228 Responses to FRIDAY OPEN THREAD…

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  1. Louis Robinson says:
    January 27, 2013 at 11:59 pm

    Fascinating. See what you make of this.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21185791

       1 likes

    • Buggy says:
      January 28, 2013 at 12:26 am

      “It reminded me of the Oslo Agreement, back in the day when that seemed like a solution to the Middle East problem. Let us all calm down for a bit, live in our respective places for now, and sort out the final agreement later on in the day.

      I thought of telling the stewardess she had missed her metier, that instead of serving gin and tonics to rude passengers, she should be working for the United Nations – she certainly could not have made a worse job than others who have tried.

      I drifted off into a reverie, imagining this diplomatic wonder-woman circling the globe, perhaps still wearing her Easyjet uniform – she would shuttle between North and South Korea, between the US and Iran – everywhere bringing her home-spun approach to international crises.”

      Strewth, why do the left never leave their spiritual home in the Lower Sixth ? Did she look like a certain too cool for skool President, maybe ?

      “A group of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews had been given space at the back of the plane to hold a prayer meeting. They bowed, and recited, but in the process they attracted more worshippers and, who knows, perhaps new worshippers converted to the faith by this stirring display of mid-air religiosity.

      Eventually there were so many offering their thanks to God that they were blocking the aisle, and the non-observant passengers found they could not reach the toilet.

      One unfortunate lady found herself stuck inside the lavatory, pushing on the door but meeting resistance from the mini-congregation now gathered outside.”

      Oh, the irony.

         1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      January 28, 2013 at 10:04 pm

      Is there a metaphor (not metaphorical, but using a metaphor) equivalent of the “using a hammer when everything looks like a nail…” adage?

         1 likes

  2. Guest Who says:
    January 28, 2013 at 11:23 am

    An interesting one for any with an interest in how the BBC CECUTT ‘deals’ with complaints.
    http://bbcwatch.org/2013/01/27/a-bbc-template-response-to-complaints/
    As was noted in an actual thread a while ago (pre .org era, so would need a bit of searching to bring up), they get quite upset if folk ignore their ‘our little secret’ requirement at the end of replies.
    One reason for such sensitivity could well be getting shown up as basically operating a Turing Machine policy, default rigged to reject no matter what.
    Imagine if a Government (they don’t like) department was outed as having vast numbers of highly paid staff basically cut and pasting ‘we think we get it about right’ responses with no thought to content – there would be outrage.
    As it stands, it is simply ‘unique’.
    And when the BBC acts uniquely on feedback, you get a Savile in the system. Again.

       1 likes

  3. Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
    January 28, 2013 at 1:11 pm

    Norman smith on news at one, outlining all the reasons why the highspeed rail link is a waste of time and money.
    So infrastructure is not the way to go then?

       2 likes

  4. Guest Who says:
    January 28, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9831354/Criminals-could-avoid-court-under-new-proportionality-test.html
    I wonder if any unique exceptions are springing to certain minds about now?

       0 likes

  5. +james says:
    January 28, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    I was listening to Radio 4 about the history of antisemitism and Zionism in the 19th. It was rather good, but then the BBC began to inject the antisemitism was related to Islamophobia. And that Islamophobia was the new antisemitism.

    Well BBC I can’t remember any Jews marching through London carrying banners saying ‘behead those who insult Moses’.

    And if Islamophobia is an an irrational fear of Islam why did the BBC build it’s new News Room in a bunker to protect it from suicide bombers!

       3 likes

    • wallygreeninker says:
      January 28, 2013 at 8:36 pm

      Beeboids are like the young mole in a tale told by the 13th Century Seljuk Sufi Nasredeen Hodja that sums up the way they gets Islam (and the Jews) completely wrong: (they’d love this bit of diversity)
      A young mole went to its mother and said: “Mother, mother, I can see!”
      So the mother put a piece of incense under his nose and asked him what it was.
      “A piece of sesame cake,” he replied.
      His mother said: “Son, it’s not only the case that you can’t see, you’ve no sense of smell either.”

         1 likes

  6. John Anderson says:
    January 28, 2013 at 9:41 pm

    There is a pretence that immigration is not as rampant as it was under Labour.

    I think this idea is false. It is the NET figures that people concentrate on, = the difference between inward and outward migration may be falling a little.

