125 Responses to OPEN THREAD

←Older Comments
  1. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 17, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    More information about Lara Logan I haven’t heard from the BBC.  This time it’s about something the Egyptian Army did days before the attack, when Logan and her crew first got to the area.

    “They kept us in stress positions — they wouldn’t let me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted,” Logan said.

    “We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything,” she told Esquire, as she was boarding a plane to return to Egypt to cover Mubarak’s downfall.

    This is from the NewsMax report the BBC links to at the bottom of the page on their one report about the incident.  Sure, they link to it, but that’s not enough. This is important information needed for the public to have a rapport with Egypt, to truly understand what’s going on there.  To selectively hide information in favor of other stories is not good. Still no mention of the “Jew!” chants either.

    This is just more proof of BBC censorship about the reality of Egyptians.

       0 likes

  2. Grant says:
    February 17, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    I just caught the end of Al Bowen on “From our own correspondent today”.  I am beginning to wonder if he isn’t utterly, totally, stark, staring, bonkers.

       0 likes

  3. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 17, 2011 at 4:04 pm

    Absolutely surreal interview happening on the News Channel a few minutes ago.  Some guy on benefits with two kids is on the line being asked what would happen if the nasty Tories took away his benefits. Only he’s not on message.  
     
    He says that he doesn’t want a job, he’s happy with the £65 a week to support his family.  He wouldn’t take a menial job even if it paid 300 a week.  He’s not interested.  Not everyone wants a job, he says.  
     
    When asked if he considered himself a scrounger, he said no, because he’s “not taking money from someone else”.  He says if the government doesn’t give him the money, it would be wasted on war in Afghanistan.  Complaining about the benefits culture is apparently a smokescreen to take more money to spend on war.  Not only that, but he says that if you take away benefits it will lead to crime, because people on benefits don’t want to work.  
     
    He’s been unemployed for the entire lives of his children, and he takes them down to watch him sign on each week because he “wants them to have better opportunities” than he did.  It’s almost too funny to be true.  Is he a fraud sent to mess with the Beeboids?  
     
    Complete lunacy, and the Beeboid in the studio has no idea what to do. Complete madness, and I can’t stop laughing.

       0 likes

    • Oliver says:
      February 17, 2011 at 4:27 pm

      Sounds as if it was the ‘star’ of this morning’s 5 Live phone-in.

      I think he was called Mike. You can here his call here.

         0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:
        February 17, 2011 at 4:43 pm

        Yep, same guy.  Good spot.  And top marks for the BBC for repeating the whole segment with this guy who thinks the world owes him a living.

           0 likes

    • Andrew says:
      February 17, 2011 at 4:40 pm

      The Beeboid’s response sounds a bit like us trying to debate the uber left on some of their positions.

         0 likes

      • pounce_uk says:
        February 17, 2011 at 5:08 pm

        Mike has been allowed to speak to News 24 now. I presume its the same bloke, but while its a similar speech its not the same as the radio 5 one. I feel the bbC is trying to promote this man as a victim, but having heard what he has to say, they are losing hands down.

           0 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 17, 2011 at 4:20 pm

    Another Leftoid opinion piece from the US by Michael Goldfarb.  This time he’s trying to tell you that the hoary old US Constitution is not so hot, and that having an unwritten Constitution like the UK is better.

    This is a completely far-Left position, and is a hot topic in the US right now.  Obviously when the Tea Party movement and gun rights people want to uphold the Constution, while their avowed enemies want to tear it apart.  JournoLista founder and opinion source for the BBC Ezra Klein went so far as to say that we should abandon it because it’s more than 100 years old and thus too confusing for us to interpret today.

    This is what Goldfarb means when he disparages the Constitution by saying it causes too much argument.

    Funny how the Left – including The Obamessiah Himself – was so keen on protecting the sanctity of the Constitution when Bush was in charge.  Back then, they wanted to stop the Patriot Act because it was “shredding” the Constitution, and complained about habeas corpus for Gitmo inmates.

    Will the BBC ever give a non-Left opinionmonger the same opportunity they give Goldfarb?

       0 likes

    • D B says:
      February 17, 2011 at 5:55 pm

      Will the BBC ever give a non-Left opinionmonger the same opportunity they give Goldfarb. 
       
