General BBC-related comment thread!

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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218 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. jim davidson revived says:

    My ex wife once caught me “getting on with the job” –the rest is history

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  2. will says:

    Last night Newsnight decided that the final dig at President Bush was to anticipate that he would issue preemptive pardons to all his evil henchmen, from Rumsfeld down, who were, in the BBC eyes, facing potential war crime charges.
    Pleased to see Bush has proved them wrong again.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    So did hamas fire missiles from the bbc offices in gaza?

    Liveleak has a clip from al-arabiya tv in gaza, “This is an out-Take of Al-arabiya-TV Reporter Hannan al-Masri learning of an Hamas missile being fired from the ground floor of the building housing the Al-Arabiya studio in Gaza City”

    Media often share same building. Is the BBC refusing to report being used as a ‘human shield’?

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  4. will says:

    Further on “war crimes”, I heard a severly frustrated Beeboid on World Service being told the facts of life on Israel’s military action. He was told that “proportionate” didn’t require a thousand Israelis to be killed, just that Israel used weapons proportionate to addressing the threat, e.g. bombs for tunnels.
    The Beeboid howled when told that should an Israeli inquiry into potential war crimes decide on no action, then charges could only then be laid by the UN Security Council. “But, But, the USA” the Beeboid whined petulantly.

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  5. Martin says:

    What a joke the BBC is. Did people see the BBC report from Tehran about Obama? Not a single mention of the protests on the streets shouting “death to Obama”

    Also we get the ‘Muslims are angry about the war on terror’

    Funny that we in the west are not angry with Muslims (well OK I am) for murdering thousands on 9/11 for no reason or the many other brutal attacks.

    I’m sick of the BBC showing these savages as poor little oppressed darlings. Muslims are cold blooded killers. Any group of people that can happily use their children as human bombs deserve no sympathy.

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  6. disillusioned_german says:

    TPO | 20.01.09 – 8:35 pm |

    So ex-KKK man Byrd is fine? Good news, eh? Strange that Al Beeb doesn’t give you the background on Byrd.

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  7. TPO says:

    So ex-KKK man Byrd is fine? Good news, eh? Strange that Al Beeb doesn’t give you the background on Byrd.
    disillusioned_german | 20.01.09 – 10:49 pm |

    Sorry I didn’t read further down the article. It’s just that whenever I see the grotesque Ted Kennedy being puffed up by the BBC I tend to loose it a bit.
    Can you imagine the screaming BBC headlines if, say, a Bush family member had walked away from a car accident in which a young girl he was planning to get his leg over was left to drown. If the same individual was embroiled in a scandal to cover up the involvement of a Kennedy in murder and if the same individual was involved in rape with his nephew and they bought off the cops and the judiciary to cover their tracks..

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  8. Jason says:

    frankos | 20.01.09 – 11:15 pm | #

    So, Galloway isn’t getting his end away with a Palestinian woman anymore. I wonder if this will mean an end to the RESPECT party and his pro-Hamas campaigning?

    Someone should pay a buxom Israeli woman to seduce him. It would be interesting to see his political compass change overnight.

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  9. adam says:

    “this is the day americans reclaimed their country”

    unbiased Matthew Price

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  10. Biodegradable says:

    Fragile Truce Watch:

    IAF planes strike Kassam rocket launchers in Gaza
    IAF planes struck a Kassam rocket launcher in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening, hours after two incidents of gunfire and mortar shell fire were reported against IDF troops in the area.

    The strike was the first of the kind since Israel unilaterally implement a cease-fire at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday.

    Mortar shells strike open areas in Eshkol region; none wounded
    Palestinians fired a barrage of mortar shells late Tuesday night, hitting open areas in the Eshkol region.

    Nobody was wounded in the latest cease-fire violation, and no damage was reported.

    Stand by for the BBC announcement that Israel has broken the ceasefire, in 10… 9… 8… 7…

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  11. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Gus Haynes | 20.01.09 – 6:37 pm |

    Bush is not the enemy some make him out to be, nor the bumbling idiot we wish him to be, but Obama can be a new kind of president. One who thinks before he speaks. Who listens to both sides of an argument. Who uses his brains before his fists.