    But in terms of changes in the UK society, what we still have is the enormous figure of over half a million arriving – let’s say 300,000 new aliens in and around our capital city – and a quarter of a million mostly “white flight” emigrants.

    London has already been transformed by mass immigration. And it is STILL being transformed by a combination of excessive immigration and a higher birth rate among most immigrant sectors.

    The BBC NEVER shows us this. The BBC NEVER runs a programme, for example, examining the social change in a specific London Borough such as Tower Hamlets or Newham over the past 20 years – and the effect on education, housing, welfare and other services.

       2 likes

  7. David Preiser (USA) says:
    January 28, 2013 at 11:43 pm

    Bible Quiz, according the star of this BBC “First Person” feature, is “extreme”. Nicole Teeny – an escapee from Evangelical Christianity – has produced a documentary, and the BBC is keen to draw your attention to it. It’s all about the shocking and bizarre world of Bible Quiz, wherein Christian youths “memorize” a book or section of the Christian Bible and participate in quiz challenges. Most Beeboids will sympathize with her secular friends who, says the blurb accompanying the video, “couldn’t even fathom the conservative religious culture”.

    Show me a BBC feature which promotes in a similarly positive fashion someone who says that memorizing verses or sections of the Koran is “extreme”. Come on, BBC, show us the balance and impartiality.

       3 likes

    • Reed says:
      January 29, 2013 at 3:32 am

      …and did any of those youths in the Christian group experience beatings from their parents or teachers for not being proficient learners?

         2 likes

      • stewart says:
        January 29, 2013 at 11:54 am

        Indeed were any of Ms.Teeny’s peers beaten to death with a hammer for failing to memorise the new testament?
        The BBC’s continued obfuscation and diversion of/from, the vile consequences of implementing the religion of Peace become more sickening,day by day

           2 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:
          January 29, 2013 at 4:18 pm

          I’m not saying the BBC is implementing Islam here. I’m saying that this is evidence of the blatant double standards and an anti-Christian attitude. The BBC would never promote an anti-Islam documentary in this fashion. Worse still, substitute the Koran for the Bible here, and the BBC’s darling filmmaker would be saying that all Mohammedan schools are extreme. It simply wouldn’t be acceptable, yet the BBC has no problem giving the thumbs up when it’s about white Christians.

             1 likes

    • +james says:
      January 29, 2013 at 11:30 am

      Yeah it reminds me of my school where we had to memorize large chunks of Shakespeare.

         2 likes

  8. Reed says:
    January 29, 2013 at 3:48 am

    I wonder if there will be any BBC attendees…perhaps a few Newsnight types, to…er…learn a few new tricks of modern ̶s̶m̶e̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ journalism.

    ————————
    ‘Investigative Journalism with Iain Overton’ is a one day course that ‘will introduce you to life as an investigative journalist.’ Now you too can learn golden rules like ‘showing the victim pictures of the subject’ and ‘calling up the person you are about to smear on national TV before you go on air’. What could possibly go wrong?

    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2013/01/those-who-cant-do-teach/

       2 likes

  9. AsISeeIt says:
    January 29, 2013 at 9:20 am

    It is a basic tenet of BBC Radio 5 that leftwing politics must be brought into the world of sport.

    Meanwhile Westminster MPs have been relieved of many of their former duties by Brussels. But it seems our own Parliamentary delagates are still allowed to have their areas of interest. So a committee of these well paid busy bodies has spent two long years looking into the administration of ….wait for it…. football.

    Nicky Campbell and a chum from….guess which low circulation newspaper (no prizes) ….the Guardian….. seem to admire some of the wacky and irrelevant ideas of the MP’s and give them a full airing.

    Some wonderful lefty nonsense follows: The FA should regulate ticket prices; Wealth is concentrated at the top and not enough is spread to the lower reaches.

    Why can’t lefties understand that football is part of the entertainment industry? Participation at all levels is voluntary. You don’t like it, you know what to do. People don’t watch, then the whole ediface would crumble.

    I suppose the fact that the BBC and Guardian are both apparently immutable forces separated from normal market forces and consumer preferences helps induce this other-worldliness in their views.

       1 likes

  10. drahSarve says:
    April 10, 2013 at 5:04 am

    http://www.payday-money-online.net to go to escaping and not availing this loan scheme. Getting a accommodation approved was never as foolproof as it has behove these days. Now with the coming of game in the small change

       0 likes

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