Guantanamo Roundup.

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous wrote the following email. I lost it for a bit, and seem to be unable to cut and paste the internal links he provided to the R4 programmes, although I can play them myself. Never mind. You go find them yourselves. Here’s the email: Today (Feb 18th) I’ve witnessed one of the grossest examples of the BBC’s anti-American agitprop (or rather, anti-American-when-there’s-a-Republican-in-the-White-House agitprop). … Continue reading

“Demonstrators”

I think it was on yesterday’s 8 am radio news that I heard the rioters captured and beaten by the British Army two years ago described as ‘demonstrators’, with its comforting overtones of placards, badges and cries of ‘What Do We Want ?”. Blogger Squander Two noticed it too. He thinks the ‘demonstrators’ were the ‘demonstrators’ described in this BBC report. That is not to justify the beatings. Were BBC … Continue reading

The kidnap, torture and mutilation over a period of three weeks, and eventual murder

of Ilan Halimi in France has been reported by the BBC here. In fairness to the BBC, I must point out that my colleague Laban was mistaken in thinking this murder had not been reported as of yesterday. A search for “Halimi” would not have found the earlier report that the BBC did make (on 17 February), as only the first name of the victim was mentioned at that time. … Continue reading

Oh, those flirty little BBC scare quotes

, so quick to flutter their eyelashes around “terrorist” and “holocaust denier” and then at other times they just won’t come out and play. “BBC soft soaps Holocaust denier” – blogs Adloyada, referring to this BBC article about David Irving. I quite agree with the view of the sociologist quoted in the BBC article that the law should not be used to silence the likes of Irving (although when he … Continue reading

“Troops shoot disabled Jenin man”

Says the link to this BBC story. It’s currently the main story on their ‘In Depth’ page. Mental image of another poor chap in a wheelchair, or hobbling along with the aid of a stick. The story ? “A young Palestinian man with learning disabilities has been shot dead by Israeli troops near the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian officials said. Local residents said Mujahid al-Simadi had gone up … Continue reading

I Might Get Angry

, so I won’t comment too much about the BBC’s no attention spared coverage of the latest Abu Graib photos. David Vance has put it very nicely (with tongue in cheek): ‘never before in the field of human conflict, has so much cruelty been inflicted on so many by so few, right? (Although nobody died or was even seriously injured that we know of but HEY, it’s a cool story, … Continue reading

Historians in the future

may be interested in this BBC article, outlining the BBC’s plan to join forces with a climate change study harnessing the power of thousands of personal computers. This quote sums up my concerns: ‘Frances McNamara, the BBC’s producer for the experiment, said the project would give people a chance to be part of efforts to tackle a warming world.’ Implicit in this is a wholesale acceptance of the phenomenon of … Continue reading

Simpson hits back

– Something tells me that John Simpson doesn’t share his colleague’s optimism about blogs. However if ever there was an opinion piece in need of a fisking it would be Simpson’s latest. Ah well, life’s too short, and attention span is the deity we secretly worship. So let me first draw attention to the treachery and silliness of the following statement: British soldiers have mostly behaved well in Iraq, but … Continue reading