Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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this is fantastic. there are now some 50 pointless comments from Slash. CEnsoring – what an effective way of destroying the blog posting to this website which was the best thing about it. Huzzah!. I for one am off.
>Your last sentence – depends on how interesting and whingy it is – sums up the problem you are creating for yourself. More like “depends on how interesting and whingy YOU THINK it is. Understandably this will, I guarantee, be extremely unpopular. Not to say extremely arrogant to assume that you can be the sole arbiter of what’s relevant, irrelevant, interesting or boring, whingy or pertinent. Surely you can see that?
Surely you can see that if we are going to cut down on comments, then someone has to do it, and there will inevitably be some subjectivity involved. I think it’s best to be up-front about this, rather than pretend that we’ve worked it all according to some scientific formula.
Anyway, I don’t see what’s wrong with the people who run a blog being the arbiters of what appears on their blog (and we’ve been extremely generous in the past in letting almost everything on). I don’t complain if my comments to other blogs get cut (as they sometimes do). If you want to get involved in such things then you can’t have a thin skin.
>Interesting how much of the Alan Johnston thread was hacked out. Genuinely curious about this: are BBBC’s editors removing the conspiracy theories for a particular reason?
As far as I’m aware we haven’t had a legal threat or anything like that, if that’s what you’re wondering about. But serious allegations should be backed up by good evidence.
The new anti-Semitism: How the Left reversed history to bring Judaism under attack
A couple of years ago when the BBC approached me to make what they called an ‘authored documentary’ on any subject about which I felt passionate, I proposed an investigation into modern anti-Semitism to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Cable Street last October.
My thesis was that while the Far Right hasn’t gone away, the motive force behind the recent increase in anti-Jewish activity comes from the Fascist Left and the Islamonazis.
It was an idea which vanished into the bowels of the commissioning process, never to return. Eventually the Beeb told me that they weren’t making any more ‘authored documentaries’.
I couldn’t help wondering what might have happened if I’d put forward a programme on ‘Islamophobia’. It would probably have become a six-part, primetime series and I’d have been up for a BAFTA by now.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=466785&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322&in_check=N
>this is fantastic. there are now some 50 pointless comments from Slash.
Would you rather I cut comments and said nothing about it all?
>CEnsoring – what an effective way of destroying the blog posting to this website which was the best thing about it.
Why do you presume that this is going to destroy comments? There are still lots of good comments coming in.
Ryan:
“I would say that for me the biggest problem with the site is the obsession with Israel/Palestine.”
For me the biggest attraction is the (many commenters) obsession (on this site) with the way the BBC reports the Israel/Palestine situation, which is transparently biased, and as boring as it sometimes becomes, it is very important that B-BBC commenters keep us informed of the ‘true’ situation.
Ryan: “I would say that for me the biggest problem with the site is the obsession with Israel/Palestine…”
That is our point – main posts about this topic are not that frequent – yet the blog gets characterised this way because a few people takeover the comments facility here, rather than find themselves a playpen somewhere else.
Ryan: “I would suggest that as well as an “off-topic” thread you also have threads for Israel/Palestine and possibly some other topics that deserve threads of their own.”
But we’re not heare to provide a general comment acility for the world!
I’m not suggesting that there be a general Israel/Palestine thread for random discussion. I would suggest you ensure that the last Biased BBC Israel/Palestine thread on the main blog stays up until a new one is put up, and let commenters remark on this and other biased BBC issues relating to Israel/Palestine to their hearts content. This will ensure that the site remains lively but also ensures that issues of no interest to other readers can be safely ignored.
I would suggest taking the same approach to:-
BBC pro-Islam bias: latest
BBC pro-MMGW bias: latest
BBC anti-American bias: latest
BBC pro-Labour bias: latest
BBC anti-Iraq war bias
probably some others I can’t think of at the mo.
This would be an improvement on the current mainpage which consist of a number of comments that are not examples of bias at all.
Anyway, its your playpen, so I’m off. I don’t want to waste my time writing carefully thought out and researched comments only to find someone has come along to arbitrarily delete it.
Why do you presume that this is going to destroy comments? There are still lots of good comments coming in.
Slash | Homepage | 10.07.07 – 10:54 am |
WHY DONT YOU APPLY FOR A JOB AT THE BBC? YOU ARE READY FOR IT!
BE SURE TO DELETE THIS COMMENT AS WELL
maybe it’s a conspiracy eh bijan?
