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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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“Oscar | 03.04.07 – 8:02 pm”
Brit hostages playing chess – while under Iranian captivity….
get the hidden message?
methinks the Iranians have a sense of humour and are just laughing their heads off.
They are claiming to be able to tell us what went on during the Second Lebanon War on Today. Live now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
“BBC Newsnight economics editor Stephanie Flanders
Jon | 03.04.07 – 8:09 pm ”
interesting! very interesting.
although, i do have to put my hand on heart and admit that i do have a bit of a crush on that piece of thinking-man’s crumpet. go on – shoot me.
Sorry Bryan I forgot the muppet. I’ve also had ‘honky’
TPO | 03.04.07 – 7:42 pm
No, that’s OK. I think he called me a muppet. You were in the general crank category.
archduke – theres more.
“Before joining the BBC she worked variously as a reporter for the New York Times (2001), speechwriter and advisor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers (1997-2001) and an economics editorial-writer and columnist for the Financial Times in London (1994-7). She was educated at Harvard University and Balliol College, Oxford.”
“American journalist Laura Flanders is Flanders’ sister, and journalists Alexander Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn are her uncles. She is the granddaughter of the famous British Communist journalist, Claud Cockburn”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Flanders
Re Martin Belam Blog
Here is the Michael Arrington video referred to
http://blip.tv/file/154337
Made me laugh!
“They are claiming to be able to tell us what went on during the Second Lebanon War on Today. Live now”
presented by Ed Stourton – one of the better Eggs on Al Beeb, from the classic old school of journalism (like Paxo). i have a lot of time for him.
Be thankful it wasnt Bowen who got that documentary.
Lets get this right, I know plenty of excellent Iranian people.
I do find its long culture interesting.
I actually speak some Farsi.
I am certainly not racist or inherrantly against them.
It is the odious tyranny that rules them and the islamonutters who back them up that I despise.
I know 4 Iranians very well.
They have escaped over here and are seeking assylum. they are proud to be Iranian and still love their nation.
So why the need for assylum?
Because they have converted to Christianity and they have a genuine fear of persecution and for their lives.
It has even followed them over to the UK.
What’s more they hate the regime on political as well as religious grounds.
The IBC wants to know of peole who have converted away from islam, why so the IBC can inform on them to the islamonutters?
I cannot tell you all of the things about them because I respect their need to maintain certain levels of privacy for security.
But here is one ‘example’
Our government’s response to one of them, a woman, a very very wealthy businesswoman when she was in Iran but penniless because she canot work over here though she has many skills.
When they heard of her plight and assylum appeal – she should say she has converted back to islam, it does not matter if this is true or not and then practice her religion in secret.
If she had said she was a wahabbi terror lover who couldnt get on with the shia she would probably have already been accepted…
” Jon | 03.04.07 – 8:20 pm ”
to be fair to Miss Flanders, whats in ones background isnt necessarily a measure of how they think themselves.
if you dig into my roots, theres a fair bit of Marxism in there – which just ended up with me questioning it all and eventually settling on Libertarian capitalist. the complete polar opposite to what some of my forefathers believed in.
Another example – Peter Hitchens, former Trot.
Archduke – you’re wrong about Ed Stourton – he’s just got a soothing manner but he isn’t a good egg. He’s a smooth version of classic bbc bias.
” BaggieJonathan | 03.04.07 – 8:26 pm |”
so you’re saying than an Iranian apostate from Islam is having severe difficulty with getting asylum?
thats utter madness. Iranians like her would be an asset to our country , not a hindrance.
reminds me of the Darfur refugee who made it all the way to Britain, only to be shipped back to Sudan where he was tortured and managed to escape with his life (barely…)
it was on c4 news about a week or so ago.
and yet, we accept Gitmo prisoners with KNOWN connections to Al Q. mad. utterly mad.
The Iranians held in Iraq (some 300 at the last count) were captured during counter terrorist operations in Baghdad and elsewhere. Can the Beeb explain or at least point this out?
The Iranians were not in Iraq as tourists… indeed the Italians also claim that the Iranians were responsible for the deaths of their personnel in an incident just before the Italians withdrew. Now we have two British soldiers killed by snipers almost certainly using the AUSTRIAN sniper rifles sold to Iran for so called anti drug smuggling operations.
