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So you don’t watch or listen to mainstream BBC.
Jonathan Ross the Icon of Greed, is a Victim (aw, diddums), or so he thinks.
And note who champions the idiot – none other than that useless head boy, Mark Thompson.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1120108/Utterly-unwepentant-Jonathan-Ross-blames-downfall-plotting-land-new-big-money-BBC-deal.html
Not a book to which we should be looking for guidance, Ms. Tant. I’m afraid, in British English, Anonymous is right and Atlas wrong.
In so many, many ways.
Richard Lancaster | 17.01.09 – 12:07 pm | #
1) The title of the story has not been changed – if you had read my original post properly you would have known that the title I referred to was on the UK News index page (which changes frequently) and not the story itself.
2) If the fact that he is Muslim has nothing to do with the story, I put it to you that the fact that he’s a “rich businessman” has even less to do with it.
Mr Cooper: it is a work of scholarship about the origin and history of English, (English English, as well as American English). I treasure it.
In this case, the history shows that there is much more to the use of “disinterested” than Anonymous thought. I don’t use it myself in the way Atlas did, but…
But does Atlas belong to the category of “many educated writers”?
No, Robert, but it is common enough among writers and it is in all the dictionaries in the sense he used it.
Yes, I do mean British dictionaries -before anyone starts.
So there!
[thumbs nose]
But does Atlas belong to the category of “many educated writers”?
Robert | 17.01.09 – 6:38 pm | #
Not if he believes that Ayn Rand was a Nazi, as someone mentioned somewhere earlier if I recall.
I think Shrugged is one of those guys who has the cognitive processing power to be very intelligent but misdirects his bits and bytes in the pursuit of specious conspiracy theories. I know many such people. I think that their motive ultimately comes from a belief that the world isn’t exciting enough for them – they have to jazz it up a bit.
So Atlas may make the odd good point, but unfortunately it’s lost in a sea of wild conspiracy. You just have to read his posts with the appropriate filter switched on.
On the BBC website, paid for by British licencepayers, is this plug by BBC World Services, which is paid for by British taxpayers involving more expense for BBC to spend on its propaganda, of the D. Miliband dhimmi variety:
“BBC Launches Persian TV channel”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7828363.stm
(No doubt this channel will provide translations of Esler’s performance on Israel interview on ‘Newsnight’.)
By the way, this is the sort of disrepect given by an Iranian-born Muslim to British society’s culture:
‘Gates of Vienna’:
“Historectomy”
[Extract]:
“Hakimzadeh was the CEO of UK charity Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF). IHF is believed to be a Para vent for propaganda activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“So in all probability Farhad Hakimzadeh was working for the mullahs, doing his small part in the sacred task of obliterating any texts which detract from the glories of Islam in Persia.
“The same thing will happen as the Islamization of the West approaches its completion. The process is already underway, as school textbooks are modified to amplify the peaceful accomplishments of Islam and play down its violent expansionism, all the while denigrating European Christian civilization.
“The histories of the Battle of Tours, the Siege of Vienna, and the Battle of Lepanto will be rewritten to reflect the glorious successes of Islam in Europe.”
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/01/historectomy.html
Ms. Tant (and anyone else interested in the subject) might find the following interesting. I shan’t clog the comments with any more on it, other than to say I rarely have the temerity to argue with Fowler!
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977300954
So you don’t watch or listen to mainstream BBC.
mikewineliberal | 17.01.09 – 6:18 pm |
Why? Is it compulsory?
I’m trying to abide by DV’s request on language and ad hominen, but really, if I now live in Canada do I get the mainstream BBC guff that UK residents are subjected to?
Surely you can work that out for yourself. Does that disbar me from commenting on BBC bias. I think not squire.
Tories take 13 point lead.
http://www.order-order.com/2009/01/tories-take-13-point-lead.html
Something that the BBC will avoid reporting I’m sure.
Listening to the World Service, as I frequently do, I’d have said TPO and anyone else living overseas has even greater reason to despise the BBC!
If you have the stomach for it, Stephen Nolan has another phone-in on Israel/Gaza on 5 Live. I am not listening but can guess the way it will go… Anyone have a stronger constitution than I care to report back?
TPO,
useful polling site
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
the labour “recovery” got plenty of coverage – but not a sniff on the BBC web page of the Yougov poll showing 13 point lead for the Conservatives. Quelle surprize!
Quote:
Decades of wrangling with the EU over switching to metric measures has ended with a vote confirming that imperial measures can carry on indefinitely.
The European Commission acknowledged last year that persuading the UK to embrace litres and kilometres over pints and miles was a lost cause.