    Are you talking about the same Obama who nearly screwed his candidacy by his very revealing answer to Joe the Plumber? TNot exactly thinking before opening his mouth. That was a gut reaction.

    Off the cuff, he has so many “uhs”, and does that same Clintonesque debating trick of pausing at certain points, that he’s probably only thinking while he’s speaking. He’s more likely a practiced bluffer, with a good memory for rehearsed ideas.

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  12. Jason says:

    Gus Haynes | 20.01.09 – 6:37 pm |

    I remember people saying the same thing about Clinton. The idea that Democrat politicians are “more intelligent” than Republican presidents is an article of faith on the left, as is their infantile belief that Republicans are “stupid.”

    Thus, Reagan was forever painted as a slow-witted puppet who knew nothing about geopolitics or economics and who was only elected because he was a famous movie star. In reality, Reagan was a very intelligent man who been heavily involved in politics for decades and who was very well educated in his ideological beliefs. He knew a lot about economics and geopolitics and wrote most of his own speeches. He certainly knew a hell of a lot more about economics than Obama.

    Clinton was touted as a “new kind of President” just like Obama. Here, at last, was a learned man who “knew what he was talking about” and so on and so forth. The same nonsense. During this election I heard Clinton’s ex-adviser Dick Morris reveal that he had to be coached word for word before each debate since he wasn’t knowledgeable or particularly articulate at all. He was made to memorize two or three alternative answers for each question that was likely to arise – and it was Morris who gave him the word flow. But the legend went that he was an intellectual, just what America needed after the “lowbrow machismo” of Reagan and Bush I.

    The myth about Obama’s “superior” intellectual wisdom will hold of course. I don’t think he listens to both sides of an argument any more than any other politician. Like most left wing academics, he knows how to sound intelligent by talking in a certain way, using certain phrases etc – but like most wing academics, it all boils down to a bunch of pseudo-intellectual fluff built upon a flawed set of premises which are anything but intelligent.

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  13. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Here’s the latest bit of religious bigotry from Justin Webb:

    Freethinkers welcome!

    Good old Justin. Never afraid to take a swipe at white US Christians. President Bush reached out to US Muslims in a big way after 9/11, and was the first President to light a menorah at Hannukah in the White House, among other cross-faith acts. Palin had her religion shoved in her face, and never shoved hers in anyone’s, and went on record time and again to say she wouldn’t. But to ol’ Justin, they’re intolerant, ignorant horror shows.

    What kind of church did The Obamessiah’s wife take him to every Sunday for 20 years? I forget.

    Is condemnation of religious behavior acceptable according to BBC editorial policy, never mind the Charter and Agreement? Only when it’s a certain religion, practiced by certain people, it seems…..

    I’m pretty sure I’m on record here more than anyone as criticizing Justin Webb. Yet I’m also on record as saying that he understands the US better than anyone else at the BBC. I know it’s sort of like saying Capt. Mainwaring knows more about the Germans than anyone else in the outfit, but that’s hardly my fault.

    Justin Webb has no business criticizing people with religious belief the way he does. He’s not criticizing people who use religion to oppress or intimidate or cause harm, or force their religion on other citizens. He’s criticizing their beliefs, and the fact that they are honest about them. Surely that has no place at the BBC.

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  14. Jason says:

    David Preiser (USA) | 21.01.09 – 5:49 am | #

    “a shuffle at least away from the religiosity of the Bush years”

    What “religiosity”? To be honest I’m sick to death of the way the left constantly paints Bush’s administration as some kind of theocracy. He made no attempt whatsoever to exclude “non-believers.”

    A President who believes in God is obviously going to be driven to some extent by that belief. After all, everyone has an underlying philosophy (whether it’s consciously held or not) and every action and decision we make is necessarily influenced by that philosophy. If your philosophy is based around Christianity then how could it not influence your thinking? Bush is religious, so is Obama. Bush is a Christian, so is Obama. So what makes them different in this respect?

