Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
“Dear Santa: For my list next year can you please:
1. Sack CormacOB and promote Mario Conti in Glasgow
2. Sack Canterbury promote York
3. Sack Cowardly Brown promote any bugger who will listen to the British People
4. Let me win the lottery so I can emigrate to the South Pacific!”
Why should we have any of them over us? Why is there an established religion at all?
Why do these Cardinals/Archbishops waffle such rubbish?
dave t | 26.12.07 – 12:13 am | #
To be noticed by the BBC, of course.
😉
PeterUK | Homepage | 25.12.07 – 9:52 pm
However, sometimes they must feel like Joseph when he returned to Bethlehem after exile in Egypt, simply excluded because they are outsiders.
Did he really say that ❓ ❓ ❓
I’m not a Christian but my understanding of the sequence is:
1)Joseph and Mary travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, Luke 2/4;
2)Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus fled to Egypt, Matt 2/14;
3)After Herod’s death they returned to Nazareth, Matt 2/23.
Not Bethlehem!
I don’t think any of the family ever returned to the place of the Navitity.
Perhaps the good Cardinal was thinking of another Joseph ❓
Deegee:
“BBC reporters never think it important to learn more of the language of the countries they live and work in, often for several years, than is needed to say, “Boy, bring me a gin and bitter lemon, chop-chop”.”
They don’t learn the language but they even don’t learn the basic facts of a country.
example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7133315.stm
“Four hundred years later, Catholic, French-speaking Belgians remain largely concentrated south of Brussels, while Flemish-speaking Protestants predominate in the North.”
But in fact the nothern part of belgium is also mainly catholic. With second largest religon being islam with 3.5%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders#Demographics
The BBC can no longer deny that security in Iraq is improving, so the focus on a other subject.
Electricty
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7147162.stm
“However, that new American tactic was meant to create the “space” to enable Iraqi politicians to bring real change to the country. Changes like the restoration of reliable electricity and water supplies.”
The reader of this article is left with the impression that situation that electricity supply is worse than in sadams days. The article doesn’t report the efforts which are made or claimed to have been made. I would think that is the most basic journalistic requirement to get a view from the other side. So what are the facts for the electricty supply. According to the MNF site;
“In August, electrical production of megawatts exceeded 5,000 for 25 days • producing enough power for approximately 450,000 homes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division is helping the Government of Iraq jumpstart its electrical infrastructure by infusing more than $4 billion dollars into the nation’s system. More than 500 electrical projects have been completed thus far in areas of generation, transmission and distribution.”
This more than before the invasion.
And here are just a sample of the latest project of last two months.
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15900&Itemid=128
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15444&Itemid=128
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15333&Itemid=128
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15245&Itemid=128
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15160&Itemid=128
But never mind in a month or two they find an other poor sod who hasn’t got electricity in days.
URGENT TALKS ON AFGHAN EXPULSIONS blares the main news headline on News Front Page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Click on the link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7160090.stm
and you are taken to a sympathetic portrayal of the Taleban and told that, “Our correspondent says people are describing the situation as a storm in a teacup which has been taken much further than expected.”
Right. Which “people”, BBC?
Click on the “Community meeting of tribal elders in Afghanistan”
video link and you are subjected to lingering, close up shots of sombre, bearded men and told that British diplomats communicate with the Taleban “all the time.” The implication of this no doubt exaggerated claim being, of course, that there is no reason why the EU and UN shouldn’t do the same.
No doubt this story is going to remain prominently displayed on the website the entire day and be endlessly repeated on the World Service. There is already a link on the World Service home page to the Afghan story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/
And it was the lead story on the 08:00 GMT newscast and on The World Today.
The reason is simple. The BBC is jumping to the defence of three of its favourite organisations on the planet:
*The UN
*The EU
*The Taleban
Ho Hum, another boxing day, another comically distorted beeboid report on the rural passtime that only the beeboids can manage to mention without reference to their chums in nulab and the failed ‘ban’.
When the history of distorted broadcasting is written, bbc reporting of hunting will be held up as one of the great examples !
