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Diana, I’m happy you’ve never had those problems – Miami is a cosmopolitan city. I never had any problems in NYC, Baltimore, Long Island, Boston, Miami – it’s the rural areas. It’s a huge country and attitudes vary tremendously. (One of the things that bugs me about the BBC is that they don’t ever seem to admit that. There’s a lot of “they” think this, “they” think that when they mention Americans).
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a minister, yet didn’t originally include the phrase “Under God” — that was inserted during the McCarthy era, at the same time that “in God we Trust” first appeared on US money.
I’m not a rabid atheist – just someone who doesn’t happen to be able to believe it, and doesn’t want to be hypocritical.
Let’s have a chat by the fireside.
Otherwise known as “Ming Campbell interviewed by Eddie Mair on PM about Iraq”.
Number of tough questions posed on Lib Dem Iraq policy by Mair? Answer: zero.
Interruptions by Mair? Answer: zero.
Number of times Ediie Mair’s voice reached a higher pitch due to cross-questioning when interviewing? Answer: zero.
From Laban Tall:
Your 8 search results for “Lent”
Your 164 search results for “Ramadan”
‘Let’s have a chat by the fireside.’
That rule applies to most Lib Dims even the repellent Mark Oaten, and people like Tony Benn.
Lets see, Michael Howard is interviewed as a witness and on the main BBC page and on the News frontpage it says ‘Howard quizzed in honours probe’. The article on it starts ‘Former Conservative leader Michael Howard has been questioned by Scotland Yard as part of the cash-for-honours investigation, he has said.’
Now I’m sure ‘John Reith’ will claim the wording is correct but to the average reader it implies Howard was a suspect not a witness.
Meanwhile nothing being said about the fact that Ming as Chancellor of St Andrews Uni is going to award a degree to Khatami:
“During the eight years of Mohammed Khatami’s presidency of Iran
* More than 200 people were executed
* There was a ten-fold increase in women being sentenced to death by stoning
* Many homosexuals were arrested and flogged, tortured, jailed or
executed
* Tens of thousands of Ahwazis, members of Iran’s persecuted Arab
minority, were forcibly removed from their land, with little or no
compensation
* Hundreds of workers’ strikes and demonstrations, including strikes by nurses and teachers, were savagely attacked and suppressed”
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/10/23/killer_khatami_gets_capped.php
Funny how Ming’s uni is happy to praise (as they will have to during the ceremony)a theocrat and murderer yet Ming keeps whinging that we should bring our troops home and leave the Iraqis etc to the mercies of these same murderers. He actually said on BBC News tonight that we should involve Syria and Iran then the UN!
FFS Syria and Iran are the CAUSE of much of the so called insurgency – it is their men that are doing most of the fighting and their anti tank weapons that are killing British and coalition soldiers you half witted moron Ming! And did the Beeboid not raise this rather important point ? Did he heck!
I just emailed Ming on the lines above – let us see if he replies and also if the next time he’s on the Beeb that they actually DO ask him some hard questions……
Dave: Expect Al Beeb to ask Mr. Campbell something along the line of
“…are you related to the former Chinese emperor, dear leader?”
Lynette | 23.10.06 – 6:19 pm,
I was also banned by HYS from one of their rare “reactively moderated topics becuse I objected to them deleting one of my comments after it had been up for half an hour. they then deleted the objection and the next time I tried to comment I was blocked, getting a message that I was not allowed to comment. I tried to comment on another topic to check and saw I was banned there as well.
Then I tried a few days later and saw I was unbanned. So try again. The ban could be temporary.
“Expect Al Beeb to ask Mr. Campbell something along the line of”
So. The MacDonalds anna happy wiv yee Mingie Boy….comments?
Why are your soups made with the sweat of Chinese labourers and force grown tomatoes?
A whole new game methinks!
Dave: If you had a more exotic name than Dave you might be leader of the LibDimbs. Hm.
Finally Al Beeb have come up with some “end of ramadan” pictures. They’re linked to from their (international version) news homepage. Been waiting for those. Thanks, Al Beeb!
Here’s nice cartoon re. the “veil discussion”: http://kenlydell.typepad.com/photos/cartoons/englehart.jpg
Thanks Bryan, I suspect you are right.
TThe reactively moderated topics are more fun- I could usually get a couple in before they shut either it or me down.
Most of the time I write comments just to annoy whoever has to scan them, knowing very well they’ll never see the light of day.
I would love to actually be able to post the “Official BBC HYS approved adjective list” — arrogant, Zionist, naive, stupid, racist….
