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 also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely!
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Tony Sharp highlights the BBC’s selective reporting on the euro:
http://tonysharp.blogspot.com/2008/04/where-is-bbc-report.html
The Have Your Say discussion on Syria’s destroyed nuclear plant has predictably turned into a US and Israel-bashing session:
Added: Saturday, 26 April, 2008, 08:15 GMT 09:15 UK To Dave of Reading,
To not critricise Israel for the barbaric treatment of Palestinians is immoral. You too easily accept that they have a greater right than anyone else. They are not “gods” people. Israel exists by brute force, a regime that uses WMD against civilians. A regime that cannot live by the principals of the UN-it should have been expelled years ago, along with the US. These two anti-UN countries don’t deserve our respect, only our scorn. They are bloodsuckers who deserve each other
John Li, Hong Kong
Recommended by 5 people
Added: Saturday, 26 April, 2008, 08:08 GMT 09:08 UK
US allegations on Syria is completely False. and completely base less. Whyonly The US has all rights. US is black markc over theface of civilized world.
US sould be swap ofthae map.may God destroy US and Bastered Bush regieme.
Abdul Wahid, Meerut , India
Recommended by 3 people
Added: Saturday, 26 April, 2008, 06:48 GMT 07:48 UK
So who died and made Israel Judge, Jury, and Executioner? How can these Chosen Savages attack any country they see fit. Let me take that back..they only attack countries who can’t strike back. Sooner or later they will screw up, y’know like bite their masters and their masters will put them in the kenel.
Arlan Santori
Recommended by 1 person
Funny how, when it comes to the US and Israel, the moderators continually break their own House Rules:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/4176520.stm
Keep your contributions civil, tasteful and relevant.
*Do not incite people to commit any crime, including incitement of racial hatred.
*Do not post messages that are unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening….
*Keep your posts relevant….
Yeah, right.
Jason | 26.04.08 – 12:57 am
Bryan | 26.04.08 – 9:40 am
There are a few important facts you leave out of your account of the NYC cop case.
This case would never had come to trial at all unless the DA believed the cops ought to be prosecuted.
The DA’s decision to go to trial would have been influenced by the outcome of an NYPD Internal Affairs investigation into whether this was ‘a good shoot’ or not.
Mayor Bloomberg himself expressed outrage at one aspect of the incident: 50 shots were fired.
One of the men in the car received 11 separate bullet wounds.
To get that much lead flying would mean each of the three cops emptying his entire clip into that car…. Then re-loading with a fresh clip and keeping on firing. That’s hardly consistent with the events as you describe them.
I also note the BBC did NOT (as you claim) say one of the cops was white. It said 2 of them were black • thereby signalling there was no ‘race’ element to all this.
You may also note the Feds are now taking this up…….
50 shots were fired.
I distinctly heard the BBC reporter state that the dead man was “hit by 50 bullets”.
I thought at the time that if that were true there wouldn’t be much left of him.
BillB | 26.04.08 – 11:29 am
I didn’t claim the BBC said one of the cops was white, I said the BBC was “…trying to create the impression that the police were white…”
And Jason, at 12:57 am, said, “The outright lie they keep telling is that one of the shooters was white.” He is talking about the overall experience he has had of the BBC’s coverage throughout the case, not limited to this one article.
The fact that the Feds are taking the case further has no impact on the BBC’s bias. That’s a separate issue.
The BBC is biased to the hilt. The bias is clearly demonstrated in the way it reports on cases like this one.
The BBC’s take on a story and then the other half. Polar Bears again.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7368484.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/09/wpolar09.xml
I noted yesterday that the BBC hasn’t deigned to report on the deaths of two Israelis, shot inside Israel by a “Palestinian” terrorist.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1829133216574660598/#395438
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1829133216574660598/#395377
I should have added that most likely the next news from Israel/”Palestine” that the BBC covers will be a case of evil Israel massacring innocent “Palestinian” women and children.
“Palestinians” killed is important – Israelis killed isn’t.