    Nothing, except that Obama inserts the word “non-believers” into his speech, cashing in on the accusation of religious fascism which characterized the anti-Bush hysteria on the left. It was nothing more than a piece of cheap fluff guaranteed to get hopelessly gullible saps like Webb to start raving about a “new kind of politics.”

    What the hell does Webb mean when he claims that “the old-fashioned sense of not professing a religion…is about to become acceptable in polite American society”? Obama has professed his religion at every available opportunity.

    The sheer scope and scale and consistency of Webb’s bullsh*t defies belief.

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  15. Jason says:

    I might add that it’s only a matter of time before drug dealers start marketing an Obama ecstasy tablet. As in:

    “Oh man, I was really buzzing last night, dropped a couple of Obamas”

    From one illusory high to another.

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  16. mikewineliberal says:

    david -“white” christians? Where does race come into webb’s comments? Bush senior once declared he failed to see how atheists could be fully formed US citizens, so that bit of the speech did reasonate for some of us.

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  17. NotaSheep says:

    BBC news priorities on the Toady programme: Praise Obama, criticise Israel, downplay the economic news and navel-gaze over the funding of public service broadcasting.

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  18. Peter says:

    As an ex-scientist/engineer I have a firm belief in the value of this country’s support of same.

    Hence I was attracted to this article in the Newsnight blog:

    Restoring science to its rightful place

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/2009/01/restoring_science_to_its_right.html#commentsanchor

    Sadly, as the comments in reply (the first is a doozy, especially the end piece. I speak as one trying to forge a commercial model new media entity dealing in the environment, and one day found myself competing with BBC Green… http://www.bbcgreen.com/content/home ) would suggest, it has been found rather wanting.

    Science deals in fact, as does… should… reporting. It is hard not to feel this piece was more opinion dressed up. And I do wonder how appropriate it is for a ‘reporter’ for the BBC to be quite so definitive in her critiques on an outgoing administration when much is still unknown. The optimism for an agent of ‘change’, whatever that is, is perhaps understandable given the degree of uncritical analysis of the new President’s plans to date, but surely should be couched in terms, dare I say science-based ones, that accept it’s hard to predict based on what we don’t yet know.

    Shame the vast majority subjected to the broadcast are unlikely to be exposed to such worthy and relevant debate to appreciate the critical underpinnings of ‘science’, and not the fluffy, agenda-driven versions too often trotted out by our national broadcaster and its often less than qualified, or if so (Ms. Watts’ resume is a lot more relevant than most), barely competent and/or objective cabal of ‘analysts’.

    I happen to think there is much worth considering seriously in the environmental arena, but as a fact-based environmentalist shudder at each grotesque, rushed-out bit of spin from the BBC that seems designed to push an ‘ideal’ (at least in their eyes), but when found wanting simply sets back the worthy, public-influencing, patient, test and confirm methodologies that can lead to genuine insights we can act on with confidence.

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  19. DB says:

    Where’s Johnny? Did anybody see or hear from the BBC’s World Affairs editor yesterday?

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  20. deegee says:

    Someone should pay a buxom Israeli woman to seduce him. It would be interesting to see his political compass change overnight.
    Jason | 21.01.09 – 12:13 am

    While I’m all in favour of Sabras with big boobs I don’t think Galloway can change his stand. His anti-Israel posturing puts food on his plate.

    The Respect Party would expel him and no one else would want him.

    Should he turn 180°, who would care? Who would invite him to give interviews to the BBC? Who would pay his way to give speeches? Reality television?

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  21. George R says:

    I rate the BBC’s performance, over the past week or so as amongst the most politically prejudiced ever.

    The BBC’s blatant support, at all levels of the organisation, for :

    1.) Islamic jihad Hamas, which entailed a BBC attitude of political antagonism towards Israel and Israelis, and a reluctance to report anti-semitic attacks in e.g. Europe, instigated by Hamas supporters;

    2.) an American President of the Democrat Party, who is of mixed race, and this BBC’s political support has turned into a broader propaganda for ‘blackness’ as opposed to ‘whiteness’, and for an endorsement, in totally unquestioned terms, for a ‘multiculturalism’ involving the deprecation of culture associated with indigenous white people.

