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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest
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More news being completely ignored by the BBC:
Spain arrests 11 suspected Islamists in Ceuta
CEUTA, Spain (Reuters) – Spanish police arrested 11 suspected Islamic militants in a raid on a poor neighbourhood in Spain’s North African enclave Ceuta on Tuesday after more than a year of investigation, the government said.
Hundreds of armed police participated in the operation which started in the largely Muslim Principe Alfonso neighbourhood at 4 a.m. (3 a.m. British time). They seized forged documents, a flak jacket and an air pistol as well as cash, computers and mobile phones from suspects’ homes, officials said.
Those arrested included two brothers of Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed, the so-called “Spanish Taliban” who spent two years in U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but was freed earlier this year after terrorism charges against him in Spain were overturned, court officials said.
…
Local news agency Europa Press said the Ceuta suspects were linked to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which was blamed for bombings of Western and Jewish targets including a Spanish restaurant in Casablanca in 2003 which killed 26 people.
The investigation into radical Islam in Ceuta which led to the raid, ordered by Spain’s most famous judge, Baltasar Garzon, began in March 2005 and discovered links with Britain and Morocco, the Interior Ministry said.
…
Pete London
Didn’t you say you worked in Milan once?
Have a look at this Telegraph leader on the Euro which, unsurprisingly, the bbc isn’t covering. It’s one of the posts from a Brit in Italy which amuses.
A doomed currency
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/13/dl1302.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/12/13/ixopinion.html
‘Not surprising really. The reality of present day Italy is this: The President of the Republic is an “ex” communist who approved of Soviet expansionism. The speaker of the lower house is a card-carrying communist who wants to redistribute the “wealth” of the middle classes and who openly regards Stalin as a role model. There are 9 communist ministers in government. Transport strikes are now practically weekly. When the left-dominated press doesn’t wish me to discover an uncomfortable fact about the government, it simply goes on strike. Armies of state employees arrive at work – if they feel like it – at a leisurely hour, spend the day drinking coffee or making private phone calls and then leave in time to pick the kids up from school, all without any fear of being sacked. The State airline – propped up for years by the government – is on the point of failure because its bloated workforce can’t be trimmed down. Any attempt to liberalize anything at all is met by violent, disruptive mass protests that prevent the rest of us from getting to work and protect the privileges of the cosseted. Meanwhile, my accountant phones me and warns me not to earn too much this year as my modest profits threaten to push me into the next tax bracket. And to cap it all, I will probably be spending Friday night in an airport, as the short break I had planned in the UK to visit friends before Christmas is now threatened by – yes, you guessed it – a general strike. And this country is in the same economic block as Germany? Damn silly idea in the first place, if you ask me. But how on earth are we going to get out of this mess?’
Posted by James Stunell on December 13, 2006 6:38 AM
A balanced view of Pinochet
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/13/do1305.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/12/13/ixopinion.html
As opposed to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6167237.stm?ls
TPO
Thanks for that, it’s very interesting. I worked in Rome for a couple for a couple of years I have to say it – that the James Stunell view certainly evokes memories. While I love the place and go back often, it’s still horribly corrupt (no finger-pointing, everyone’s guilty of it) and commies still very much infect politics.
As fantastic as the place is in many ways, it drives you nuts eventually. I once blew my top because a dry cleaner wouldn’t let me have my suit back when it was mid-morning on a Monday. His door was open, I had money in my hand, I could see my suit hanging on the rail, but becasue he wasn’t ‘officially’ open until lunchtime he couldn’t hand me my suit in exchange for the cash. Of course, he thought I was a nutcase Inglese, but what he didn’t know was that he was the straw which broke the camel’s back (until that point, yet to be sacrificed by Tur- never mind). Months of petty bureaucracy had taken it’s toll.
Did you know that a UKIP MEP recently, in the Euro Parliament, accused Prodi of being a KGB agent?Apologies for a re-post if this has already done the rounds here:
UKIP MEP Gerard Batten reveals some interesting information given to him by ex Soviet Agent Alexander Litvinenko concerning Romano Prodi the Prime Minister of Italy and ex-European Commission president. Mr Litvinenko was recently poisoned in a murder attempt in London.
Pete: Heard about the Prodi allegation (doesn’t surprise).