Today’s news from the region:
Girl killed in fresh Gaza clashes
A 14-year-old girl dies during clashes between Israeli forces and militants in Gaza, hours after a truce offer.
Says it all for the BBC doesn’t it?
Those nice people from Hamas offer a truce and those evil Jews kill a child – hey, it’s still Passover – they need the blood to make matzoth!
The raid and the so-called offer of a so-called truth are not related, but the BBC likes to put things into its own idea of ‘context’.
Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian militants during a raid on northern Gaza, hours after rejecting a truce offered by Hamas.
Palestinian doctors say a 14-year-old girl died and eight other people were injured in the raid, in Beit Lahiya.
They say the casualties included the girl’s mother, but were mostly gunmen involved in clashes with the Israelis.
Reports say the target of the raid was local Hamas leader Hassan Marouf, but the Israeli army refused to comment.
The Associated Press news agency quotes witnesses as saying the Israelis seized him from his home amid heavy fighting.
The Israeli army said none of its troops were injured.
The raid began before dawn, with an Israeli undercover force entering northern Gaza backed by tanks and aircraft.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants fired at them with machine guns, mortars and homemade bombs.
On Friday Hamas proposed a six-month “period of quiet” in Gaza, which it said could then be extended to the West Bank.
Israel dismissed the proposal as a ruse to allow Hamas to “re-arm and re-group”.
Neither does the BBC bother to tell us that the young girl was not targeted but hit by shrapnel:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/978051.html
His 14-year old daughter, Mariam, was killed by shrapnel from heavy machine guns, medics in Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza said. Her mother was injured in the clashes.
What was offered was a ‘truce’ in exactly the same way that the Third Reich’s offer to be satisfied with the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia was a ‘truce’ – and Hamas say so
Radhika Coomaraswamy spoke of the problem of exploiting children in wars in Africa, from a CNN report in February
Undersecretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy told the U.N. Security Council this week that in addition to being pressed into service, children in several countries are also killed, maimed, abducted and raped and denied access to humanitarian groups
This cultural difference, where children can be regarded as dispensable, is very different from the western practice of cherishing children and protecting them at all costs.
News bulletins today mention the following, also reported by Ms Coomaraswamy
insurgent groups and militias in Iraq are recruiting children for attacks, according to a United Nations official.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7367920.stm
So this practice is also turning up in Iraq. If this is not unheard of amongst ‘Islamic militants’ it sheds light on the high incidence of Palestinian child casualties.
Not only that they place their children in harm’s way. The thing they very well know is the high priority we in the west give to the wellbeing of children.
It gives even greater significance to the poignant statement by Golda Meir “In time we may forgive you for killing our children, but we will not forgive you for making us kill your children.”
The Palestinian propaganda machine. Cynical exploitation, not only of children, but of our high regard for them and hatred of anyone that harms them.
More horse shit and lies from the BBC. In this report the BBC are trying to claim that Gordon’s glove puppet is helping the “two biggest groups” that lost out with the 10% tax rate change.
Now here is the extract from a previous BBC report into the losers.
“…The latest row has been centred around 5.3 million people losing from the changes.
They are made up of 2.2 million single people without children; 1.2 million working couples with no children; 400,000 childless couples with one earner on around £17,000 to £18,500; 700,000 couples, both earning, with children; 300,000 women aged 60 to 64 who have retired and are on low incomes, and 500,000 people under pension age and out of work who have taxable income….”
Now in this report the BBC “claims” that Glove puppet is helping the two biggest groups out.
“…Chancellor Alistair Darling is proposing to help the two main groups to be hit – pensioners under-65 and younger workers on modest incomes with no children…”
But pensioners under 65 account for about 300,000 women AND the young workers are those that don’t get the full minimum wage. Any increase in that will be paid for by THEIR employer not the Government.
