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Here’s an update on Greg Palast.
Many people here will remember his Newsnight segment a couple of months before the US election, in which he claimed that ACORN does not engage in voter fraud, merely in fraudulent voter registration. According to Palast – and his cohort, Newsnight producer Meirion Jones – these fake voters are registered for no reason whatsoever, and no actual vote fraud ever results from it, no election ever affected. Also according to Palast – and his cohort, Newsnight producer Meirion Jones – only Republicans ever engage in voter fraud. Actually, they don’t do that at all. They merely engage in suppression of fake voters, which turn out to be Democrats. But never mind that, Palast and Newsnight want you to believe that rich, white Republicans suppress the votes of blacks and poor people. ACORN and The Obamessiah are clean as a whistle.
Newsnight, the flagship of BBC News, stands by this.
Unfortunately, as I stated in these pages at the time, Greg Palast is a partisan charlatan. Now, here’s more evidence of just how disgusting he is:
Dear Little Michael, Love Greg Palast
In which we learn about Palast’s book and, among other things, his claims that the Department of Homeland Security is manipulating elections in Latin America, but Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro don’t.
Read all of it to get the full effect. And remember, the flagship of your national broadcaster believes in Palast.
Justin Webb getting yanked from BBC World Propaganda America, not to mention his horrible blog, is the best news I’ve heard from the BBC in a very long time.
David Preiser | 12.12.08 – 7:26 pm
What concerns me is the awful possibility that he may continue with his juvenile blog. If you check the BBC website you’ll notice how prominently they advertise his blog.
Contrast & Compare:
Arrest after Yemeni Jew shot dead
A man has been detained in Yemen on suspicion of shooting dead a Yemeni Jew in the town of Raida in Amran province on Thursday.
Security sources said it was not clear if the killer’s motives were political.
Police arrest eight suspects in connection with murder of Yemenite Jew
Yemenite authorities arrested eight suspects in connection with the murder of Moshe Yaish Nahari, a Jewish resident of Riydah, Israel Radio reported on Saturday.
Sources told Al Quds al-Arabi that Thursday’s killing was likely to have been religiously motivated, but that other motivations were still possible and therefore an investigation would continue.
The BBC: hiding the hand that wields the knife – it’s what we do!
I used to regard Robin Lustig as one of the more fair-minded of BBC hacks. A few years back he at least had the guts to ask a Hamas terrorist spokesman what blowing Israelis up as they are going about their business outside a fast food restaurant does for the peace process.
Yet he deems it fit to ask this question on his blog:
Will Obama get tough with Israel?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight/2008/12/will_obama_get_tough_with_isra.html#comments
As if Israel, rather than the terrorists, is the intransigent one.
Typical BBC trash, but disappointing to see it from Lustig.
Bryan | 13.12.08 – 7:48 pm |
Webb has to move back to the UK to do his new job. Without living in the US, I can’t see how he can keep doing the old job. Not that he could do it before….
It would be really pathetic for the BBC to have him do a US-based blog if he didn’t even live there. That’s too low, even for the BBC. If anything, they’ll have Matthew Price or Kevin Connolly take it over. Connolly is more on-message, but Price did a blog during the election, following McCain around, and his faux-impartiality had a similar flavor to Justin’s.
My sweetheart watches Gardeners World every Friday night and so I catch bits of it. Boy oh boy is it one long climate change advert.
‘So what plants should we be growing as climate change pushes up the temperature and increases rainfall?’ is asked every week.
I have sent in my own question – ‘What plants should I be growing to survive an inch of snow in my back garden in October?’ – curiously they never give my query an airing.
Good to see you again, Biodegradable.
I’ve read the following statement from the BBC quite a few times without being able to figure out what they are trying to say:
Israeli Arabs trace their origins to the Palestinians who remained on their property or escaped expulsion in 1948 when Israel was created.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7779087.stm
Do they mean remained on their property and thus escaped expulsion?