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  22. George R says:

    A non-BBC comment on a likely political message of the Obama presidency:

    “It will be waves of inspiring words, followed by subtle messages–mostly passed by confidantes of the president–that the real agenda is one of black superiority: true racial equality, where each person is allowed to rise or fall in our society on his own merits, simply isn’t the goal. It is the advancement of non-whites over whites, as far as white will allow it. I don’t mean that this is the conscious intent of Obama himself, but rather that this is the implicit and unspoken–perhaps unconscious–direction of the crowd that now ocupies the halls of power.

    “The de facto slogan of the left in America may as well be: Unity! Unity! Unity! (and whitey’s gonna pay.)”

    (Lawrence Auster),
    ‘The anti-white ending of Obama inauguration’
    http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012358.html

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  23. Anonymous says:

    Jason | 21.01.09 – 6:52 am

    David Frum, in his book, wrote how he was a bit taken aback, as a Jew, to be asked why he wasn’t at Bible reading on his first day in the White House.

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  24. George R says:

    Is there a vital reason why the BBC’s ‘Home editor’ Mark Easton, must be in Finland? – I just can’t work out what it is:

    “Popular ventriloquism”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/01/populist_ventriloquism.html

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  25. deegee says:

    Demand and Urge are not synonyms
    Headline:
    UN demands flow of goods to Gaza

    Opening paragraph:
    UN humanitarian chief John Holmes has urged Israel to fully open all crossings with Gaza to allow a free flow of goods.

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  26. sean. says:

    George R | 21.01.09 – 9:34 am |

    fox noticed it as well.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481049,00.html

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  27. Trifecta says:

    Last night on 5Lite, Anita Arnand, she of the Obamassiah hat, was quizzed by Richard Madelely, he of the unwatched chat show, about the total lack of anti Obama vox pops.

    AA, with irony positively dripping, assured RM that she had been searching high and low for a Republican because the Beeb ALWAYS looked for balance but none had been forthcoming. The only one she had found was a convert and we could be converts too if we just believe hard enough.

    Yes we can.

    For fucks sake.

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  28. Peter says:

    Demand and Urge are not synonyms
    deegee | 21.01.09 – 10:15 am | #

    Well spotted.

    The disconnect between headlines, subheads, first paras, subsequent paras and what is said/written and what some would wish should be said/written (especially pertinent online in a time poor, eye-skimming age) is getting to be a bad joke.

    Examples like this are not just sloppy. When in headline especially, they are either by accident or design changing, and hence misrepresenting the whole communication.

    And hence are plain wrong.

    Such examples should be logged and archived.

    May I humbly suggest ‘Synonyms of Omission’?

    Though this might not adequately cover the egregious effect of not just leaving out something crucial, but totally changing everything.

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  29. George R says:

    The BBC is still trying to bury the woeful news about the Labour government’s economy, with low priority, cryptic pieces like this:

    “Pound slides further as banks hit”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7841865.stm

    {It was noted that ‘Newsnight’ cancelled coverage of the British economy last night because of the political priority it gave to its religious leader: Obamessiah.}

    The ‘Telegraph’ is less reticent about the British economy:

    “UK cannot take Iceland’s soft option”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4299883/UK-cannot-take-Icelands-soft-option.html

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  30. frankos says:

    http://www.johannhari.com/index.php

    Don’t miss this hypocrite muppet having a go as usual at the hated middle classes, and of course getting a large platform from the home of middle class self hatred, the BBC.
    Can I please smash his face in???

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  31. George R says:

    The BBC’s political predilection for the EUROPEAN UNION (with 75 million Muslim Turks to be added), is such that we cannot expect the BBC to give much analysis to the economic predicament of SPAIN at present:

    ‘Telegraph’:

    “The Euro is torture instrument for Spain” (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard):

    “A country with full control over all levers of economic policy can claw its way out of such a hole. Spain can do almost nothing.

    “A key reason why Standard & Poor’s has stripped Spain of its AAA credit rating is that the country no longer sets its own interest rates and cannot devalue its currency to restore balance.