Only the beeboids can have a ‘rural affairs’ reporter, so divorced from the countryside , that the reality of the law being so easy to circumvent can be ignored. And only in beeboid land, can the deep and unremitting hatred of nulab by the rural community go unreported !
backwoodsman | 26.12.07 – 9:40 am |
Astonishing isn’t it. They did a piece on the Boxing Day Sales stating that the shops were full and Oxford Street was ‘very busy’. Unfortunately the pictures showed a very unbusy Oxford Street (on a normal Oxford Street you can’t see the pavement for people, todays pictures showed the equivalent of the usual Sunday traffic for an ordinary town centre) and no unusual amount of shoppers in the shops.
Perhaps they want us to believe that the economy is all well and good. We must trust NuLabour and their plans.
Very different from when the Tories were in and the slightest gap in the crowds was the sign of imminent doom.
Peter, the debate about
“However, sometimes they must feel like Joseph when he returned to Bethlehem after exile in Egypt, simply excluded because they are outsiders.”
According to St Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph and his family lived in Joseph’s hometown, Bethlehem, for about 2 years after Jesus’ birth. (Viz, the slaughter of the Bethlehem boys being aged 2 years or younger, the greek word used to describe Jesus meaning ‘young child’ rather than baby, the Magi visited the family in their house, etc).
After the Egypt years, Joseph was warned in a dream to avoid returning to Bethlehem because Herod the Great’s son, Herod Archelaus, had become ruler of the province of Judea after his father’s death. Fearing a renewal of the attempt to murder Jesus, by now a young child rather than a baby, Joseph risked returning to his wife’s town, Nazareth, where her pre-nuptual pregnancy was well known.
There was no question of Joseph avoiding Bethlehem because he felt an outsider after the exile in Egypt.
Hope this helps.
Although the BBC runs an ‘Oxford Islam and Muslim Awareness Project’ (its propaganda supported by BBC licence-payers), I’m finding it difficult to find a BBC, non-Muslim reference to the opposition to Oxford Muslims’ demand for a loudspeaker call to prayer in the city, 3 times a day:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
in_article_id=504373&in_page_id=1770
Hugh Fitzgerald comments:
” If that is permitted, such permission is no cause for gratitude, as Westerners may think. It is cause, rather, for triumphalism, for a feeling that Islam cannot be stopped, that it is on its way, and that the Infidels are going to steadily yield, and yield, and yield…And that is why every such demand, no matter how small, should not be met, but soberly, and without much ado, rejected. As a matter of course.”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/12032
Correrction to ‘Daily Mail’ reference above on Oxford:
“Anger over plan to broadcast Muslim call to prayer on loudspeaker in Oxford” :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=504373&in_page_id=1770
Thanks Fran,
I thought the Cardinal was talking out of his ecclesiastical anuus.Typical CEO stuff,no grasp of the detail.
So to the analogy is.
Joseph fled to Egypt because his son’s life was threatened.
He returned after Herod’s death,but not to Bethlehem but Nazareth,his wife’s home town,where presumably her family would be glad to see her.
Where does “excluded immigrant” come in?
The BBC, That evil American missile shield in Europe and simple geography
Russia tests ballistic missiles
Russia has successfully tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles that are to replace ageing rockets from the Soviet era. A strategic missile known as the RS-24 flew 7,000 km (4350 miles) to hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula. Later, a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea launched another new missile, hitting the same test site.
…….
However, speaking in an interview to be published later this week in the Vremya Novostey daily, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was clear the system is aimed at deterring Russia, rather than Iran. The US has said that the limited system it proposes could not threaten Russia’s own missile arsenal. The Interfax news agency reported that the RS-24, the missile tested on Tuesday, is capable of carrying at least three nuclear warheads.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7160082.stm
So the BBC reports on how the Russians are squaring up to the American missile shield which has to see any ground cut in Poland or the Czech Republic. Yup the Russians are so scared of that missile defence radar and 10 launchers that they have successfully tested a couple of ICBMs for the second time. The first being in May. Talk about being proactive. Anyway that isn’t the gist of call. My point is this the Trailer mounted (Well actually TEL or Transporter Erector Launcher) launch was conducted in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia.
http://www.npolar.no/ansipra/download/Position%20maps/ArkhangelskO.jpg
and the sub launch was in the Barents sea. For any missile that Russia has that needs to head south over Bohemia and then hook a right towards the US (when they can shoot over the top, anywhere at sea or from Kamchatka) doesn’t require shooting down as it will fall out of the sky of its own accord. I take it geography and common sense isn’t that great at Al Beeb.
