latest report from the USA, also featured in other BBC bulletins and repeatedly on BBC News Twenty-Bore.
The report was on a new US Army device – a Humvee mounted heat ray system to disperse hostile crowds or enemies in a non-lethal manner. An interesting topic, but oh so nauseatingly covered by Frei, his smug voice dripping sarcastic disdain throughout his ultra-sceptical report.
Here’s a transcript in case you can’t watch the Youtube clip above, complete with some added commentary in red italics:
Dermot Murnighan: The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat ray weapon for use against hostile crowds or stopping battlefield enemies in their tracks, but it’s only in the prototype stage, as Matt Frei reports.
Cut to pictures of soldiers playing the part of a hostile crowd…
Matt Frei: No, it’s not a rebellion from American troops refusing to serve in Iraq (Oh very witty Matt – sarcasm and Iraq in one go!), it’s a bit of Pentagon role playing (yes indeed, it’s all a game to these yahoos). These soldiers are pretending to be rioters and these are not shooting back because this machine will do it for them.
Cut to pictures of Humvee mounted system…
Meet the latest addition to the Pentagon’s list of weapons and euphemisms (Great suggestive use of ‘euphemisms’ there Matt), the Active Denial System. It looks like a satellite dish, it works like a microwave oven, and what it actively denies you is the desire to stay in front of it. Watch them…
Cut to two soldiers reacting to the machine’s heat ray, followed by an old sci-fi still (really old) spinning annoyingly (very annoyingly) on to screen, complete with a silly sound effect (very silly).
It feels like a blast from an oven, it sounds like a blast from the past (kerching, never spotted that follow up coming!). Not science fiction (even though I’m trying to suggest otherwise), but science fact according to the military (does that sound sceptical enough about the military?). And this is how it works…
Cut to animated graphic titled ‘Feeling the heat’…
A beam of microwaves fired from a Humvee is aimed at a human (a human, a HUMAN, you got that? Not a tree, a f***ing human!). The rays gently heat the water under your skin to about 54 degrees and then supposedly, you run for it (I’m b*****ed if I’m going to try it out so that I can tell you what it actually feels like!). It’s called the ‘goodbye effect’.
John Pike, Globalsecurity.org: (Gee, this guy has a real hick-style drawl, just the job!) The ‘goodbye effect’ is that when people feel their skin burning they’re gonna run away, they’re going to stop in their tracks and run away, uh, the military basically wants that to be able to stop people at checkpoints or to disperse crowds. The theory is that when they feel their skin burning they’re going to say ‘goodbye’ and get out of there. (Great editing, make him repeat what Matt’s just said…)
Cut back to soldiers and Humvee…
Matt Frei: But what happens if you don’t feel like saying ‘goodbye’? (I don’t know Matt. Aren’t you going to tell us? You are a reporter aren’t you, and I’m sure they’d give you an opinion), and could it work in places where would be suicide bombers are already used to the desert heat (Well could it Matt? Did you ask them? or are you just spreading doubt as you go?), like Iraq for instance (Yeah, let’s get Iiiiraq in there one more time baby!)?
The Active Denial System, non-lethal (I don’t think so, am I sounding sceptical enough)?, or just non-starter (These Yankee-doodle cowboys and their fancy machines!)?
Matt Frei, BBC News, Washington.
Next up, a new Active Denial P45* System, for getting rid of nauseating, hackneyed, sinecured reporters. It’s called the ‘f*** off’ effect…
* A P45 is a UK government form issued when employment ceases.
They demonstrated it to journalists by firing it at them. The journos scattered. Did he mention that?
At least he actually turned up at this event – wasn’t he the one who reported on Hurricane Katrina from a gym in Los Angeles?
Can someone cluster bomb the BBC command and control facilities with p45s?
One minute the BBC complains about shooting demonstrators…….
…….the next they laugh at non-lethal crowd control.
Matt Frei: No, it’s not a rebellion from American troops refusing to serve in Iraq
This opening line is a brilliant example of how BBC journalism has plummeted to such amazingly low depths, and why the BBC has lost so much standing in the world as a serious news organisation. Frei is clearly unaware that he sounds just like the comedian Harry Hill.
A serious interview with an expert from Janes on its functionality, no longer, past BBC journalists perhaps who had more class and scientific nous would have made the effort.What sort of audience does Frei think is watching him? Clearly Hill thinks we should all be amused by this. An incredible example of BBC Bias. I noticed that he even suggested that it might not have the desired effect on those who were used to heat from the desert. What a fool this man is.