    “S&P did not say explicitly that EMU has become an instrument of debt-deflation torture for Spain. That would be breaking the great euro taboo. It insisted that EMU provides an anchor of stability. But that is pro-forma dressing. The sub-text is that Spain cannot recover until it breaks its chains.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4294577/The-euro-is-torture-instrument-for-Spain.html

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  32. caveman says:

    Robin Horbury: 11:01 am
    The bias example you describe is so blatant it is just laughable and it is an own goal. What? Pro -Lifers torturing children? Surely even the stupidest people watch that and simply come away with the message ‘The BBC is biased’. I think even a committed BBC fan would feel embarrassed. Come on, BBC you used to be more subtle than that! What is happening to you in your death throes?

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  33. Hero from the future says:

    PeterN – good analysis
    re
    Biodegradable 1:38 and Anonymous 1:38
    and the 1984 type censorship of their website feedback:

    If the BBC applied the guidelines below to itself, half its programmes would go.
    If ‘racist’ included anti-English and Anti-British, 70% would have to go. They must be so relieved that racism does not apply to all races.
    Hence Victoria Woods was quite free to say on the BBC History programme about the Empire to a Native New Zealander ‘Why were you unable to repel the invaders, (ie British)?’ She was creeping so much I am sure she must have left a dent in their island with her head.

    So it is okay for one racial group to ‘repel’ others on the basis of their genetic ancestry or culture? Or isn’t it? Reverse that comment and it is racist. Reverse it again and it is not. Magic!

    Does the BBC have a special magic card which they use when they want to be racist, so they get their card out and say ‘magic 123’ and it suddenly becomes non racist and okay for them to say?

    quote-start——–
    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.
    —quote end—-

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  34. Bob, son of Bob says:

    Re the quote above about comments being likely to offend..racist….etc so they cannot appear on the BBC website.

    I think you have made a mistake. The quote above comes from the programme makers’ manual on how to make a BBC programme.

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  35. Chuffer says:

    I see Chris Moyles is keen to jump on the Ross/Brand bandwagon:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4304747/Chris-Moyles-faces-reprimand-over-Auschwitz-joke.html

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  36. Biodegradable says:

    Further to my post above regarding the broken ceasefire:
    Hamas breaks cease-fire, Britain ignores it

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  37. Biodegradable says:

    This a must see!
    The latest example of the BBC’s insane obsession with Israel speaks for itself.
    The BBC’s Obsession With Israel

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  38. Rob says:

    George R

    Good point well made regarding the BBC’s performance in the past week. Large swathes of the newsteams appear to have more or less given up the ghost to objectivity and impartiality, driven as they have been by events in Gaza and Washington.

    The BBC’s rampant campaign on Obama;s “blackness” is particularly tedious, inaccurate and unedifying, given he’s of mixed race. Someone really should tell the BBC his mother was a God fearing white middle class woman. To my surprise on a local BBC radio station this morning they allowed on air a spokesman from one of the mixed race associations who made the point that the mixed race population has its own quite distinct culture and identity, very different from the black population.

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  39. Biodegradable says:

    Rwanda: ‘The Israel of Africa’

    By Mark Doyle World Affairs Correspondent, BBC News

    The United Nations says some 2,000 Rwandan troops have entered the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rebels opposed to the Rwandan government have been based for many years.

    A UN spokesman said the Rwandan move was part of a peace plan agreed with the Congolese government.

    However, the presence of Rwandan troops inside Congo is bound to spark controversy and could have a powerful impact across central Africa.

    Rwanda has been described by some as the Israel of Africa.

    Really Mark?

    Exactly who are these “some” you speak of? Name them please!

    The ethnic Tutsis of Rwanda experienced their genocide in 1994 but a Tutsi-dominated government then came to power and has ruled ever since.

    Like the Israelis, the Tutsis have enemies on their borders, and now they have sent in their powerful army to deal with the ones who have bases in neighbouring DR Congo.

    Yeah right, genocide and Israel go hand in hand…

    The parallels with Israel are not exact, of course.

    But that doesn’t stop you evil bastards at the BBC from drawing these inexact and libelous parallels, of course!

    Tired of comparing Israel to the Nazis the BBC’s new tactic is to compare Israel to Rwanda! Sick, sick, sick and evil!