      Yes, whether it’s Goldfarb, or the people chosen to present A Point Of View, through to commentators on BBC Brazil, the one common factor is their left of centre perspective. I don’t think it even crosses the minds of some of the people who make these choices at the BBC that what they’re doing is biased, so convinced are they of the righteuosness of their own worldview.

         0 likes

  5. Guest Who says:
    February 17, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    Just back after a car trip that included the audio circus of freaks that is the Jeremy Vine ‘phone in’. 

    Amongst some choice insanity was our Jezza deluding himself that he is the ringmaster and voice of sweet reason at the centre, when in fact he and his researchers would whip up a controversy at a WI homemade jam festival if there was an angle or rating in it.

    One ‘topic’ in particular struck me, regarding a mother banged up for unlawful imprisonment of her druggie daughter, apparently to prevent further access to drugs and self harm.

    First up we had a very odd ‘explanation’ by the husband, who kept saying he didn’t know much because he wasn’t there. Then Judge Jezza pronounced, before the lines were opened to the phone/online hounds of barely-aware-of-the-facts hell.

    Thing is, at no stage was there qualified legal input because, as Jezza sweetly put it, ‘they couldn’t find anyone’.

    Notwithstanding a case up for appeal was being thrown to into the cock pit (I am mixing a few metaphors for effect) of ‘public’ opinion, does the BBC really think education and information is best served, or credible, by such a ‘debate’, especially when the excuse for proceeding is that the UK national broadcaster couldn’t get input from a qualified reporter or guest legal expert?

       0 likes

  6. David Preiser (USA) says:
    February 17, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Nice leading question from a Beeboid talking to some woman working for a child care center about how benefits cuts will harm child care for the poorest.  After explaining that a cut in child care benefits will mean people have to spend more themselves, the female Beeboid said, “Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” and then prompted the woman to speak about “giving people the incentive”.

    She just gave the exact same leading question again to the catering manager.

    Wrap-up:  “It’s one thing giving people the incentive to work…..”

    Narrative?  What Narrative?

       0 likes

  7. D B says:
    February 17, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    BBC Press Office:

    The College of Production website, bbc.co.uk/collegeofproduction, part of the BBC Academy, goes live on 21 February 2011. The first of its kind for the production community in the UK, the website provides practical advice on all aspects of TV, radio and online production and will be available to the production community and general public for free.

    I wonder if “How to make ludicrously biased documentaries” will be one of the production methods covered.

       0 likes

  8. George R says:
    February 17, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Reporting sexual assault on CBS’s correspondent, Lara Logan:

    1.) ‘Front Page Magazine’ (2 pages)

    “Islam and the Brutal Sex Assault of Lara Logan”

    http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/17/islam-and-the-brutal-sex-assault-of-lara-logan/2

    2.) INBBC report:

    “Lara Logan of CBS attacked by Egyptian mob in Cairo”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12476771

       0 likes

  9. D B says:
    February 17, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    (Another vanished post. Trying again, and getting increasingly pissed off with the comments here.)

    Good rant from Autonomus Mind about an article by Michael Tomasky in which the Guardian correspondent defends left-wing Nir Rosen’s nasty tweets about the sexual assault on Lara Logan and attacks Debbie Schlussel’s comments on the same subject.

    The BBC’s Katie Connolly has given her tacit approval by tweeting a link to the Tomasky article. Notice how she condemns the “right wing pundit” but has nothing to say about leftie Rosen. Little wonder – Tomasky admits that he met Rosen “in the BBC Washington office not long ago”. Nice and cosy, all leftie friends together. 

       0 likes

    • D B says:
      February 17, 2011 at 9:46 pm

      (By “pissed off with the comments” I mean the technical problems, not the actual comments. But I’m sure you all knew that anyway.)

         0 likes

      • D B says:
        February 17, 2011 at 9:53 pm

        Order of the Brown Nose. Katie Connolly mentioning the new White House press secretary wherever possible.

           0 likes

      • Grant says:
        February 17, 2011 at 10:13 pm

        DB,
        Thanks for that link to “Autonomous Mind”.  First time I have seen that website and I had to laugh. Quite superb.
        Now I know where our old friend Martin has gone. This place just too small for him. Had to get his own site.

           0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 17, 2011 at 10:10 pm

      Tomasky was a JournoLista, so no surprise that Katie C. supports him like that.  Rosen resigned yesterday, so I’m sure the Beeboids will be disappointed.

