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.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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The vile Victoria Derbyshire on 5 lite that that leftie Scottish arsehole Tom Harris on (the vile man is continually coughing and spluttering into the microphone as well) defending his “you’ve never had it so good” comments.
When asked why not cut the price of diesel, he said “well we’d have to cut public spending”. THAT is the problem with the socialists.
They are telling everyone that we need to cut back, but they themselves are incapable of cutting their own public spending.
This crap Government have wasted hundreds of billions of pounds since they came to power. It’s a scandal, yet the BBC sees to try to defend the Government. In fact try finding this story on the BBC website.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1027844/Food-bills-house-prices-sliding-pay-rises-inflation—Labour-minister-says-Stop-MISERABLE.html
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Yes, and as I pointed out below, everyone else headlines the Harris story with his deeply arrogant comment. The Beeb’s website, though, as ever, leads the story with his defence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7464976.stm
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Incidentally, I like his… er, apology, I suppose:
“Even if I accept that that phrase ‘why is everyone so bloody miserable’ – I wrote that in a humorous vein – I understand that if people want to take that as offensive, I apologise, that maybe it should have been phrased differently.”
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The comment about not being able to reduce deisel duty without cutting public spending proves how bogus green taxes really are.
This muppet has effectively said that Government spending relies on a product that they do want us to use.
All the parties are guilty of it:
“We will raise road tax and use the extra to cut income tax” translates as 2You will not get a cut in income tax unless more people drive big cars”
And they want us to take them seriously?
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Anyone see the clip of Fiona Bruce talking to Bill Gates?
She walked into his office and sneeringly looked at his computer and asked if it ever crashed”because mine does..” she blurted out.
Typical beeboid. Fancy having to walk into one of the biggest private companies in the world, I wonder if the BBC made Bruce have a variety of injections before she went in case she caught something?
What an obscene way to speak to a man who has given up his time to speak to her. Why does the BBC feel the need to be rude to Americans?
Could you imagine her walking into a Mosque and asking where the wine is?
Bill Gates is a man who has given billions of his own money to Africa to fund medical programs. Note that because AIDS isn’t at the top of the list the gay leftie media ignore it (just like they ignore the work George Bush has done for Africa as well) but the BBC are always quick to big up the fat one eyed jock whenever he mumbles out yet another rehash of some old Labour promise on Africa.
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Martin,
The unfortunate fact is the Government has backed itself in to a corner.
If they cut public spending, unemployment rates go up, and everything else goes south.
Mailman
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Just reading up on the Abu Hamza thing. The BBC has a profile of him here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3752517.stm
“…Shortly afterwards, he packed his belongings into a crate marked for Afghanistan and, according to his evidence at his trial, “went there intending never to return”.
Abu Hamza began working in the Jalalabad region, taking part in reconstruction schemes. It was during a related demining project that he lost his hands and one of his eyes…”
Now I thought this rather odd as I was always under the assumption that Hamza had lost his hand and eye for ‘other reasons’ which if you look him up on the net you can find.
So why didn’t the BBC feel fit to mention that in the article when it’s clear that there is some debate as to how he lost his eye and hand?
In fact the whole profile makes him look like a big cuddly teddy bear (not one called Mohammed though)
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Anyone seen the story about Shami threatening to sue one of the government ministers?
If I was the guy she was trying to do over Id be telling her to stop talking about it and start doing it!
Mailman
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The BBC with its usual charter guaranteed impartiality has again failed to list the BNP candidate on the website featuring the Henley bi election. This really is shameful and shows real bias
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Martin: When asked why not cut the price of diesel, he said “well we’d have to cut public spending”. THAT is the problem with the socialists.
They are telling everyone that we need to cut back, but they themselves are incapable of cutting their own public spending.
******
I agree. It is always presumed that the expenditure of the ‘average man and woman’ can be trimmed fairly easily (tighten your belts, and similar fatuous remarks) but govt expenditure is much too important to be cut, despite the fact that no ‘average man or woman’ employs a lesbian outreach worker or a ‘five-a-day’ real nappie officer, and they do not generally buy themselves leather desk-chairs costing £3000 each. These are not just ‘tabloid’ observations, but go to the very essence of bureaucratic govt, which is the type of govt the Left favours, and the BBC loves.
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The Gaza hudna seems to be holding so far, no Israeli ‘incursions’ to write about, no Hamas rocket attacks to ignore. A slow news day at the Middle East news desk, so what do we get?
Settler fires rocket in West Bank
A crude rocket has been fired by an Israeli student at a Palestinian village in the West Bank, Israeli security officials have said.
