Author Archives: Alan

Here’s a fascinating and comprehensive description of a Muslim terrorist:

‘militant Islamists sympathetic to al-Qaeda’

Always like that ‘militant’ bit, as if they were just a bit bolshy and gobby when in fact they had come dressed to kill, so to speak:

They ‘were heavily armed with rifles and equipped with bullet-proof vests and explosive belts.’

Kevin Connolly explains why the Israelis get rocketed:

‘Israel’s options in responding to Friday’s attack are constrained, reports BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

In the past it has chosen to attack Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, prompting rocket fire on Israel in return.’

If only those bloody Israelis would just leave the Palestinians in peace!

Here is what you might call a balanced report on climate with ‘inconvenient’ facts (for AGW proponents) included:

Arctic sea ice reaches lowest extent on record while Antarctic ice grows

Scientists announced yesterday that Arctic sea ice had completed its summer melt and in the end reached the lowest extent since satellite measurements began. At the other end of the globe Antarctica was seeing the exact opposite as the ice at the South Pole grows to record levels.

The BBC have been quick off the mark to highlight that the Arctic ice is melting rapidly….but I can find no mention of the Antarctic ice growing.

Nor it seems can other people as they have been complaining to David Shukman that he hasn’t mentioned it….his answer is…..

The ‘big melt’ at the roof of the world

‘So is it scaremongering to report on this new record? Several people have suggested I should mention how the sea ice around Antarctica has expanded this year. It has, but Antarctica is a continent isolated by an ocean with its own unique and incredibly cold weather.’

Ah, it’s ‘weather’ or something…not climate that controls the Antarctic then!

The BBC were not shy of reporting on the Antarctic when it suits them though……

….in August 2012:

Antarctica warmth ‘unusual, but not unique’

and Richard Black in July:

Antarctic: Grand Canyon-sized rift ‘speeding ice melt’

Can’t imagine that when ice is ‘melting’ that suddenly the Antarctic is an integral part of the climate change story for the BBC….surely not?

The BBC seem always to be ambivalent about Muslim violence and free speech and tend to side with the view that such protests are the result of centuries of Western colonisation, imperial exploitation and cultural imposition.

Wonder what they will make of this:

An Iranian cleric is claiming that two young girls beat him up after he told one of them to cover up and dress more conservatively.

The report is a reversal of the more common claim that women are beaten by the country’s strict religious police when their clothing is considered inappropriate.

According to his account in an article run by Mehr News Agency, which is partially government owned, the man allegedly asked them ‘politely’ to cover up.

‘She responded to me by telling me to cover my eyes, which was very insulting to me,‘ CNN reports he said.

He repeated his request and that was when the girl fought back

‘She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me,’ he said according to Radio Free Europe.

Following the alleged attack which took place in August, the cleric said he was hospitalized for three days but he did not list what injuries- if any- he sustained.

At least Radio Free Europe has their eye on the ball.

Wouldn’t it be terrible if all Muslim women, forced into subservience, felt empowered enough to do the same.

The BBC will have a link to a ‘support and counselling ‘ service soon

Cats look down on you

Dogs look up to you

Pigs look you straight in the eye and treat you as an equal

The BBC doesn’t give a shit what you think.

The BBC?…..‘good examples of moderate, liberal devotion to the idea of a polite, eggheaded vanguard, without whom the proles get distracted, confused, besieged, and eventually succumb to the terminal disease of false consciousness.

The problem is that the contemporary Left has been used to the idea of itself as a paid bureaucracy as the measure of the success of class struggle.

 You actually believe that someone like you [intellectual liberal/socialist] is better able to grasp the “objectivity of a social reality” than are poor workers, because your privilege, your education, has better equipped you to see the world as it really is, without the ornamentation of language, without the bias of place or time–absent the subaltern subject position they suffer from. You’ve been able to rise above ideological distortion.

 Notice what you have made of yourself: God. Your perspective is from nowhere. In the name of those poor workers, you have turned yourself into the God who will judge them for their sins against the “objectivity of a social reality,” the sins that usually congregate under the heading of false consciousness.‘

From HERE.

‘How strange must our system of politicks appear in future ages, when it appears, that while we were carrying on offensive wars in all quarters of the globe with vast fleets and armies, that an enemy rode triumphant in our own harbours.’