Anyway, the day the BBC acknowledges, or even mentions the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled themselves on the advice of their leaders so that the Arab armies could drive the Jews into the sea will be the day I eat my keyboard.
It would be really pathetic for the BBC to have him do a US-based blog if he didn’t even live there.
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 13.12.08 – 8:28 pm
I guess that’s true. Anyway, the comments section of his blog can sometimes be quite interesting despite the fact that it is inhabited by some really unpleasant lefties and Palestinian apologists. But I certainly wont miss it if it goes the way of all blogs.
David Preiser (USA): Palast is a turd. He did another hatchet piece for Newsnight a few years back when he claimed that thousands of people were denied the right to vote in 2000 and that there had been lots of court cases against George Bush.
Fox News had Palast on and took him apart over these lies.
PM report on the Poznan Climate Change jamfest was about how it went and did it go far enough. No airwaves given to any Climate Change sceptics or anyone who would point out what this is going to cost. Scientists were all portrayed as wanting to go far beyond what was agreed as though there were no scientists who didn`t sign up for this rubbish.
Will the BBC do an expose about how Britian will abide by all these costly agreements, pay for all these permits and be denied enough of them, while other countries pull themselve out of the depression and their nationals get richer as they all have a job ?
Climate talks hit stumbling block
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7781180.stm
Yes, well I suppose its only a “stumbling block” if it is that you had a specific or indeed any outcome as a preference.
The BBC may not take a view but should report. Period.
Why exactly are we banging on about glaobal warming when it’s been fucking freezing for weeks?
Have Your Say
What did climate summit achieve?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5801&edition=1&ttl=20081213232703
Comments once again show that the dumbo BBC are a lot less smart than the British Public.
The BBC’s letting loonies gag me with mink knickers
Jeremy Clarkson
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5336247.ece
The dreadful Yvette Cooper creature is on Marr’s show.
Counted only two “right thing to do” ‘s today – I think her batteries might be running down
BBC edits out word ‘Muslim’ so that this report on Bangladesh doctor remains inexplicable:
“Missing NHS GP released to court”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7782182.stm
In contrast, the ‘Telegraph’ has:
“Judge orders doctor’s family to let her return home”
[Extract]:
“Humayra • an only child • reportedly has a Hindu boyfriend in London, which has angered her Muslim family…
Arranged marriages in conservative Muslim Bangladesh are common.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/bangladesh/3757240/Judge-orders-doctors-family-to-let-her-return-home.html
Brown, unlike mealy-mouthed BBC, describes Mumbai attackers as “terrorists” and condemns LeT, unlike BBC’s B.Plett, who gave a propaganda hearing to its leader, Saeed, a couple of days ago:
‘Pakistan-UK terror link revealed’
[Extract]:
“He [Brown] said the ‘terrible terror outrages’ had shocked the whole world and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, thought to be responsible, had ‘a great deal to answer for’.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7782125.stm
While Brown praises the UK’s (worryingly weak) anti-terrorism measures, he is so politically myopic that he fails to even mention the crucially weak link in UK security: that Islamic jihadists operating on the sub-continent and in the UK can easily ‘swim’ in the mass immigration of e.g. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who Labour has encouraged to reside in Britain over the past 11 years. Brown denies the obvious connection there is, and the obvious responsibility Labour has for facilitating the growth of Islamic jihadists in such communities. There needs to be a block on the immigration of such security threats; but the damage is mainly already done. Pandering to the UK Muslim vote is a higher priority for Labour.
Saturday PM was reporting on proposed changes to what is taught in history classes in Australia (Australia has a Labour government so it’s less about the British, more about other people) and the reporter prattled on about how ‘multicultural’ Australia was.
Australia has a population that is over 85% European, and around 80% British.
The vast majority being from one ethnic group is multicultural?
As Edward Stourton points out, the BBC has treated him far worse than Jonathan Ross; and I would add, far worse that the BBC treats BARBARA ‘Tears for Arafat’ PLETT. (Her free propaganda BBC interview with LeT leader Saeed last week, should be the last straw.)