No-one was injured by the rocket, which was fired from a Jewish theological seminary in Yitzhar settlement.
The incident is being investigated by the Shin Bet security agency. No arrests have so far been made.
That’s terrible!
It could put the ‘fragile ceasefire’ at risk!
But wait…
The incident is reported to have happened about two weeks ago but details have only just emerged.
How convenient!
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Dah-ling of the American celebrity left and number one Obama cheerleader Arianna Huffington gave a lecture on American politics to BBC hacks at its school of journalism yesterday. In a not particularly successful experiment BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones streamed the talk live to Kyte. It’s difficult to understand Huffington at the best of times, let alone through the medium of fractured video, but one can pick up a few things she said. She doesn’t think good news should be reported from Iraq (a bit like John Simpson in that respect); she compared reports of success in Iraq to someone with a brain tumour learning that his acne is better. Appreciative titters from the assembled Beeboids at that one. What she really hates, of course, is the fact that good news from Iraq is bad news for the Democrats, a fear that I’m sure many at the BBC share. Something else she doesn’t like being reported is the voice of climate change sceptics: “We should not really be debating whether global warming is a fact.” Preaching to the converted there, I think. She also said she hopes the American media “will fall out of love, finally, with McCain” in time for her boy to get elected. That’s all kinds of rich right there; a Judy Garland drag queen gobbling a leather joyboy through a glory hole in the toilets of a San Francisco bar is less gay than the American media’s love for Obama. On that front the BBC is already in tune with the majority of American outlets, so Huff need have no worries.
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Another superficial dhimmi piece on Saudi Arabia by the BBC’s Crispin Thorold, who manges the feat of not even mentioning Saudi Arabia’s role in global Jihad:
“Saudi Arabia’s dual identity”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7462238.stm
As a corrective for the BBC on Saudi Arabia:
“A Global Agenda:
“As we have seen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appears to have become a
totalitarian theocracy, one geared toward indoctrinating an entire nation of Wahhabi ideologues.
The call to wage jihad against the infidel is propagated throughout the Kingdom’s basic social
institutions by the authoritarian religious officials who control them. By far the most alarming
consequence of this constant ideological indoctrination is the sheer number of young men who
have heeded that call. As we saw in Part 1, the Kingdom’s own intelligence service has
estimated that 25,000 Saudi nationals received paramilitary training and/or experience abroad
prior to September 11. Others have estimated that number to be even higher. These fanatical
young men have filled the ranks of both Al Qaeda, and the broader mujahideen campaigns in
such jihadist hotspots as Chechnya, Bosnia, Sudan and Algeria. However, this is only one part
of a much larger story.
“Financial Jihad:
Not content to indoctrinate their own, the Saudis are also spending billions in petrodollars
to spread their vicious ideology throughout the Muslim world. And the scope of this effort is
truly staggering. David Aufhauser, the former general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department,
testified before the U.S. Senate that Saudi Arabia has spent ‘north of $75 billion’ to export
Wahhabism around the world, mostly through Saudi-based Islamic charities.”
{Extract from: ‘A Second Look at the Saudis’, Part 3, page 1.]:-
Click to access asecondlookatthesaudisaglobalagenda.pdf
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Hmmm.
“Settler fires rocket in West Bank
A crude rocket has been fired by an Israeli student at a Palestinian village in the West Bank, Israeli security officials have said.”
Sounds like a typical quote that this site laps up. Of course, paragraph 4 is somewhat unlike the Beeb:
“The use of home-made rockets is more usually associated with Palestinian groups firing into Israel from Gaza.”
Wonder what propted that? Will it be edited out shortly?
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DB: Huffington is a vile human being (I’ve stepped on worse in the streets).
She’s a blogger (and not very good at that)
I always thought the job of the BBC was to report the FACTS. Am I mistaken?
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Where’s the balance?
1pm News brought a woman into the studio to go on about how she thinks Britain needs more asylum seekers. They mentioned how Britain “only” takes in 3% of the worlds refugee’s and condemned Britain for it. Nowhere did they mention that Britain has “only” 1% of the worlds population and so is actually taking in 3x more refugees than it should be doing.
Nowhere did the presenter challenge this woman, just allowed her to reel out her scripted guff and usual Brit bashing. It was like watching a televised version of the Guardian.
The BBC is more like a creepy, unelected left wing pressure group than an organisation that should be reporting on the news impartially.