The BBCs Matt Frei is Harry Hill.
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Maybe Frei(Hill) could be persuaded to stand (sneeringly of course) in front of one of these ??
“Navy Tests High-Tech Railgun in Virginia” – Thursday, January 18, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244593,00.html
It must be dreadful for the poor man, obliged to live in a country and amongst people he wholeheartedly hates.
Its a mystery why he hasn’t thrown himself under the nearest bus already.
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AntiCitizenOne,
Can someone cluster bomb the BBC
This was all that needed to be said.
Frei, given his family background I can just see him in the Gestapo
Is that really the best you can do? Keep trying.
Alexsei:
Is that really the best you can do? Keep trying.
Alexsei | 26.01.07 – 5:26 pm
Finished work at the BBC for today, Alexsei? Or are we paying you to read this blog?
Alexsei is your surname Stroturf?
Mr A.Stroturf. head of grassroots support for the BBC.
Yes I saw this dreadful piece last night.
Strange running order – it followed a piece about how here in good ol’ Blighty we can’t be bothered to build enough prisons to lock up dangerous paedos.
But let’s sniggerat those damn yankees actually trying to solve a problem.
With a name like Alexsei you’ll be right at home within the Beeb then comrade!
I presume that a demo of non lethal gas to disperse rioters would be accompanied by pictures of Zylkon B canisters, of plastic handcuffs for a more gentle rioter detention method by a hint that without Iraqi oil they can’t make any more (and here our reporter shows how they were used at Abu Ghaib by the way) and firing bean bags at rioters rather than real, plastic or rubber bullets is bad for the environment and here’s a picture of fat Americans eating beans….. the Beeb and especially that ignorant guest of the Americans, Matt Frei, are getting sadder by the day!
“Active Denial System”? um, doesn’t the bbc complaints department hold the copyright/patent on that?
amimissingsomething:
“Active Denial System”? um, doesn’t the bbc complaints department hold the copyright/patent on that?
LOL
I would love to have pictures of them turning this on the reporters and their own first hand accounts. I don’t know, does it feel like normal heat dummy? :p
He flew all the way to America and back to make this bias report….hopefully thats his BBC imposed carbon emissions limit for the year and we wont have to put up with him for 12 months …..if only 8/
Didn’t think it was that bad, though it’s almost obligatory for the BBC to put in some snide reference to Iraq on any issue.
I do agree with a lot of posters here though that it was an exceptionally dumbed down, uninformative presentation of news by what is supposed to be the UK’s flagship broadcaster.
There is no way anyone would become “used” to 54C in such a way that a sudden blast of it wouldn’t bother them. Even if it doesn’t, they can probably just crank up the machine.
What happens if you don’t run away? Well what happens if you microwave something for too long? I imagine you would become dehydrated and eventually die.
Surely Frei could have spent 10 mins confirming and gathering more information about what I’ve just said. Very lazy reporting and the way he said “human” was just ridiculous.
Frei should think himself lucky that he can get away with his clap trap Anti-American rubbish, but America being a free democracy allows him to keep coming back. Maybe he should try this cynical reporting with Hezbollah – I don’t think he’d do it more than once.
It’s one thing to be used to temperatures on the surface of your skin, which is after all part of a very complex temperature regulation system, and another thing entirely to have the water just below your skin suddenly heated up to a temperature well above your normal body temperature.
Methinks the crack about desert people being “used to it” is either ignorance or a sort of unintentional racial sterotype.
Matt Frei is the generalised ‘face’ of the BBC. It holds us, the viewing and listening license payers, with distain and contempt.
The rule of thumb is this: Listen to the BBC carefully, and then think EXACTLY the opposite, and you’ll get it right. Works every time!
I loved your dissection of the piece … perfect.
I travel to the USA infrequently on business, and am thankful that the excreta that passes as “news” from our national broadcaster hardly ever finds its way into mainstream American conciousness.
I would be embarrassed to try to explain to my friends there why we as a people have not yet risen up and burned down Broadcasting House in protest at its very existence.
Perhaps we should.
When I read “Active Denial P45* System”, I envisioned something slightly different. A quick check indicated that I was thinking of the “P14*45”, which is a Para-Ordnance 14-shot .45cal pistol. Sorry …
Cheers