The BBC steadfastly refuses to engage in any meaningful debate about the dangers of importing an ideology that is totally at odds with that of the host nation…in fact  of a whole ‘Civilisation’ ….and consider that that ‘civilisation’ is one that acts as a defender of last resort of the freedoms and human rights that are so often crushed by various regimes.  If this ‘Western civilisation’ falls or neuters itself who will there be to help those subject to the most violent oppression.  It seems ironically that the BBC and the Left are happy to see the rise of a militant religious tyranny that will introduce such oppressions and police them with a violence that is somewhat beyond ‘waterboarding’  that life becomes but a sterile desert in the name of some sort of twisted belief in ‘human rights’ of those who would take great pleasure in stripping you of your own human rights.

Hayek said:

‘…Many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of Nazism and sincerely hate all its manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realisation would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.’

Who can doubt that the BBC agenda and the policies of politicians all lead to the eventual ‘triumph’ of an ideology that is no more than an ‘abhorred tyranny’?

Maryam Namazie said:

‘Freedom of expression matters. It is not a luxury, a western value and it’s

certainly not up for sale (though obviously governments and the UN mistakenly

think it to be so).

Sometimes – actually more often than not – it is all we have.

But like many other rights and freedoms, it becomes most significant and finds

real meaning when it comes to criticising that which is taboo, forbidden,

sacred.

Freedom of expression matters most, therefore, when it comes to criticising

religion.

Freedom of expression is one of the only means we have at our disposal to resist both camps of reaction and to protect humanity.

We have to defend it unequivocally and unconditionally.’

Churchill said this about the defeat of tyranny  after the war (abridged):

‘This noble continent, comprising on the whole the fairest and the most cultivated regions of the earth; enjoying a temperate and equable climate, is the home of all the great parent races of the western world. It is the fountain of Christian faith and Christian ethics. It is the origin of most of the culture, arts, philosophy and science both of ancient and modem times.

What is this plight to which Europe has been reduced?

The vast quivering mass of tormented, bewildered human beings

Who wait in their cities and their homes

And scan the dark horizons for the approach of some new form of tyranny or terror with the sullen silence of despair.

But for the Great Republic across the Atlantic Ocean saving Europe from ruin and enslavement the Dark Ages would have returned in their cruelty and squalor.

They may still return.

 The salvation of the common people in Europe from war and servitude

Must be established on solid foundations,

And must be created by the readiness of

All men and women to die rather than to submit to tyranny.

Let Europe arise.’

Have we already seen the imposition of the Tartan Taliban?….Gordon Brown must be drinking whatever Muslims drink…he’s a very angry, irrational man:

‘Good evening, you’re watching ITV News. We go over now to Westminster, where our political editor Tom Bradby has just come from interviewing Gordon Brown. Good evening, Tom. How was the Prime Minister?’

‘Good evening, Alastair. Interviewing Gordon Brown is not like interviewing any other politician.

‘Most encounters with party leaders or MPs form a distinct pattern. We come in, we sit down, we chat pleasantly. We do an interview, which is probing, highbrow or a bit brutal, as circumstances demand.

‘Then we exchange a few more pleasantries and we go away. End of story. Tony Blair was like this, David Cameron is. So are Alistair Darling, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and just about every other front-rank politician I can think of.

‘Not Gordon. Interviewing him is emotionally complicated. He doesn’t seem to understand that we are here to ask difficult questions and test his arguments by establishing contrary positions.

‘He nearly always tells us we are wrong, both on and off camera, and that we have not done our research. He often gets angry, sometimes sulks and from time to time looks brutally hurt.

‘I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s not politics as we know it.’ ‘

Islam, a religion, but not as we know it?

Biodegradeable posted a transcript of Romney’s ‘Palestine’ comments and it gave me a kick up the backside to read the full transcript of his speech…and as even Mark Mardell is forced to admit….‘He actually sounds a lot more politically savvy than he does on the stump.‘

So Mardell admits Romney’s talking sense? You would be hard pushed to judge that from the BBC’s reports, including Mardell’s, on the subject which seem to be mere regurgitation of press releases by Romney’s opponents.