Oh and BBC this is what Interfax says about the MIRV caperbilities of the RS-24
“According to unofficial information, an RS-24 missile can carry
more than three warheads.”
http://www.interfax.com/3/350206/news.aspx
Which is strange as in may they said it can take up to 10
Funny thing is the BBC while happily promoting the image of a belligerent Nuclear armed America by explaining just why the Russians are testing ICBMs. They somehow forgot to mention this very salient snippet from a week ago..
President Bush orders ‘significant reduction’ in US nuclear weapons stockpile
U.S. President George W. Bush has approved a significant reduction in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, cutting it to less than one-quarter its size at the end of the Cold War.
http://www.nysun.com/article/68291
http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/OnlineFullStory.aspx?filename=w121869A&newsitemid=24073016&languageid=1
http://www.hinduonnet.com/holnus/003200712190320.htm
Strange how the rest of world can report that last, but not the BBC?
The BBC, That evil American missile shield in Europe and simple geography
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=F2LMWA55WY2T3QFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/12/26/nratings126.xml
Roly Keating, the acting Controller of BBC1, said: “It’s heartening to see that the great tradition of Christmas family viewing seems to be alive and well.
“We were delighted that audiences found so much to enjoy in our line-up of programmes on BBC1. From the compelling drama of EastEnders to a spectacular Doctor Who and the welcome return of To The Manor Born, this was a Christmas when some of the nation’s favourite performers and writers did us all proud.”
……………………………….
people actually like this shit?
i thank the person who bought me the sopranos dvd series 6, and spared me the horror of the above.
That terrible BBC christmas TV schedule – I am happy I’m no longer paying to receive such drivel.
Alan
“The 2nd one has to do with their careful obfuscation of the fact that Israel is an economic and tech wonderland. Contributing to the world in science and medicine more than 1.5 billion Muslims.”
Spot on, but the BBC and other right-on outlets will NEVER let people know of this.
This is no mere opinion or racial pride, Warren Buffett, USA’s 2nd richest man and world’s greatest investor says “throughout Israel, brains and energy are ubiquitous.”
http://www.nysun.com/article/49634
For the normally reserved and ultra-astute Buffett business brain to come out with this speaks volumes about Israel and it’s people.
Further to the comment from Mike_s about the BBC (lack of) reporting of the work going on to improve electricity and other infrastructure in Iraq, the following “analysis” is still present on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6993516.stm
– clearly implying, about half-way down the page, that electricity supply in Baghdad is at best two hours a day and at worst zero. In fact, the US State Department Iraq weekly status report gives the current Baghdad supply at 9.3 hours daily. Not great, but markedly better than the BBC is prepared to report. Neither does the BBC see fit to mention that the supply outside Baghdad is better.
Happy Boxing Day everyone, it’s time for another round of Compare and Contrast.
I often comment on blatant BBC bias against Israel, and the potential serious ramifications of their propaganda. It is my contention that, while an anti-Israel position is not anti-Semitic by default, demonizing Israel beyond reality actually does result in inflaming anti-Semitic feelings and can lead to actual physical violence against Jews.
It is with this in mind that I offer this example of an AP report – by a Muslim Arab, no less – posted on Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_israel
Compared to this article on the same topic from an official BBC correspondent, also Arab and Muslim:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7160520.stm
The former is a fine example of unbiased, undemonizing reporting on the latest row between Israel and Egypt over the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from Egypt. The latter is not only quite biased in support of Egypt, but gives air to the tired charge that Israel has enough influence over the US government to get them to withhold funding for Egypt.
Now, the default BBC defense tactic is to claim that this is merely a “new brief”, and thus can’t be expected to have too many details. Any complaint that they left out something important is handily and haughtily dismissed.
But as I have argued before, they do find the space to add demonizing details, while leaving out reality.
Notice the AP report mentions that “Israel gave U.S. officials a number of videotapes showing Egyptian police officers helping weapons smugglers along the border or standing by while smugglers went about their business, Israeli defense officials said Tuesday.”
The AP report also refers to the US as “Egypt’s most significant international ally.”