The vote means a 2009 deadline to end the use of imperial measurements alongside metric units has been scrapped.
Seems like the BBC has forgotten to stop it’s metrification campaign. In this map about the aeroplane crash in New York, the BBC uses only km on the scale and doesn’t feature miles at all, even though miles is the unit of measurement most familiar to readers in both the UK and USA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7835497.stm
The BBC is the official state broadcaster for Britian and it refuses to acknowledge British culture. If the BBC believed in communicating effectively, it would use the unit of measurement most familiar to it’s readers. But for the BBC, promoting political agenda is more important than helping it’s readers understand a news story more effectively.
Pushing a political agenda is the BBC’s #1 priority, not “educating and informing”.
Incest Alert:
C4 head would oppose Five merger
The chief executive of Channel 4 has said he would oppose a merger with Five, saying it would be like “mixing oil and water”.
C4’s Andy Duncan said he believed a merger with the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, could be the answer.
Discussions were started under Channel 4’s former chief executive Mark Thompson, who then left to become director general of the BBC.
This must be a polite way of saying that Channel 5 isn’t left wing enough for Channel 4 to want to do a merger with them. Channel 5 does all those horridly “jingoistic” programmes like “Brits Who Made The Modern World” and “War Zone”. Lefties prefer to stick together and do similar programmes. For example, last week they both did programmes about elephants, the week before they both showed Panorama/Dispatches programmes about school bullying at the same time and a few months ago they both did “Primark is Evil” programmes. It’s almost as if the people at CH4 and BBC have both been reading the same article in the Guardian about Primark/elephants/school bullying etc and then decided to make a programme about it and show it at the same time as each other. Or is it just that the people who once worked at Ch4 now work at the BBC and vice-versa, so a level of similarity is to be expected?
There is no evidence his religion was a motivating factor for his actions, so why should it be mentioned
Indeed
There is also no evidence his occupation or financial status was a motivating factor for his actions, so why should it be mentioned
Because it gives interesting depth to the story? Or because the BBC wish to strike another blow against international capitalism? Who can say
This is the pull-quote from Have Your Say currently displayed with prominence on the BBC 4 home page:
“I always suspected that we were the savages in the Middle Ages and the Islamic Empire carried the torch of civilisation.
Roger Cole, Dereham”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/
I bet there was much punching of the air and high-fiving at the BBC when that comment arrived. The propaganda is working.
‘Telegraph’:
“Christians are becoming social pariahs in Britain,
claims Jeremy Vine”
– but the BBC’s role in Islamizing British society is not explicitly discussed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4277439/Christians-are-becoming-social-pariahs-in-Britain-claims-Jeremy-Vine.html
When extremists kidnap two seven year-old boys from very different backgrounds and promise to release them only if their radical demands are met, the case falls into the hands of the intuitive and pragmatic Iain Barclay.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h437z
What do we reckon? Muslims? Christians? Jews? Animal rights? Climate change protesters? Fathers’ rights? TV licence abolitionists?
In this BBC report, the BBC’s reticent ‘reporter’, M.Ilas Khan, has this headline without perpetrators:
“Threatened Pakistan schools close”.
[What’s the problem with these Pakistan schools, which causes their closure: economic difficulties, bad weather, earthquakes?]
[Extract]:
“Private schools in Pakistan’s troubled north-western Swat district have closed to comply with a Taleban edict banning girls’ education, officials say.
The edict was issued on schools in Swat by a Taleban cleric in a radio broadcast last month. A 15 January deadline was set.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7832715.stm
Oh, it’s the Islamic jihad TALEBAN who are the perpetrators of the violence. Why didn’t you say so in your headline, BBC? I’ll re-write it for you so it becomes more explict:
“TALEBAN SHUTS PAKISTAN GIRLS’ SCHOOLS”
And while you’re on about the Taleban, Mr. Khan, you or Barbara ‘tears for Arafat’ Plett, or Lyse ‘the humanity of the Taleban’ Doucet (if she returns from Gaza), could try to not censor news reports like this:
‘Sunday Times’:
“Taliban’s deadly ‘justice’ cows Pakistan”
[Extract]:
“Sharia judges are ordering beatings and executions as punishment for cases of ‘immoral activity’.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article5537025.ece
GCooper:
Ms. Tant (and anyone else interested in the subject) might find the following interesting. I shan’t clog the comments with any more on it, other than to say I rarely have the temerity to argue with Fowler!
http://www.gather.com/ viewArticl…281474977300954
GCooper | 17.01.09 – 9:23 pm |
——————-
Yes, interesting, thanks. Argue away to your heart’s content because that “Fowler” was written by the notorious (oh, all right, controversial) Robert Burchfield and grammarians have argued plenty with him. One of the fascinating things to me about English is that the more you look into it, the more you see that it is a history rather than a set of rules.
