A reader called Dina writes:
Hi, I just wondered if anyone else watched the programme on BBC2 on Friday 17th March about called “The Family that Walks on All Fours”?
I watched this expecting it to be a scientific documentary about the curious anomaly of a rural Turkish family who have several mentally handicapped children who walk on all fours, like monkeys. The programme started well. About half way through, one of the scientists interviewed the Imam at the local village Mosque who was afraid that the programme might hint at Darwinian evolution in explaining the childrens symptoms. The programme went on sympathetically to explain that the idea of evolution is generally anathema in Turkey as an Islamic country, especially in rural areas and the Imam thought that to allow a Western programme to make the connection could invoke the wrath of an Al Qaeda attack on the village. The programme then went on to emphasise that hostility to the idea of evolution is not exclusive to Islamic countries and then, in classic BBC style, the programme switched to show an American Evangelical Church discussing the bible. At this point I changed the channel. I thought I was watching a genuine scientific documentary, but I should have known that the BBC needs to insert a political (especially anti-American) angle into such a programme. I try not to watch the BBC as much as possible as I cannot stomach the boring and predictable PC, anti-American drivel that is their stapel diet. Anyway, I just wondered if anyone had seen this and agrees with me?
Just be grateful they didn’t find some reason to show a clip of Gitmo.
It is against the Jewish faith to charge interest also.
I thought nthat section of Leviticus only applied to co-religionists…………..anyway, you just issue zero-coupon and there is no interest charged but “interest” is paid
The natzis were socialist to the core, but nationalist instead of internationalist, which is why they were so appealing to so many people.
You are joking of course ? With 22% unemployment and rampant deflation I think they were very attractive to voters in 1930-1932 because otherwise the Communists would take over.
If you had 7-8 million unemployed here and no unemployment pay, no healthcare, and rampant deflation I suppose David Cameron’s soft-focus Conservatism would be most appealing to people here……………but in 1920s England life was nowhere near as bad as in Germany which saw a 33% contraction in GDP
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2081527,00.html
“That is an extremely disturbing article.
Susan | 20.03.06 – 12:42 am | #”
indeed. i cant help wondering if it will come a cropper because of human rights law.
” putting in place the tax and legislative framework that is supportive of Islamic products”
Thats sectarian discrimination. I’m “offended”.
Quick -someobody report the Treasury to London Met police!
How long before female BBC newsreaders cover their heads?
Re: Islamic finance
Isn’t criticism of this just a little bit (ok a lot) childish.
If there’s an increasing market in Islamic financing products (which there is), if the tax and legislative frameworks need a bit of tinkering to enable the City to offer these products effectively, and if this can be facilitated without impacting on anyone else or opening up opportunities for fraud or terrorist funding then what’s the problem? Would you rather it went to Hamburg?
The tax and legal framework is perenially being adjusted to account for new financial products – i.e. new derivatives, hedge funds etc etc.
If some of the more bizarre aspects of Islamic religious practice have baked the next large pie then personally I’d like a large slice of it please.
To be fair, the Panorama report last night by Jane Corben on Iraq was a good review of what has been happening. Grim but pretty factual, and it showed UK troops in a very good light.
I would not be surprised if Jane Corbin has a relative in the military, has some comprehension of what the military has to deal with. Unlike most of the arts grads at the BBC.
Jane Corbin is married to John Maples, Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon.
Typical. Bloody biased BBC!
Cockney is right, in the same way that we should welcome Al Jazeera to our screens and encourage our journalists (Frost) to get involved.
Islam is not going to go away and we must assimilate it. The final shape of British society, having factored in Islam and the EU is unknowable.
“Isn’t criticism of this just a little bit (ok a lot) childish.”
not really. its part and parcel of “financial jihad”.
its primary aim is to separate off the “ummah” from the financial institutions of the infidel West, and its an important step towards the imposition of sharia law in Islamic areas in the West.
Promoting Islamic finance will only led to even more segregation and more insularity amongst the Muslim ghettoes in the west – you effectively will end up with a state within a state.
SiN
But we cannot assimilate Islam. Islam seeks submission – it MEANS submission. It is entirely antithetical to Western thought – quite contrary to the mush the BBC tries to feed us.
Co-existence is the only route forward. But that is only possible with a severely restricted proportion of Muslims here in Britain. Not just for cultural reasons, but also to keep to a minimum the traffic with global Islamist terrorism.