In contrast, the BBC does not mention any videos, and merely quotes a Mubarak spokesman as saying that Egypt was making every effort to stop the smuggling, but they couldn’t “guarantee 100% results”.
This implies that Egypt is making a real effort, but nobody’s perfect, which would be perfectly understandable. This is, of course, a completely false representation of the situation. All we get in the rest of the “news brief” is that Israel is bitching about it, Cairo says Israel doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and that Egypt is angry at Israel because the US has frozen some funding. Even the headline focuses on this accusation, rather than the real story, which is that Egyptian soldiers are helping smuggle weapons into Gaza. The BBC finds room in the “news brief” to support Egypt’s position by mentioning their announcement that they found two more smugglers’ tunnels. See, Egypt is doing all they can, it’s the nasty Israelis who are the problem, as always.
The BBC doesn’t want you to know that, but they do want to plant the thought into your mind that Israel has enough influence over the US Congress to withhold aid money to Egypt. “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, anyone?
Oh, but the BBC do find space for a photo of Mubarak at the podium, and of a masked, armed terrorist lowering himself into a tunnel. The funny part is that this is an AP photo! Too bad Heba Saleh from BBC Cairo didn’t just copy and paste the whole AP article.
The BBC is deliberately taking an anti-Israel position here. This is pure propaganda, omitting the most important part of the story. Not only that, but the BBC actually makes the story about Egypt’s “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” complaints rather than the reality of Eqyptian soldiers helping weapons smuggling into Gaza.
You know, through that border which the BBC conveniently forgets about every time they cry over Gaza being under siege and completely closed off by Israel.
So I say to all Beeboids, even if you swear up and down on a stack of Korans and Bibles that there is not an inherently anti-Israel bias in the BBC, and that in any case anti-Israel does not automatically equate to anti-Semitism, your reporting on the entire region needs serious reexamination. Not only that, but it is reports like this one that do stir anti-Semitic passions, which can and sometimes do lead to anti-Jew violence. Even if that’s not your intention, you really ought to reconsider what you do, if for no other reason than in the interests of social cohesion.
Good comment Preiser.
On BBC anti-Israel bias try here
sometimes the BBC think it better not to give their heroes a name check.
Man dies in Christmas M-way crash
He went to the hard shoulder but was hit by a gold Jaguar car
The driver of the Jaguar,
above oddly truncated
Sometimes the BBC think it better not to give their heroes a name check.
Man dies in Christmas M-way crash
He went to the hard shoulder but was hit by a gold Jaguar car
The driver of the Jaguar, a 50-year-old man from Rotherham, suffered minor cuts and bruising.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7160351.stm
& who was that man?
Labour peer Lord Ahmed in horror M1 smash that leaves motorist dead
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=504582&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
The Christmas ratings triumph, Dr Who, was traditional BBC drama fare incorporating the obligatory anti-Americanism.
After talking of Britain’s continental chums & neighbours, a character asks the Dr whether they are at war with “Hamerica”. “Not yet” says the doc.
An update on the Cardinal “Let those among you without sin cast the first stone”.
The Israeli/Gaza/Egyptian border is very porous; not helped by the fact that many of the Egyptians are being paid by the Palestinians to look the other way or actively help them. When I was with the MFO we used to see Egyptians visiting the posh homes of the big wigs in Gaza after finishing their duty watch at Rafah Border Crossing. On one memorable occasion I rather foolishly allowed my CO to tell me to drop an Egyptian officer off at a HUGE white house in Gaza for a party and then spent a very wary 30 minutes finding my way back to Rafah and safety. No weapon no radio!
Any action the Israelis take is usually the minimum required to secure their borders. After all, why give the Egyptians an excuse to push forward yet again? They are already pushing the limits of the Camp David agreement and causing problems for the MFO which is why the US has stopped some military aid – something the BBC ‘forgot’ to mention!
Indeed when the Indians put electric fences to stop the Bangladeshis getting into India did the BBC do a similar story full of woe and horror for the poor little Banglas? Nope.
“This is no mere opinion or racial pride, Warren Buffett, USA’s 2nd richest man and world’s greatest investor says “throughout Israel, brains and energy are ubiquitous.”