This is clearly a distorted report to try to make McLiebour look better and as if they are helping millions of people out. In fact they are not.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7358688.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7367490.stm
Graham Plumb, the BBC’s Head of Distribution Technology, responded to complaints on this week’s Newswatch:
“Recently we’ve undertaken a reorganisation of the services that we offer on the satellite platform. We have noticed and we’ve heard a number of complaints of people reporting, as you say, either a weakening of reception or loss of reception altogether. That is a consequence of the reorganisation of the services but what’s it’s done is exposed a weakness in their receiving installations.”
The BBC’s “reorganisation” caused the problems but the blame is with the viewer. Plumb’s suggested solution – those having trouble should pay an engineer to sort it out.
What is it with the BBC and Margaret Thatcher? Britain’s leading public-service broadcaster never seems to miss an opportunity to do her down, especially in its dramatic depictions, which regularly demean and disparage her and her record. Not content with having a library full of anti-Thatcher footage, the excellent First Post Daily website reports that the Beeb is producing another two dramatic tilts at her.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/634296/the-beebs-antithatcherism.thtml
The BBC often quotes, sometimes without attribution, the Associated Press. AP has often been accused of anti-Israel bias but in this case their report on the killing of two Israelis, still not reported by Al-Beeb, is fairly balanced, and touches on some important points that are regularly ignored by the BBC.
Militant kills 2 Israeli guards at West Bank divide
JERUSALEM – The killing of two Israeli security guards by a Palestinian gunman Friday focused attention on one of the biggest challenges facing Mideast peace negotiators: keeping extremists in check.
Israel says the moderate Palestinian leadership with whom it hopes to strike a peace deal by year’s end is failing to ensure the calm necessary for any Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.
A Palestinian militant, apparently pretending to be a laborer, shot and killed two middle-aged guards who were screening Palestinian workers as they entered an Israeli factory in Nitzanei Shalom, along the divide between Israel and the West Bank.
The Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas says it is making great strides in imposing order in the West Bank, the only area it controls following the June 2007 violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas militants. But Israel says Abbas’ forces have a long way to go before establishing the security control that would prevent the West Bank from meeting the same fate as Gaza, where militants capitalized on a 2005 Israeli withdrawal for launching incessant rocket attacks.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki condemned the shooting and said it was meant “to undermine the efforts by the Palestinian government to undertake full security responsibilities in the West Bank.”
The overall situation in the Palestinian territories appears to be working against the delicate efforts by Abbas and Israel to forge a deal.
Israel is pushing forward with controversial building projects on disputed land in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and is refusing to take down illegal settlement outposts, release Palestinian prisoners, halt military incursions, and dismantle roadblocks that severely disrupt daily life.
All this, combined with the Palestinians’ failure to rein in militants, as evidenced by Friday’s shooting, are making the goal of a peace deal by year’s end appear increasingly unrealistic. It’s also making high-profile meetings like the one Thursday between Abbas and President Bush in Washington look somewhat removed from reality, despite the leaders’ public expressions of optimism.
Medics pronounced the two guards dead at the scene, rescue services said, and troops began combing surrounding areas for traces of the assailant. One body remained on the ground outside the factory, covered in a gray blanket, and police concealed the second body with a white sheet.
Three militant groups took responsibility for the attack — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a violent offshoot of Abbas’ moderate Fatah movement. An Islamic Jihad spokesman, Abu Mujahed, said in a phone call to The Associated Press that the gunman crossed into Israel several days ago dressed as a woman and then pretended to be a worker to get close to the factory.
The assailant then began shooting and was slightly wounded in an exchange of gunfire but managed to escape, said Abu Mujahed, who gave only his nom de guerre because he is wanted by Israel.
“This was a clear example of extremism and terrorism by those seeking to foil any prospects for advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” said Israeli government spokesman David Baker.
Israel’s military regularly carries out arrest raids targeting militants in the West Bank, and Israel has refused Palestinian calls to cease such operations and allow Palestinian security forces to take control. Under a U.S.-backed peace plan, Palestinians are supposed to dismantle violent groups.