Can we not also ask why the Beeb are not making more the flagrant breaches of the Geneva Convention by the Iranians. Oh wait WE have to obey the GC but the Iranians etc don’t.
PS Channel 4 Mark of Cain. Amazing how despite courts martial after courts martial where only one soldier has been convicted (after confessing to mistreating an Iraqi prisoner) they are determined to press on with this film which apparently makes most of the British Army out to be thugs and torturers. Wonder if the so called advisers for this film are the leftie lawyers who keep making loads of money screaming murder or mistreatment against Iraqis and then have no comment when said Iraqis are shown to be lying their teeth off for compensation. I await the novelisation of the film in the Daily Mirror….
When WILL our media start showing some support for OUR side? If we were the thugs they claim we are then there would be no-one left alive in Basra today!
Excellent work on the Cockburn front Jon.
“Oscar | 03.04.07 – 8:38 pm ”
on the other hand, he has full transcripts ( a rare thing nowadays) of “with us or against us” available from here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/withus.shtml
and here too
“united nations or not?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/un/
(click through to the episodes and you get links to the transcripts in pdf format)
if memory serves me right , i cant recall a single instance of ANYONE complaining about Ed Stourton on here.
please do correct me if i’m wrong of course.
Did someone say that Chris Patten maybe the next DG of the BBC?
If he still believes what he said in the Lords in 1999 • he maybe just the man for the job.
“That leads me to my second point, which is that the BBC needs to focus on those things that no one else can provide. Therefore, I see absolutely no reason why the BBC seeks to provide the services of Radio 1. I see no reason why the BBC seeks to provide the services of Radio 2, and I see no reason why it seeks to provide the services of Radio 5. I am concentrating, if I may, on the radio channels.
It is clear that the market can provide the services that I have mentioned. To attempt to integrate those things that the market can provide within a public service framework is, frankly, wrong. We see in the present shape of the BBC an attempt to maintain a radio-visual welfare state, providing everything and sometimes, alas, not providing it very well. We do not and should not seek to have the BBC provide a radio-visual or televisual welfare state harking back to the days of the 1940s or when Lord Reith rightly ensured that BBC newscasters read the news in evening dress. There is an opportunity for a reformed BBC. ”
“But it is very sad when highly intelligent and motivated Ministers of the present Government are in the middle of saying something, are just pausing on the word “and” and then the interviewer suddenly says “Briefly” or asks another question. We are beginning to see the germ of the growth of yob radio on the BBC “Today” programme. It would be very good if it were possible for senior Government Ministers to go on a variety of programmes in the morning.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldhansrd/vo990505/text/90505-05.htm
BTW I bet the IBC have programmed Stourton’s Summer War in Lebanon deliberately to coincide with the first day of Passover. One for your Passover Watch Archduke.
“dave t | Homepage | 03.04.07 – 8:41 pm ”
of course, there is no chance of a “drama” about Islamist terror in Iraq….
lets put this in perspective shall we.
shias line up 60 sunni and shoot them. no “film”.
sunnis blow up shia schoolchildren. no “film”
shias in retaliation, blow up a sunni mosque killing hundreds. no “film”
islamist terror gangs kill and terrorise Iraqi christians. blowing up churches and killing hundreds. no “film”.
the near extinction of the Assyrians, who speak Christ’s language – Aramaic – and is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. nearly 1 million have had to flee Iraq. no “film”.
a few British soldiers, pissed off with their mates being blown up, frustrated at not knowing who the enemy or who is the ally, beat up a few iraqi prisoners. oh!!! in that case, we MUST have a film about that!!
Apologies if this link is already posted.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/04/mysteries-grow.html
It is relevant to BBBC and poses some interesting and rather nasty questions.
” Oscar | 03.04.07 – 8:47 pm |”
oh dear. i did miss that one. silly me.
any mention of Passover anywhere yet?