Just today, I saw a study, concerning reasons behind Europe’s falling behind US in research, what is interesting is to take look at the ‘Table 2’.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/834
From the table it is clear that Israel contributes to the world, per capita, twice as much as most of the Western world. And all this under constant pressure of war and attacks and with huge defense expenditures it is forced to make.
From BBC’s reporting one would conclude that there is absolutely nothing Israel contributes and that it is bound to fail economically, morally, and in every other sense.
“From the table it is clear that Israel contributes to the world, per capita, twice as much as most of the Western world. And all this under constant pressure of war and attacks and with huge defense expenditures it is forced to make.”
No wonder they want to destroy it.
Re the above comments concerning Israel, I truly believe that when the history of the present period is finally written, the BBC will count as this era’s Der Stürmer though carefully dressed in doublespeak.
I don’t think Beeboids have been reading ‘The Protocols’. One cannot promulgate a paranoid conspiracy if yourself knowingly exclude the contrary facts to the conspiracy theory.
No, the Beeboids don’t like Israel because it is a Jewish State; this doesn’t mean they hate Jews in the usual manner, but because it is a traditional nation state whose continued existence contradicts their ‘Universalist’ presumptions. That Israel’s disestablishment could very well lead to a new Judeocide, or at least a new Scattering in which millions of Jews will once again have to live as vulnerable minorities in someone elses country, doesn’t seem to enter their cognitions, I’m sad to say.
“Ritter:
Impartial reporting BBC style:
Tory MP in homelessness ‘stunt'”
I had a whinge about this and it has now changed to:
“Tory MP in homelessness sleep-out.”
The night-shift copy writers on the BBC news site tend to be raving pinkos and often have their work “corrected” when the day staff arrive and a few of the complaints are read.”
*********
NewsSniffer’s Revisionista caught the BBC’s edit red handed: 😆
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/86508/diff/1/2
I voted for it on the Newssniffer site, very blatent example of BBC dirty tricks.
I also suspect Teletext of having similar types doing the night shift, especially on Sunday evenings.
IMHO there are several reasons behind BBC’s and Left’s bias against Israel in no particular order:
1. Identification with real or exaggerated Palestinian suffering. So, they are fighting the good fight, facts and exaggeration be damned. This one is the most justified, so to an extent I can understand why someone like Martin Asser’s would be biased. Or for that matter poor Alan Johnston, who went totally native in Gaza, before being kidnapped.
2. Fiskian approach to the world: Post-colonial guilt, as epitomized in Jeremy Bowen’s history rewriting rants.
Somehow, Israel is a Western/British colonial enterprise!? Part of the Fiskian approach is also journalist activism – i.e. not merely reporting but fighting the good fight. Robert Fisk’s guilt ridden approach can be best understood through his suicidal tendencies (http://www.counterpunch.org/fiskbeaten.html). He desperately wants to generalize and propagate to the entire Western Civilization his own suicidal tendencies. So in conflict with radical Islam, West and Israel really, really deserve to die…
3. Single-mindedness and, well, backwardness, of today’s Left in general. The remnants of the Left these days pick generally easy causes and follow them with lynch mob mentality. They don’t even realize that most of their goals were set in the 70’s by Moscow — as any textbook from a Communist country from that era can testify. It just took another 20 odd years for it to diffuse into the West, mostly via radical academia.
In fact Zionism = Racism, Colonialism and Apartheid were the core tenets of the “non-aligned” movement. The supposedly non-aligned movement was in fact very aligned with pro-Communist countries and Soviet backed Arab world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement)
In fact to anyone (like myself growing up in Tito’s Yugoslavia) the “progressive” though of the Left in the first decade of 21 century, feels extremely primitive, since their rhetoric comes straight out of text-books they drove through our noses 30 years ago. BTW, that is why Israel enjoys much more respect in the Eastern Europe, even though classical antisemitism there is higher.
4. Dream of extreme multiculturalism, under which a Jewish State as a nation state cannot exist (see, the Jews are 30-40 years too late). Of course dozens of other nation states were just recently created in the Balkans and ex-Soviet union. But I guess nice hotels and fast internet in Israel make it more evil than the rest.
5. Some in the continental Europe’s Left have a lingering guilt over the Holocaust, so if Jews are just like Nazis, they feel better.
