than useful puppets of Iran. Are they respecting their sympathies to be brainwashed and hoodwinked? Do they want more photos to study? Expect the BBC to show smiling Muslim children in prams with balloons.
I wouldn’t bet on extracting the pee from animal lovers though. Sarge
The editor of the German satirical magazine “Titanic” questions the so called law about depicting Mohammed in the Koran and the dubious passage “Angels do not enter a house in which there are dogs or pictures”
He asks does that mean all those with dogs need to be punished as well? Can anybody explain this? Maybe the bbc are planning to drop Crufts 2006 this year if any Muslims complain?
http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,1185,OID5220160_TYP6_THE5209304_NAV_REF1_BAB,00.html
Babs posted the following comment.
I live in northern France and receive the BBC channels — not that I would want to watch them; at least my parents don’t have to pay the licence fee. I think that I shall refuse to, once I return to British territory, for I do not see myself accepting to pay for what I consider to be an insult.
By the way, the BBC maintains its double standards in dealing with Islam despite its former chief executive recently exposing them.
BBC News is currently featuring a (fully-moderated) Have Your Say: As part of a new series tell us what life is like in Iran today. Should anyone tell the BBC about Iran’s human right abuses, which include Iran’s secret police arresting hundreds of union activists, the three men flogged in public for drinking in December 2005 and the two men hanged for homosexuality in November 2005?
Grumpy :
‘fraid the BBC let this one slip by on the Iran HYS page.
“When you go out you have to act very differently than when you are at home. Fears of been executed, flogged or beaten by the Basiji’s forces all of us to be what they want us to be when we are in the public. But when we are at home or amongst friends it is like the west. Unemployment and inflation is very high. Forget about eduaction we can not afford the private school. The government school is only for Hizbollahis.”
the egyptian Al-Fagr story has quietly slipped onto this page – at the bottom, October 17th:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4688602.stm
The December meeting in Meccah is still not on there. This is really crucial to the whole story – because, guess who met up with King Abdullah of Saudi – why none other than the Iranian President. In fact the leaders of 57 muslim nations met up.
the picture, and the report is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/international/middleeast/09cartoon.html
“The editor of the German satirical magazine “Titanic” questions the so called law about depicting Mohammed in the Koran and the dubious passage “Angels do not enter a house in which there are dogs or pictures”
He asks does that mean all those with dogs need to be punished as well? Can anybody explain this?”
its linked to the traditional Islamic belief that every Muslim has two angels on each shoulder – one good, one evil.
thus, you cant piss them off – as result, no dogs are allowed in Islamic houses. and no pictures.
OT. not bbc related, but it has to win the DoublePlusUnGood DoubleThink Award of 2006
http://www.jihadwatch.org/freedomofexpression.jpg
archduke:
lol
The funniest placard I have ever seen.
Washington Times on the BBC’s dhimmitude :
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/dwest.htm
O/T.
Right: competition time.
£5 goes to the person who can find the silliest cartoon-related banner.
There should be plenty of scope, what with all these Muslim protests taking place here and overseas.
This will take some beating:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/02/04/ucartoon.jpg
why does the tune “rhythm is a dancer” pop into my head anything i see this one:
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/WORLD/europe/02/06/london.cartoon.protests/vert.london3.ap.jpg
The CCN’s avoidance of publishing the Danish cartoons is attacked by a CNN contributor, Bill Bennett. Watch the video clip at the end of this article and hear him really thrashing the way the media allows Christianity to be mocked and Jews to be abused – but the media gives Islam a clear run.
http://media.nationalreview.com/089742.asp
Meanwhile, publication of one of the cartoons on the Spectator website was pulled, after a police warning. The mob gets its way. A group new to this country has succeeded in silencing a journal that is the oldest continuously-published magazine in the English language.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1706060,00.html
dumbcisco -> i dont know if you caught this story but here’s something similar:
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/203/203863_uk_mag_will_not_publish_cartoons.html
A UK magazine will not publish a controversial cartoon of prophet Mohammed, after police said they could not guarantee protection for its staff if it went ahead, the editor said.