AD,
I suspect you’ll find that the financial institutions of the infidel West will be more than keen to get involved once the legislative position is sorted, at great benefit to your pension fund. The proposals aren’t aimed at people in council estates in Whitechapel, they’re aimed at getting more of the vast wealth that oil prices have generated into the UK. As I said, if we don’t look after ourselves it’ll end up in Hamburg.
Why did the HYS shut down the hugely-popular, partly ‘Reactively Moderated’ debate on ‘Should the BBC be more accountable?’ after airing it for only two days?
Could it be because a large majority of the 2018 comments posted agreed with the question posed in the topic?
No, surely not! The BBC is impartial, ain’t it?
regarding gordon browns “islamic finance” initiative, just step back and subsitute the phrase “islamic finance” with “soviet finance” , and “muslim” with “communist party member”.
this will give you an idea on how terrifying Brownstuff’s proposal really is.
it will also allow the laundering of terrorist money – how does Brownstuff propose to track “islamic” money when it flows from London into Pakistan or Saudi and then back again?
How long before female BBC newsreaders cover their heads?
Socialism is Necrotizing | 20.03.06 – 10:51 am | #
I would prefer that Kate Silverton to change her glasses…………..you forgot to mention that male newsreaders should grow beards………..
Islamic Finance is a joke – it just means calling Interest something else, so you don’t get a mortgage but instead it is turned into a “rent-to-own” deal………….this is nothing new………..it only causes problems if the Cash Price equals Credit Price becomes an issue but if you legislate for “Islamic Finance” this problem can be obviated
Cockney
Frankfurt will be surprised to hear that Hamburg is the German financial services centre.
“The proposals aren’t aimed at people in council estates in Whitechapel, they’re aimed at getting more of the vast wealth that oil prices have generated into the UK”
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp531.htm
“All Islamic scholars are unanimous in their interpretation of these verses regarding the centrality and importance of financial jihad as part of Allah’s jihad commandment to Muslims.”
Jane Corbin is also one of the few BBC journalists to have taken an interest in the Hunt Keith-Hill investigation of the Hamilton “cash for Questions” scandal.
After reviewing several key documents from The Guardian’s submittions to the 1997 official parliamentary inquiry, she and her producer Thea Guest agreed that they showed several signs of having been forged as part of a sophisticated cover-up.
Corbin subsequently made several requests of Panorama’s then editor, Peter Horrocks, to instigate a Panorma investigation using Hunt & Keith-Hill’s research as a starting point, but Horrocks refused point blank.
Horrocks is now the BBC’s Head of TV News.
See:
http://www.guardianlies.com/Pegs%20that%20stood%20up/page2.html
It would not have done, in the late days of John Major, for the BBC to be investigating the possibility that the Hamilton affair was a put-up job against the Tories.
And the idea of attacking the bona fides of the Guardian – sheer blasphemy !
Dumbdisco, sorry – bit of an early start…. Frantically recalling all emails sent this morning…..
Well if “financial jihad” means putting money in our banking system where it can be expropriated all well and good……………so far it is my Non-Sharia Pension Fund that Gordon Brown has looted…………..
Jane Corbin’s husband John Maples MP now thinks that Iraq was a terrible mistake. This was commendably NOT the tone of Jane Corbin’s Panorama piece :
http://www.johnmaplesmp.com/speechprint.asp?ref=66
Well once again Biased-BBC only comes up with half the story. The prgramme ‘The Family that Walks on All Fours’ that kicked off this thread wasn’t made by the BBC but by an independent production company. Commercial sector stuff. The producer did once work in BBC Documentaries, but she also worked for Carlton TV and Granada.
John Reith
“Biased-BBC only comes up with half the story” does it?? The BBC broadcast the programme didn’t it? Did the BBC have no editorial control then?
What about the BBC’s reporting of the scandal that put the Tories out of power for a decade – the “Cash for Questions” affair – which two journalists, one of whom represented Granada TV for best NW Reporter of 1997, allege was perverted by The Guardian’s submission of perjurious witness statements and forged documents, the illegal withholding of key documents, all topped off with perjurious testimony?
How do you suppose the BBC might justify refusing to broadcast news about THAT pretty interesting side of the story – a side which it’s own journos, among others, have endorsed in writing??
But the BBC bought and broadcast the programme. The BBC is responsible.
Is it just my ears, but does Derek Jacobi adopt an Afrikaans accept for his upcoming role in a BBS docu-drama about Pinochet? (trailers being currently shown)
Is it because he was right wing, or becuase Maggie was friends of both?