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Just listened to more racist crap from Eddie Grant on Radio 5. Grant spouting off about the evil white man and how Nelson Mandela is a hero. He refused to attack Mugabe and blamed it all on slavery (big frigging yawn). Never mentioned that slavery is a black man concept and is still practised in Africa today (by black men)
He said that the white man is always interfering in the affairs of the black man in Africa and that “africans are traumatised by slavery”
Fucking traumatised!!!! The population of europe was traumatised by 6 years of war, millions of jews exterminated, cities bombed flat, but no one talks of them being “traumatised”
Funny that when the west sat back and did nothing about Rwanda they were attacked for exactly that.
This slavery crap is just an excuse for bone idle people to try to get some free money for drugs and whore’s.
Africa needs to pucker up and take responsibility fo its own actions.
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Barry,
Im wondering why that story was even run since happened over 2 weeks ago and was so “unnewsworthy” to start with.
Perhaps its being run now as an example of how dangerous the jew is…especially after those other innocent farmers were recently attacked by settlers???
Mailman
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I like this from Hot Air. Discussing rumours that frothing leftie Keith Olbermann has threatened to quit MSNBC if he isn’t given Tim Russert’s old slot on Meet The Press, Ed Morrisey writes:
I don’t doubt that Olbermann would want MTP, but I don’t think for a moment that he’d leave his perch at MS-NBC if he didn’t get it. Where would he go? I don’t think NBC would hire him again if they had to do it over, and the rest of the networks wouldn’t touch him. Maybe BBC America or Al-Jazeera might consider him, but they have even lower ratings than MS-NBC.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/20/meet-the-unimpressive/
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Anthony Barnett on the BBC’s opposition to David Davis. “The BBC despise him and what he has done“.
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The BBC is more like a creepy, unelected left wing pressure group than an organisation that should be reporting on the news impartially.
Benny | 20.06.08 – 2:36 pm |
Very good line IMHO.
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Holy shit!! Listen to MAILDUDE.
If the government cuts spending unemployment goes up??????
Government is not an employment service.
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Bishop Hill,
I read Barnett, but I am totally unconvinced.
The BBC lickspittle to Liberty and Chakrabati at every opportunity giving them coverage way beyond their support.
You’ll have to do much better than that to convince me the BBC despises Davis and what he has done.
The BBC despises Davis for what he did before – his populist conservatism, his support of the death penalty, for lower taxes, opposition to positive discrimination, skepticism of the EU, and such like.
They do not despise him for his recent action, that is a total misreading of the BBC.
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More political bias from the BBC on the BBC Radio 4 ‘PM’ prgramme a few minutes ago.
Who is the only person whom the BBC’s E.Mair interviews about Stuart Wheeler’s case on a Referendum on the Lisbon Constitution/Treaty?
Why, none other than a Vernon Bogdanov, who was given the BBC role of being the sole, unquestioned ‘expert’ on all matter EU. His public political
position is one of OPPOSITION to the UK having a Referendum on the Lisbon Constitution/Treaty. At no point did Mair point out Bagdanov’s political position.
The BBC: consistently biased for the EU.
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A little hit piece on McCain caught my eye today:
McCain adviser in Republican attack
Beeboid Steve Schifferes uses McCain’s economic adviser’s attempt to distance his candidate from the Republican leadership and Bush Administration on economic policies to try to make the Democrats look good. In his quest to make McCain’s chances look poor, though, he ties the Republican albatross around the candidate’s neck. There is very little about how McCain is different or – heaven forbid – an improvement on the current leadership.
He also spreads falsehoods:
The US economy is in freefall, facing the sharpest housing slump on record and rising unemployment and prices.
The latter is not entirely true, and the first part is seriously stretching the truth. Freefall? Hardly, but it sounds sexy, doesn’t it. So the BBC editors allow Schifferes to go there. He uses that exact word again at near the end of the article, just for emphasis. (Please don’t start telling me this means I think the economy is currently a roaring success. I am aware of the situation, and still maintain that “freefall” is just hyperbole (from an impartial news organization?) and not at all a truthful description.)
The Democrats are widely perceived to have a huge advantage on the economy.
Sure. In the Leftoid media Washington, DC, hangouts, and publications like The Nation, and the BBC offices there.
Schifferes spends the bulk of the article outlining the issues which he thinks will give McCain trouble. Oddly, there is nothing after the opening bit quoting his adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, to justify the headline. Once again the sub-editor makes up a headline to make one point, while the article itself makes another. The rest of Holtz-Eakin’s statements are in support of McCain, telling why his candidate has the upper hand on the issues. Of course Schifferes immediately tells us why that isn’t so.