Given that the BBC is in a sacking mode, she should go, and LYSE ‘the humanity of the Taleban’ DOUCET, should go with her.
The BBC’s ‘on message’ running down of the pound against the Euro gathers pace:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7782234.stm
Notice how they are now referring to ‘tourist rates’ instead of ‘interbank’ rates.
Anyway, look at the benefits to exporters, here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7779462.stm
I’m sure there’s another side to the argument, surely?
Also, althought it’s been several days since this request for feedback was initiated, no comments have been published – I guess we’re saying what they don’t want to hear.
“Have you been affected by the decline in the value of the pound? Send us your comments using the form” below.
Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Mervyn King and The BBC – running down the pound.
Former prime minister Sir John Major has accused the government of “over-cooking” the economic crisis to justify the rising size of its debt.
Did those Tories condemn the UK to 7 years of recession?
Sir John, who himself had to deal with a recession while prime minister from 1990 to 1997, said it had felt “pretty awful”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7782244.stm
BBC will not be refunding those who voted for an inconsequential decision on Strictly Come Dancing last night. On the BBC scroller at the moment.
Hi Bryan, good to see you here again too. It’s seemed to me that the BBC’s constant anti-Israel bias has taken second or third place here to Obamamania and British politics lately so it’s good to see Natalie’s post above.
Further to my post about the murdered Yemeni Jew above here’s some more info that I doubt the BBC will add to their reporting to give us some “context” because it goes counter to their reporting that throws doubt on it being “religiously motivated”:
Yemeni Rabbi in Riyadh: Jewish community still threatened
A Yemeni rabbi on Sunday said Muslim extremists in the northern town of Riyadh continued to harass his small community after one of its members,Moshe Yaish Nahari, was gunned down last week.
Yemeni authorities have ignored complaints from the Jewish villagers about a new set of death threats from their neighbors, Rabbi Yahia Yaish bin Yahia said.
A suspected Islamist extremist shot and killed Nahari on Thursday in the village of Riydah. A man was arrested and arraigned before the prosecutor Sunday.
The suspect confessed to the killing, saying it as a way to get “close to God,” said deputy head of security for the district, Ahmed Yahia al-Srihi.
Brown, naively, wanting a pre-election sound-bite, suggests that the UK should share security information with Pakistan on ‘terorists’ (i.e. Islamic jihadists):
BBC report:
“Pact targets Pakistan terror link”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7782125.stm
BUT, there are real dangers in this, not least,as reported here:
“Whose side is Pakistan on in fighting the Taliban?” (‘Pakistan Defence Forum’):
[Extract]:
“Ethnicity is a factor often overlooked by Westerners when assessing the conflict. Virtually all the Taliban are Pashtuns who make up the population of much of the border areas. In fact, they constitute Afghanistan’s largest single ethnic group, and in Pakistan they populate virtually all of FATA as well as the North-Western Frontier Province. Since they are strongly represented in Pakistan’s armed forces, police and the bureaucracy, it is difficult to portray them as the enemy. Traditionally, tribesmen come and go over the ill-defined border without let or hindrance, and attempts to limit this free access are fiercely resisted.”
http://www.defence.pk/forums/war-terror/14216-whose-side-pakistan-fighting-taliban.html
Mt hopes of outliving the TV tax take a knock
Secret deal secures BBC cash until 2033
Dyke was forced to resign as director-general after a clash with No 10 over the Hutton report on the death of the weapons expert Dr David Kelly. He said this weekend he extracted written assurances from the government that the BBC would be “properly funded” until 2033 to help secure an £813m bond needed to finance the redevelopment of Broadcasting House.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5337621.ece
Maybe Edward Stourton will get so pissed off about the seriously lame way in which the BBC has treated him that he’ll start talking about the reasons why his former bosses preferred Justin Webb over him. Why, exactly, does he think they gave such a glowing tribute to ol’ Justin’s work on the US elections?