” Jon | 03.04.07 – 8:45 pm | ”
he he – yob radio. i think Mr Patten had a premonition.
for indeed, about a year or so ago, i mp3ed this exchange between Margaret Beckett and Jim Naughtie on the Today program
[audio src="http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/3/6/856471/bbcradio4-rant.mp3" /]
(800 kilobyte, mp3 format)
any mention of Passover anywhere yet?
archduke | 03.04.07 – 8:51 pm | #
Well I did find a mention on the food page and one on the schools page, which hardly amounts to ‘coverage’. As for Stourton – I distinctly remember commenting about him (falsely) linking the Lebanese phalangists with European fascism – a common accusation put about by the left. But I can’t find the reference and admit it’s not a huge transgression compared with some. But I’ll work on it!
paulc -> and he has more commentary here:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/04/not-half-of-it.html
damn good blog that. i dont know if he’s ex-forces or not, but his command of military matters and/or defense policy is incredible. definitely one of the best blogs out there.
Jon | 03.04.07 – 8:09 pm According to the editor of a volume of his writings on Spain, Claud Cockburn formed a close personal relationship with Mikhail Koltsov, “then the foreign editor of Pravda and at that time, in Cockburn’s view, ‘the confidant and mouthpiece and direct agent of Stalin in Spain’.”
The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?
presented by Ed Stourton – one of the better Eggs on Al Beeb, from the classic old school of journalism (like Paxo). i have a lot of time for him.
archduke | 03.04.07 – 8:23 pm
Archduke – you’re wrong about Ed Stourton – he’s just got a soothing manner but he isn’t a good egg. He’s a smooth version of classic bbc bias.
Oscar | 03.04.07 – 8:38 pm
Hmmm, great minds, in this instance, do not think alike.
Well, part 1 has just ended, with part 2 to follow next week and the BBC-ite, Ed Stourton I presume, has just reassured us that he would be kicking off part 2 with the killing of “50” people at Qana. Strange, I thought that every man and his dog knew by now that the “50” was Hezbollah propaganda and that about half that number had been killed at Qana.
I also note that although the UN’s Jan Egeland states clearly in the programme that he was against Hezbollah’s firing of rockets indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas, the BBC-ite steers him back to his condemnation of Israel over the destruction of “whole apartment buildings” in Beirut. Elsewhere he coaxed an agreement out of someone I didn’t catch the name – that the Israelis could be accused of war crimes. I didn’t hear any mention of Hezbollah facing similar accusations.
Although I wasn’t paying the programme full attention, it looks like more of the same old same old. Sorry, archduke, I’m going to have to side with Oscar on this one.
oscar -> without delving too deeply , it could have be just an error on his part
Phalange derives from Falange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falange
the Falange was a fascist organization in Spain led by Primo De Rivera.
so the term “Spanish Falangists” is a pretty well known term if you know Spanish history. So for a group called the “Christian Falange” to pop up in Lebanon – well, one can make the mistake of linking them to fascism.
” Bryan | 03.04.07 – 9:04 pm | ”
thanks for the report Bryan. admitedly i wasnt listening to it – so i’ll catch it again on the “listen again” thing.
usual platitudes is what it sounds like.
qana will be interesting – i wonder if he’ll mention “green helmet man” and the qanagate expose – as documented in depth by EU Ref.
cue white shirt man “crying” with childs body.
cue OTHER man , with the SAME body, “crying”…
cameras off… body passed to green helmet – more sudden “grief”…
ahh – you folks know it. its qanagate.
the MSM completely duped.
I’ll also try to listen to it again tomorrow. Usually when I see light at the end of the BBC tunnel I’m facing the wrong way, but I’m willing to give him a chance.
The BBC and how it shouts look at me, look at me..
How BBC man scooped invasion news
Walk down London’s Portland Place, heading south from Regent’s Park towards Regent Street,and you come to a kink in the wide road. Immediately ahead of you is the plush Langham Hotel, very expensive and also one of the most haunted buildings in London. To your left, BBC Radio’s headquarters at Broadcasting House. This busy location, on the northern edge of London’s West End, was the focus of the way the story of the Falklands invasion unfolded exactly 25 years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6514011.stm
Nice picture BBC of the fellow any reason why you picked one of him with a picture of an Israeli tank in the background?