         0 likes

  10. Jonathan S says:
    February 17, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    every time you flick over to the BBC news, you’ve got some Labour prat spouting shit

       0 likes

  11. Guest Who says:
    February 18, 2011 at 7:32 am

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100076714/moaning-media-savvy-lobbyists-not-the-silent-majority-are-forcing-changes-in-government-policy/

    Doesn’t hurt that there is a national, 24/7, £4B PR department on hand if the topic is deemed worthy of support by folk I cannot ‘voting’ for in any manner, from feet to wallet.

    With a bunch of pols aware of this unique persuasive broadcast power, and craven in their submission.

    Not, IMHO, the optimal way to operate a democracy.

       0 likes

  12. Guest Who says:
    February 18, 2011 at 8:24 am

    Watching Kevin ‘Gob on call’ Maguire on SKY screeching that the AV vote is a coalition killer.

    Oddly, the SKY political analyst seemed to think this was utter partisan horsesh*t.

    What chance he won’t be on BBC soon saying the exact same thing but being fed soft-balls in support by the impartial teleprompter readers being fed questions from Labour Central via the BBC edit suite.

    No idea why SKY use him too, but he’s a parody of a tribal Mirror broken record.

       0 likes

  13. Guest Who says:
    February 18, 2011 at 8:39 am

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100076607/david-camerons-forests-u-turn-does-the-coalition-no-harm-at-all/

    It was almost as though the Beeb was taking its lead from Labour

    A few other interesting comments on that there ‘impartiality’ at work, Helen.

       0 likes

  14. George R says:
    February 18, 2011 at 9:43 am

    For INBBC. Note: the threat from Islamic ideology is not merely transmitted by Al Qaeda.

    INBBC, forever trying to relegate the huge impact of Islamic ideology in the present Mid East protests, appears to concentrate on Al Qaeda rather than the Muslim Brotherhood, as this moring’s Radio 4 ‘Today’ with Peter Bergen. He is knowledgeable about terrorism, but Hugh Fitzgerald suggests:

    “In Bergen’s case, it was his having been able to interview Bin Laden, which apparently he has managed not only to dine out on, but to turn into a full-time career.”

     As Fitzgerald adds:

    “One has the distinct feeling that Wright [another analyst] and Bergen both think that Jihad is conducted only through qitaal, combat. One also has the feeling that they do not understand the centrality of Jihad. They think of it almost as some kind of curious afterthought, that only those wild-eyed extremists of Al Qaeda are likely to embrace.”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/06/fitzgerald-lawrence-wright-who-came-to-the-party-late.html#more

       0 likes

  16. George R says:
    February 18, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    PRISON DAWAH and INBBC.


    INBBC (and Mr. Casciani) seem oblivious to the widespead and everyday practice of PRISON DAWAH by convicted Islamic jihadists in British (and other of West’s) prisons.

    ‘Jihadwatch’:

    “UK: Jihadist murderer plots poison terror strike from prison cell”

    INBBC:

       [Islam jihad] “Terrorists Bourgass and Hussain denied court challenge”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12502772

    Inevitably, Casciani includes his apologetics for the tenets of Islam by suggesting, without evidence, that what the Islamic jihad prisoner is violently propagating may not be Islam:

    “There are concerns” [ Casciani’s vague opening] “that Hussain’s interpretation of the Koran are in line with his terrorist beliefs and conviction, and promulgation of his ideals has the potential to cause serious disruption within the segregation unit as well as within the general prisoner population.”

       0 likes

  17. George R says:
    February 18, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    Mass immigration, and gang warfare in Trafalgar Square.



    1.) ‘Evening Standard’:

    “Battle of Trafalgar Square: Police question 19 over daylight stabbings”

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23924413-trafalgar-square-stabbings-police-question-19-men-over-daylight-brawl.do

    BBC  cryptic report:

    “Trafalgar Square brawl: Three stabbed and 19 arrested”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12501482

    ‘Wikipedia’

    “Albanian mafia”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_mafia


       0 likes

    • dave s says:
      February 18, 2011 at 9:01 pm

      Unfortunately for the BBC most people can read between the lines.
      Yet another reason for the native population to abandon London to it’s fate.
      Give it 10 years and nobody from the shires will ever go there. Not a great loss really.

         0 likes

←Older Comments