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Biodegradable wrote: “They’d also received funding to solve the problem, but used the money to kill Jews instead.”
If that is the case I feel justified in laughing about Al Beeb’s “In pictures: Sewage ‘tsunami’ hits Gaza”.
Justice has been done!
disillusioned_german | 27.03.07 – 8:14 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6498835.stm
“We built a pressure pipeline and pumping station but it was stopped after… troubles began.”
Hamas also blamed the flood on the withdrawal of foreign aid.
But Stuart Shepherd, the UN’s humanitarian aid officer in Gaza, said the Umm al-Naser plant had not been affected by the aid boycott, noting there had long been warnings about the plant.
A UN report in 2004 had warned that the sewage facility was at its maximum capacity, and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed.
Mr Shepherd said foreign investment had been secured to build the treatment plant, but construction had not gone ahead because of security risks in the area.
The facility, built in the 1970s to serve a population of 50,000, was serving 190,000 people by 2004, according to the UN.
Who do you think is to blame for the ‘troubles’ that ‘began’, or the ‘security risks in the area’?
Genuine question: Are the BBC HYS mods more likely to not put through pro-Israel comments and put through pro-Palestinian ones or is the prevalence of pro-Pal comments in the ‘Should Arab states reach out to Israel’ a reflection of public opinion?
“Biodegradable | 27.03.07 – 8:33 pm”
gives a whole new meaning to wallowing in your own shit.
i bet their so mad now they could murder a Joooo.
“Hamas also blamed the flood on the withdrawal of foreign aid”
like petulant children, the blame always lies elsewhere.
I too noticed the emphasis on teletext placed on the stories about the single protester disrupting the service celebrating the end of the slave trade (high) and the report on children in relatively poor households (low).
I can’t be bothered to comment on the first as it only shows journalistic joy at chaos and the fact that the man disrupting it was African makes it all the more ridiculous.
The second item is a worrying one though. It comes at no surprise to me that the birthrate amongst those in the average earning bracket (the majority of stable couples) are choosing to have one or no childen. The current tax regime (including the farcical tax credits) leaves families in a horrible dilema; either have children and become supplicants to the state or don’t and remain free from state itervention.
There is a remnant of pride in the British people that means that they dislike debasing themselves with a begging bowl in front of a state official. The sense that they want to make their own way in the world is denigrated by a centrist controlling ideology, supported by the BBC.
/end rant/
“Genuine question: Are the BBC HYS mods more likely to not put through pro-Israel comments and put through pro-Palestinian ones or is the prevalence of pro-Pal comments in the ‘Should Arab states reach out to Israel’ a reflection of public opinion?”
marshall |
It may not represent public bias as so much as the bias of the typical BBC poster. I don’t think the mods tamper too much with the balance of entries (tho many good posts don’t appear) – I sometimes think the bias is a bit more subtle – i.e. they post badly argued/spelt/over the top comments from pro Israelis and cut out the well informed, articulate ones. On the whole I suspect that years of anti-Israel media propaganda is doing it’s work – the public are being conned into holding anti-Israel attitudes. But I’m afraid I don’t have any hard evidence. Anyone?
Apologies if this was posted before but this is interesting:
“Everybody Knows Who’s Holding Alan Johnston”
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2007/03/everybody_knows.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/841828.html
Oscar writes:
“the public are being conned into holding anti-Israel attitudes. But I’m afraid I don’t have any hard evidence. Anyone?”
I’m afraid I have no evidence either, but I agree with you based on inference and observation.
There can’t be much doubt that propaganda works, otherwise whole industries wouldn’t be based on churning it out, so why should we not assume that the relentless stream of anti-Israel material works, in much the same as do adverts for washing powder?
But there is, as you say, another factor. In the same way that audiences for the BBC’s audience shows tends to be self-selecting from the Left, so, I am sure, the points raised on (D)NHYS tend to come from the young and indoctrinated: those that don’t actually come from Moslem activists, that is.