Shootings such as Friday’s are relatively rare in the West Bank. Most Israeli-Palestinian violence takes place in and around Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Hamas said Thursday it would be prepared to accept a cease-fire with Israel that applies to Gaza only, dropping an earlier demand that any truce include the West Bank as well.
However, Hamas also demands that any deal include a lifting of Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s border crossings, imposed to weaken the militants’ rule and end the ongoing rocket fire.
On Friday, about 7,000 protesters carrying Hamas flags gathered near Gaza’s northern and southern borders, demanding an end to the blockade.
Baker, the Israeli government spokesman, expressed skepticism over Hamas’ latest announcement.
“To Israel’s dismay, Hamas is not serious. It’s playing games, trying to buy time in order to regroup and rearm,” he said.
Israelis got a reminder Friday of what they’d be up against if they tried to uproot Jewish settlers in the West Bank as part of any future peace deal.
Left-wing activists protesting settlers’ presence in the biblical city of Hebron — long a hotbed of Israeli-Palestinian tension — were pelted by settlers with eggs, sticks and stones, the protesters said.
Members of B’Nai Avraham — whose name means Sons of Abraham, a reference to the shared patriarch of Jews and Muslims — chanted “One, two, three, four, occupation no more,” when they began scuffling with settlers.
The BBC subscribes to the AP feed. Why wasn’t this story covered and why, for all their boasting of providing ‘context’ can they not ever provide us with a report that comes up to this basic standard of honest, balanced, and informative journalism?
Hide it, minimise it, “balance” it and divert attention from it – all these things the BBC regularly does when there is a Palestinian terror attack in which Israelis are killed.
But not report it at all? This must be a first in the ongoing deterioration of the dhimmi BBC.
As a criminologist I am often called by journalists from the BBC asking for my “expert” opinion on particular crime topics in the news.
I find that BBC journalists – like a few others – often want to use academics to look like talking head “ivory tower intellectual buffoons” while the journalist appears to be the all knowing expert.
I think you will find the following accounts and emails between myself and a BBC journalist – trying to tell her story the way she wants the public to see it – rather than the “true” story quite interesting. The information is on the Bent Society blog (at http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/)And the two specific story links are here. I hope these are useful
http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/do-bbc-journalists-want-to-tell-truth.html
http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/theft-and-stolen-goods-markets.html
Dr Society
Just submitted via the feedback page, note one is no longer able to register a formal complaint:
Your report says:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7368502.stm
“Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian militants during a raid on northern Gaza, hours after rejecting a truce offered by Hamas.”
This gives the impression that the raid was a direct result of, or in some way connected to the so-called offer of a so-called truce. This is not so.
The above statement leaves the casual reader with the impression that Israel reacts to offers of peace with raids that cause the death of young girls. This is not true either.
Why has the BBC not reported on the following story of two Israelis murdered by an Arab terrorist?
Militant kills 2 Israeli guards at West Bank divide:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians
The above AP report contains information and context and is a good example of the kind of honest reporting so lacking recently from the BBC’s coverage of Israel/Palestine. The BBC’s failure to report on the death of Israeli civilians is indicative of the pro-Palestinian bias so evident of late.
In your reporting of the recent fuel and food shortage in Gaza all mention of the recent attacks on fuel depots in Israel with their related Israeli civilian deaths have been erased, again leaving your readers with the impression that Israeli actions occur in a vacuum.
It is ever more clear to me that for the BBC’s reporters Palestinian deaths are more important than Israeli deaths and that the only obstacles to peace are created by Israel.
I note also that the new method of registering a complaint via this “BBC News website feedback” does not provide for a request for a response – something that I believe is your duty under your Charter. In fact none of my recent complaints have elicited even an acknowledgment of receipt.
I therefore request a written response to this complaint and will continue to document all cases of what I consider to be cases of BBC bias.
Correction:
It seems that using the international version of news.bbc.co.uk as I do the “Contact Us” link takes you to a different version of the complaints page – changing to the UK version I get to this page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3950000/newsid_3955200/3955223.stm
which allows me to submit a complaint via this form:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/make_complaint_step1n.shtml
which I will now do 😉
Hmmm, they’ll probably have a convenient excuse now to ignore your complaint since you don’t live in Britain.