The BBC “report” an interview with John Major and include this line
Did the recession last from 1990 to 1997? I think not. Is that impression what the BBC want to convey, so that “the narrative” of Labour saving the Country in 1997 is maintained? I think so.
The BBC, as ever, proud to twist the facts to the detriment of a former Conservative government and to support their friends in the Labour government.
notasheep
just seen this rubbish
check this out for the real story
http://tutor2u.net/quiz/economics/Diagrams/growth2.gif
Predictably, the BBC is making a propaganda fuss for Hamas today, the jihad organisation, which is acting to abolish Israel.
On BBC News TV 15 minutes ago, Hamas was not referred to as ‘the Islamic jihad organisation, but as the ‘Islamic resistance organisation’!
This is the BBC’s stock in trade on Hamas:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7782378.stm
But, BBC, this is what’s REALLY going on:
“Fitzgerald: The Jihad against Israel”
[Extract]:
“And if Israel can hold on, and can start to see things straight, and help others in Western Europe and North America, by making its own new understanding of things clear, to themselves come to grasp the meaning, and permanent menace, of Islam, then it is just possible that Israel will have a chance. Further appeasement will not and cannot work. Islam is triumphalist. Every victory, anywhere, against any Infidels, only whets, and never sates, Muslim appetites. This needs to be understood. Not after the next concession of tangible assets to the Arabs, but before any more such disastrous concessions, by the likes of the olmerts of this world, are made.” (Hugh Fitzgerald).
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023926.php#more
Your License Fee Money At Work
According to the Jewish Chronicle, the BBC has spent “up to half a million pounds of licence payers’ money on lawyers” to keep the Balen Report covered up.
George R | 14.12.08 – 8:05 pm,
The BBC is head over heels in love with Hamas. They can’t call it the ‘Islamic jihad organisation’ simply because ‘Islamic Jihad’ is a separate terror group. But calling it a ‘resistance’ group is simply echoing Hamas propaganda, so I guess we’ll see a lot more of that as the BBC sinks further and further into dhimmitude.
Biodegradable | 14.12.08 – 8:49 pm,
Maybe Balen will get pissed off enough to release the report himself and to hell with the consequences. Wouldn’t that be something.
Radio 5 is a left wing love fest tonight.
We have a reporter from the
Observer
The Guardian
The Times
All left wing newspapers
Now we have Ricky (He’s not funny but very fat) Tomlinson who was only on Radio 5 about two weeks ago.
It’s seemed to me that the BBC’s constant anti-Israel bias has taken second or third place here to Obamamania and British politics lately so it’s good to see Natalie’s post above.Biodegradable | 14.12.08 – 2:26
Quite. Good job the US election is over.
It’s bad news that the BBC has become a government propaganda vehicle, but perhaps that is faltering now it’s looking like the end of the road. Car crash and all that. If the Tories win the next election then the BBC’s pro-labour bias will at least provide balance if nothing else.
In any case I believe the majority get their domestic political education from wider sources than just the BBC.
But world affairs are different.
I know that might sound naive but in my view the bias that’s most seriously in need of focusing on, and the most dangerous, is the antisemitic one.
The antisemitic /pro-Islamic theme that permeates all the BBC output including news, drama, documentaries and casual remarks by talking heads, is whipping up a nasty undercurrent that we are all subjected to as soon as we poke our heads outside the front door.
The more overt it becomes the more easily accepted it seems to be, and the more outrageous the examples, the more easily they appear to be gotten away with.
People see what they want to see, and believe what they want to believe. Could the damage that has already been done ever be repaired, or is it too late?
This story from the BBC News website appears to me to be nothing more than an advert for Virgin Media:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7776139.stm
Story from the beeb about Iraqi man throwing shoes at George Bush.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7782422.stm
In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, Iraqi television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi stood up and shouted “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” before hurling a shoe at Mr Bush which narrowly missed him.