Biodegradable | 27.03.07 – 7:31 pm
Excellent links, which in turn link to more good stuff about Johnston’s friend Dugard. For those who can’t be bothered here it is in brief: Dugard believes that non-Western countries should not have to face up to their human rights abuses until the one genuine functioning democracy in the Middle East is replaced with a single Palestinian state.
Like I said – that’s Alan Johnston’s mate that is.
I expect that some top level Hamas leader will personally oversee the freeing of Alan Johnson – it will be a great propoganda coup.
We will then have months of interviews on the BBC with Alan Johnson himself saying how brave the Hamas leadership were in securing his release, although he was always treated with respect by his kidnappers.
“We will then have months of interviews on the BBC with Alan Johnson himself saying how brave the Hamas leadership were in securing his release, although he was always treated with respect by his kidnappers”
And probably a book too – I’m dreading it.
Very good links Max by the way. The stuff on the Iraqization of Gaza in Ha’aretz is soooo much more informative than our great british broadcaster.
GCooper – I agree – anti-Israel/ green ‘politics’ = washing powder – it’s all just consumerism.
The BBC and misleading headlines.
“More UK children live in poverty”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6497981.stm
The problem with this headline is that they are measuring “relative poverty” – but what do people think when they read such a headline – that there are actual children living in poverty? It conjours up pictures of the poor and starving. There maybe kids starving in the UK but this would be the fault of the parents.
The measure for relative poverty is people “earning” 60% or under of the national average salary. If this is the way they measure “poverty” then there is always going to be “relative poverty”, unless the state gives everyone the same salary.
The BBc blows Gorden Browns trumpet by saying
“In last week’s Budget, Mr Brown announced increases in benefits and tax credits aimed at lifting more than 200,000 children out of poverty.”
But fail to mention that
“State welfare benefits tend to rise in line with prices (they are index linked) rather than in line with the growth of earnings of those in work. Therefore, households dependent on welfare assistance see their relative incomes fall over time.”
http://www.tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/poverty/measuring_poverty.htm
Correct me if I’m wrong but would this not mean that throwing benefits at people can never be the answer in fact it would just be a vicious circle?
Via the links from max | 27.03.07 – 9:13 pm :
Z. told Haaretz he believed the worst was yet to come. “Pretty soon there will be militants in each and every junction. Everybody knows who’s holding Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent kidnapped two weeks ago. It’s a large family, and they’re after money. Instead of surrounding the premises and acting against them, the security forces are negotiating with them,” he complains. “Breaking in their will cost lives, but there’s no alternative. You have to move in with force to restore order.”
This seems plausible even if the quote doesn’t ring quite true (would ‘Z’ really have added, “…the BBC correspondent kidnapped two weeks ago”?). Interesting that this Palestinian seems to acknowledge the need “to move in with force to restore order”. One would hope this is a lesson learned having seen houses bulldozed after terrorist attacks.
Jon writes:
“The BBC and misleading headlines.”
It’s not just the BBC’s misleading headlines. The Corporation is either stunningly unaware of public opinion or (which is more likely) completely oblivious to it.
In the BBC 1 news at ten, of the two ‘victims’ of ‘child poverty’ interviewed, one was clearly an African immigrant with rather poor command of the language.
Quite why I am supposed to feel guilty because I don’t pay sufficient tax to keep her and her offspring in nicer surroundings, I’m really not sure.
Welcome to Tony Blairs Brave New Britain.
“A 14-year-old girl is being questioned as part of a murder inquiry after the death of her sister in West Yorkshire.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6498201.stm
“A 15-year-old has been arrested in connection with the rape of an 11-year-old boy as he walked to school.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/6500449.stm
“A teenager has been found guilty of murdering a man outside his home in front of his young family.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6483491.stm
“A man has been convicted of abducting and killing a six-month-old boy in the West Midlands and dumping his body.”