“accept” should be “accent”
The BBC news staff is mostly a mix of Guardianesque fellow-travellers plus callow youth who have nil memory of serious war, and no idea of what conflict entails – they can only reckon the casualties, not the gains that make the casualties worthwhile.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013469.php
reading murder – gang members were on probation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/4825212.stm
may i add, in previous decades, the home secretary would have resigned over something like that.
…and while they are in prison the South London animals will probably convert to militant and socially violent Islam, if they have not already done so. It is rampant among some of the South London estates – but unreported by the BBC.
allan@aberdeen wrote:
“It is now a fact that the BBC leads the baying mob’s chant (and the quiet whispering in Islington’s dinner parties) against Israel and Jews in a manner of which Goebbels would have approved. Josef Goebbels: now that was a REAL nazi. Hippiehooter, please note.”
I’m a little confused here. You seem to be endorsing my point and criticising it at the same time.
Henry, in so far as the BBC does cover the BNP, trying to do oh so righteous ‘exposes’, it wins huge sympathy for the BNP getting it victimised for saying entirely legitimate and needs to be said things about Islam.
Political extremists of any stripe should only get the coverage that election laws oblige.
Hippiehooter, I don’t think that Nick Griffin is a nazi precisely because the BNP isn’t leading or even participating in the campaign to de-legitimise the state of Israel (Jews etc). Griifin may well be other things, but not a nazi. I just thought that it would be worthwhile pointing out how a real nazi (Goebbels) would have approved of how the BBC is conducting itself in that respect.
The Juan Cole that the BBC eg John Simpson likes to quote is so unhinged and inaccurate that he now claims that homosexuality has a special place in Islam – meaning a favoured place :
http://www.juancole.com/2006/03/sistani-on-homosexuality-andrew.html
Total moonbat, quoted with approval as an “expert” by the BBC.
Here’s a fisking of Coles’s ridiculous remarks :
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/dont-worry-leftists-islam-has-place.html
reading murder. one of the gang was from Kosovo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4778704.stm
all of the other scumbags are from south london. could they be part of the “Muslim Boys” gang?
Vast amounts of money being invested into the UK from Islamia = more control of the UK’s social and political structures.
I don’t see how anyone cannot see this.
Example: A Dubai organization purchased Caribou Coffee in the US (a Starbucks knock-off) and stated its intentions to run the company by “sharia principles” in its financial filings with the SEC. Caribou once had Red Ken’s gay-bashing buddy Sheikh Al-Qaradawi on its board, although Caribou has since severed its ties with the Sheikh because of adverse publicity.
hippiepooter:
My point again. Please take time to have a look at these website traffic
rankings and note.
BNP 25,764
Conservatives 88,190
Lib Dems 108,520
Labour 130,366
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=bnp.org.uk
That proves there is enormous interest in what the BNP have to say and they should be able to debate in the media like everyone else. It might not be what you want to hear but everyone has their own views.
Peter Hitchens is calling for a “new and radical political movement”
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2006/03/politicians_are.html
dumbcisco
“The BBC news staff is mostly a mix of Guardianesque fellow-travellers plus callow youth who have nil memory of serious war, and no idea of what conflict entails – they can only reckon the casualties, not the gains that make the casualties worthwhile”
Odd then that the BBC news staff I know well include three ex-Army, one TA and two who’ve spent more time in war zones than most regular soldiers would be likely to. dumbcisco by name……you guys don’t really have a clue, do you?
john reith,
Glad of you to confirm that you are very closely associated with the bBC.
The people who defend this blight on the UK tend to be in it’s pay.
john reith
“Odd then that the BBC news staff I know well include three ex-Army, one TA and two who’ve spent more time in war zones than most regular soldiers would be likely to”.
Unless you can say where the ex-Army and TA types served and in what regiment(s) and in what capacities and which (and when) “war zones”, your statement is, if not completely meaningless, devoid of helpful information. The Army men/women could have been in the Pay Corps, the TA man might never have left the UK, “war zones” could be anywhere – more info please.
Now I know that the HYS has to be moderated, but after twice pointing out the above fact derived from the BBC’s own polling results
“73% of Iraqis considered removing Saddam was a correct decision.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/world_iraq_war_poll_results/html/4.stm
I don’t get my comment published, but a later successful comment is
with the benefit of hindsight the Iraqi people may well feel that life was better with the Devil they Knew than the one they didn’t
Well it just don’t seem right!