Not reported by BBC. (I wonder why not?)
‘Jihadwatch’ comment on a ‘Daily Mail’ report:
“Surprise! ‘Moderate’ Muslim in British government turns out to be a jihadist”
[Extract]:
“This morning’s stories have a certain sameness to them: Israel ceases fire, and Hamas fires more rockets into Israel. The only ones who will be surprised will be those who believe the mainstream media propaganda — which, of course, flows from the governments of the West — that Israel is the aggressor and once Israel stops fighting, the problem will be over. And likewise in this story: a leading “moderate” Muslim in Britain turns out to hold to all the teachings about Islam and jihad that we have detailed so often here. The only ones who will be surprised will be those who believe the mainstream media propaganda — which, of course, flows from governments of the West — that the doctrines of jihad and Islamic supremacism are held only by a Tiny Minority of Extremists™ that has twisted and hijacked Islam the Religion of Peace™. ”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024453.php
The bBC, the loss of Red ken and its hatred of Boris.
Mayor in hotel expenditure debate
Boris Johnson has said he will pay back taxpayers’ money spent on his hotel room at the Tory Party conference if he has broken official rules. The London mayor spent almost £2,000 on accommodation for himself and a small group of advisers at the luxury Hyatt Regency hotel in Birmingham last year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7836212.stm
The bBC pushing a story about how Boris is spending tax payers cash willy nilly while forgetting how their hero spent a lot more and they OK’d it.
Mayor’s foreign trip was ‘modest’
The trip by London Mayor Ken Livingstone and officials to Cuba and Venezuela cost tax payers nearly £36,000, a breakdown of costs reveals. The mayor’s personal visit to Venezuela to sign an oil deal was cancelled, and he returned from Cuba leaving his officials to go on to Venezuela. A preliminary estimate of the total costs was made public after calls by members of the London Assembly.
Mr Livingstone said the cost of the trip was “modest”. The mayor and four officials stopped in Cuba, at a cost of about £20,000, including £16,991 in flight tickets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6145382.stm
And I haven’t even mentioned the monies thrown at Lee (Look at me I’m a black victim) Jasper by Red Ken.
The bBC, the loss of Red ken and its hatred of Boris.
Pounce: and the latter case, I remember, was the one the BBC decided not to run because it was “un-newsworthy”. Don’t you just love ’em?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4283086/BBC-workers-get-3000-relocation-packages-for-carpets-and-curtains.html
Says it all.
mikewineliberal | 18.01.09 – 9:08 am |
Because it gives interesting depth to the story? Or because the BBC wish to strike another blow against international capitalism? Who can say?
Why would his financial status be intrinsically more interesting than his religious persuasion? Especially, you know, given the topic of the books he was vandalizing. He wasn’t slicing up books about Persian banking and Mogul capitalism.
From: “blogworldtonight”
Date: 18 Jan 2009 18:19:32 +0000
Dear BBC Blog contributor,
Thank you for contributing to a BBC Blog. Unfortunately we’ve had to remove your content below
Comments posted to BBC blogs will be removed if they are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others; are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; are considered to have been posted with an intention to disrupt; contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend.
You can read the BBC Blog and messageboard House Rules in full here:
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If you can rewrite your contribution to remove the problem, we’d be happy for you to post it again.
Please note that anyone who seriously or repeatedly breaks the House Rules may have action taken against their account.
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URL of content (now removed):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/blog92/F12277060?Thread=6214492&post=74468689
Subject:
Gaza points of view
Posting:
[quote]
A brief overview of the Middle East situation is always valuable, so as a service to all those who still don’t get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need.
Here we go: The Palestinians want their own country. There’s just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It’s a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like “Wiccan,” “Palestinian” sounds ancient but is really a modern invention
Before the Israelis won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no “Palestinians.” As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the “Palestinians,” weeping for their deep bond with their lost “land” and “nation.”
So for the sake of honesty, let’s not use the word “Palestinian” anymore to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths, until someone points out they’re being taped. Instead, let’s call them what they are: “Other Arabs Who Can’t Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death.”
I know that’s a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: “Adjacent Jew-Haters.” Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don’t. They could’ve had their own country any time in the last sixty years, especially some years ago at Camp David but if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That’s no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course — that’s where the real fun is — but mostly they want Israel. Why?