” A man has been found guilty of murdering a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed in a street fight. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6499621.stm
“Detectives investigating the murder of a woman are speaking to bus users in a bid to trace her estranged husband. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/6497013.stm
“A relative has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the death of a woman at a house in West Yorkshire.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6498031.stm
“A jilted husband who stabbed his wife to death after she rejected his hopes of a reunion has been jailed for life. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6496113.stm
Etc. –
Murder and rape is now that commonplace, most don’t even get a headline.
Would you Adam and Eve it.
The BBC puts in a defence for smoking;
Smoke ban threat to shisha cafes
The smoking ban which comes into force in July could drive shisha cafes out of business, traders have warned. Cafe owners in Edgware Road, west London, are campaigning for the popular Middle Eastern tobacco pipe to be exempt from the new legislation.
Mr El-Nour, of the Edgware Road Association, said the shisha cafes fulfilled an important social role for the Middle Eastern community.
“Shisha smoking is a social activity enjoyed by different age groups in social gatherings and a happy environment,” he said. “By driving shisha cafes out of business and causing their closures, the government is showing disregard to the whole community.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6498099.stm
newsnight right now is interviewing the Goracle.
The Great All Knowing One (without any scientific qualification to his name) deems the Channel 4 documentary to be “irresponsible”.
errr.. C4 actually interviewed SCIENTISTS.
i dunno – in my day, as a little kid, we had real scientists on the television, like say, Carl Sagan, talking about the dangers of this and that, from a science point of view, and usually backed up by PhD qualification and years of research in a certain area. Carl Sagan’s “nuclear winter” warning is a case in point – and apparently was deeply influential on Gorbachev and was one of the major factors in the ending of the cold war.
ok – whether his theory was flawed or not, is not really the matter – it was SCIENTISTS who were warning this – on tv , radio and to politicians and to the public (like me) directly.
today, in 2007, we have a non-scientist, called Al Gore, warning us about “climate change”. We also have another non-scientist called George Monbiot. We also have other non-scientists like Bob Geldof and Bono warning us about “climate change”.
is anyone else perturbed by this change, whereby the scientists seemed to have been edged out by celebrities?
With the huge song and dance the BBc have been making about the slave trade from 200 years ago.
Has anybody heard the BBC mention what is currently happening in the killing fields of Darfur or are Muslims killing and enslaving blacks not worthy of mention on the BBC?
” pounce | 27.03.07 – 10:53 pm ”
good point! NYC , as far as i know, make an exception for them.
end result is that you can’t have a smoke with your pint or Starbucks in NYC, but if you convert to Islam and go all middle eastern, you can have a smoke in a shisha cafe.
yeah – folks arent amused over there about that.
it is amusing though – watching the multiculturism collide headlong into antismoking puritanism.
its like watching two Cromwellian puritans have a fight with each other about whether their version of Puritanism is better than the others..
nuts is other words. completely barmy and nuts. sooner or later folks are going to ask serious questions – like, whats wrong with the idea of errr.. leaving people alone to make their own decisions?
now theres a thought.
archduke wonders:
“is anyone else perturbed by this change, whereby the scientists seemed to have been edged out by celebrities?”
I am. Then again, this is Newsnight we’re talking about. The most politically biased programme on an outstandingly politically biased channel.
This evening’s BBC report about Barnardo’s and “relative poverty” was priceless. Here’s the RealPlayer link.
See poverty-stricken Barbra. 75 years ago she would have been starring as the fattest woman in the world in Tod Browning’s Freaks . And if this massive woman is so poor, how come she’s feeding her kids chip shop bought fish ‘n’ chips? The paper wrapping is clearly visible on the counter of her well-appointed kitchen. Poverty my arse.
Mark Urban appeared to have discovered a happy face, perhaps even a smirk, as he reported on Newsnight that the UK was unable to project hard power against Iran.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but would this not mean that throwing benefits at people can never be the answer in fact it would just be a vicious circle?
Jon | 27.03.07 – 10:32 pm”
believe it or not , it was Clinton who broke that cycle in the U.S. in the 1990s.
of course the Brownite dunderheads have taken no notice and thus the underclass grows ever larger and now murders and stabbings barely reach the headlines (as noted yourself above)
america has already been through this. we’re about 10 years behind the curve because egotistical politicans simply dont listen to lessons from abroad.