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  40. Biodegradable says:

    A google search for “Rwanda Israel” gets that BBC article as the first result, but then we find something quite the opposite of what the BBC are suggesting:

    Lessons from Rwanda, the ‘Israel of Africa’ ‘Where were you when the killing began?” I asked my driver.

    “I was here. I managed to hide,” he answered.

    “And what happened to your family? Were they able to hide, too?”

    “No,” he replied. “My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters were all massacred. I am the only member of our family who stayed alive.”

    No, we were not talking about the killing fields of Nazi-dominated Europe. Our conversation took place in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda where, during 100 days in 1994, nearly one million people were butchered.

    Two different peoples, nine million inhabitants in a country the size of Israel, have lived side-by-side in uneasy coexistence. Violence was never far below the surface. Tens of thousands of Tutsis and Hutus were killed during the years that led up to the genocide of 1994.

    The scars of that genocide are still there, everywhere. On a hill overlooking the capital, the Rwandan “Yad Vashem” serves as a constant reminder of those terrible hundred days. The Memorial recounts the massacres in harrowing pictures. It relives the horror and the bestiality as children, women and men were hacked to death in a frenzy of killing. It gives the story of the Hutu leaders who planned the genocide; of the discussions at the cabinet level and of how one minister declared that all Tutsis should be eliminated; of how the media – radio and television – whipped up their listeners to fever pitch, exhorting them to kill, kill, kill.

    The Memorial also reminds visitors of the passivity of the world; how the UN forces in Rwanda were instructed by the secretary-general not to intervene and to limit their activities to evacuating foreign nationals; how the US refused help and only reluctantly admitted that a genocide was occurring after more than half a million people had been cut down.

    Israelis have played their part in turning the economy around. One of the leading Israeli entrepreneurs operating in Africa, Hezi Bezalel, opened an office in Kigali and brought Israeli experts in agriculture and other fields to Rwanda.

    In the wake of the genocide, our Foreign Ministry sent the largest medical mission in our history to Rwanda, including some of our best surgeons. Together with Hezi, I met with President Kagame at his home late at night some time ago. We talked lengthily about Israel’s experience in Africa, and the lessons that we in Israel could learn from the amazing story of Rwanda.

    In some ways, Rwanda is the “Israel” of Africa. The conflagration there set the entire region on fire – witness the two Congo wars, which were largely the outcome of the events in Rwanda. The two peoples – Tutsis and Hutus – had been at each other’s throats for decades, and foreign powers had not desisted from meddling in their conflict.

    The president spelled out the lessons, as he saw them, in precise, cogent, terms: self-reliance, because you cannot rely on help from the world when you are in trouble; and reconciliation, the need to live in peace with the “other.”

    “If we could do it, after all that happened here, surely you can, too?” he said.

    For me there was a third lesson – the need for an outstanding leader. If it had not been for President Kagame – who, in my opinion, is one of the most remarkable and preeminent leaders in Africa, and possibly in the world, today – Rwanda would not be the peaceful and stable country that it is. It would not be called “the Singapore of Africa.”

    Rwanda is lucky in having its own David Ben-Gurion at a critical time in its history. We were lucky in having the original, back then when our state was established. What we need now is to have our own Paul Kagame!

    Israeli-inspired youth village for Rwandan orphans takes shape In 2005 Anne Heyman sent an e-mail message from her Manhattan office to Israel’s director of the Yemin Orde Youth Village. “You don’t know me,” the message began “but I hope you might be able to help me in my mission.”

    Said mission was to build a youth village in Rwanda for children orphaned during the late ’90s genocide and model it after the Yemin Orde Youth orphanage in Haifa, Israel.

    Rwanda: Israel After 60 Years – an Insight

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  41. Biodegradable says:

    More:

    Ethiopian Israelis provide training for Rwandan youth village
    Jean-Pierre Nkuranga was twenty in 1994 when he hid in the bushes outside his home in Rwanda and watched helplessly as Hutu militiamen ruthlessly attacked his family members. He lost four siblings and both parents in the carnage that was later known as Rwanda’s genocide.

