MILIBAND BROADCASTING CORPORATION?

I noticed that the BBC has been merrily spinning the line that although Europe yearns for him, Mr Bean look-a-like David Miliband has “rejected” the chance to become EU High Representative. I wonder who it is in the EU that is so enthusiastic to get Miliband into this position, exactly? The BBC does not tell us – though I am sure Miliband enjoys all the PR he has obtained this morning.

Peter Dow – Comedy Genius

I thought the Jo Abbess email to Richard Black would be the funniest BBC-related correspondence I’d read for a long while, but I was wrong.

Many thanks to Peter Dow, the Scottish republican featured in the film I posted here yesterday, for drawing my attention to an email exchange he had with the BBC. I particularly love this bit, which reads like something straight out of Ted L Nancy :

I have had only 10 minutes on TV in my whole life. I am now 48 years old so that works out as an average of 12.5 seconds per year for each year of my life.

Now that is more than many others get on TV but compare my 12.5 seconds per year average to the average time which the Queen gets per year or Prince Charles or any other member of the royal family.

The royals get a greatly disproportionate amount of time on TV.

The Incredible Sinking City – and more ‘militants’

The Englishman takes issue with the latest ‘We’re all going to drown” BBC story, on rising sea levels in Perth, Western Australia.

As he puts it : Two minutes with Mr Google and another scare story falls apart….

also in the Pacific – a teacher is beheaded in the Phillippines :

Police in the southern Philippines say the severed head of a kidnapped schoolteacher has been found in a bag at a petrol station. Gabriel Canizares was abducted by Abu Sayyaf militants three weeks ago. His body is still missing. He was travelling with colleagues on the island of Jolo when he was seized. The militants had demanded a ransom equivalent to $42,000 (£25,000; 28,000 euros) for Mr Canizares, which his family refused to pay. Education Secretary Jesli Lapus expressed shock at the teacher’s killing, saying six other teachers who had been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf earlier this year had all been released despite threats to behead them.

Hmm. Tell us more about these ‘militants’ ?

Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for many of the country’s worst terrorist attacks, including the firebombing of a ferry in Manila Bay that claimed more than 100 lives in 2005, and the abduction of American tourists in 2001.

A land mine explosion under a military convoy carrying American troops on 29 September killed two US Army Special Forces soldiers – the first US military deaths in the southern Philippines in seven years.

Hmm. Any idea who these people are and what their motivation might be ?

* tumbleweed blows across street *

Some Updates

Re Saturday’s blog post about Gavin Lee’s interview with Duane in Killeen. First Post reports today:

Questions were being asked in Texas this weekend about the friendship between the US Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood military base last Thursday, and a young man called Duane Reasoner Jnr. Interviewed by the BBC on Friday, Reasoner said he felt no pity for Hasan’s victims because “they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims”.

A tape of the interview, conducted by Gavin Lee of the BBC, has ended up on YouTube and other sites and is getting an angry response from Americans still shocked by Hasan’s deadly rampage.

The clip I posted is currently ranking 2 in Most Discussed (Today) – News and Politics on YouTube. A group of terrorist-supporting Islamic supremacist whackjobs who were featured by CNN on Friday have also put the clip on their website (no link for those arseholes). Needless to say, they’re very proud of young Duane.

It’s pleasing to note that Melanie Phillips linked to Friday’s post about Mark Mardell.

And I’d like to give a shout out (as President Obama might say) to Artists Against Wind Farms who linked to this post yesterday. Their noble endeavour is to stop our countryside being blighted by those monstrosities.

Oh yeah, there’s some more F-bombgate news in the Daily Mail today (scroll down – even I’m bored with the whole thing now and therefore can’t be bothered to give it a blog post of its own.)

This is a Some Updates Update. BBC North America editor Mark Mardell’s eagerness to dismiss an ideological motive for the Fort Hood killings looks ever more foolish:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

Further Update. Hasan’s calling card – “Soldier of Allah“.

Mark Mardell #fail.

THE PARENT TRAP…

There was a rather surreal debate on the BBC this morning on the issue of parenting. I suggest to you that the BBC is antagonistic to the essential idea that a traditional family unit provides the optimum environment in which to bring up children which is one reason why it shills for “gay marriage” and other such bizarre inventions. So in this discussion at 7.50am, we have a really strange debate on parenting which has a lady, Camila Batmanghelidjh of charity Kids Company, who seems to believe that the State can be an effective substitute for parents. Richard Reeves from Demos suggests that those on a low income struggle “to parent well” and thus need government “help.” So much jargon employed, so little common sense.

PYMS ALL ROUND..

Had to laugh at Hugh Pym’s simpering cheer leading (7.17am)for Gordon Brown’s latest taxation wheeze. It is perfectly obvious that Brown’s big idea went down like a lead balloon with the likes of the USA and Canada (though of course the French like it!) but Pym was there to suggest that it is still on the political radar and who knows, even the US, might come back and show some love for it.

PUPPETRY OF THE DHIMMI

Wonder what you make of this item on Today this morning.It concerns “militant” Islam’s attack on puppets. That’s right – puppets in Pakistan. Andrew Hosken waxes lyrical about the “great cultural influence”of Islam in Pakistan and then highlights how those who “take an extreme view” of Islam threaten this. However this is in itself a matter of Hosken’s interpretation since there are many who feel that the Jihadisrs themselves operate an ideologically pure form of Islam. There are many tough questions that need to posed concerning Islam but Mr Hosken consistently shies away from doing this.

JUST SLOPPY…

Whilst the BBC agonises about the societal causes that made poor devout Muslim Major Hasan slaughter 13 of his colleagues at Fort Hood whilst screaming Allahu Akhbar it manages to get some of the basic facts wrong. In this report it reports that Hasan was shot by a fellow soldier. He was not. He was shot by Sergeant Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer stationed at the base who was the first on the scene as Hasan picked off his victims. You would think with all that world class journalism they could get the basics right, wouldn’t you?.