(irish corporation tax at 12 per cent? hello gordon 28 per cent brown? hello? anyone there? knock knock? note how Brownstuff has never visited Dublin and actually asked them how they created that Celtic Tiger – for he knows better doesnt he? )
” GCooper | 27.03.07 – 11:19 pm ”
indeed i am aware of that. it was more of a generalised question , with regards to how the Goracle gets lots of airtime on the wider MSM, in contrast to a more science driven approach in the 1970s/1980s.
pounce asks:
“Has anybody heard the BBC mention what is currently happening in the killing fields of Darfur or are Muslims killing and enslaving blacks not worthy of mention on the BBC?”
Having had a few days off, I’ve spent most of my time pottering about,listening to R4. I must have switched the radio off at least a dozen times as one tiresome distortion about slavery followed another (Newsnight is banging on about it now in the background, even as I type).
I have heard nothing at all about this place you mention, called Darfur. Not a word. All I have heard about is blacks as victims of whites.
Clearly, as the BBC never lies or distorts, you must have made this place up. It doesn’t exist.
“Oscar | 26.03.07 – 3:10 pm | ”
oscars post is well worth reading. i re-read it several times, and its gobsmacking in revealing the sheer arrogance of Today.
B-BBC should post that conversation on the sidebar. seriously.
What concerns me is that the BBC could be brokering deals behind-the-scenes with Alan Johnstone’s abductors so that the kidnappers get paid off using telly-tax funds.
archduke writes:
“indeed i am aware of that. it was more of a generalised question , with regards to how the Goracle gets lots of airtime on the wider MSM, in contrast to a more science driven approach in the 1970s/1980s.”
The answer to that I suspect is that we live in a time when the hegemonic grip of the Left has become a stranglehold – and even where science has a voice it has often now been deeply politicised.
Indeed, there are good reasons for believing that is exactly how the ‘climate change’ debate has been hijacked.
” GCooper | 27.03.07 – 11:26 pm”
not to mention the 500,000 or so white irish carted off to the Carribean PRIOR to the african slave trade. no mention of them.
well, they mostly all died out because of tropical diseases, so obviously, the traders switched to the more immune african slaves. thats one of the major reasons for the african slave trade. of course, no mention of any of that. (no no – not being all anti-English or anything – not chip on the shoulder here AT ALL – just pointing out the real history of this.)
as an irish person, i’m watching this , and i find the airbrushing of history on the BBC utterly staggering.
winston smith would be proud.
Will writes:
“Mark Urban appeared to have discovered a happy face, perhaps even a smirk, as he reported on Newsnight that the UK was unable to project hard power against Iran.”
Yes, I’ve never been as convinced of Mark Urban’s excellence as some seem to be.
Clearly, the BBC is playing exactly the game I predicted here yesterday. On R4 this afternoon, in response to a surprisingly backbone-endowed leader in The Times this morning, they managed to exhume a retired civil servant who explained the powerlessness of Britain’s position and who went on to extol the virtues of sitting on one’s hands.
” GCooper | 27.03.07 – 11:32 pm |”
one of the IPCC scientists actually resigned on that point – back in 2004 – sending a letter to them about the growing politicisation of the science.
thats just an enormous warning bell to the likes of me. I was practically reared by Carl Sagan and the scientific method. i devoured his books as a youngster. i’m not a scientist. but i understand the scientific method and rationality. there is none of that in the current green hysteria, which is deeply troubling – like the GM “hysteria” it is actually , deeply, fundementally, ANTI science.
and i dont fancy another dark age of unreason.
speaking of GM – we’re in a ridiculous situation where ALL GM food is banned by the EU.
so , therefore, the consequence of this, will be, that by say 2015 or so, the Americans will be able to eat petri dish GM grown Angus steak – completely identical to REAL angus steak – and be clear in their conscience that no animal has been killed. not bad if you care about that stuff. and indeed, much better i think from a moral point of view.
meanwhile over here in Europe, we’ll still be slaughtering cows. the Americans will have their cows in national parks as relics of a by-gone age, as slaughtering live animals move into their past. a noble idea that even meat eaters like myself can agree with.
so therefore who are the nutcases? the EU or America? not that’d see any of that polemic on the BBC.