    “Children heads of household were common – some as young as ten. The kids would put together households of other kids and live in the streets or build tent camps with leaves and mud.” Nkuranga said.

    The 1994 Rwandan genocide left over 800,000 Tutsis dead. One of the most devastating aftermaths of the tragedy was the approximately 1,200,000 children – almost 15% of the Rwandan population – who became instant orphans and lost their homes forever. Nkuranga became the parent to his four remaining siblings in the aftermath of the violence and he eventually took in six additional neighboring children.

    Overcome by the enormity of loss, Nkuranga vowed to help build a future for the children orphaned in Rwanda. And today, he’s beginning to achieve that goal with the help of Israel.

    Nkuranga was part of a ten-person delegation of Rwandan youth experts who recently spent a week at the Yemin Orde Youth Village south of Haifa in order to gain tools for opening the Agahozo-Shalom Village in Rwanda, which will be modeled after Yemin Orde.

    A high percentage of Yemin Orde’s children have been of Ethiopian origin, who suffered through similar stories of parent separation, trauma and displacement following Israel’s airlifts – Operations Moses and Solomon in the 80s and 90s. Initiated to safeguard Ethiopia’s Jews from famine and political persecution, the airlifts brought more than 22,000 Ethiopians out of Africa, and in the process, some children were orphaned and others faced various hardships.

    Now, some of those children-turned-adults are helping the Rwandan counselors in establishing the program for the orphans of Rwanda.

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  42. Biodegradable says:

    Yet more:

    Even Pravda gets it the right way around:

    Rwanda turns to Holocaust victims to cope with genocide
    Rwandan educators wandered the halls of Israel’s Holocaust memorial and spoke with elderly survivors of the Nazi slaughter, hoping to learn how to cope with and memorialize their own genocide, which ravaged their east African nation 11 years ago.

    The Tutsi survivors said that despite the cultural distance, they found kindred spirits during their weeklong seminar at the Yad Vashem memorial that ended Monday.

    I haven’t received any reply to the several complaints I’ve sent to the BBC in the last months, but somebody really should complain strongly about this distortion and blood-libel.

    Feel free to use the links in this and my previous posts.

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  43. Peter says:

    Not too sure if this country can afford much more ‘unique’ when it comes to matters of money.. or funding…

    “At least 95pc of the economy will be left…”

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/edmund_conway/blog/2009/01/21/at_least_95pc_of_the_economy_will_be_left

    But if the government says all is OK, and the BBC agrees, then it must be true, right?

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  44. George R says:

    Chuffer 1:02pm

    Yes:

    “BBC ‘regrets’ Moyles Auschwitz joke”

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23624359-details/BBC+%27regrets%27+Moyles+Auschwitz+joke/article.do

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  45. David Preiser (USA) says:

    mikewineliberal | 21.01.09 – 7:51 am |

    “white” christians? Where does race come into webb’s comments? Bush senior once declared he failed to see how atheists could be fully formed US citizens, so that bit of the speech did reasonate for some of us.

    Oh, please. Justin Webb has never criticized black or Hispanic Christians. For example, he hasn’t criticized their religious beliefs about the overwhelming Hispanic vote for Proposition 8 in California. He has never criticized any black politician for a position against gays or Jews. He doesn’t discuss the fact that more people in the US black community take their political lead from their religious leaders than in the white community.

    Poppy Bush is an idiot. Nobody listens to him. I’m an atheist, and my problems with him lay elsewhere. If he actually did say such a thing (I don’t entirely believe you, but it wouldn’t surprise me, as his and his wife’s families were the kind who wouldn’t even let Jews into their country clubs), I could care less, because it’s meaningless. And I find it silly that it “resonates” with you, personally. It has no effect on your life, nor on the lives of your family. Nor on anyone in the real world, for that matter.

    George W. is certainly much more open minded than either of his bigoted, patrician parents.

    But let’s get back on topic and continue to play the “Justin Webb can’t possibly exhibit bias against white Christians” game. Show me one other comment by Justin Webb – on air, on his blog, even an attribution by someone else – openly criticizing a particular religious belief held by anyone not of white, European descent. I don’t mean like Webb frowning at something Rev. Wright said, for example. I mean outright criticism and condemnation of a particular religious belief held by a particular person who isn’t of white, European descent. Any religion, any color other than his own.