The Liberal magazine was intending to publish one of the 12 Danish cartoons
re: the spectator. whats interesting is the supposedly andrew neil ordered it to be taken down
from that guardian link:
“The publisher of the Spectator, Andrew Neil, ordered the cartoon be taken down after it was uploaded without the consent of the magazine’s acting editor, Stuart Reid.”
oops , i meant to say “the supposedly Conservative andrew neil”
Press-release-masquerading-as-news alert:
The BBC is plugging a speech, a whopping three days in advance.
First, he welcomed the conviction of the Hooked One and now he is going to hit the terrorists where it hurts the most: in their pockets. Or so it says here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4702748.stm
Another in the current series of Gordon Brown ‘stories’.
he’s still trying the get something out of his ear.
isnt this the 1000th time he’s promised to tackle “terrorist funding”?
hey gordon – here’s a big tip :
ban sharia islamic finance in the UK
“He will announce further work with banks to ensure they tackle suspicious transactions, and outline a possible strengthening of the system for seizing assets of suspected terrorists or their sympathisers”
i look forward to Eggball Srawny being arrested and the MCB being shut down.
http://mcbwatch.blogspot.com/
oh wait. he’s a “moderate”. and he got a knighthood. oh dear…
there are loads of cartoons about the cartoons here:
http://www.cagle.com/news/Muhammad/main.asp
i especially love this one
getting back to the “getting it” think. the one thing that struck me about the whole iranian nuke thing that lead into the cartoon rage issue, is that the BBC had plenty of “muslim opinion”.
but one minority, and one entire nation was curiously missing from the bbc’s coverage.
there was not vox pop or “have your say” for the israelis.
here’s a picture of israeli girls in a bar in israel. obviously conscripted into the army, but having a day off:
http://i1.tinypic.com/ngxbx2.jpg
whats THERE opinion? and why isnt this being broadcast by the bbc?
Archduke, re terrorist funds.
The official institutions are not always the ones to chase.
Charities are permitted to go to the mosques and solicit during religious observances since charity is one of the five pillars of Islam.
Much more difficult is the money moving system which I know has been part of my City’s Muslim culture for years, and can be used for funneling money wherever you like.
I take £10,000 cash to my agent in the UK city and he gives me a password which I then phone to my relative in Pakistan (for instance).
My relative then goes to the office in his city and in exchange for the password he is given the equivalant of £10,000 in local currency, minus a small commision.
When officer Sharon Beshenivsky was shot dead in Bradford during a robbery at a travel agents, there were reports (reported in the local paper, but unsubstansiated) of 3 million pounds being on the premises.
This was at a time when aid was being collected to relieve the Earthquake victims and one way of getting that aid to South Asia was using an agent, and the trust method.
in other words. no amount of bluster from Gordon Brown can stop it. so, its just yet another “groom Gordon for PM” BBC non-story.
Archduke – I’m not sure I’d like to walk into that bar. Is that an assault rifle on your shoulder or are you just pleased to see me? It is and you aren’t? OK, bye.
Archduke :
The Asian (and others) immigrants have been using the “hawala” or “hundi” system since at least the 1950’s in the UK.
Dawn Wire Service 08 03 1997
This projection is based on the fact that about 95 per cent of Pakistani
overseas workers( about 3.5 million in all) is made up of manual labourers
who are already sending in their hard-earned money to Pakistan to support
their large families here. This amount, perhaps, around $300-400 million in
all, comes to Pakistan annually through the Hundi system under which the
recipient in Pakistan gets the remittances in rupees while the equivalent
foreign exchange goes into the black economy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4699716.stm
“The satirical cartoons include an image portraying Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits any depiction of Allah and the Prophet.”
At least they aren’t saying the Koran prohibits it, but still its a reach to claim Islamic tradition doesn’t allow it. If it didn’t, wouldn’t their be uproar of Egypt’s publishing of the cartoons?
Oh wait. I forgot that al-Beeb hasn’t picked up on the Egypt angle yet.