Pete_London
Thanks for your message about the Australian BC, though it’s somewhat discouraging. A surprise? Not at all. The blogs are a godsend.
A-B-C Broadcasting Corporations: poor us! I hope we might get governments with the cojones to get rid of these traitors. Canada has a fine, principled PM, Stephen Harper. So far, he’s got a minority government. As one might imagine, the MSM are spinning against his government fast and furiously.
(Sorry, I LIKE Aussie accents: I once knew a girl from “Path”, i.e., “Perth” . . . But I really like Brit accents too!)
Cheers!
BBC reports on the “Disaffected French youth riots” today.
‘About 9,000 cars were torched in the three weeks of unrest last year, which spread through the country’s housing estates – dominated by immigrants and their French-born children’
No M word of course, but was’nt the figure over 30,000 not 9,000
Oi, this is a good one.
The revision
http://newssniffer.newworldodour.co.uk/articles/7893/diff/0/1
—
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6078180.stm
Olmert appoints right-wing deputy
Last Updated: Monday, 23 October 2006, 19:09 GMT 20:09 UK
—
“The deal is expected to be approved by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, later this week.”
How loacking in context of how Israeli governments are formed. The Government passes a first bill which acknoledges itself as being the government.
“He also recently accused some Israeli Arabs of treason for speaking to Palestinian militant group, Hamas.”
Is this opinion unusual? Context please.
“”One Israeli Arab leader has described Mr Lieberman’s party as being “fascists”.”
Name and party of this IA leader? BTW
what is the name of Mr Liberman’s party? The article doesn’t mention the name of his party a single time!!!
“But the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has decided he needs to broaden his coalition in the wake of the debacle in Lebanon.”
Debacle? Isn’t that a bit of a judgemental term for an unbiased BBC correspondent to be using.
“Avigdor Lieberman wins much of his support from Israel’s big Russian community.
He sees himself as a strongman, the sort of authoritarian leader he believes Israel needs.”
Do you we have a quote? Or is this something that our correspondant wants us to believe on faith?
“For the Israeli government, this will be a significant move to the right less than seven months after the general election seemed to strengthen the centre of Israeli politics.”
And what has happened in the past seven months that might lead to a politcial shift?
====
This article is worse than overboiled oatmeal. Lacking in any flavor or detail. We still don’t know what the name of Mr Lieberman’s party is !!!!
This is awful reporting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6068858.stm
Total executive in bribery probe
Last Updated: Friday, 20 October 2006, 07:32 GMT 08:32 UK
===
“A number of global figures have been caught up in the oil-for-food scandal, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in September that he took personal responsibility for the failures of the programme.”
Surely these global figures are notable enough to have names? Does anyone one of these global figures name start with “K”
Market Participant
You’re right, the first piece about Avigodor Lieberman was basically rubbish reporting, but by the time the subs had got through, it’s just dreadful – unsourced, opinion-riddled, take-it-from-me-I’m-from-the-BBC guff. Where to start? Lack of attribution (“One Israeli Arab leader. . . “); attribution of motive (“But the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has decided he needs to broaden his coalition in the wake of the debacle in Lebanon); unattributed self-description by Lieberman (“He sees himself as a strongman, the sort of authoritarian leader he believes Israel needs”). And, as you say, not even the party’s name.
Lazy lazy lazy. Arrogant arrogant arrogant.
Today programme 6.20am this morning. I have to say that the business section is a trifle dull for me, but I couldn’t help noticing the first thing I heard by the BBC commentator as I switched on:
“are the profits made by the company excessive?”
Which aspect of “private enterprise” doesn’t the BBC understand?
A more pertinent question would be “is the BBC licence fee excessive?”
Pete_London
There is a difference between the BBC and apparently the CBC to the ABC in Aus.
The Aussies can turn it over and DONT PAY A Seperate TAX,oops sorry licence/charge to watch the programs.
I was a young fella when the Government REMOVED THE TV licence in Aus.
Today programme at 7.45am.
Discussion of the worst tv programmes of all time. Rather predictably programmes like 3-2-1 were mentioned and sneered at (yes that phenomenally successful 3-2-1 one enjoyed by millions in the early 1980’s). Also the Charlotte Church show (dumb) and Love thy Neighbour (evil/racist). Also Christian tv in the US was mentioned (why miss an opportunity to sneer at the Christian right in the US?).
Question to the BBC: how many more people used to watch 3-2-1 every Saturday compared to the number who listen to the Today programme every day? I expect that the numbers would be rather sobering for our sanctimonious and sneering “betters” at the BBC.