Spent a month in Galarate (north of Milan) in 1973 whilst doing a course at the Agusta plant (and we thought we had it bad here with the 3 day week). Passed a railway siding where hundreds of sacks were being dragged out of a goods train and being burnt. One of the resident yanks expained that after a postal strike lasting 18 months this was the quickest way to deal with the backlog of mail.
I never thought I’d ever have a good word to say about students but, crikey, this lot are brave:
Iranian students heckle president
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6169773.stm
BBC Today Programme – Christmas Repeal
Ho ho ho! He said all festively
We all know it should be to repeal the Poor Tax aka License Fee
No chance I suppose but it would be nice if we could get a LOT of people to contact them suggesting it…
Most of the posters here seem to think the BBC has a pinko bias.
I very much disagree.
It has a definite liberal ethos.
It has a massive PC bias.
It has an anti Christian agenda.
However it does keep giving Cameron a very easy ride (perhaps he counts as new liberal).
It gives Blair and several other bigwig New Labourites a very hard time (perhaps they are the parts of Labour that are rather less than liberal and like it or not Blair IS the best leader the Tories never had).
Jonathan
Oh this should be fun. We know how the BBC likes to poke American politicians with a stick after a gaff, or even a supposed one, or after no gaff at all, really (think Bushisms, plastic turkeys, Runsfeld’s known unknowns etc). Well, we now know that the prospective head of the House Intelligence Committee was recently questioned on terrorist affairs and …. well, boobed:
The Clueless Guardians of America
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23628_The_Clueless_Guardians_of_America&only
Let’s go over to the BBC, that impartial organisation, to get their take on this Democratic embarrassment:
Erm …
UKIP MEP Gerard Batten reveals some interesting information given to him by ex Soviet Agent Alexander Litvinenko concerning Romano Prodi the Prime Minister of Italy and ex-European Commission president. Mr Litvinenko was recently poisoned in a murder attempt in London.
Pete_London | 13.12.06 – 4:36 pm
Ah, perhaps there is someone with a motive who isn’t a right-wing, Chechen-baiting, liberal-hating nutter?
Somehow, I don’t believe the investigative journalists (ha!) at the Beeb will be pursuing that lead!
Jonathan – whoops, I was going to respond to Johnathan, then decided not to get involved in an argument over what distinguishes commie swine from liberal swine (length of rope needed?) and forgot to delete your name.
Anonymous
I won’t get involved in all this Litvinenko/Chechnya/KGB/Putin/Polonium210 business. Life’s too short, and we may never know what happened.
But I would have thought that an elected representative of the people, in the European Parliament, accusing the current Italian Prime Minister and ex- top dog of the European Commission, of being a KGB spy would have been just a touch newsworthy.
Or does that sort of thing go on everyday?
“But don’t worry about me not being able to take it. Having grown up as the cleverest, best looking and most charming lad in school, I’ve had to deal with my fair share of jealous barbs.”
Pete In London sounds suspiciously like Blair at Fettes……hmm
PS I’m deaf so thank you for the portable loop system that enables me to teach my students English, earn a living, pay taxes (damm!) and lead a semi normal life.
PPS Does anyone else think that advert (ads on the BBC!??) about digital radio where a chap gets pitying looks after his son says ‘daddy doesn’t do digital’ is rather patronising and snobby? Then again it does reveal something about their mind set….
Still off topic but irresistible:
British politicians these days are weasel-word, media-sensitive, namby-pamby, be-all-things-to-all-men, convictionless oiks, right? Someone should have told Nigel Farage…
Admirable and hilarious at the same time, his closing remark is a masterpiece of concise robust delivery…
.
…and no, I’m not a member of UKIP.
dave t
You teach English? In Scotland? You like a challenge, I must say. I have no idea what Blair was like at Fettes, but if you tune your portable loop system in so it can detect piss taking you’d have figured out what I was saying.
That advert’s an example of reverse snobbery, with the insufferably posh boy announcing that daddy doesn’t do digital. Good for daddy. I hope he doesn’t pay the telly tax either.
Is al Beeb losing its grip? -Another report of a killing in Gaza, with no mention of U.S.nor Israel:-
” Hamas judge killed in Gaza Strip”
http://news.bbc.co.uk (13 Dec).
I find it advisable to use non-al Beeb sources on the Middle East.