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42750000/jpg/_42750383_margolis_story203.jpg
I mean 2 seconds into a Google search and I found this;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/660000/images/_664384_laurie300.jpg
Maybe the BBC is alleging they scooped the invasion of Lebanon last year. I mean its not as if they aren’t sharing their bed with Islamic terrorists in the region. But back to the story.
So the BBC is more than happy to bang its tin drum how they scooped the invasion of the Falkland Islands. Strange how they then remain somewhat silent on how they informed the Argies that the breakout from the beachhead at San Carlos the next port of call for the Brits was going to be Goose Green. Yup the BBC had no problem informing the enemy of what our move was going to be, just as they had no problem informing the argies that their bombs weren’t going off after they hit our ships. Yup after that info the argies reset their fuses and what do you know we started losing ships.
Joseph Loconte: No Iron Lady This Time Around
“Meanwhile, the BBC’s coverage of this crisis probably leaves the typical Briton more suspicious of his democratic government than of the Islamo-fascist regime in Tehran. We learn that there is a “dispute” over whether the British crew was found in Iraqi or Iranian waters while on patrol under a UN mandate. We’re told that Britain’s Ministry of Defence “claims” that its GPS system shows the crew was operating in Iraqi waters. But based on BBC reporting, the average viewer probably wouldn’t know that Iran “corrected” its coordinates when confronted with the GPS data. Neither would he know that the Iraqi foreign minister has told his Iranian counterpart that the British seamen were indeed in Iraqi waters when captured.
No wonder, then, that a recent opinion poll by the Telegraph suggests widespread public ambivalence about this crisis. If diplomacy fails, more Britons — 48 percent to 44 percent — would oppose military action against Iran than would support it. More than one in four respondents think Britain should apologize to Iran and ask for its captives back. The BBC’s “Have Your Say” comment blog was stacked with jibes like this one: “What is the way out of the Gulf crisis?” asks Asif of London. “Leave the Middle East and take America with you.”
http://britainandamerica.typepad.com/britain_and_america/2007/04/joesph_loconte_.html#more
the great “passover watch” hunt continues…
not here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/
not here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/
not here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/customs/
not here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/worship/index.shtml
not here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/default.stm
maybe here..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
not here either.
Anyone noticed how the BBC website seems less than interested in giving any prominence to Gordon Brown’s pension steal?
The Times and the Telegraph seem to think it is important but not so the BBC.
Looks like they passed it over, archduke.
“Bryan | 03.04.07 – 9:32 pm |”
your humour is very droll.
made me laugh anyway.
but there is a serious point behind “passover watch”
” Rockall | 03.04.07 – 9:32 pm ”
i have to admit, when somebody of the status and general “eliteness” of Adair Turner came out all guns blazing, then i knew that something was up. He’s not exactly a person on the fringes , all swivel eyed.
but there is a serious point behind “passover watch”
archduke | 03.04.07 – 9:37 pm
True. It’s yet another piece in the jigsaw puzzle of BBC bias. And quite an important one.
I know my own pension was effected by GB’s light fingers!
What interest would the beeb have in playing this down? I don’t generally consider them big fans of his.
Rockall asks:
“What interest would the beeb have in playing this down? I don’t generally consider them big fans of his.”
Brown has a large following at the BBC – as he has among many on the Labour Left.
There’s also the fact that the story was broken by the persistence of the Murdoch press (which is interesting in itself) and not by the BBC.
The Corporation’s poor record of breaking news must get to them at times.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm
Is it just me or are the BBC printing the Iranian propoganda by publishing this picture.
What more could any country want:
“Immigrants set up camp in Hyde Park as they hunt jobs”
Unemployed Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, desperate for work in Britain, are camping out in London’s Hyde Park.
The men and women have resorted to setting up tents beneath trees and bushes because they have no money to pay for accommodation.
They choose wooded and covered areas where they are less likely to be spotted and where they are able to stay virtually unchallenged.
Emerich Dinu, 22, from Romania, said he has been camping in the park for weeks. He said: “It is a great place to sleep. You can come here at night and there are no police or wardens to stop you.