    Once you’ve reached that dead end, how about discussing whether or not it’s acceptable for Justin Webb to criticize and condemn anyone’s religious belief – not their religiosity or forcing their religion down anyone’s throat, but the actual belief(s) – regardless of ethnicity? Any thoughts on that?

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  46. George R says:

    BBC report:

    “Islam film Dutch MP to be charged”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7842344.stm

    ‘Jihadwatch’:

    “Outrage: Dutch court to prosecute Wilders for ‘Fitna'”

    [Extract, from Robert Spencer comment]-

    ” Hate speech, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and hate speech laws are tools in the hands of the powerful that they can use to silence the powerless and crush dissent.

    “And make no mistake: even though the Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the West present themselves as embattled victims of racism and ‘Islamophobia,’ that is exactly what is going on here: this is just one part of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s efforts to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam — including ‘defamation of Islam’ that goes under the ‘pretext’ of ‘freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.’

    “If they succeed in doing this, we will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West — in fact, one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an, so this initiative not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance.”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024491.php

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  47. George R says:

    ‘Spectator’

    Melanie Phillips:

    “Hamas breaks cease-fire, Britain ignores it”

    [Extract]:

    “As far as I can see, apart from a vague and passing reference in the Telegraph to ‘unconfirmed reports’ of rockets fired into Israel yesterday, none of this has made it into the British media. The BBC reports instead that
    Gaza also remains under scrutiny from Israeli spy-planes, and its navy vessels are still firing sporadically at Gaza’s beaches

    without reporting the Palestinian attacks. Wicked, or what?”

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3275426/hamas-breaks-ceasefire-britain-ignores-it.thtml

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  48. Cassandra says:

    The intrepid BBC silent about Antarctica for so long(I wonder why?) then comes the expected ‘breaking news’, wait for it…. The Wilkins ice shelf on the Antarctic pennisula DOESNT collapse! “scientists say its a miracle” Er, scientists now base their observations on religious faith now do they?(lordy lordy praise be)
    A multi billion pound media empire clutching at any pathetic scrap of pro AGW/MMCC propaganda, the BBC so desperate to flog the alarmist lies that ANY half assed story will do!
    Of course even the BBC dolts must know that ice shelves calve in the summer season and the currents are MAINLY responsible for calving and ice shifting, but hey, when you got lies to peddle who gives a s**t, the BBC is sure that the prole masses out there in TV land are now too stupid to know the difference!

    THE BBC: LIES AND PROPAGANDA IS WOT YOU PAY FOR AND THATS WOT YOU GET, ITS WOT WE DO!

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  49. Jason says:

    I note that the BBC, no doubt with glee in their hearts, is reporting the possibility of Geert Wilders being prosecuted for “hate speech” in Holland for his movie “Fitna.”

    Note how quick they are, as usual, to point out that Wilders is a “right wing politician.” Bearing in mind of course how reluctant they usually are to identify the persuasion of those on the left even when they’re being prosecuted for real crimes, not just speaking out against a very real threat like Mr. Wilders is.

    But this whole case just underlines the disgraceful hypocrisy of the left in Europe in general. Consider the following:

    “The court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders,” it added.

    Any word yet on possible “hate speech” prosecutions for the Euro-lefties who are currently comparing Israelis to Nazis? They’re not just making movies, they’re standing in front of crowds of angry Muslims, many of whom chant antisemitic slogans – and making the vile comparison. Yet we don’t hear about any “lines crossed,” we don’t hear about any Euro-courts considering “appropriate criminal prosecutions” for “insulting Israelis.”

    I think that maybe this prosecution, if it happens, is a good thing. Because it serves to expose the vile hypocrisy and one-sided mollycoddling of Islam along with the unchallenged hatred of Jews in Europe. A wake up call. I have no doubt that Wilders will receive enormous support if he’s to stand trial. I also have no doubt whose side the BBC will be on when it happens.

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