Checking an alternative version of events from msnbc, the following
information is included in the report:
” Officials from the governing Hamas faction said Bassam al-Fara, 28, was a judge in a civil court but also a member of the group’s armed wing.” (13 Dec).
Pete_London and the rest:
All right, why not let someone who actually knows Italy (as opposed to having spent two weeks in Gallarate forty years ago) tell you a thing or two? Nobody paid attention to the rumour about Prodi, because Litvinenko had it at fourth hand (through the highly dubious Scaramella, who has been run out of two or three countries for suspicion of attempted fraud) from a few Italian fraudsters who were proved in court to have made the charges out of whole cloth to endear themselves to the Berlusconi right. Except for one half-crazed former journalist – Paolo Guzzanti, Scaramella’s contact in Italy – the Berlusconites have now completely dropped that fable, because it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Ivan Marini and the other crooks involved had invented the charges for money. Marini and the rest are now having a long rest cure at the expense of the Italian taxpayer. The UKIP twit who repeated that charge made a fool of himself before anyone who knew the facts. I am no supporter of Mr.Prodi, whom I regard as an unprincipled clerical politician of the worst kind, hiding behind a threadbare disguise as an academic. But this fable is pure tinfoil hat territory, and your the reason why nobody picked up your UKIP man’s charges is that every Italian citizen and every journalist who knew anything about Italy had heard it all five years before, and heard it destroyed. It only exposed the poor UKIP fool as the most gullible, provincial, ignorant of idiots.
(In point of fact, the Marini charges may have had a further dimension. As they were dismantled and publicly ridiculed, public attention was drawn away from the issue of an enormous and visibly crooked deal between the Italian government and the Serbian tyrant Milosevic, which amounted to financing Milosevic’s war and may incidentally have left a deposit of millions all over certain politicians’ hands.)
As for the drycleaner who told you to go where you belong anyway, Pete, you have no idea how you gave yourself away. An Italian will open at midnight for you, or do a two-hour job in half an hour, if you are polite about it and treat him nicely. That is an absolute law. You evidently behaved like an imperial proconsul visiting an inferior being, and got what you deserved. To anyone who knows Italy, the scene explains itself.
The question remains: why is
al Beeb ignoring this news story?
“Possible UK link with alleged Islamic terrorists arrested in Ceuta.”
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/
Fabio
You overstep yourself. An Italian will open at midnight for you … Yes, a certain dry cleaner on the Lungotevere in Trastevere, Rome probably will, lovely woman that she is. Her useless, pigheaded husband, on the other hand, wouldn’t open for anyone, even when the door’s open. If you’ll forgive me, my Roman friends told me he’s an example of a certain Roman for whom the weekend ends on Monday lunchtime, and I’ll take their opinion. You’ll be glad to know I left that shop with my suit and the thanks of the Roman woman behind me, whom he was also blanking. Wonder what she did to upset him?
As for Prodi and the allegation, the point is that he was accused, in the European Parliament, of being an agent for one of the foulest of organisations, and Litvinenko was cited as a source. During hsi illness and since his death, Litvinenko’s life and activities have been scrutinised, yet this episode is strangely glossed over. If the BBC, an organisation which runs with crazed conspiracies about how the US base on Diego Garcia survived the tsunami, which runs stories on Aberdeen getting a new bus depot, can report all that it does, I’d say it can mention the allegations against Prodi, even in passing or even to dismiss them.
Pete in London
The “bus depot” in Aberdeen is in fact the new worldwide headquarters of First Group the transport (and bus) group and will bring hundreds of jobs (to a city that I never visit unless I have to actually!)
PS: I have an advantage at my school; half the kids are English thanks to the two huge RAF bases nearby! And having done 23 years in a Highland Regiment I know when people are taking the pee….
Latest laugh of the day. 1300 soldiers serving in NI have (gasp!) criminal convictions over a 6 year period. The Beeb fails to point out that these will for the most part be traffic offences, forgetting to pay their TV licence (the scoundrels!) and other things which would not normally cause an uproar. Also divide it by the thousands of troops who serve there for two years as well as those out for 6 months and the proportion means that the Army are actually rather a law abiding organisation compared with say the young males of Anderstontown…
Meanwhile they allow a member of Sinn Fein to say that because this proves the Army’s criminality then the British Army should be removed! Nothing to balance that – for example “this compares with the thousands murdered by Sinn Fein/IRA” and their loyalist opponents….