Mardell says: ‘ For days now conservative bloggers have been fulminating that Mitt Romney doesn’t get a fair deal, that the media doesn’t give him a chance, and is out to get him.’

Reading the speech and then reading the BBC’s interpretation you’d have to agree with the ‘conservative bloggers’….especially when Mardell comes up with this: ‘But it is his scornful take on Obama voters that has really grabbed the headlines.’

OK so Romney said it wasn’t his job to worry about the 47% that don’t pay taxes…Mardell and Co paint that as if he doesn’t think they’re worth a consideration when in government.

However the BBC has missed, no, not missed, they have erased, the essential comment from the quote…..‘So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.’

That is a pivotal phrase…Romney will campaign on a policy of low taxes…but if you don’t pay tax that sort of policy has no resonance with you….so what if taxes go down….I don’t pay them anyway!

‘Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.’

As regards Israel the BBC have also erased the last but probably most important statement:

The BBC’s take: ‘A new secret video clip has emerged of remarks by Republican candidate Mitt Romney, saying the Palestinians are committed to Israel’s destruction.

He tells donors the Middle East will “remain an unsolved problem… and we kick the ball down the field” ‘….the BBC ‘forgets’ this bit:

‘and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don’t go to war to try and resolve it imminently.’

So Romney says that other than war there is little he can do to pressure the Palestinians to accept the right of Israel to exist and thence be able to negotiate a peace on that basis.

All he can do is:

‘So, the only answer is show your strength. Again, American strength, American resolve, as the Palestinians someday reach the point where they want peace more than we’re trying to push peace on them—and then it’s worth having the discussion. Until then, it’s just wishful thinking.’

How well is Obama’s foreign policy going…ask Kissinger:

‘I saw Dr. Kissinger; I said to him, “How are we perceived around the world?” And he said, “One word: VEAK!” [Audience laughs.] We are weak, and that’s how this president is perceived, by our friends and, unfortunately, by our foes.’

Was Romney born with a ‘silver spoon in his mouth’? Yes but……

‘By the way, both my dad and Ann’s dad did quite well in their life, but when they came to the end of their lives, and, and passed along inheritances to Ann and to me, we both decided to give it all away. So, I had inherited nothing. Everything that Ann and I have we earned the old-fashioned way, and that’s by hard work.’…..

…..’I just said Sen. Rubio says that when he grew up here, poor, that they looked at people that had a lot of wealth, and his parents never once said, “We need some of what they have, they should give us some.” Instead they said that you work hard and go to school, someday we might be able to have enough. That’s…[Applause.] I will continue to do that.’

Presumably Ed Miliband would be proud of him earning his way in the world the ‘hard way’.

What does he think of immigration?:

‘I look forward to getting America back on track, and having people plan on bringing their ideas and their dreams to this country. We get big dreamers, by the way. Oh, I just, we didn’t talk about immigration today. Gosh, I’d love to bring in more legal immigrants that have skill and [unintelligible]. I’d like to staple a green card to every Ph.D. in the world and say, “Come to America, we want you here.” Instead, we make it hard for people who get educated here or elsewhere to make this their home. Unless, of course, you have no skill or experience, in which case you’re welcome to cross the border and stay here for the rest of your life.

In every stump speech I give, I speak about the fact that people who dream and achieve enormous success do not make us poorer—they make us better off.’

When you read the full transcript you realise Mardell hasn’t done his job…if he’s going to report on the speech it is surely important to read it himself and then select his own quotes rather than just rely on the carefully selected handouts by those with strong vested interests in highlighting and potentially distorting the meaning of, certain statements.

Paxman in 2007 could have advised him:

“In this press of events there often isn’t time to get out and find things out: you rely upon second-hand information-quotes from powerful vested interests, assessments from organisations which do the work we don’t have time for, even, god help us, press releases from public relations agencies. The consequence is that what follows isn’t analysis. It’s simply comment, because analysis takes time, and comment is free.”

Perhaps this is what the new DG meant when he wanted more creativity at the BBC…create your own reports, don’t just get them spoonfed to you……do some Journalism, not well paid(by BBC!)  secretarial work for the Obama campaign typing up their press releases!

Scrub that last post about Duggan…Mark Easton just explained the riots, it was police bad manners that sparked the riots.