“Archduke – I’m not sure I’d like to walk into that bar. Is that an assault rifle on your shoulder or are you just pleased to see me? It is and you aren’t? OK, bye.”
http://i1.tinypic.com/ngxbx2.jpg
well, at least those israeli girls dont have the problem of the slobbering drunken get-yer-tits-out brigade, thats for sure! it is a crazy picture though – and its something we just dont see on the BBC day to day. the question being – why is it that they have to take weapons to the bar on their day off?
i’m not getting the full picture on this one because of bbc bias.
“The Asian (and others) immigrants have been using the “hawala” or “hundi” system since at least the 1950’s in the UK.”
let more evidence that Browns “announcement” is nothing more than waffle with a big dollop of “i’m the future PM” propaganda.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4702748.stm
isnt this the 1000th time he’s said something about clamping down on terrorist funding? not very successful is he?
Archduke: quickie…
ICT in education is Information and Communication Technology not just IT as it includes videos, CD players, anything that communicates sounds or pcitures etc to the kids during lessons. So now you know… 😎
OT (from Yahoo)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/10022006/325/loren-allende-join-women-olympic-flag-bearers.html
“Loren and Allende join women Olympic flag bearers”
Didn’t Allende’s uncle murder a lot of people in Chile?
Yes, but he was a Marxist.
Oh, that’s alright then.
Don’t worry about Isabel Allende; she doesn’t live in Chile; she lives in a $3 million house in Marin County, California, the richest county by householed income in all of the United States of America. It’s funny how socialists always seem to find the best places to live in, don’t they?
Off Topic:
BBC News online posts an article today (see below for link) about conflict diamonds. Well, no, not quite. It posts an article taken almost verbatim from the Global Witness and AI websites. It provides the four questions you should ask your jeweler, observing that 22% of UK jewelers have no policy on conflict diamonds.
Oddly enough, 100% of UK persian rug dealers have no policy on conflict rugs – although that doesn’t merit an article. But regardless, check out the BBC article. The case against conflict diamonds is, IMHO, a valid one. But it doesn’t read like journalism, it reads like a pep-squad article that does nothing more than quote AI’s perspective. The ‘cutest’ bit is where they take the AI bullets and rephrase them in even stricter terms, as if we won’t notice.
BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4700436.stm
AI:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/press/16813.shtml
If you can identify any original reporting or factfinding the article, you win… something… Free TV license maybe?
“Conflict Diamonds” is a new name for “IDB” the illicit diamonds taken off-quota which so disrupt the DeBeers Cartel.
After all it is not as if diamonds are scarce with Russia, Australia, Congo churning them out it must be hard for South Africa to convince Japanese, US and Middle Eastern customers that the high price lies in the cutting in Tel Aviv or Antwerp when India has cheaper cutting centres.
So you have to tell people not to buy diamonds without a DeBeers Central Selling Agency seal of approval and reject the ones that Zimbabwean Army crooks are stealing in Katanga
Didn’t Allende’s uncle murder a lot of people in Chile?
Yes, but he was a Marxist.
In the early 1940s he wrote a Thesis on Race I believe which is very non-PC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1707341,00.html
An article well worth reading
Rick
Thanks for that link. I was thinking only yesterday when listening to yet another BBC item about a RIGHT wing dictator (Mussolini this time) how little opportunity BBC listeners are given to reflect upon the evils of Communism – or the socialist thinking which leads up to it. When I read Martin Kettle’s article, I replied to thank him for it, raising the question of media bias (and hat tipping you and the BBBC website, natch!) Text below.
Dear Mr Kettle
I read your article with great interest, having been directed by a link from the Biased BBC website.
I remember vividly my mother telling me about the period in 1956 when she and my father hardly slept for 3 weeks whilst they listened to heart-rending appeals from Hungary. “We appeal to you in the Free West to come and help us.” The anger and shame that they felt when nothing was done by the West for fear of the Soviet Bear, stayed with them as an implacable contempt for Communism all their lives. Your article brought that memory back and set it in an interesting context.