6. An element of classical antisemitism, epitomized by conspiracy theories and jewish power and racism. Stuff that you’ve heard when you were young has a subconscious way of embedding itself in one’s world-view.
An example of this would be Jostein Gaarder leftist pearl “God’s Chosen People”. It is embroiled with classical religious antisemitic motifs – (full text of at the bottom of this link: http://www.antisemittisme.no/engl/antis/2006-08-08-swc-gaarder.php)
Or to quote a Sociology professor I talked with: “I recently realized why the Israelis are racists — the Jews, in fact, invented supremacist racism with their claim of being a chosen people”.
Of course, for religious Jews, it is about having more obligations to god than the others. It doesn’t have anything to do with some supremacist superiority complex (over which the Left washes its own oversized feelings of guilt). But, then again, noone ever claimed that the today’s Left knows their facts.
7. Cult of the victim. Being a victim in itself contains merit. Sadly, Palestinians have accepted this role, and to a certain extent it turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Palestinian society is now addicted to Western welfare. And their forms of resistance are increasingly counterproductive (differences between 1st to 2nd Intifada)
8. Moral and cultural relativism. Thus, a totally destructive (for Lebanon) fascist gang Hezbullah, that stands against everything the Left is supposed to stand for, are dubbed “freedom fighters” (freedom from what – Israel left years ago every last square meter of Lebanon).
9. Radicalism. Marxism is gone – these Islamists have spunk – they are sticking it up to the man – US/Bush/Israel/Pope, whomever.
10. BBC/AP/AFP stringers, cameramen, etc. are all locals, thus the Al-Durah hoax.
11. The sheer amount of hatred oozing from the Muslim world is overwhelming, some of it is penetrating the West by osmosis.
12. Contrary to the popular opinion, Israelis are really stupid when it comes to PR. Among their many faults, they are simply too honest and straightforward. It would never occur to an Israeli PM to setup Darfur refugee camp in the occupied territories, or to lockup Jews fleeing from Arab countries in a refugee camp for 60 years.
An Arab-Canadian 20 year old (born in Canada) recently said, when asked why are Palestinians still living in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria: “What do you expect, letting them out would be letting Israel win!”
How do you even begin to compete with that attitude!?
BBC1 Breakfast programme warns that birds are under threat at Slimbridge Wildfowl reserve becaue of the rising cost of grain.
No mention that this has been caused by climate change zealots (especially those within the EU), who have forced the adoption of massively increased targets for the production of biofuels. This, in turn, has reduced the amount of land previously used for edible grain production, thereby pushing up prices.
Alan | 27.12.07 – 8:11 am |
Agreed, it’s a Juggernaut of pure ignorance.
But the real question is this, besides all the diatribes and apologia, why does the left behave the way they do? Why are they doing what they’re doing? Why are they moral relativists and multiculturalists?
Actually I know why, and I’ve posted the reasons about this before but I will repeat them anyway.
” Simone de Beauvoir (Cultural Marxist and extra-empirical Utopianist)
[On the elimination of the “category of the oppressed”]
Simone de Beauvoir: “Neither the aged nor women, nor anyone by virtue of their race, class, ethnicity or religion would find themselves rendered inessential.”
By ‘rendered inessential’, they mean alienated in the Hegelian sense. This will only really ring a bell if you have read the Philosophy of History.”
Tell me, did they teach Hegel and dialectics in the former Yugoslavia?
No mention of Australia’s scrapping of plans for a national id scheme.
Alan | 27.12.07 – 8:11 am,
Your post should be required reading for the two or three remaining BBC journalists who have a sense of fair play and professionalism.
And it should be required reading for the lefty MSM in general and anyone interested in the motivation behind anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias.
“Alan | 27.12.07 – 8:11 am,
Your post should be required reading for the two or three remaining BBC journalists who have a sense of fair play and professionalism.”
Hear hear!
I see the Spectator has an article about the foul mouthed Catherine Tate programme.
“The Catherine Tate Show’s Christmas Day Special managed over 20 uses of the F-word in the first five minutes, which must be something of a record, even by today’s debased standards of modern entertainment”.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/419071/a-foul-christmas-special.thtml
The BBC, Sharia law in Malaysia and half a story.