This is interesting. Is there a powerstruggle going on at BBBC? Despite Andrew’s response to Ryan, above, I now see that mr. Telford has started a general Syria/Lebanon thread…
At the same time, you’re losing Ryan, SIN, Bijan and who knows who else… Is this really a good idea?
Bijan (12:00) Well that’s exactly the sort of sane, rational and measured response I’d have exected from someone who believes Alan Johnston planned his own kidnap.
And moreover, lends massive weight to Slash’s case…
Don’t be such a big baby, Bijan. It’s good advice not to use capital letters. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but anyone who uses lots of capitals is instantly marked down by most people as a nutter.
if it would not be too much trouble. would you please delete all my comments on the b-bbc board as i no longer wish to be associated with a website that censors the views of individuals. thank you.
>Is there a powerstruggle going on at BBBC?
Nope.
>Despite Andrew’s response to Ryan, above, I now see that mr. Telford has started a general Syria/Lebanon thread…
It’s dedicated to the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East, but it isn’t intended to be for general comments about the Middle East.
>At the same time, you’re losing Ryan, SIN, Bijan and who knows who else… Is this really a good idea?
They can come back anytime with their useful comments. We don’t hold any grudges.
They can come back anytime with their useful comments. We don’t hold any grudges.
Slash | Homepage | 10.07.07 – 12:15 pm |
“useful” comments – taking a leaf out of Stalin Brooun’s playbook are we.
Ma’shallah, Ma’shallah ISLAMIC B-BBC IS HERE … ALLAH O AKBAR!
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
Bijan: calm down. This is a private forum. When things get out of hand, as they have done, it’s reasonable for those running the show to do a bit of slashing and burning to get things under control again. I’m sure that things will calm down and that Slash’s touch will become lighter once people get used to the resumption of order and reason in the comments. If you want to throw your toys out of the pram then go and find another pram to throw your toys out of!
>>Ma’shallah, Ma’shallah ISLAMIC B-BBC IS HERE
Indeed it is, we’ll be publishing nothing but “Make Britain Islamic” pieces from now on.
>Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
An uncanny portrayal of my current state, right down to the gin-scented tears!
archduke | 10.07.07 – 10:35 am
“just monitoring the comments on here will give you ample material to do at least 2 or 3 blogposts PER DAY”.
Most definately. There’s some good work that could be just added to the homepage.
bijan daneshmand | 10.07.07 – 12:23 pm
Yeah, this guy strikes me as a bit of a nut. I always scroll past his posts.
Archduke: “just monitoring the comments on here will give you ample material to do at least 2 or 3 blogposts per day”
Indeed. We used to do that. Speaking for myself, the comments got to such a state that ‘just monitoring the comments’ was becoming a depressing full-time chore – an unneeded chore – in a world of better things to do.
As ever, anyone who wants to write for Biased BBC is welcome to email their finished text (ideally including simple html formatting – but I can help you with that if need be) to me at biasedbbc@gmail.com – anyone who is any good will in due course be invited to become a regular contributor.
Can any Beebie lurker help me please? Alan Johnston was released on July 4th – can anyone supply me with a URL of any statement he’s made repudiating the “coerced” comments he made on video? Thanks in advance.
Any chance that all the comments about the comment policy be deleted, so that one can see comments relating to the BBC, not B-BBC?
Well I for one support the new editorial policy. I haven;t been reading BBBC as often recently, largely because I couldn’t be bothered to trawl through a 700-comment thread. And yes, the copy-and-paste-excerpt tit-for-tats were getting tedious.
Carry on, Slash.
will, funnily enough we were just discussing that. Things will calm down as order is reimposed, especially once the malcontents realise that there’s no going back.
Any chance that all the comments about the comment policy be deleted, so that one can see comments relating to the BBC, not B-BBC?
will | 10.07.07 – 1:26 pm
Why?
Leave them there for historical accuracy, just like Barbara Plett’s weepy report is still on the BBC website.
I’d prefer to leave them up (although Andrew may decide to delete them).
Now that we’ve all had a good snark I’m going to declare the deleting comments discussion closed. If you really want to comment further, send us an e-mail.
I’ll leave the slashing to you Slash 🙂
The BBC, its adoration for Hamas and half a story.
Gaza lion freed after two years
A lioness has been reunited with her brother in the Gaza Zoo after being released by Hamas from a clan who had abducted her nearly two years ago. Sabrina was kidnapped aged just three months, shortly after being brought to the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Hamas militiamen say they freed her after a shootout with the clan members.