Diana
the reason your biology teacher failed to “…explain why this theory contradicted entropy” is that it doesn’t!
You are simply your own misunderstanding of the lies creationists use to attack something they don’t like which has proved itself to every true test. I am presuming you mean the second law of thermodynamics, dealing with the overall increase of entropy in a closed system. However the Earth is not a closed system, energy is exchanged, and in partiular is input by the sun. If you include this the second law is not voilated.
So why do creationists, supposedly godly people, lie to you?
Unfortunately it seems your biology teacher was not well-versed on evolution. It is not at all vague, in fact it is very firm and straightforward (although the soup theories are sometimes vague, and are not the only theories around, they relate to abiogenesis, not evolution!).
But if you are right Richard, it means that you and James Naughtie evolved from the same primordial amoeba. Creationism sounds better on that level, except that I can’t think why God created the BBC….
Al bbc is on full on “prison is bad” mode – they’ve got a “life on the inside” segment , and al-beeb has been given access to Wandsworth prison.
ahhh – the poor prisoners. ah diddums. they should be out doing flower arranging for the local Women’s Institute, and baking cookies for the boy scouts.
“But if you are right Richard, it means that you and James Naughtie evolved from the same primordial amoeba.”
its actually worse than that – there is a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001% difference between the evolved DNA of James Naughtie with that of Richard.
being influenced by supernatural demons, satan versus the Holy Spirit and all that stuff sounds far more attractive. 😉
CBC Listener
Did I understand you correctly?
Are you compelled to fund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
“Also Christian tv in the US was mentioned”
when i was working in the states, i found christian tv to be quite interesting – covered social problems like family breakdown, drug abuse, teenage pregnancies etc. a real discussion on these issues and how to use prayer to get over them or to use the bible to encourage chastity and self discipline.
now, i’m an atheist, but i was looking at it going – “well, if that helps people, and makes their lives better, who am i to sneer at it?”
abadon ship asked:
“Question to the BBC: how many more people used to watch 3-2-1 every Saturday compared to the number who listen to the Today programme every day?”
answer: first series , 16.5 million PER EPISODE.
later series: 12 million or more , consistently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-2-1
Today programme audience figures:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2298457,00.html
5.87 million PER WEEK.
so ,Dusty Bin , was around 12 million per episode, Today is 5.87 million per week. You can do the maths.
Professor “Rod” Morgan on “Today” asserts (perhaps correctly) that more locking up of juveniles has occurred simultaneously with a drop in crime commmitted by juveniles. No-one (not even Naughtie) asks him to explain why (or, presumably in Rod’s case, why not) these two phenomena might be causally related and that prison might actually work in lowering crime. Not (necessarily) bias but the usual crap journalism.
” Roxana | 23.10.06 – 9:26 pm ”
i think you’re missing the point Roxana.
the point being that 2% of the population results in wall to wall Islam coverage. try to find a recent discussion or program on atheism on the BBC. you’d be hard pressed to find it.
Here’s a pertinent graphic that shows “belief in god” percentages across Europe.
The UK is pegged at between 30 and 50%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_belief_in_god.png
“And given that the three most murderous, totalitarian and destructive ideologies of the 20th c. were blatantly atheistic, (Communism, Socialism, Nazi-ism)”
communism – yes.
socialism – Err..no. its a bit more complex than that. Ever hear of the Quakers? Or Christian Socialism?
Nazism – So , all those German infantry belt buckets with “Gott Mit Uns” were just for show , eh?
And then we have one of the greats of American republican history – Thomas Paine, who was blatantly anti-organised religion:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/paine.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_paine
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/paine.htm
Prior to Marx, atheism was identified with radical Libertarianism. Admittedly, it will take decades more before that link is re-established in people’s minds.
BBC – lying by omission
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6076410.stm
“Limits on Bulgarians’ and Romanians’ right to work in the UK are to be unveiled by Home Secretary John Reid.”
Err.. no . its not quite like that. What Mr Reid is “announcing” has actually been agreed at a European level. It’s not Mr Reid announcing something that he came up with himself – he is merely re-stating EU policy.
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/enlargement_process/future_prospects/negotiations/eu10_bulgaria_romania/chapters/chap_2_en.htm
“The essential components of the transition arrangement are as follows:-
A two year period during which national measures will be applied by current Member States to new Member States. Depending on how liberal these national measures are, they may result in full labour market access.”
So basically the UK just went for full access with regards to the Poles. For the Romanians and Bulgarians its going for the 2 year transition. My point being, this isnt Mr Reid suddenly coming up with this.
this has all been already agreed and signed on.