I was struck by how little, how very little, our media encourages us to remember that vile political system which terrorised and enslaved millions of people throughout Europe and the world for 70 years. What a dangerous phenomenon this selective forgetfulness is. Whilst we are constantly encouraged by the mainstream media to look with disdain at every failure and atrocity committed by right wing or nationalist regime, there is a curious retiscence about recalling, say, the ideology behind the Stalags, or the millions left dead after Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” – or even the Killing Fields of communist Cambodia.
So I salute your bravery in drawing the reluctant attention of your left wing readership to the atrocities committed by their antecedents in socialism, and forcing them, even for a few outraged minutes, to face up to what socialism can lead to.
Rick,
with perfect timing
Sarge nicht nur das ! Ich arbeitete und wohnte in Deutschland, bin Deutscher Abstammung und vollkommen bi-kulturell
News from the Autobahn – German lorry rams broken down tourist coach, well theres a surprise.
Archduke,
Christian charities have collected funds to promote their religion in countries such as Africa for years. (while supposedly civilising the natives). Spanish conquerers in South America baptised Indian children then smashed their heads open so they could go straight to heaven.From between 1652 to 1835, settlers primarily from the Netherlands, and migrant and refugee Calvinist Protestants from Germany, France, Scotland, and elsewhere in Europe, combined in South Africa to form a distinct people, eventually called the Afrikaners or Boers.
The IRA closely aligned to catholicism still collects in London pubs today.
There is a sense in some of these blogs that Christianity is considered superior to Islam. Here is the danger. Muslims consider themselves superior to Christians. In the Arab world it is obvious, Pakistan has the nuclear bomb, a change of leaders will mean the destruction of India, Muslims hate the Indian religions even more than Christianity.
Didn’t Allende’s uncle murder a lot of people in Chile?
Yes, but he was a Marxist.
In the early 1940s he wrote a Thesis on Race I believe which is very non-PC
Rick | 11.02.06 – 5:35 am | #
Socialists are ever all the same. In WW2 they wanted to tattoo a number on every Jew, now they want all of us to have ID cards so that they can find out what we are doing and stop us from doing it.
Recent controversy has surrounded Allende’s 1933 doctoral dissertation “Mental Hygiene and Delinquency”, the subject of a recent book Salvador Allende: Anti-Semitism and Euthanasia by Victor Farías, a Chilean-born teacher at the Latin America Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In his book, Farías claims that Allende held racist, homophobic and anti-semitic views, as well as believing at that time that mental illnesses, criminal behaviour, and alcoholism were hereditary. Farías allegations have been challenged by the Allende Foundation, which published various relevant materials on the Internet in PDF form, including the dissertation itself and a letter of protest Allende and others sent to Adolf Hitler after Kristallnacht.
“that mental illnesses, criminal behaviour, and alcoholism were hereditary”
and they are! I just hate the way that unfortunate truths are no-longer allowed.
Now now Rob…alchoholism is an illness doncha know.
So my bone idle p**s head (ex) mates advisors say.
He is on full incapacity benifits, and stays home all day drinking.
It would be difficult to afford drink all day if they stopped benefit wouldn’t it?
“It would be difficult to afford drink all day if they stopped benefit wouldn’t it?”
thats prime example of adam smith’s law of unintended consequences.
hats prime example of adam smith’s law of unintended consequences.
What has it to do with Adam Smith ?
i thought it was adam smith who came up with that law?
“to my bone idle p**s head (ex) mates advisors say.
He is on full incapacity benifits, and stays home all day drinking.”
law of unintended consequences – providing welfare because his alcholic and cant get a job which causes him to stay at home which causes him to drink more, which leads to more welfare.
Not an Earth shattering example, but typical of the sneering disdain of the BBC. From an article on bumper sticker by Justin Webb on the BBC online news:
“In any list of America’s greatest contributions to world culture – the kazoo, the electric guitar, drive-in fast food etc”
Bit like saying that Strictly Come Dancing, Bargain Hunt and Watchdog are the BBC’s greatest contributions to British Culture.
Roll on the end of the Licence Tax