Naturally, there is no picture of McCain anywhere, but there is a lovely picture of Obama in full “Sermon on the Mount” mode. One can almost hear him saying, “Blessed are the cheesemakers”. Both the caption for that photo and in the body of the article itself, the BBC tells us that Obama is “campaigning hard on the economy”. They don’t tell us what policies he’s promoting, other than that he hired a new economic adviser who is believed to back free trade, an issue on which Obama has spoken out of both sides of his mouth. Schiffers doesn’t want you to know that, though. Oh, and that Obamessiah accuses McCain of “offering no hope for millions of people who fear losing their homes, their jobs and their health care.”
Now, an unbiased reporter would see this as a good place to explain that McCain’s position is that his policies are intended to do just that. Instead, Schifferes reminds us that McCain spoke a little reality to factory workers in Michigan, telling them that their jobs could not be protected by the government. Shock, horror. The government can’t guarantee everyone a job?
Then, after saying that McCain is really in a situation similar to that of Jimmy Carter when he lost to Reagan, he says this:
The issue for Mr McCain is whether he will be tarred with the same brush as the Republican administration for the economic hardships that are likely to intensify by the time of the election in November.
Which is what, you know, this whole article is doing. This one article won’t have any influence on the election, of course, but the ideas espoused are endemic in the BBC reports on the election which are broadcast in the US, targeted at a US audience. What this really is, though, is a piece intended to gently assure the British reader that McCain is most likely not going to succeed because he is a Republican. Obama, of course, offers hope and change.
Mr Holtz-Eakin, however, said that the key question should be forward looking rather than backward looking.
“Who do you believe will make you better off in four years’ time,” he said.
“The government doesn’t create jobs. Only the private sector does.”
Uniquely among most Western countries, America tends to mistrust its government and believe it is more likely to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, to the country’s economic problems.
There you go. The BBC mindset laid out in one nice little paragraph.
So Mr McCain’s appeal to rely on the private sector to get the US out of recession could just fall on fertile ground.
Let me see if I have this right, BBC. Should McCain win, it’s because we “uniquely” tend to think that the government is not part of the solution to the country’s problems, and that McCain’s policies aren’t intended to help. The message here is that McCain won’t do anything for the country, just give tax cuts to business and screw the people. Only Obama will help the people. And offer hope and change.
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Martin:
DB: Huffington is a vile human being (I’ve stepped on worse in the streets).
Fair do’s Martin – I remember when she was doing the rounds of the UK talk shows as plain old Arianna Stassinopoulos.
She had to bunk up with wrinkly old Bernard Levin to establish her intellectual credentials – that must have taken a strong stomach.
Then she had to ditch him and marry a gay oil millionaire to fund her US political career.
Give the girl some marks for perseverance.
Somebody once called her “The most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus”.
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Martin | 20.06.08 – 3:08 pm
Simon Mayo’s response to Eddie Grant’s Marxist/conspiracy theorist/blame whitey bilge was particularly feeble. He even told the following guest what “a fine man” Grant is. Cringing white liberal guilt personified.
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John Reith spins in his grave: “The most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus”
Like it.
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David Preiser (USA) | 20.06.08 – 5:43 pm
“Uniquely among most Western countries, America tends to mistrust its government and believe it is more likely to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, to the country’s economic problems.”
“Uniquely among most Western counties” Huh? But not uniquely among all? Uniquely among a unique BBC-selected group of Western countries, perhaps?
(Good fisking btw, DP.)
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Only Obama will help the people. And offer hope and change.
David Preiser (USA) | 20.06.08 – 5:43 pm |
I find I can get a lot of simple pleasure from their US political reporting – I just remember the catch in their voices, that crept in during the early hours of Bush’s two victories.
Particularly when the second was more decisive than the first and they didn’t have any “hanging chad” to console them.
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Which is the more competitive: Sky News or BBC News?
Pity it wasn’t in a worthier cause.:
“Pictured: the incredible moment Sky TV presenter, Kay Burley, grabbed a rival by the throat and pinned her to the wall”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23497133-details/Pictured%3A+The+incredible+moment+Sky+TV+presenter+Kay+Burley+grabbed+a+rival+by+the+throat+and+pinned+her+to+the+wall/article.do
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John Reith Spins in His Grave: Yes and how humiliating to find your ex husband prefers men!! Then again just take a look at her!
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DB: Yes and it was obvious Mayo had a lot of negative comment about Grant (like mine telling Grant to fuck off home if he doesn’t like Whitey boys) and as usual the BBC ignore most of it.