Buster0158 –
There is a difference between the BBC and apparently the CBC to the ABC in Aus. The Aussies can turn it over and DONT PAY A Seperate TAX,oops sorry licence/charge to watch the programs.
Neither do I as I haven’t had a licence for years, but that’s by the by. Thanks for putting me right on that however. Given that the ABC is the BBC in all but accent and the fact that Australia is a British overseas territory, I feel I can be excused for assuming the funding/extortion arrangement were the same.
archduke –
Speaking as a Papist agnostic, I’d love to see atheism decline, even if atheists are right. It would be worth it just to see that insufferable bore, Richard Dawkins, made even madder.
Tom Paine was of course also in favour of the “revolutionary violence” that murdered 400,000 catholics in La Vendee, wasn’t he? Hadn’t they been at liberty to believe in what he approved of, and nothing else?
“Speaking as a Papist agnostic, I’d love to see atheism decline, even if atheists are right. It would be worth it just to see that insufferable bore, Richard Dawkins, made even madder.”
personally speaking, i much preferred the more gentle, humanist approach of Carl Sagan.
but in the wake of 911 and the rise of Islamofascism, i’m not so sure. Insufferable bore that he is, maybe its time to out-Choudary the likes of Choudary – why are *those* Islamofascists allowed to rant and rave?
I’d love to see a Choudary v Dawkins debate.
Rueful Red -> most of the signatories to the American revolution saw nothing wrong with slavery either. you dont have to subscribe to absolutely everything they believed in.
Did anybody else notice the BBC coverage the other day of the Duke of Edinburgh’s surprise visit in Basra, addressing soldiers from The Queen’s Royal Hussars. Prince Philip, 85, said: “Everyone at home has been following what has been going on in this part of the world with a great deal of sympathy for those of you at the sharp end who are trying to do your best to make life civilised and tolerable for the locals.”
The BBC edited the speech so that after the “to make life civilised and tolerable for the locals” it cut the film to a woman soldier grinning like a Cheshire cat for a number of seconds. Clearly, the intention was to pour ridicule and scorn on what the BBC thought was a culturally inappropriate sentiment. The Duke was not in a humorous mood, he did not say it as a joke, he was very well away of the deaths and suffering. The images of the soldier were shot at a different moment, they did not have two cameras, one filming the reception of his short speech. The BBC News & editing is really Orwellian and straight out of 1984.
Quite agree Archduke, though whether the reperesentatives of the two northern folkways saw “nothing wrong” with slavery is a bit debatable.
But wasn’t revolutionary violence the distinguishing mark of T Paine’s thought when compared with Burke, who trusted people and institutions? Hadn’t Paine signed up for the full package that went with the Rousseauian retreat from Reason? The General Will, as determined by a revolutionary vanguard? The Thetford Lenin?
There was a demonstration organized by the Stop the War Calition and the Muslim Assocaiation of Britain for last Sunday in Glasgow. The Independent wrote a glowing report and predicted thousands would show up. The protest was over the governments stance on the Muslim veil.
On Monday I checked many news sources and couldn’t find any report on the protest. So, I called STOP HQ who gave me the local group’s number in Glasgow, who said they weren’t at the protest (??) but gave me two mobile numbers to people who were supposedly there. Neither number worked. Here’s my post on that so far.
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2006/10/uk-glasgow-muslim-demonstration-bust.html
Today I recieved an email and photogrpah from someone who was at George Square on Sunday. He says no one showed up at the protest. My post and photo is here.
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2006/10/uk-no-shows-at-stop-war-coalition.html
Revealing how the media trumpet these events before hand and when people show up but ignore the story when no one shows up.
The BBC may be running their “prison is bad” day, but they still have time for a “we’re all doomed” eco-rant from the usual suspects:
Global ecosystems ‘face collapse’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6077798.stm
“Paul King, WWF director of campaigns, said the world was running up a “serious ecological debt”.”
Paul King, WWF director of campaigns….
is he a well know scientist?
“It (the report commissioned by WWF) warned that if demand continued at the current rate, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050.
The biodiversity loss was a result of resources being consumed faster than the planet could replace them, the authors said.
They added that if the world’s population shared the UK’s lifestyle, three planets would be needed to support their needs.”
Three planets by 2050! Seriously, what drugs are these guys taking? I want some!
But if you are right Richard, it means that you and James Naughtie evolved from the same primordial amoeba. Creationism sounds better on that level, except that I can’t think why God created the BBC….
Abandon ship! | 24.10.06 – 9:22 am
Thanks for the laugh, AS. That’s so funny, and so true.