Gaza has been under Hamas control since 15 June, when they defeated forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Zoo officials say Sabrina is in poor health and very tired, and shows signs of mistreatment. “The thieves had cut off the end of her tail, the black hair that is considered to be the symbol of pride of African lions. I am very sad for her. She must have felt very humiliated,” zoo veterinarian Saoud al-Shawa told the Reuters news agency. He added that her captors were charging tourists to be photographed with her.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6285660.stm
And here’s what the BBC left out of that story;
Hamas force returns stolen lion, minus claws and teeth, to Gaza zoo
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Even animals with large teeth and claws do not fare well in the volatile Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Hamas militiamen raiding the hideout of a notorious drug ring stumbled upon a lion stolen at riflepoint two years ago from the Gaza Zoo, said a force commander, Abu Hamam al-Deeb. But she was malnourished, missing four teeth, claws and part of her tail, a veterinarian said.Militiamen found the 2-year-old lion — as well as drugs and a weapons cache that were the target of the raid — after exchanging fire with the gunmen, al-Deeb said.Sabrina was brought back to the Gaza Zoo and reunited with her brother, Sakher, who had avoided capture by resisting the gunmen. The two playfully swatted each other in the face and chased each other. When a zoo guard tried to pet Sabrina, Sakher crouched as if ready to pounce on him.
“We will start a long, arduous treatment to ensure she can survive,” said the zoo veterinarian, Soud al-Shawaa. “She will only eat minced meat from now on so we feel sorry for her. … They should punish the criminals who did this to her.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/09/africa/ME-GEN-Palestinians-Stolen-Lion.php
The BBC, its adoration for Hamas and half a story.
I was shocked to read this news:
Americans encouraged to ‘demand BBC’
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/a64910/americans-encouraged-to-demand-bbc.html
http://demandbbc.com/
It appears that the claims about the Syria-Lebanon situation in comments have not been substatiated, so I’ve removed the thread dealing with that. Thanks to Mick for alerting us.
This should remind us to be careful with what we claim.
Exactly what is the BBC trying to say in this article?
Wonderful to be without Hillhunt. I presume he is still writing to you copiously but you are filtering him out.
FWIW I just created a blog for those who prefer a more, um, relaxed atmosphere.
I almost did this once before, but realised at the last moment that I had been a bit hasty and stayed my hand before clicking ‘create blog’.
I’m beginning to think I’ve been too hasty again, only this time it’s too late…..
Ho hum. I’ll leave it up and see what happens…. 🙂
Exactly what is the BBC trying to say in this article?
eh | 10.07.07 – 6:19 pm | #
That is a seriously mixed up piece of reporting – but I was getting one message loud (if not clear) – according to this (prejudiced) source it’s some kind of calamity if it turns out you’ve got European ancestry in Brazil.
Musician Seu Jorge found that although 85% of his genes are African, the rest are European, confirmation that he is, as he put it “also the son of the guilty ones” – a descendant of the European slave-owners who had children with their African slaves.
On the other hand the more African you are the better.
Musician Sandra de Sa said that despite its racial tensions, Brazil could teach the world how different races can integrate. She was happy though to find out she was about 93% African. “I can’t believe I’m almost 100% African. I usually jokingly say that I can still feel the chains around my ankles,” said the singer.
This is is a very good example of how far left anti-colonialism turns racist.
eh | 10.07.07 – 6:19 pm
“Exactly what is the BBC trying to say in this article?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6284806.stm
The BBC’s plan for the future of Britain is laid out for all to see. Multiculturalism at it’s blindest. The BBC editors, banging away in their painfully white ivory tower, are telling us that genetic makeup equals culture. This both appallingly ignorant, and tragically small-minded.
Oh, and, bien sur, the white man/colonial is bad, m’kay?
Mind you, I am of the opinion that we’re all going to look like Tiger Woods in 200 years anyway, and it’s fine by me. But that should happen naturally, based on individual choice. Not by government mandate.
Cockney | 10.07.07 – 9:56 am
What a refreshing change from 8635 comments about Israel.
mea culpa :o(
I would however point out that the Israel threads on B-BBC are a reflection of the BBC’s ‘obsession’ with Israel which may well be a reflection of Arabic obsession with Israel. If there were less biased, inaccurate articles (or even less articles in total) there would be less B-BBC posts on the subject.
As for censorship I’ll just wait and see. Trolls, excessively long posts and hobby horses?