I wonder if the BBC will return to Duggan’s mother and ask her if she still thinks her son was ‘assassinated’ or ‘executed’?  The BBC were quite happy to allow her to say such things repeatedly on numerous interviews unchallenged.

When you consider that the shooting of Duggan sparked off mass rioting in which people died, lives wrecked and numerous buildings  destroyed by arson you’d think the BBC would be more responsible in not allowing such inflammatory rhetoric to be aired without questioning it…..especially as there is a drum beat for a repeat rampage.

The BBC would naturally be happy to see the streets return to anarchy so that they can blame it on Coaliton ‘austerity’ policies……the BBC diverted attention from the real cause of those riots….a man who had a loaded gun for criminal intent and the mostly criminal thugs who took advantage of the ‘left’s’ consensus that they could riot because of their socio-economic position meant they had no other choice, it was a ‘protest’ not criminality.

Here the BBC have to report the truth….but make no other comment:

“There in Ferry Lane Mark Duggan was shot and fatally injured by the police as a result of his possession of that gun and what he was thought to be about to do with it,” Mr Brown said.

He told the jury that armed police surrounded the cab but as Mr Duggan got out he was seen to have a gun in his hand.

“The police marksmen were in no doubt that this was as dangerous a position as possible – gun in hand – and he was seen to start to bring it round as if to shoot.

“The gun was found to be loaded with a bullet, as you know and as you will see in photographs. He was shot.”

The court heard the gun, a BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun with one bullet in it, was found near the scene of the shooting.

Mr Brown said it was in a black sock which was ripped at the toe to expose the barrel of the gun and at the heel so the cocking lever was showing. It had been modified to take live 9mm bullets.

All of course on a day when two police officers are killed by a gunman.

Mark Mardell reports that Mitt Romney’s comments about the Palestinians and the peace process are gaffes of  a catastrophic scale.

‘A new secret video clip has emerged of remarks by Republican candidate Mitt Romney, saying the Palestinians are committed to Israel’s destruction.

Mr Romney is shown saying that Palestinians are “committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel”.

“The Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace,” he says, adding that “the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish”.’

Or is Romney actually more in touch with the reality of the situation than either Mardell, the BBC or Obama? 

Curious that Mardell, in the interests of  a fully rounded report and the context of Romney’s remarks, doesn’t refer to what I guess these must be Palestinian ‘gaffes’ otherwise: 

Hamas Charter
Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it…. Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…. The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight [kill] the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

Fatah Constitution

Goals: Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence. Method: Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic… in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished…. Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine.

And in April 2012: 

Palestinian Authority minister stated last month that the Palestinians should unite in order to focus on the destruction of Israel.

At an event with the participation of three PA ministers, Minister of Social Affairs Majida Al-Masri called for Palestinian unity and reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas in order “to turn to the struggle for the liberation of Palestine – all of Palestine.”

It is curious how the BBC are so ready to comment on free speech and the limits that they believe should be imposed upon it when a video about Muhammed is aired on Youtube, less so when State governments have charters that call for the destruction of a nation and its people.

And Muslims aren’t going to stop at just Israel’s reconquest….the Muslim Brotherhood have their own ideas….yes, the BBC’s favourite moderate Muslims:

Muslim Brotherhood goal: Islamic world domination

– “…the Islamic Ummah  [nation]… can regain its power, be liberated and

assume its rightful position which was intended by Allah, as the most exalted

 nation among men, as the teachers of humanity…”

 – “…know your status, so that you firmly believe that you are the masters of  

the world, even if your enemies desire your degradation…”

– “It should be known that Jihad and preparation for Jihad are not only for the  

purpose of fending-off assaults and attacks against Muslims by Allah’s  

enemies, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of  

establishing an Islamic state, strengthening the religion and spreading it  

around the world…”

– “…Jihad for Allah is not limited to the specific region of the Islamic countries.

 The Muslim homeland is one and is not divided. The banner of Jihad has  

already been raised in some of its parts, and it shall continue to be raised,  

with the help of Allah, until every i nch of the land of Islam will be liberated, the 

State of Islam will be established…”

Means: Jihad – a mandatory religious duty

– “This is followed by the power of arms and weapons… This is the role

of Jihad.”