Malaysia court rejects Hindu bid
A Malaysian Hindu woman has failed in an attempt to stop her husband – a new convert to Islam – divorcing her in an Islamic court. Subashini Rajasingam also failed to persuade the federal court her husband should be banned from converting their four-year-old son to Islam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7161177.stm
The BBC reports on the above story as a simple D.I.V.O.R.C.E one. The problem is if you look up this story on any other news outlet they don’t mention the D.I.V.O.R.C.E. no they mention this;
M’sian Hindu loses bid to ban Muslim conversion
PUTRAJAYA – MALAYSIA’S highest court threw out on Thursday a bid by a Hindu woman to stop her estranged husband from converting their youngest son to Islam.
Her case is another sign of strain in the social fabric of the multi-racial nation, where many non-Muslims believe their rights are being trampled by the Muslim majority.
Mrs R Subashini took legal action after her husband converted himself and their elder son, now four, to Islam in 2006. She says she now fears the husband wants to take their two-year-old, who still lives with her, and convert him to Islam as well.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Asia/STIStory_190463.html
Malaysia’s highest court rejects Hindu woman’s bid to block son’s conversion to Islam
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) – Malaysia’s highest court rejected a Hindu woman’s plea Thursday to stop her Muslim-convert husband from changing their son’s religion to Islam, in a case that has raised concerns over eroding minority rights.
Subashini Rajasingam, a 29-year-old ethnic Indian Hindu, went to court after her husband, also an ethnic Indian, converted to Islam along with their 4-year-old son, without her consent.Her bid to stop her husband from converting their 2-year-old son had already been rejected by lower courts, and the Federal Court was her last resort, said her lawyer, K. Shanmuga.
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565146404260283425
The BBC, Sharia law in Malaysia and half a story.
Nasty pay-tv….
Pay-TV turns off China football fans
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7136677.stm
“China’s enthusiastic band of football fans have failed to sign up to watch the English Premier League on a new pay-per-view format.
Top-flight English matches were previously available for free on television and had a potential audience of 30 million.
But that changed when broadcaster WinTV bought the rights to broadcast Premier League games in China for three seasons, starting this year.
WinTV now admits it has managed to attract only 20,000 customers willing to pay the 588 yuan (£39; $80) annual fee.
A company spokeswoman said it was proving difficult to persuade Chinese football fans to pay to watch matches that were previously free.”
Much better to force everyone who owns a telly to pay for football coverage, whether they watch or not. Then tell viewers it’s a ‘free’ service!
David Preiser | 26.12.07 – 6:58 pm
Notice the AP report mentions that Israel gave U.S. officials a number of videotapes….In contrast, the BBC does not mention any videos.
No, David, the BBC report does not mention the videos. Here are some of the reasons why not:
Israeli defence officials….. spoke on condition of anonymity because regulations forbid them from speaking to the media.
They may have spoken to the AP reporter, but not to the BBC. The BBC doesn’t tend to report as ‘news’ unsubstantiated information allegedly passed by un-named officials to non-BBC journalists.
Especially when an official source refuses to stand the story up:
Arye Mekel, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, would not comment on whether the tapes existed
And when the matter is disputed:
An Egyptian security official…said the tapes were a fabrication
rather than the real story, which is that Egyptian soldiers are helping smuggle weapons into Gaza.
No, that’s not the real story. It may be true; it may not. We can’t know ‘til we see the videotapes, if they exist. In any case that’s another story.
Once again, you mistake the purpose of a news report from a local correspondent.
This one, from Cairo, details a spat between Egypt and Israel in the context of an Israeli ministerial visit to Cairo. The reporter’s job is to file a report saying what’s happening in Cairo, not to set the events in their geopolitical context.
As for any ‘anti-Israel or ‘Protocols’ element – that’s all in your imagination.
I have yet to see any BBC spokespersons comment on the general anti Israel bias. There have been plenty of rebuttals concerning factual inaccuracies or omissions, but the nearest reference to the underlying anti Israel agenda was when ‘John Reith’ said he was not anti-semitic.
These days racism is such a stigmatizing label. On the scale of undesirable characteristics, about equal to peodophilia, so no-one is likely to admit to being anti-Semitic, although it is O.K. to be anti-Zionist. as Zionism has been turned into a pejorative term now anyway.