Isn’t that why we have a scroll feature ❓
” deegee | 10.07.07 – 9:20 pm ”
i agree. if the bbc was NOT so obsessed with israel, then we wouldnt have so many posts about that conflict.
its completely natural that folks might want to reply on their anti-israel bias.
my own stance is that i would rather they didnt give oxygen to the genocidal fascist murderers that are Hamas.
if the bbc did that, i would follow and not bother commenting.
bijan -> calm down. your posts are looking as if they were written by a nutcase.
calm down my friend.
hmmm. where is the “syria/lebanon” thread gone?
deleted?
Archduke:
Telford:
It appears that the claims about the Syria-Lebanon situation in comments have not been substatiated, so I’ve removed the thread dealing with that. Thanks to Mick for alerting us.
This should remind us to be careful with what we claim.
Telford | Homepage | 10.07.07 – 5:58 pm | #
It seems it (the incursion) may not be true.
As a long time daily lurker and occasional contributor – I fear that you might be in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.
B-BBC has always been unlike, say, LGF or Euroreferendum because the owners’ pertinent, although relatively brief and infrequent, posts have often stimulated longer and more comprehensive discussion by the regulars.
To my mind, most of the intellectual weight, information and entertaiment value has come out of these arguments and for me the sparring with the likes of John Reith and Hillhunt has been a useful insight into the Beeb’s groupthink.
To put it bluntly – I think the people you’re now censoring provided most of the blog’s value – so I think I’ll take my leave as well.
Ta ta
Tim: “See you there mate – cannot be doing with this Slash wanker! How can we accuse the Beeb of biased censorship and the do the same thing!!!”
and Indikit, callmedave, etc.
Moderating comments is not censorship. The comments facility here really was getting out of hand in terms of sheer volume, let alone the trolling and general free-for-all that was happening.
Slash has made his point and got the attention of those who’ve been treating our ‘house’ as their own.
I am sure that things will calm down and get back to normal soon (i.e. the way they were a few months back before things got out of hand).
Feel free to go elsewhere if you wish – JohnofBorg will find that running a blog is more work than it looks and a pretty thankless task – there are plenty of ungrateful wretches out there who take everything for granted – some of whom flounce off disloyally at the first sign of any responsibility being asked of them! It’s shocking I know.
You’ll be welcome back here if it turns out that the grass really isn’t greener elsewhere.
(This reminds me of the old maxim that goes: “Teenagers – now is the time – leave home while you still know everything!” 🙂
TTFN.
Andrew
My, ahem, blog is a work in progress. Perhaps some day it will lose the ‘ahem’.
Your point is well taken – I have no desire to step on anybody’s toes, and would certainly never use someone else’s material without crediting them. Unfortunately I created it rather hastily.
I don’t know offhand if it is possible to change the blog title and the URL without starting over, so I’ve added a sub-heading to make it clear there is no connection between it and this blog. Please let me know if you feel this is inadequate.
Maybe some good will come out of all this, but some of my most valued supporters seem to have fled these shores. Time will tell.
JohnofBorg et al, I can understand that some feathers have been ruffled (some very deservedly so!).
I think Slash has done what was needed – perhaps a bit over-zealously (hey, the bugger even deleted a number of my comments!) – but something did need to be done to re-assert some common sense around here.
I’d really rather that you and your fellow ship-jumpers would stick around a little longer and give Biased BBC a fair chance, rather than flounce off at the first sign of anything that doesn’t quite suit – it’s not like you haven’t enjoyed Biased BBC hitherto, and it’s not like we’re talking about ongoing wholesale deletion – we want the comments facility here to work and be pleasant and useful too, which it had ceased to be in recent times.
Anyway, if you want to set sail in your own ship then best of luck to you – you’re probably going to need it.
Do come on back when the water starts lapping around your feet 🙂
Excuse me for going off topic here and mentioning BBC bias, but while the BBC are fond of telling us how the nasty Israelis are keeping the poor “Gazans” closed into their “open air prison” and closing the border crossing so that aid can’t get in, they seem to have missed these pieces of news:
Explosions blow hole in Gaza-Egypt border wall
Two explosions early Wednesday caused a large hole in the Gaza-Egypt border wall, witnesses reported, sending people rushing to the open crossing but causing no injuries.
Hamas gunmen rushed to the scene to prevent Gazans from fleeing to Egypt and there were no immediate crossings reported. Several groups had issued threats in recent days about attacking the wall.