Showing the soles of shoes to someone is a sign of contempt in Arab culture.
Muntadar al-Zaidi was quickly wrestled to the ground and hauled away
With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”
Emphasis added.
The reporter is careful to make sure that we all know what the shoes are about.
However, his helpfulness doesn’t extend to pointing out that were it not for Bush, the man wouldn’t have been able to protest without being summarily murdered.
They should ask the idiot whether he would have thrown his shoes at saddam.
The BBC’s Orwellian, subliminal grip on national thought continues unabated:
BBC Plans For Cross-Media Collaboration Starting With Telegraph Group
The BBC could be on the verge of sharing some of its content and its iPlayer video on demand platform with Telegraph which would mark the first time, BBC TV and traditional press come together.
and:
BBC: Could Share iPlayer With ITV, Channel 4
Nigh-on a year after its launch, there’s no denying the BBC iPlayer has become hugely successful, vastly overshadowing the competition’s best efforts to compete. Now, the BBC is offering to share the technology behind the iPlayer with ITV, Channel 4 and Five, BBC Director General commenting that the BBC should “share the benefits of its scale and security with the rest of the industry.”
This proposal is just one of several the BBC is making. Other include a potential opening of local news facilities to other broadcasters, the removal of charges for magazines and newspapers to print BBC listings and plans to collaborate with ITV and BT on IPTV delivery. The latter should see a set of common standards developed for delivery of broadcast TV content to set-top boxes on an on-demand basis.
Surely what such alliances create is an innate reluctance across the entire British media to challenge the BBC’s institutional liberal bias and especially its right to exist.
By such means is the national media Groupthink extended. God help us all.
Gordon Brown in his bluff, but naive soundbites from India and Pakistan, indicates his misunderstanding of Islamic jihad, and the need for uninfiltrated security.
The following goes on in the UK, but the BBC misses it:
“UK: Counterterror advisor to Metropolitan Police is on Interpol wanted list”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/023933.php
Sue | 14.12.08 – 11:49 pm
I mentioned here
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1363859541696411279/#436116
that Robin Lustig casually plonked a piece on his blog titled Will Obama get tough with Israel?. The more I think about it, the more I realise that this is a classic example of BBC anti-Israel groupthink: one of the more moderate and reasonable of BBC hacks revealing the ingrained BBC assumption that Israel is the one we must get tough with and never the Palestinians – though the latter have not made a single compromise towards peace over the years.
gordon-bennett | 15.12.08 – 3:28 am
The World Service was also all over the story, making sure that everyone knew about the sign of “contempt.”
Yet when George W. Bush visited Israel at the beginning of the year, the subversive hacks at the World Service studiously ignored him, effectively snubbing him, as if a rare visit by the president of the most powerful country on earth to one of the world’s major hot spots was a matter of such trifling importance as to not even warrant making the news.
Come to think of it, they showed him similar contempt to that of the shoe thrower.
The video from your link is interesting. Bush acts promptly. If he had not ducked, the first shoe would probably have hit him in the face. When the second shoe was thrown, he sensibly put his hand up to protect his face, though that one was a bit too high.
It has a funny side to it, because it’s such a clear illustration of the difference between the two cultures.
So what if the guy through a shoe at me? Bush asks, in response to a journalist, and then goes on to talk about the shoe thrower wanting attention in the same way that someone does who yells at a political rally. Then he takes a subtle dig at the journalists, telling them that it worked because it got them to ask him a question.
Be interesting to see what happens to this guy in the new, “democratic” Iraq. I don’t think they’ll throw the book at him. In fact there will probably be a lot of sympathy for him.
A friend of mine got hit by a Muslim woman wielding a slipper in a shopping centre in Sweden because she pointed out that the woman’s little daughter was so heavily veiled that she could barely see where she was going. She was surrounded by a Muslim mob and the cops ended up jailing my friend and not her attacker. Sounds much like British cops to me.