See Photo.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=446404&in_page_id=1770
.
archduke:
“BaggieJonathan | 03.04.07 – 2:12 pm”
my outside bet…
Blair v David Davis
David Davis will never be leader of the
conservative party, he cannot string a coherent sentence together.. Its all umhs and aahs….
“TAM2 | 03.04.07 – 3:59 pm ”
.
From the West of Scotland are we ??? So that’ll make you a ‘bampot’, though I think somehow you won’t understand the honorific.
Go and read some history instead of making it up.
Stupid, illiterate and a liar — three whacks with the “ugly c**t stick” at birth — pity it wasn’t a heavier stick.
.
The BBC defending the indefensible and how the great unwashed are reacting;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/2007/04/that_pensions_raid.html#commentsanchor
It seems the great cover up job by the BBC has been exposed for the white-wash it is.
.
“Radical Muslim clerics refused entry to Australia”
The US Government has named him an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing in New York City, and he was deported from the US in 2004.
The Herald Sun reported Sheik Philips once wrote: “Western culture, led by the United States, is the enemy of Islam.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21502314-2,00.html
Oscar/Archduke
Re our Ed – 10 seconds googling brings up this:
“I’ll tell you how bad it has got at the BBC. This morning on Today we had Edward Stourton smearing Gemayel and his party with the “Falange – Spanish fascist” angle. Oh that they would do the same about the “militants” of Hezbollah.
Abandon ship! | 22.11.06 – 9:26 am | #”
Ed’s as bad as the rest of them
Spot the BBC article.
Here are two TV-Text articles. One BBC Ceefax one ITV Teletext on the same subject see if you can spot which one is which;
Man loses extradition battle
A man has lost his High Court battle against extradition to the US where he is wanted for allegedly carrying out the “biggest military computer hack”.Gary McKinnon, 41, of north London, is accused of accessing 97 US military and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002.Home Secretary John Reid granted the US request to extradite McKinnon for trial, but his lawyers argued he had been subjected to “improper threats”.
And
I’m no terrorist says UK Hacker
A Briton has denied being a cyber terrorist as he faces extradition to the US accused of what was called the largest military computer hack.
Here are the links.
http://www.ceefax.tv/txtmaster.php?page=107&subpage=0&channel=bbc1&search_string=107&fontsize=2
and
http://www.teletext.co.uk/news/national/13/Man+loses+extradition+battle.aspx
So from the above can you guess which the Beeb promote as the news.
Evening Chaps…
Did I miss anything.
I see “Troll2” dropped his nappy.
Hat tips to Pounce and Dennis the Menace for there replies..very very funny:)
Anything special on Newsnight?
There is actually plenty of references to Passover on the BBC website but the search engine doesn’t find anything in either audio or video. As Oscar pointed out the references are mostly to food.
BTW Old Jewish joke: Definition of a Jewish festival. Someone tried to destroy the Jews; we suvived; Let’s eat.
I am not surprised. Jews make up a small proportion of Britans (~½% England and Wales)and BBC viewers/readers/listeners. This places Judaism at about the same order of magnitude as Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddism, religions essentially ignored by the BBC. The real question is why Muslim beliefs (~3%) receive so much coverage and Christian beliefs (~70%) so little.
Food is neutral and non controversial. If the BBC really covered the festival of Passover (the exodus of Jews from Egypt) they would be forced to admit that Jews have claimed the land of Israel for thousands of years and never stopped talking about with specific references to Jerusalem. Now, that would be controversial!
Pounce –
Thanks for the link. Interesting to see that Evan Davis admits the BBC coverage of the 1997 budget was inadequate.
The 5 bn tax rise only made 4th headline on their coverage at the time.
This does tend to suggest the BBC was not particularly worried about the poor sods who pay in.
I’m an outsider.
Could someone explain (as a cost-benefit or political exercise) how Britain can justify it’s expenditures on the Falklands/Malvinas, an island with no strategic or economic importance to the UK and 100X closer to Argentina than to London?
It’s seems clear, when we consider recent events in the Gulf, that any deterrent that may have accrued from the war has long since lost credibility.
“And secondly, it was open to us to keep our pensions alive, by investing more in them if we wanted to fill the hole he had left.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ there…#commentsanchor
Oh I see it was OUR fault not Gorden Brown. Silly me.