Hamas confirmed two explosions took place but denied any hole was created in the wall between Gaza and Egypt.
and this other piece of news from The Islamic Republic of Gazastan:
Hamas bans Israeli produce in Gaza
Hamas’s Finance Ministry on Monday barred Israeli fruits and vegetables from entering the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the spokesman for the Fruit Growers Association.
The move is likely to cost Israeli fruit growers NIS 3-5 million a day, according to the association.
The Hamas decision will also make it harder for Palestinians to keep fruits and vegetables in their diet, particularly those items not grown in Gaza, according to Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
Upon hearing that Palestinian private contractors on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing planned to adhere to the prohibition, Israeli businessmen did not send out the scheduled 60 trucks of produce, Dror told The Jerusalem Post. The fruit and vegetable ban is the latest in a set of anti-Israel moves by Hamas, including continued mortar fire on the crossing, to keep Kerem Shalom closed.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, “We are against opening the Zionist-controlled crossing of Kerem Shalom.” He added that its use was part of a conspiracy by Israel and the pro-American Fatah leadership in Ramallah against the Palestinians in Gaza.
But according to the United Nations, the use of Kerem Shalom and Sufa as alternative crossings has been a lifeline that has allowed the UN to provide food staples to 1.1 million of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.
David Baker, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, lashed out at Hamas’s decision. “Israel endeavors to allow the entry of as much produce into the Gaza Strip as possible to alleviate the Palestinian situation. However, Hamas wants to exacerbate the plight at the expense of their own people by fomenting resentment against Israel.”
…
Let them eat falafel I say!
Andrew writes:
“I’d really rather that you and your fellow ship-jumpers would stick around a little longer and give Biased BBC a fair chance, rather than flounce off at the first sign of anything that doesn’t quite suit…”
It’s that kind of turn of phrase that doesn’t help, Andrew. ‘Flouncing’?
Your comparisons with other blogs don’t really hold. Some, you go to for the penetrating posts. Some for the lively commentariat. Some for both.
B-BBC, for me, falls somewhere between two and three. Lose the commenters and, well… the blogosphere is vast and we are small…
Oh, you’re still here GCooper – I thought you’d gone over to the other place!
Call it something else if you prefer – but to me all the hasty “we’re off” comments do smack of flouncing – not to mention ingratitude and disloyalty after all the effort that we have put in to providing and maintaining this blog over the years, with little, in fact, with no thanks from the likes of you!
As I say, I’d rather people stay and give B-BBC a fair chance, I hope the disgruntled will reconsider in the calm of a new day, but I certainly won’t be begging you to come back or apologising if you’re upset because I’ve used the word flouncing.
If that’s too insensitive for you then, as you point out, you have other places to go!
P.S. I don’t know (and nor am I much interested in) what apparent comparison of mine you refer to.
Dare I?
A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun’s output cannot be causing modern-day climate change.
The IPCC’s February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures.
But the organisation was criticised in some quarters for not taking into account the cosmic ray hypothesis, developed among others by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish National Space Center.
Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm
So I guess it’s a case of critics/experts don’t say.(Despite frantic efforts to contact them)
Andrew writes:
“Oh, you’re still here GCooper – I thought you’d gone over to the other place!”
Funnily enough, that’s one of the attractions of the web – its breadth.
“..not to mention ingratitude and disloyalty after all the effort that we have put in to providing and maintaining this blog over the years, with little, in fact, with no thanks from the likes of you!”
Has it ever occurred to you that ‘the likes of you’ were what made B-BBC enough of a success to have drawn such (apparently successful) fire from the BBC?
Do you really believe it was the handful of posts that attracted the likes of Reith and Hillhunt?
Of course it wasn’t! It was the realisation that the commentariat here represented the tip of an iceberg of unhappy BBC punters.
Rather than suggesting it is your commentariat who should be grateful to you, might it not have been a little more reasonable to have considered that you had a symbiotic relationship with them? That you might have had cause to show loyalty to them in some proportion?
Had you stamped on the BBC-inspired trolls when posters here were pleading with you to have done so, had you gently pruned the excesses some of the wilder commenters, that would have been one thing.
Instead, you invented a martinet of a moderator, fitted him with hobnail boots and sniped at those who objected, as if they were wayward infants.
‘I certainly won’t be begging you to come back or apologising if you’re upset because I’ve used the word flouncing.’
Not the word, Andrew. The attitude.
It’s like watching someone burn down his own house. Horrifying and fascinating, all at the same time.