By such means is the national media Groupthink extended. God help us all.
Jonathan Boyd Hunt | Homepage | 15.12.08 – 7:17 am
On Israeli English TV and radio news they sometimes use militant to describe terrorists, proving how insidiously pervasive the lefty media’s groupthink has become. Thankfully though, they don’t shrink from the ‘T’ word and generally use it where appropriate.
The BBC reporting here is egregious:
“Missing GP to return to the UK”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7782182.stm
BBC weaknesses in report:
1.)Humayra Abedin is not a GP, she is a ‘trainee GP’ from Bangladesh, being trained on the NHS, with a possible view to becoming a doctor among the large numbers of Bangladeshis who have come to live in the UK in recent years;
2.)BBC omits to mention that her father who imprisoned her is a Muslim, who opposes her relationship with a Hindu man;
3.)there is inordinate prominence given by BBC to this commonplace occurrence of forced marriage among Muslims;
4.)she is a Bangladeshi, not a British citizen (referred to only in penultimate line of BBC report);
5.)there is no reference in BBC report to the costs of all this to British taxpayers in changing our laws on forced marriage, and in policing against such practices in the UK, which have become common, of course, along with the mass immigration from e.g. the Indian subcontinent.
Aren’t we lucky to have the internet & Google? That way we know that Chennai was formerly Madras & we can understand why there are test records for this previously unknown place.
The BBC never tell us of its former name so I don’t know, internet apart, how I would find out short of going out to buy a new atlas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7782939.stm
Terrifying new standards of mathematical incompetence.
If a figure drops by 15% for two years in a row, it will drop, according to the BBC, in total by 30%
No, BBC. At the end of the first year, the figure will have dropped from 100 to 85. A further 15% drop takes it to 72.25 – a total drop of 27.75%
And, according to the graph at the bottom of the page, the average house price is now 175,000,000 quid.
Morons.
Nothing on the bbc website about this man, taqiyya merchant Mohamed Ali Harrath:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5342730.ece
“A man wanted by Interpol for his links to an alleged terrorist organisation has been advising Scotland Yard on countering Muslim extremism.
Ali Harrath has been the subject of the Interpol red notice since 1992 because of his alleged activities in Tunisia, where he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT).
Tunisia has accused Mr Harrath, the chief executive officer of the Islam Channel in Britain and an adviser to the Scotland Yard Muslim Contact Unit, of seeking help from Osama bin Laden. It says that the FIT wants to establish “an Islamic state by means of armed revolutionary violence”.
Mr Harrath has been convicted in absentia of numerous criminal and terrorism-related offences by Tunisian courts and sentenced to 56 years in prison. Tunisia is an ally of the West in the fight against terrorism but is regarded by critics as a police or one-party state. Its secular Government regards those who advocate an Islamic state as a threat to its stability.”
You really couldn’t make it up.
I know that might sound naive but in my view the bias that’s most seriously in need of focusing on, and the most dangerous, is the antisemitic one.
Sue | 14.12.08 – 11:49 pm
Quite.
I watched BBC World News an hour or so ago:
First we had the “Palestinian PM” in London (how does a state that doesn’t exist have a PM?) with Gordon Brown exclaiming that it’s all the fault of the Jews and they have to stop building settlements if they want peace.
That was followed by George Alaghia (sp?) interviewing a Palestinian in Ramallah who said that it’s all the fault of the Jews and they have to stop building settlements if they want peace.
Incredibly, right after those two pieces, we had Aleem Maqbool setting out on a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, with Cynthia the donkey to show that Joseph would have had a hard time now with all those Israeli checkpoints and walls.
Bias?
Nah, I must be imagining it!
The bBC faster than a speeding bullet and stating the bloody obvious
Some Imams ‘biased against women’
A Muslim think-tank has found some UK Imams discriminate against women when enforcing Islamic Sharia law.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7783627.stm
Which begs me to ask the question;
What part of the Koran doesn’t the bBC understand?