In which case, of course, the BBC should cut all its services outside Britain.
Bryan,
I did used to get replies to my complaints but of late the last three or so in the last two months have not been acknowledged. As with their blogs and HYS it’s likely that they identify my IP address, or even the real name and email address I use for complaints, and have me on some kind of blacklist.
Whatever, as long as they continue to make my blood boil I’ll continue to hassle them.
Dr Society,
I can confirm that here in Spain theft of copper from sub-stations and even aerial power cables and telephone lines is big business. A gang of Moroccans was recently dismantled with tons of the stuff.
Correction:
They were Romanians not Moroccans:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:kZs3vHIevXoJ:www.dailyspain.com/top_story_spanish_news_today.php+copper+theft+spain&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&lr=lang_en|lang_it|lang_es&client=firefox-a
The BBC reporter could also have looked at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6144464.stm
or http://dianahopeless.multiply.com/journal/item/8
Next time send here here:
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
Next time send her here:
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
And in South Africa it has been going on for decades. This probably only has a small impact on the electricity crisis there, the main reason being the ANC government ignoring advice they got years ago to plan for the increase in electricity consumption post-Apartheid.
Still, theft of copper wire and people illegally bypassing meters to get free electricity can’t help. Now they have load shedding – once or twice a week they cut electricity throughout Johannesburg for four hours at a time. Similar story across the country Great for businesses. I understand that generators are selling like hot cakes in South Africa.
Re complaints, it takes true grit to persevere in complaining to the BBC.
BillB –
“This case would never had come to trial at all unless the DA believed the cops ought to be prosecuted.”
No, the trial came about because the case went before a grand jury in Queens, and that jury decided not that the cops were guilty but that the case ought to be heard. That is NOT the same as saying “the DA believed the cops ought to be prosecuted”.
“Mayor Bloomberg himself expressed outrage at one aspect of the incident: 50 shots were fired.”
Mayor Bloomberg expressed a knee-jerk reaction when he said, before the facts of the case were known, that he thought that 50 shots were excessive. For which he was rightly condemned by both the police and the press here. The “50 shots” aspect of this case is irrelevant – if cops think that they’re being fired upon and that their lives are in danger, 50 shots fired between 3 or 4 of them is not the excess that some would make it out to be.
Bloomberg is an idiot – he recently started a scheme to financially reward low income families for doing basic things like taking their kids to the dentist, for instance. Nor do his comments have any relevance to the issue of whether or not the BBC’s reporting of this incident was impartial or accurate.
“One of the men in the car received 11 separate bullet wounds.
To get that much lead flying would mean each of the three cops emptying his entire clip into that car…. Then re-loading with a fresh clip and keeping on firing. That’s hardly consistent with the events as you describe them.”
What part of the events as I have described them is this not consistent with? Perhaps you are confused as to the meaning of the word “consistent”. And besides, the facts are that ONE of the cops reloaded and put a fresh clip in, and that it is possible to fire as many as 30 shots, including a reload, in 11 or 12 seconds in an incident like this. It was clearly stated during the testimonies that the reason they continued firing was because not only were they very reasonably led to believe that the men in the car were armed, but also that the shots of one cop exited the car from the other side, leading the cops on the other side of the car to believe that they were being fired upon from the car. None of this was reported or factored by the Beeb.
“I also note the BBC did NOT (as you claim) say one of the cops was white. It said 2 of them were black • thereby signalling there was no ‘race’ element to all this.”
Go back and read my comments. I did not claim that the Beeb mentioned a white cop in the story I linked to, but after I’d encouraged you to go read the “see also” links to the side, which document the BBC’s past coverage of this incident. In more than one of those links it quite clearly (and wrongly) states that the cop who fired 31 shots was white. If the BBC wanted to signal that there was no “race element” to this then they would not have written “Sean Bell, who was black” right next to a photo of Sean Bell which clearly showed that he was black.