Twits.
http://newcultureforum.blogspot.com/2006/12/wishful-thoughts-for-2007.html
Even Fabio will laugh out loud at this.
Alan:
The question remains: why is
al Beeb ignoring this news story?
“Possible UK link with alleged Islamic terrorists arrested in Ceuta.”
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/
Alan | 13.12.06 – 6:27 pm
Yes, I wondered that too…
Cuckoo writes: Even if you could get thier speech up to speed, how do you expect these deaf people to hear what *you* are saying to *them*?”
When hearing impaired students come up to my circulation desk without an interpreter we write notes.
gordon-bennet:
They forgot to put in this item: after widespread public protest, the leadership of both Italian leading parties has been replaced by new groups with a minimum of connection with the past. Mr.Berlusconi has left Italy permanently to live in gilded exile in the Bahamas, and Mr.Prodi has taken residence in the United Kingdom, where (following generous donations from rather nebulous sources) he has been given a professorship at a leading university. They have been followed into exile by several hundreds of their closest collaborators. The new leadership of the two political parties have formed a government of national unity for the purpose of excluding Communists, Greens and Radicals from having so much as a sniff of power.
dave t
And having done 23 years in a Highland Regiment I know when people are taking the pee….
Some people getting their knickers in a twist I can live with, but having nosed around your blog and knowing of your years of service, I was a touch concerned that even the Highland Regiments were losing their touch. That’s a relief.
gordon-bennett
This link: http://newcultureforum.blogspot.com/2006/12/wishful-thoughts-for-2007.html
Superb stuff. That’s the best laugh I’ve had since reading about that camel at Istanbul Airport.
anyone else find it somewhat incredible that a town as small as Ipswich would have a “red light district” in the first place and a heroin/crack problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich
Roxana: Fine for a one-off situation.
Not so good for chatting to your friends down the pub, when you’re having a meal, or even just wondering around the supermarket.
Those trivialities aside, trying to understand what your doctor is telling you about your medicine by exchanging notes is just not funny.
Many natural signers have a poor grasp of written English – mainly because the education system handles them extreemly badly, but also because English word order and sentance construction is fundamentally different to BSL.
It only exposed the poor UKIP fool as the most gullible, provincial, ignorant of idiots.
In which case I’m surprised didn’t run the story, if only to put the boot into a party they detest.
John Reith – how many UKIP supporters amongst your colleagues?
Oh, and JR – get yer spellin’ checked!
Maybe your £multi-billion organisation could help. On the other hand…
Matt Frei globs off over Barack Obama:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6173373.stm
Sample…
“Barack Obama also has a good line to fend off any questions about his weird name.
“When I first started to work in public life… people would ask: ‘Hey brother, what’s with your name? You called Alabama or Yo’ Mama?'”
Must be the way he tells ’em.
Obama is reported as having the black vote tied up, simply because he, Obama, is considered black. Let’s look at it another way: if Obama were to be the candidate for president and his white opponent were garnering votes from whites simply because he was white, would that not be ‘racist’ and worthy of condemnation by the BBC?
Just to add to what Dave T wrote about serving soldiers and 1300 criminal convictions over the past 6 years here is a breakdown on British troop numbers taken from BBC sources;
2006 = 8500
2005 = 10500
2004 = 15000
2003 = 12500
2002 = 13500
2001 = 13000
Total = 73000
Now I haven’t included the TA into that. (when a TA soldier reports for duty he is classed as a serving soldier) and I’m not sure if the BBC has included the THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENTs into that seeing as they have the 2nd, 3rd ,4th Batt based in the province and plus the Rangers based at Portadown (They are the old UDR under a new badge) so include a lot of part time soldiers (not to be confused with the TA) I’d guess the BBC hasn’t included their numbers into the collective total.
So with that in mind I’d say the total number of Soldiers who have served in the province during the last 6 years to be over 10000 (and that is keeping it low)
Now what is a criminal conviction? Parking ticket? Over the limit? TV licence, how about speeding, I’m sure that the majority of those convictions fall under those criminal offences. I mean if it was Rape, Murder or blowing up a catholic church we would know about it..