Diary: The road to Bethlehem apart from being nothing more than the seasonal “The Jews stole Christmas” meme, churned out every Christmas, actually casts doubt on the Christmas story as told in the New Testament, full of phrases such as these:
Whether you believe Mary and Joseph’s walk ever took place or not, most of us became familiar with the story at a young age.
…
If it did happen, the journey of around 150km (93 miles), along Roman roads and dirt tracks, is likely to have been an arduous one, particularly for a heavily pregnant woman.
…
I am due to start where tradition has it that Mary and Joseph started. Two thousand years ago, Nazareth is thought to have been a tiny agricultural hamlet.
Now, the remains of what many people believe to be Mary’s home are enshrined in a massive basilica.
…
It is close to the Church of the Annunciation – where many Christians believe the angel, Gabriel, appeared to Mary in her home – that I have arranged to meet Cynthia, the donkey.
I’ve never seen any such questioning of Muslim beliefs, ever.
I expect soon the BBC will be referring to Jesus Christ as the “so-called Saviour” while all the time unashamedly calling Mo the Pro “The Prophet Mohamed”.
pounce | 15.12.08 – 2:01 pm
According to the BBC primer on forced marriage the practice has nothing to do with Islam, although there is a subtle clue hidden in one passage:
Ministers in Scotland are due to launch a consultation on whether civil legislation on forced marriage should be introduced there.Among those giving their views will be the Scottish Forced Marriage Network, formed in 2005, which includes the police, the Muslim Women’s Resource Centre, the NHS and Victim Support Scotland.
That, however, is the only mention of either the “I” or “M” words in the entire nine pages.
But, what’s this?
A Muslim think tank has found some UK Imams discriminate against women when enforcing Islamic Sharia law.
Scholars at the Centre for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) interviewed 90 Muslims in London, the West Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire.
They found some women did not get fair hearings in forced marriage, arranged marriage and domestic violence matters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7783627.stm
So, when a Muslim think tank points out the link between Islam and forced marriage the BBC feels it can report it. On all other occasions such suggestions are clearly Islamophobic and racist and to be avoided at all costs in best Orwellian fashion. I note also that Sanjiv Buttoo’s report doesn’t question the use of sharia in Britain, just the way some imams interpret it. (Another point – the Oxford Manual of Style and the Guardian stylebook all state that “sharia/shariah” and “imam” should not have capital letters as they do in this BBC article. Both words (sharia in particular) are given capital letters regularly by the BBC. When I first copy and pasted the above extract from the article it said “think-tank”; it should be “think tank” [OmoS] or thinktank [Guardian stylebook] and has been corrected since the first draft, unlike “Sharia” and “Imam”.)
Biodegradable | 15.12.08 – 2:06 pm
Will the BBC be doing other Christian-themed news reports to link with Christmas? How about the persecution of Christians and the burning of churches in Eqypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia etc for example? Silly me, of course not – none of those can be blamed on Israel.
JUST A THOUGHT —If Ken Livingstone and Chavez were a couple of right wingers do you think the BBc would be likely to mention Chavez’s corruption accusations, his move to be made president in perpetuity and his suppression of the free press in Venezuala?
Gulam Noon was on Radio 5 today with leftist Simon mayo. As many know he was caught up in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Funny thing is all through the interview Noon called the terrorists ‘terrorists’.
Mayo though never used that word once. They were ‘attackers’ (what like Wayne Rooney is or Drogba Simon?) or ‘gunmen’ (what like the lone gunmen?) but never once did the T word pass his leftist lips.
So now Jacqui Smith has said sorry for releasing the crime statistics early, can we also expect the BBC to question why it has taken her so long to apologise?.
Also, if the BBC will bother to mention the story on any of the news broadcasts?, I would hope that the BBC do report this story, as the BBC gave blanket coverage to the fake stats that Jacqui Smith claimed showed a reduction in crime only last week.