Dr. Society: thanks, that speaks volumes about the pig-stubborn, agenda-led ignorance of the average BBC journalist. Colleagues of mine confirm that in ‘talking head’ interviews with BBC presenters & journalists, the full interview is usually edited in a way that anything particularly interesting said by the expert tends to get cut – but then, mysteriously, turns up elsewhere in the programme as an observation made by the selfsame journalist! Leaving a few dull statistics to said talking-head and the journalist covered in glory…
Jason | 26.04.08 – 5:21 pm
ahem – you wouldn’t be Alexander Jason, one of the defence expert witnesses in this case would you?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7368905.stm
Article doesn’t mention that the “certain to vote” poll was sponsored by a trade union and was found to include people not actually registered to vote.
Also fails to mention that the mayors of Berlin, Toronto and San Francisco are all lefties as well.
It reads like a way of justifying publishing those poll results and the different endorsements under the guise of a story about Boris.
Re complaints, it takes true grit to persevere in complaining to the BBC.
Bryan | 26.04.08 – 4:37 pm
Grit, I got. 😉
“Mayor Bloomberg himself expressed outrage at one aspect of the incident: 50 shots were fired” – and the ‘outrage’ of a silly politician is relevant in the least because …?
Also, some people do not seem to understand the simple concept that because a case goes to trial, it does not mean that the accused is guilty.
BBC’s mainpage currently bigging it up (with video) for the rocket launch of the EU equivalent of the GPS system.
Satellites get launched every week, but the BBC highlights this one. I don’t for a minute believe it’s got anything to do with criticism of the project. I’m betting that it’s the Yank-slaying, EU-muscle-flexing aspects that appeals to them.
Have they menioned the CO2 put out by each rocket launch?
“Satellites get launched every week, but the BBC highlights this one. I don’t for a minute believe it’s got anything to do with criticism of the project. I’m betting that it’s the Yank-slaying, EU-muscle-flexing aspects that appeals to them.”
The EU robbed the CAP to pay for Galileo
just as the bio-fuel fiasco starts to bite.
Under the stunningly interesting headline from BBC news site:
“Miliband defends Brown leadership”
on Marr Show this morning, Miliband had the chutzpah to say that the Labour Government had to:-
“keep very close to the concerns of voters..”
Given Miliband’s responsibilities in foreign affairs, he is a classic example of a Labour politician who OPPOSES the concerns of British voters.
To give but 4 examples of Miliband’s BETRAYAL of the expressed wishes of the British people:-
1.) he prevented a Referendum on EU constitution/treaty;
2.) he enthusiastically campaigns for 80 million Turks (mainly Muslim) to enter EU;
3.) he works to enlarge the EU even further, with overtures to predominantly Muslim states to the east and south;
4.) his policies mean that millions more will be added to the mass immigration that Labour has given priority to since 1997.
Of course, Marr did not make these challenges to Miliband.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7369633.stm
Marr is a toadie, not a journalist.
Is this an interesting way in which the European Union, the UK Labour Government (and tangentially, the BBC) can be opposed?:
” How European Conservatives can resist the Left”
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/010447.html
Yes … maybe … most people are not interested in philosophy and can’t understand it, and leftists have proved through their muddled thinking that they certainly can’t. All you’ll get is screams of abuse.
And I must say, an author ranting against freedom for homosexuals is not one I’d read without grave misgivings.
Whatever one’s views about homosexuality, surely there should be be the freedom to both oppose and support it? ( We are talking of the right to offend which, incidentally many Islamic groups do not accept, often with threats of violence.)
The legal trend in the UK and in the EU is to censor and criminalise opponents of homosexuality, as in this case involving Wyre Borough Council in Lancashire, and the Lancashire Constabulary, reported here by BBC:-
“Police ‘sorry’ for moral quizzing”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6205223.stm
I agree that one should be able to express opposition to homosexuality, as long as no intimidation or incitement to hatred are involved – both of which are criminal offences, and rightly so. Thus far no problem.