1% of the total figure of people wearing green isn’t that big a figure when we take out the mundane offences like fines etc then that figure will fall even more. Now contrast that crime figure with the nice thugs who use religion in the province in which to say they are better than their neighbour.
P.S
I did 3 years in the province. Never saw the TV detector vans visiting any nasty areas on a night. But oh did they visit the camps. (And oh how the lads used to bitch about 4 separate TVs in the same room each having to have a TV licence taped to the side)
The BBC and pointing the finger.
Since the Muslim prophet Mohammed died Islam has played host to vicious in-house fighting which makes the current situation in the Levant (and I’d say Iraq) seem tame.
Everybody wants to be the leader. (maybe that explains why all the leaders until the death of Ali all died violently and may also explain why those leaders (mistakenly) sent the faithful outwards to conquer rather than stay at home and conquer them (Didn’t help at all) Well the Palestinians are no different and if you only used the BBC for your news you wouldn’t know of the huge bun fight the different fractions have been having well since before 1947. (Just look at Black September) After Israel moved out of Gaza last year the idiots have really been having a go at each other. The latest was the deliberate targeting of 4 children (a little girl survived) in which 3 young brothers were murdered and lately the slotting of a Hamas judge. So how does the BBC get around explaining why the faithful have a penchant for war, war instead of jaw, jaw? They blame the jew;
Israel’s informers – real and imagined
The knowledge that thousands of Palestinians may be working covertly for Israel’s internal security services is leading to paranoia and murder in the West Bank.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/6176337.stm
Yup those nasty Jews are to blame for when the faithful kill their own.
Allan@Aberdeen | 14.12.06 – 12:36 am
The nice thing about this is that hillary clinton will have to grit her teeth and never be able to hint that “it’s just because he’s black” as she would if bho were a Republican.
Nor can she get her black dem friends to say that he’s not a real black.
The BBC and the truce, the whole truce and nothing but the truce
Palestinian killed on Gaza border
Israeli troops have shot and killed a Palestinian man on the Gaza border, the army has said. An Israeli military spokesman said soldiers opened fire after the man approached the heavily guarded border fence with a weapon and grenades. Palestinian medical sources in Gaza City confirmed that the man died.
It was the first such death since a ceasefire came into force in the territory more than two weeks ago, despite violations of the truce. From the start of the truce Palestinian militants have fired a number of rockets into Israel territory but they have caused no deaths or serious injuries, the BBC’s Alan Johnston in Gaza says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6177929.stm
No deaths or serious injuries BBC? Not for a lack of trying on the behalf of those misguided criminals then.
al-BBC World dropped by Israeli satellite TV in favour of al-Jazeera English.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1971223,00.html
Could it be that the Israelis have opted for the lesser of two evils?
Joe Calzaghe on BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards:
“Darren Clarke said he was embarrassed he’d got an award ahead of me and that I hadn’t won it,” said the unbeaten Calzaghe, now into his 10th year as WBO super-middleweight champion.
Others told me afterwards they couldn’t believe I hadn’t won.
It was great to hear something like that from fellow sports people.
Everybody can draw their own conclusions, but a lot of people said they were disgusted and that I got robbed.
I thought they might have given me second or third, but it was a BBC award and I’m an ITV fighter.
If I was a BBC fighter, things might have been different.”
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0700sports/1000boxing/tm_headline=darren-clarke-said-he-was-embarrassed-i-didn-t-win-bbc-sports-award&method=full&objectid=18253973&siteid=50082-name_page.html
Seriously o/t, but the bishop of Liverpool, James Jones, was in Denver last week where he said some seriously idiotic things to a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News about global warming, including that “it is appropriate to liken global warming to slavery because the poor are being oppressed by climate changes that are ruining harvests.” The reporter, of course, swallowed this little nugget whole.
The BBC worldview: it’s everywhere you want to be.