In the same way the BBC ignore Labour scandal (Peter Hain anyone) they also ignore the cruelty of black culture in Africa towards each other (Rwanda)
I will happily admit I don’t give a shit about how many Africans kill each other, in the same way I didn’t give a shit about Kosovo, Bosnia or Iran/Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kill em all, let Allah sort them out I say.
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I also notice the BBC seem more interested in Naomi Campbell than the burial of a British soldier (well covered on Sky)
Hmm. Can’t wait for the next beeboid to get popped. I’ll be dancing in the streets.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7466453.stm
An article about the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, followed by the list of nominated candidates… for the Henley by-election.
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Tom FD
Well done Tom, beat me to it, at least they include the BNP!
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Martin:
‘Hmm. Can’t wait for the next beeboid to get popped. I’ll be dancing in the streets.’
Hello David Vance, are you there?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/7464736.stm
You see guys, it’s not too late for you.
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Brown, the bulldozer of Brussels, seems to imply that UK law should fit in with his dictatorial moves, saying that the judge’s request “fits in with our timetable”.
Labour-compliant BBC report:
“Brown offers EU treaty assurances”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7465665.stm
An alternative, non-BBC comment:
“Brown delays ratification of the Lisbon treaty”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/788126/brown-delays-ratification-of-the-lisbon-treaty.thtml
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George R, quite. The story is that the High Court have told the government they cannot ratify Lisbon until they have passed judgment. The BBC report slants it as though the government has a choice but is being polite and considerate.
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BD re Huffington:
I don’t understand why the media – including the Beeb – love this woman. What has she – in this life and in her previous life as Ariana Stassinopoulos – actually ever DONE?!!! (except talk, that is).
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Jeez – the Irish really have upset the BBC. Their Lisbon ‘no’ vote is portrayed as some European disaster, instead of zsimply a decision.
‘How great is the danger that it [the Lisbon treaty] could simply unravel’ asked the studio presenter of Mark Mardell on News24.
To be fair Mardell corrected her.. ‘well if it IS a danger…’ he explained – but then went on to tell us just how naughty the Irish had been… ‘Its the people who are a danger’ he said in all seriousness.
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Whats the point of continueing with ratifying the treaty when all it needs is one no vote to destroy it?
Unless of course various countries (not looking at anyone in particular France) is working behind the scenes to get the Irish vote discounted?
Mailman
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“‘Its the people who are a danger’ he said in all seriousness.”
That is,of course, the view of the European Cosa Nostra.
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P[eter: Yup, and the BBC is fully ‘on board’. Rarely are they more biased than when reporting on the EU. They regard increasing federalism as so obviously a ‘good thing’ that their reporting never presents the alternatives.
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DP the US economy is holding up extremely well, in no doubt helped by the quick action of the the Feds and the aggresive dropping of interest rates and the assistance to the sub-prime borrowers who had actually kept up with payments. I had a long discussion with a mate in Detroit who is a financial advisor and he thinks that it will be just enough.
In France we had 0% growth, Europe is in the shite more than the USA…
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bodo | 20.06.08 – 10:08 pm |
Rarely are they more biased than when reporting on the EU. They regard increasing federalism as so obviously a ‘good thing’ that their reporting never presents the alternatives.
Increasing federalism? You all should be so lucky. This is increasing centralized government on an unprecedented scale. More and more laws coming out of Brussels (or Strasbourg) will control your lives at a local level. It’s all about centralized control, with less and less local say. This is a gentle slide towards socialist totalitarianism, not federalism. It’s a perfect fit for the BBC.
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joel: Yes, I will dance in the street the next time a beeboid gets popped.
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Martin:
‘Hmm. Can’t wait for the next beeboid to get popped. I’ll be dancing in the streets.’
Hello David Vance, are you there?
Joel | 20.06.08 – 7:16 pm
Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, stated on Lebanese TV: “If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight” and expressed his hope that Iran would attack Israel in the event of a confrontation between the US and Iran.
He is still a regular (paid) guest of the BBC,
http://www.honestreporting.co.uk/articles/critiques/new/Ban_Bari_Atwan.asp
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Matt Frei’s latest bout of Obamarrhea…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7449663.stm
Obama’s nomination has achieved in one night what hand-wringing Bush diplomacy has failed to deliver in four years: a powerful signal that America still has the power to surprise and inspire.
It proves that the revolutionary heart of this nation founded on ideas borrowed from the European Enlightenment still beats despite Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
…..
His very improbability gives Americans a reason to feel good about themselves and he gives the rest of the world a reason to feel good about America.”
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