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1351&edition=1&ttl=20060320153036
Umbongo
All 3 in ‘teeth arms’ ….2 of them armoured recce though also with experience in counter terrorism ops. Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and NI. Hope this detail helps. But my point is that this blog operates under the delusion that the typical BBC journalist is a sad Bush’n’Israel hating lefty from Sussex Uni who knows nothing of the real world, whereas my experience is that they are rather more widely drawn and include a fair smattering of Tories, people with military experience and quite a few from business backgrounds.
John Reith
You imply that the BBC’s reporting is fair and balanced and that the Biased BBC Blogspot is unjustified. But you didn’t answer my question. It’s pretty straightforward, so please have a try if you can (you could enlist help from your BBC buddies).
The “Cash for Questions” affair was one of this country’s biggest political scandals. Many pundits blame it for putting the Tories out of power. Two journalists (one of whom represented Granada TV for NW RTS Best Reporter of 1997), spent six months investigating the affair, and they concluded that The Guardian perverted the official parliamentary inquiry into the affair by submitting perjurious witness statements; by submitting forged documents; by withholding illegally key documents; and by lying in oral testimony.
Question:
Given the foregoing, how do you suppose the BBC might justify refusing to broadcast news about this independent investigation, which the BBC’s own journalists, among others, have examined and endorsed in writing??
‘The “Cash for Questions” affair was one of this country’s biggest political scandals. Many pundits blame it for putting the Tories out of power.’
Whilst concurring with the general point of the post, I’d be amused to meet the ‘pundits’ who sincerely believe that the Tories were voted out in 1997 solely because of the cash for questions affair.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt
I happen to know quite a bit about your story. Many years ago we met when you were peddling a promising line about 2 guardian journalists. You’d even got hold of a piece of evidence from the guardian’s own computer that suggested a prima facie case. However, you failed to persuade my learned friends that this one was a runner (the libel laws being as they are) and I dare say the BBC’s lawyers may well have come to the same conclusion. If so….they were in pretty good company across fleet street and the main broadcasters. Can’t see what this has to do with bias….the Beeb made cultural icons out of your pals the Hamiltons. In any case, yer man NH had his day in court with Fayed and blew it. You, it turned out, were no match for George Carman.
john reith
Thanks for that. Even so – and yes I realise that B-BBC would tend to be anti-BBC anyway – it’s curious that there is so much evidence in this blog (and elsewhere) concerning a BBC “agenda” (anti-American, anti-Bush, pro-Palestinian, pro-Muslim etc) which is often denied by the BBC and its supporters but never refuted.
Umbongo
You claim there is ‘so much evidence’ on this blog about BBC bias. I’m beginning to agree with the Andrew Marr quotation on the right. There is a lot of nit-picking in this blog about semantics. There are huge and unsubstantiated allegations about the motives of journalists. There’s a lot of willful ignorance about how journalism works. And there are a few well made criticisms of the shortcomings of a (small) number of stories, probably written by entry-level journalists on the BBC’s website…..but I have yet to see a palpable instance of bias, let alone evidence of any ‘agenda’. If the BBC DOES have the ‘agenda’ you describe, why is the clever, sassy, combative Richard Perle so frequently on Newsnight? Why did the Today programme put on that bloke Murray to give Tariq Ali such a tongue-lashing this morning? Agenda; schmagenda.
John Reith,
You’re mistaken. The only BBC journalists to have examined our research have endorsed it. No one has expressed any dissent whatsoever with our analysis of the evidence or our conclusions. Here are some others for you to be going on with:
“Hunt has done meticulous research to produce his book, Trial by Conspiracy… The book is compelling and convincing… Hunt has mounted a case that demands fair, open and careful consideration and a much fuller airing than has so far been permitted… So let us have another — this time, open and honest — look at the Hamilton affair and overturn a gross miscarriage of justice”
Statement by the former political journalist and Press Secretary to Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Sir Trevor Lloyd-Hughes (14 February 2004)
“A marvellous antidote to the Guardian version of events… I am willing to declare here and now that I am far more inclined to believe Jonathan Hunt’s explanation in ‘Trial’ than the ‘evidence’, such as it is, offered up by Fayed and, indeed, the Guardian.”
The then President of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, Andy Smith, writing in the Institute’s magazine The Journal, February 2003
You could also try ringing up Jim Hancock, Political Editor, BBC NW (0161 200 2020
why is there not ONE mention in John Simpson new report from Iraq of Islamism or Al Qaeda?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4825200.stm
not a single mention of the word “terrorist” , even though that is exactly what the Iraqi government themselves describe the “insurgents”.