But refusing to recognise that there is bias in presenting a very complex issue predominantly from one side’s viewpoint begs the question, why? How much is because of ignorance and laziness and how much is because of underlying antipathy.
The demonisation of Israel coupled with head-in-the-sand attitude to Islamic extremism has transformed the once respected BBC and It is heartbreaking that now it’s influencing intelligent people to spit venom in the name of good against evil and everything is turned on its head.
The absence of BBC spokespersons on this website over the hols means all these excellent recent posts on this subject are even less likely than usual to be taken up.
Now I see ‘John Reith’ is back. Defending the tree, and ignoring the wood.
SJ | 27.12.07 – 1:47 pm:
Nice post. But is it possible for us all to use less of the term “BBC bias“? Surely, what you and we all really mean, is “BBC bigotry” – as practised by the BBC’s bigots.
Definition of “Bigot”:
One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
It works for me. Using the word bigot also acts as a reminder that the BBC is largely staffed by people who share the same character traits of racists – the tendency to treat differing groups unequally.
WOAD (uk)
In his Cultural Amnesia (Picador), Clive James says of J P Sartre (& his Queen S de Beauvoir (in summary)
-Sartre was an apologist for mass murderers & advocated the killing & torture of collaborators after the war.
-He claimed to be in the resistance but was probably not.
-Many of Sartres contemporaries died fighting for freedom which deeply embarrassed him.
-A key principle in his vision is that communist regimes (no matter how illiberal) had serious altruistic intentions whilst capatialism was just self serving (academics in the west took to this like ducks to water)
-When Sartre broke with the Communists he retained respect for thier benevolent intentions and never condemned the gulag network as a central product of a totalitarian system,
-Sartres style of arguement masked its inherent duplicity.
-Sartre debarred himself from telling the truth because of his exceptionalism (ordinary mortals tell “truth”) and his urge to be extrordinary was a powerful motivator.
-This perversity made him the most conspicious example of a fully qualified western intellectual aiding and abetting the opponents of civilization.
-Sartre reminds that amoral intelligence is not confined to science and can occour in culture.
– Being a Humanist means not being like Sartre.
Theres so much more but the BBC has basically bought wholesale into this line of thinking and ought to be smashed.
-Sartres gauchiste was the style setter of French political thought creating an orthodoxy that still saturates western intellectual life
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/video_and_audio/default.stm
Homeless issue when highlighted by a Conservative is back as a ‘stunt’
Might be worth a screenshot before the BBC moderators ‘adjust’ these recommended results.
(D)HYS: Your reaction to the death of Benazir Bhutto
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=3985&edition=1&ttl=20071227163502&#paginator
I think the BBC subscribes to this quote which was read out to me during a training course on diversity I went through and I think it sums up modern day liberal facist thinking, read it a couple of times and you will get the real meaning,
“There is nothing as unequal as the equal treatment of unequals”
Here’s a heartwarming story about Blind Alphabetz, a Muslim hip-hop group that goes into primary schools and tells the kids about Islam, and how great it is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7158907.stm
It leaves out a lot of detail (the report implies that they only perform for Muslim pupils, but it does not say). It’s interesting that the only criticism in the story is from other Muslims, who complain about Blind Alphabetz not being Muslim enough.
Gary | 27.12.07 – 6:08 pm
“There is nothing as unequal as the equal treatment of unequals”…I think it sums up modern day liberal fascist thinking….
Well you may think it sums up modern, liberal fascist thinking…. but it’s actually a quotation from Aristotle!
Hayek (no modern liberal fascist, he) agreed, elaborating the point thus:
From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7161590.stm
Why do the BBC so scrupulously avoid using the word ‘murder’ here?
I wonder how long it’ll be before they blame George Bush.
John Reith
I note that you do indeed know who Hayek was and what he was all about, which is a least a start.
However I also note you did not take your chance to deny that modern liberal thinking is indeed FASCIST in every important sense of the word.
I refer you also to the admission in the side bar by your very own EX chief political editor Andrew Marr. That the BBC has a political bias better expressed as a cultural liberal bias. One of the only statements he ever made I agree with.
Of course the BBC like most things it propagates has completely perverted the meaning of the word. But equally of course you know this to be very much the case as well.