GM, in reality, is the holy grail of vegetarians – meat without the suffering of animals.
but we’re stuck with a “ban all GM” EU law.
C4 are , to their credit, doing a pro GM docu series at the moment. well worth watching..
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/A/animal_farm/index.html
archduke writes:
“…there is none of that in the current green hysteria, which is deeply troubling …”
Last night I had to plod around my local council’s website, looking for some information. It was like reading a press release from Greenpeace.
This is the danger of the BBC’s relentless brainwashing technique. The people who work for local councils tend not to be very bright (if they were, they’d get proper jobs). They tend to lack either the intellect or the education to question what they are told and so they follow it – to the letter.
That sort of mindless adherence to the rules is, of course, what local councils are infamous for, the world over – and with good reason.
It is when these rather weak-minded people are armed with bizarre notions (communism, fascism, radical environmentalism) that they become deeply, deeply dangerous.
The BBC is providing this armament. It is why its bias in this area is so damned worrying. These fools believe it and they are in a position to enforce it.
” GCooper | 27.03.07 – 11:50 pm |”
my local tory councillor (normally what you English call a “good egg”) is now the councils “climate change champion”.
despair. hand ups. exasperation. oh-my-god-ness.
the usual feelings for any rationalist as you can well imagine. i wrote a letter to the council pointing out that the temperatures on Pluto, Triton, Jupiter (hello second red spot) and Mars were also all rising.
i dont expect a reply as astronomy probably isnt their forte – which begs the question – how come climate science is suddenly their forte? have all the councillors suddenly got PhDs in meteorology , backed up with years of research in physics and astronomy?
errr.. maybe not.
GC/Archduke – have you seen Newsbuster’s 150 Years of Global Warming and Cooling at the New York Times? A taster from the archives:
A WARMER EARTH EVIDENT AT POLES; Arctic Findings in Particular Support Theory of Rising Global Temperatures
February 15, 1959, Sunday
SCIENTISTS AGREE WORLD IS COLDER; But Climate Experts Meeting Here Fail to Agree on Reasons for Change
January 30, 1961, Monday
in my more Peter Hitchens moments, i think that what it boils down to is that “climate change” is a tremendous scam on the electorate.
what is the aim of the climate change advocates? to reduce fossil fuel dependence.
and where does it mostly come from – why tinpot Islamist dictatorships in Iran and Saudi, not to mention the pseudo-fascist Putin Russia. so , it makes sense , from a national security point of view to move away from these sources of energy, to lessen the impact on our economy if say, the Bin Laden crazies topple the House of Saud.
of course, that is never mentioned in political discourse – so we have the “climate change” wheeze. the aims are laudable – i absolutely HATE the fact that i have to fill up with Saudi oil. but the dishonesty is staggering. and it could seriously damage our democracy for generations to come.
in fact, its doing so right now, with record numbers of people simply not voting. thats not a good thing.
i just flicked around on my digital set top box only to be greeted by
“fuck off i’m small” on bbc 3.
charming. now the f word is totally fine with the bbc in their PROGRAMME titles.
archduke: i just flicked around on my digital set top box only to be greeted by
“fuck off i’m small” on bbc 3.
This is outrageous. I thought BBC 3 was only meant to show “Two Pints of Lager“.