That’s like the time last month when a handful marched from Faslane to Edinburgh. Even using its most crowd-swelling camera techniques the Beeb couldn’t make the event look like anything other than a fiasco.
An article appeared in ‘The Londoner’s Diary’ of the Evening Standard last night.
I can’t find a link to it, but here is a straight lift transcript.
‘Top BBC figures such as Andrew Marr and Justin Webb confessed at the weekend that the corporation is dominated by left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multi-culturalism and political correctness.
My Beeb mole says this was reflected at an audience festival at the TV Centre last week in which participants included Helen Boaden, head of news, Rod Mckenzie, radio news, John Williams, foreign editor, Nick Robinson, political editor and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, representing the press.
They were invited to discuss whether the BBC should give its audiences what they want to hear or whether it should lead the agenda and tell them what they ought to know.
“It might seem strange that Rusbridger is invited to represent the British press” says my spy. “But all the BBC leadership read The Guardian and nothing else.”’
By the way my spell checker doesn’t like culturalism. It keeps coming up with cultureless.
jr…….. Any clues on the mole and is the BBC going to squander zillions in trying to identify him.
Intersting to see Boaden’s latest entry in the ‘editors blog’
It reads like “Yes the BBC does makes mistakes, the last one was in 1971”
Bias at the BBC?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/bias_at_the_bbc.html
Helen Bowden, Director of BBC News writes……
“no bias to see here, move along now…”
I watched 2 episodes of Spook last night (BBC1 & 3), and thought that the portrayal of the Israelis was quite outrageous! These BBC Spook creators are really closet anti-semites! The writer Raymond Khoury
http://www.lasttemplar.com/author/author.asp
is obsessed with MOSSAD he really is a head case.
I wonder,could this have anything to do with the fact that he is LEBANESE?
Writer RAYMOND KHOURY
Director ANDY HAY
Producer ANDREW WOODHEAD
Creator DAVID WOLSTENCROFT
Executive Producer SIMON CRAWFORD COLLINS
Executive Producer JANE FEATHERSTONE
The very latest episode 8 with its preposterous “League of Christ” and Mossad assassins, doesn’t say if it was written by Khoury again, but it has all his hallmarks. A Muslim cleric who advocates violence against the West is assassinated. Are Christians retaliating with their own form of extremism? In this episode we have a black Bishop who is a close advisor to the PM putting out a contract for the killing, and then later the PMs legal advisor recruiting Mossad to kill a priest and bothersame MI5 agent.
Perhaps, in future, if the BBC announced the programme as written by the Lebanese author KHOURY, it might help in understanding the bias of the silly narrative!
Would they not announce it if it had been critical of Islam and had been written by Rushdie?
It’s all so silly; rather like Dr Who meets Dads Army.
Given the above link, perhaps BBCBias would like to apologise? I won’t hold my breath.
Great to see BBC doesnt just limit its bias to party politics and global governments but also to the 321 tv programme. (sarcasm)
Rueful Red | 24.10.06 – 12:31 pm :
“Hadn’t Paine signed up for the full package that went with the Rousseauian retreat from Reason? The General Will, as determined by a revolutionary vanguard? The Thetford Lenin?”
Initially yes – but he ended up on death row in Robespierre’s France, only managing to escape by chance.
still , i cant disagree with what he wrote in 1793, in “The Age of Reason”
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
Just pointing out that Paine is a major influence on the ideas of freedom and liberty. Both left and right took ideas and influences from him.
How this links to AL-Beeb – well, if you look at their wall-to-wall Islam coverage , usually, in their news programs , you have , usually a rep from Islam, and then a rep from Christianity as a perceived “counter balance”.
there seems to be an almost unquestioning acceptance of “faith” under the Nu Labour project, whereas there is a rather large constituency of non-believers in the UK that dont adhere to any religion. This is simply not reflected in current BBC output. Maybe its because “faith” is the new trendy thing for the likes of AL-beeb – we should give “offense” should we?
typop -“we shouldnt give offense”…
another example of the Nu Labour project – “the religious hatred bill”, which thankfully, had its guts ripped out of it.
“It’s all so silly; rather like Dr Who meets Dads Army.
john | 24.10.06 – 1:18 pm”
its also VERY dangerous – its a seal of approval to the Islamo nutters that think that Mossad was behind 9/11.
.
usa today.com
“Britain is turning on the U.S. — at its own peril”
“Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism have poisoned British politics. In a world of terrorism, the timing couldn’t be worse”.
By Melanie Phillips
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/10/britain_is_turn.html
.