All I said was that I have misgivings (I didn’t use a stronger word) about this author. Sadly, my experience of people who are intolerant of homosexuality per se is that they hold similar oppressive views on other subjects, and that our ways would diverge sooner rather than later.
A ‘lightbulb’ goes on among the liberal/left/greens/ and many beeboids:
“As the world begins to starve, it’s time to take GM seriously”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/27/gmcrops.food
And EU Referendum has critique of EU’s biofuel ‘policy’, as subserviently followed by Brown’s Labour:-
“The real crisis has yet to come (Part 2)”
http://eureferendum2.blogspot.com/2008/04/real-crisis-has-yet-to-come-part-2.html
Anonymous:
Jason | 26.04.08 – 5:21 pm
ahem – you wouldn’t be Alexander Jason, one of the defence expert witnesses in this case would you?
No – I’m Jason Alexander, who played George on “Seinfeld”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7369621.stm
BBC mixing up polls to do Labour a favour:
The findings point to a 9% swing from Labour to the Tories, giving Mr Cameron a 64-seat majority.
But another poll by ICM, for The Sunday Telegraph, puts the Tories on 39% nationally, 10 points ahead of Labour on 29% and the Lib Dems on 20%.
It suggests a shortening lead for the Conservatives, who had an 18-point lead in a survey by the same organisation last week.
First of all, the 39/29 poll was in the Telegraph not the NotW. Secondly, the poll that put the Conservatives 18pts ahead was a YouGov, not an ICM. And the last ICM before the 39/29 one put the Conservatives 5pts ahead, so it has actually gone up!
David: But on the bright side (?) they have at least mentioned the 18% figure, only in the context of no longer applying of course…
Here’s a classic Beeb story:
“MPs block junk food advert ban”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7366203.stm
It’s got the lot. Wishy-washy legislation ( the Bill aimed to make it an offence to promote “less healthy” [than what?] foodstuffs to children.
Introduced by Labour MP Nigel Griffiths last year, it also wanted a 9pm watershed introduced for television advertising of unhealthy food.[By whose definition?])
It’s got eeeeeevil Toreeees blocking it. And if you study the paragraph headings, you get the words ‘Conservative opponents’, ‘£800m a year’ and ‘bribes’ all nicely lined up. Bloomin Tories, in the pocket of big business, obviously.
Plenty of weasel words too: ‘However, some observers were disappointed that the bill failed to pass through the second reading.’
Far be it from the BBC to let us get on with our own decisions on feeding our children, eh?
“And if you study the paragraph headings, you get the words ‘Conservative opponents'” – nice try. It says no such thing.
Sorry, paragraphs, not sections, OK. Still, you did pick and choose a little 😉
And it still wasn’t a heading …
Here are some quotes that might be of interest to you all.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” Thomas Jefferson
“You (International Bankers) are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out. If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.” Andrew Jackson
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” James Madison
“I am afraid that ordinary citizens will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” – Reginald McKenna, Chairman of the Midland Bank in London.
“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen…At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.” John Hylan, New York City Mayor, 1922
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes…Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” Napoleon
Fantastic job making an arse of yourself, Nearly Ox. Please visit often, and keep the comments coming – you’re a genuine asset to this site!
From the Times account of the JRRT’s report on election fraud:
Vote-rigging has been linked to the biraderi (brotherhood) traditions of Pakistani, Kashmiri and Bangladeshi clans, the report says.
Half the convictions for electoral malpractice since 2000 came from Muslim parts of Oldham, Blackburn, Burnley and Birmingham.
Politicians had achieved “dramatic electoral success” by allying themselves to clans. But postal voting deprived women in particular of the secrecy of the ballot box, enabling clan chiefs to force relatives to mark their ballots at home for the clan’s chosen candidate.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3828387.ece
Predictably, the BBC’s online article fails to mention any of this.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7370025.stm
Chuffer, with people (using the term loosely) like you around, I wonder why we need slugs.