” Anonanon | 28.03.07 – 12:02 am ”
staggering link. thanks.
the non scientists like the Goracle dont seem to realise that science itself is inexact. it changes and churns and changes and churns again. thats just SCIENCE.
there’s nothing ever definite about science. which is why i find it so exciting and interesting. its this lock down on “climate change” that i find disturbing. its the only area of science that i know of where discussion and debate are actively shut down. thats not science. thats not rational inquiry. and alarm bells are ringing in my head about this.
now, you might throw back at me the “what about the creationist v evolution debate”. well, we’re talking about something more definitive there – the fossil record, carbon dating , dna – solid physical and measurable evidence.
by contrast , we barely understand climate right now. that is vastly more complex than figuring out if a dinosaur lived 200 million years ago, or a week before Moses lived.
Oscar writes:
“the public are being conned into holding anti-Israel attitudes. But I’m afraid I don’t have any hard evidence. Anyone?”
I have no evidence either but I know it’s happening because the ‘criticism’ of Israel I hear and read is so obviously based on the BBC’s output.
pounce told us about:
Mr El-Nour, of the Edgware Road Association, said the shisha cafes fulfilled an important social role for the Middle Eastern community.
As if pubs and cafes didn’t have any role for the rest of us!
Although the hubble-bubble probably plays an important role in masking BO and other unsavoury human odours, to wit:
http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/story.php?story_id=411
archduke wonders:
“is anyone else perturbed by this change, whereby the scientists seemed to have been edged out by celebrities?”
the BBC use of celebraties to spin thir climate change rubbish is not surprising. It is mutually beneficial – the BBC get to pour the propaganda down our throats while the celbrity ,who only survives on publicity, get as much air time as possible. Everyones a winner – apart from the poor viewers – who are stirred up into a frenzy, frightend that the world is going to end unless we start shooting smokers in pubs.
Its perfect propaganda worthy of Goebbels.
“…Effective propaganda must limit its points of a few and these points must be repeated until even the last member of the audience understands what is meant by them.”
http://www.tamilnation.org/media/goebbels.htm
Maybe it really is just a tax scam peddled by eco teror misanthropes, and not a big lie to ween us off Arab oil.
What’s stopping the government from saying directly “We don’t anymore Arab oil”?
Beautiful irony from an Israeli at (D)HYS Should Arab nations ‘reach out to Israel’?
Added: Tuesday, 27 March, 2007, 20:32 GMT 21:32 UK
Arabs tried to strife for world peace in 48, 67, 73, 82, 2006. I think world peace is inevitable eventually, but we’ll try to postpone it as best as we can.
Alex, Haifa
Recommended by 9 people
COOL!
Added: Tuesday, 27 March, 2007, 11:49 GMT 12:49 UK
The last time Arabs reached out to Israel, they kidnapped Israeli officers.
Galen, Alexandria, VA
Recommended by 103 people
“Ultraviolence | 28.03.07 – 12:41 am ”
gore and clinton are funded by arab oil money. just google for it.
tuff on grime, tuff on the cawzes of grime…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6483491.stm
Yes, I’ve never been as convinced of Mark Urban’s excellence as some seem to be.
GCooper | 27.03.07 – 11:37 pm
Just a reminder that Mark Urban went on air and promulgated the George Bush “the French don’t have a word for entrepreneur” urban legend!
Great fact checker is Mr Urban — not!
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2004/04/index.html
Hey look – the BBC does follow what goes on at the UNHRC. No mention of censorship though. Why? Because the BBC is up the UN’s arse, that’s why.
“BBC fights to suppress internal report into allegations of bias against Israel”
“The BBC was in court yesterday fighting over the public’s right to know. But the Corporation was not battling to bring information into the open. Instead it has paid an estimated £200,000 in legal fees to keep the report secret.
The Corporation is trying to persuade the High Court to overrule a decision by the Information Tribunal that an internal report into the BBC’s Middle East coverage should be made public.
It puts the Corporation in the awkward position of arguing that the Freedom of Information Act should not apply in this case, although their journalists have previously made free use of the Act to prise information from the Government.
The dispute is over a 20,000-page report commissioned four years ago, at a time when the Israeli government had announced that it was withdrawing all co-operation with the BBC staff stationed in the Middle East, including all the help BBC journalists could normally expect with issues such as passports and visas.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2398870.ece