“Jihad is a religious public duty… incumbent upon the Islamic nation. Jihad is

a personal duty to fend off the infidels’ attack on the nation…”

– “The youth should know that the problems of the Islamic world, such as

Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, or the Philippines, are not issues of

territories and nations, but of faith and religion. They are problems of Islam

and the Muslims, and they can be resolved neither by negotiation nor by

recognizing the enemy’s right to the Islamic land he stole. Rather, the only

option is Jihad for Allah, and this is why Jihad is the way.”

– “The symbol of the [Muslim] Brotherhood is the book of Allah [the Quran]

between two swords. The swords symbolize Jihad and the force that protects

the truth represented in Allah’s book.”

– “You should be prepared to answer the call of Jihad whenever you are

called, in any region of the Islamic world. Our Islam is universal not regional,

and all Islamic countries are one homeland….go out to battle, oh believers,

young and old, by foot or on horseback, under all circumstances and

conditions”

George R in the comments has come up with another good link which raises probably one of the most important questions this country, and many others like it, must answer….first of all of course the media and the politicians have to find some courage and ask that question.

Here is the issue that begs the question as admitted by a Muslim, Alibhai Brown:

‘It’s more or less over for progressive, liberal Islam. Many of us who’ve tried to keep alive the thoughtful, humane, cultured beliefs and practices of our parents and enlightened scholars can barely breathe or speak after the last wretched week when benighted mobs raved and killed across Muslim countries – some of them newly free and supposedly democratic.

Once, we could say with some certainty that Islamicist fanatics, thugs, killers and mind-benders represented a minority and that most Muslims, quiet and sane were unseen and unheard. Today, I fear it is the opposite.’

You can dispute the proposition that there was ever a progressive, liberal Islam as that is certainly not the philosophy preached by the Koran itself.

What isn’t in dispute, and even now we have a ‘renowned’ liberal/progressive, Ali Yasmin Alibhai-Brown coming round to recognising the fact, is that at heart Islam is a violent, intolerant and oppressive ideology….it is not just a few criminals, madmen or ‘perverters of Islam’ who adopt such violence in the name of Islam.

Islam is an ideology that should not  be graced with the term ‘religion’ as it is far from spiritual in its raw, natural state. 

That aside when liberal progressives themselves start to believe what was denounced  previously as the stuff of ‘right wing extremists’, Nazis and Melanie Phillips you have to ask what is to be done with Islam in Western secular countires where it has been steadily growing and a huge influx of immigrants have been further expanding the ghettos of western cities.

If, as Alibhai Brown suggests, that it is in fact a majoriy of Muslims who are fundamentalist, extremist or fanatical when the occasion arises, there needs to be an honest and open debate about the effects of having a large community of people who follow such an ideology settling in ever larger groups, refusing to integrate and pushing for laws that outlaw common Western, secular or non-Muslim practises which are deemed offensive to Islam.

How do you deal with an ideology that is essentailly colonising your country and ‘conquering’ it by stealth?

The ‘moderate’ and highly respected Islamic scholar Yusuf al Qaradawi, has openly stated what must be the wishes of a majority of Muslims:

‘Must the conquest of Europe be necessarily through war? No….There is such a thing as a peaceful conquest. The peaceful conquest has foundations in this religion and I therefore expect that Islam will conquer Europe without resorting to the sword or fighting.

It will do so by means of Da’wa (preaching) and ideology.

Muslims must start acting in order to conquer this world.’

 The same al Qaradawi who is now demanding  “demonstrations of Islamic rage”  in response to the video.

The Arab Spring ‘protestors’ state that what allowed them to get the courage to stand up and be counted was that they were suddenly ‘no longer afraid’ of what the State would do to them.

I suggest the likes of the BBC and the craven politicians also cast aside their fear of Muslim violence and stand up for the rights and values that  took 2000 years to develop and which were often only won with the blood of men and women  who, had they been looking on at the appeasement of the last few years, would have wondered if their own sacrifices had all been worth it when they are so easily cast aside and the country cast back into the dark ages of religious intolerance and bigotry.

 The BBC will of course choke on that as it references two of its unbreachable shibboleths…that of immigration and ‘respect’ for Islam.