For one thing, trying to destroy Israel – or “The Zionist Entity” as their textbooks call it — for the last sixty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they’re the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God’s Earth, and if you’ve ever been around God’s Earth . . . you know that’s really saying something.
It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Midleast. Unless I’m missing something, the Arabs haven’t given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: 500 million Arabs; 5 million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that, if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.. Really? Wow, what neat news.
Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.
My friend made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the Numbers. Imagine 500 million Jews and 5 million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it . Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.
[unquote]
Biodegradable | 18.01.09 – 6:39 pm | #
Blimey that must hurt.
I think it hurt the BBC’s idea of truth Va$ili, which is the only reason I can see for removing it.
Why hasn’t the BBC reported the latest musings from their favorite Latin American leader?
Venezuela’s Chavez says Obama has “stench” of Bush
Usually the BBC is willing to find a moment for Chavez talking about a US President. Curious.
As there seems to be an ongoing discussion on the correct usage of specific words, I have another one:
According to the BBC, I cannot access a video clip from one of the sports stories on the website due to the fact that I am in a territory that the BBC is allowed to play the clip in?, since when was the Netherlands a territory?, I thought it was a bloody Country.
Here is the definition of what constitutes a territory:
A legally administered territory, which is a non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both.
Not bias just annoying
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/192138/diff/9/10
God save the UN — BBC
A classic bit of bias that was removed because it went the the “wrong way”.
Sir William Goatse | 18.01.09 – 8:21 pm
Laura Trevelyan will soon be re-assigned to late-night website sub-editor.
Chavez seems like a proper student lefty invoking hidden capitalist conspiracy in the shadows.
Don’t expect we’ll be getting a BBC expose of this:-
Greenies caused the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
Sometimes things slip through. I wonder for how long.
The best Question Time debates are invariably when the audience feels passionately and gets truly involved in the arguments. Climate change vs economic growth at Heathrow. Israeli self-defence vs Palestinian bloodshed. Green shoots of recovery or Brown debts of despair.
Gavin Allen 16 Jan 09, 04:58 PM
Lively Debate
Robert Peston continues to explain Mr. Brown’s policies to the public:
Lend, lend, lend
Why do he and Helen Boaden seem to think that the BBC’s job is to explain government policy? Peston frowns occasionally, and “warns” his readers about things, but he is not criticizing or offering alternative ideas, or doing anything else except aiding the government.
Reporting on “scoops” is one thing, and I suppose Peston can call himself a “reporter” when he reveals his insider trading info. But making government policies more palatable is quite another. That’s really what he’s doing on his blog and in his on-air appearances. He is little more than a press agent for the Treasury and his boy Brown.
Biodegradable | 18.01.09 – 6:39 pm
That’s brilliant – where does it come from and did you try to post it on Robin Lustig’s blog?
Bryan | 18.01.09 – 10:19 pm
I don’t remember where it came from but I’ve had it as a text clipping for ages.
Yes, it was on Lustig’s blog.
I’ve just been notified of another of mine removed for allegedly infringing copyright, however a quick google shows it’s pretty much in the Public Domain, so here it is again. Get it while it’s hot:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldtonight/2009/01/gaza_points_of_view.html#comment377
Bryan,
regarding the origin of the one that was removed as being “considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others; are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; are considered to have been posted with an intention to disrupt; contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend.”
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Think+of+all+the+Arab+countries+as+a+football+field,+and+Israel+as+a+pack+of+matches+sitting+in+the+middle+of+it.%22
🙂
I see the BBC is virtually blanking out any serious in-depth reporting of the reasons behind the sainted Caroline Kennedy’s withdrawal from the nomination for Hillary Clinton’s vacant senate seat:
“Ms Kennedy has told New York Governor David Paterson she is withdrawing her name for personal reasons, a spokesperson said.
Her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, has been diagnosed with brain cancer and suffered a seizure on inauguration day.”
How neat, the way the BBC subliminally connects Kennedy’s withdrawal with the medical condition of Ted Kennedy in the next paragraph, as though that would be the reason.
In fact, the centre-right press in the States is all over this one, with the reason why she really pulled out being cited as “tax irregularities, illegal employment issues, marital problems….”
I mention this not to condone the tabloid tittle-tattle reporting style but rather to compare and contrast. Can you just imagine the wall-to-wall coverage and the journalistic orgy the BBC would have enjoyed had Sarah Palin withdrawn from the recent US election at the last minute due to “personal reasons”? Considering the vitriol heaped on Palin for even her choice of clothing, the mind boggles at the treatment the BBC would have meted out on her. But hey – Kennedy is a Democrat from the American royal family, so no story there.
The double standards are obvious.