Nom de guerre: If Joe Calzaghe said that – not that I doubt you – then he is a bad loser and has no perspective. You do not win an European and a World title in your speciality by being a softie, and if he thinks that horse-riding is not a physical sport, I would love to see him try to control half a ton of temperamental, hay-guzzling speed machine – let alone deal with falls, horse kicks and other unpleasant little accidents. I would also love to see him deal with the ordinary life of a stables, grooming, mucking out, and the rest. He is the one who is sounding like a petty little spoiled lady, and Zara Phillips who sounds like an adult. And even if she had not won, he could and indeed should have lost to other good candidates. I thought there were a couple of better candidates than Miss Phillips myself: Taylor, for his absolute dominance in his sport over many years – not many people in any game have such a record – and the cycling lady, whose name I now forget, because there is no sport in the world as tough as road cycling, and the winner of a Tour de France has performed the equivalent of one marathon a day for three weeks. I also thought that, though I abhor golf, Darren Clarke’s achievement was quite impressive. The same might be said for the gymnast. On the other hand, there were at least two joke candidatures: Jensen Button, who has not yet won anything of substance, and Monty Panasar – ditto. I imagine that in a generally poor year for British sport they could not find as many as ten people who had genuinely achieved. But then, it is impossible to have a competition of this kind without disagreement (look at what happens about the Oscars every March of every year).
Fabio P.Barbieri:
Pete_London and the rest:
All right, why not let someone who actually knows Italy (as opposed to having spent two weeks in Gallarate forty years ago) tell you a thing or two?
It was a month Fabio and I have been back since. I just knew I wouldn’t have to prod too hard to get a response!
A very good Dutch friend of mine who was on the same overseas contract circuit described Italians as Arabs with boots on. By the way, none of my post cards arrived back in the UK.
VC for Para Budd, one of the Helmand heroes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/14/nvc14.xml
On the bbc? Only in their press review of the Telegraph.
bbc at the forefront of news gathering again.
Hey TPO as a pensioner if you were Italian you could spend your retirement sitting in the sun eating and drinking fantastic things with your family, rather than the British approach of watching Sky Sports on your own and writing tedious whinging letters to the Daily Mail.
Don’t diss the place.
It was pointed out on Natalie’s Holocaust denial thread a few threads down that the BBC’s Frances Harrison stated that, “The people of the conference disagree with the account of the holocaust believed by many people.”
I also was astounded when I heard that but then I thought, well it’s typical BBC, and after all she’s a Muslim married to an Iranian. Then she seemed to change tack completely (or possibly she was completely unaware of the implications of what she’d said) and seemed to be almost on the verge of expressing disgust at the conference, as I pointed out here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/116561585021593760/#321534
I’m repeating myself because I think it’s important to highlight the occasions when the BBC gets it right.
Wonders will never cease. Could be there’s hope yet for the BBC.
On the other hand, there were at least two joke candidatures: Jensen Button, who has not yet won anything of substance, and Monty Panasar – ditto.
Jenson Button: agreed.
Monty: 5 for 92 – get in there. Those ashes may not, quite, be lost just yet. If Monty turns the series I’ll go round to Zara’s and have that award out of her hand.
Cockney –
… rather than the British approach of watching Sky Sports on your own and writing tedious whinging letters to the Daily Mail.
You forget being mugged on the way home from the post office with your pension. Maybe this is why 3000 post offices are being closed – it’s an anti-crime measure.
Could it be that the Israelis have opted for the lesser of two evils?
Nom de guerre | 14.12.06 – 4:14 am
Yeah, could be. A low point was reached in relations between Israel and the BBC in March 2003 when it broadcast a reprehensible propaganda video titled Israel’s Secret Weapon. That let to Israel stopping cooperation with the BBC.
While al Jazeera must be at least as anti-Israel as the BBC, it seems to be less carefully PC and to have a less oppressive editorial hand when it comes to broadcasting what’s actually happening on the planet. But this is speculation based on my very limited exposure to al Jazeera and the occasional article I’ve read on them.
Typo alert:
That let should be That led.
Just in case John Reith starts moaning about my English.
Cockney
Why aren’t you at work earning money to pay the tax that goes towards my pension? That’s my police pension by the way. I don’t get the state pension for another 5 years and a bit.
With regard to ‘dissing’ as you so eloquently put it, I actually have great affection for Italy, not withstanding the fact that on my first ‘flying’ visit in 1969 I was arrested at gunpoint along with 26 of my colleagues at Naples airport. The little detail that we had just stepped out of the back of an RAF Argosy, all wearing UN flashes and ferrying 3 Wessex helicopters, all done up in UN markings, to the Cyprus peacekeeping force didn’t cut the mustard with the local Benito lookalike.
We exacerbated the situation by having tears of laughter running down our faces as this little twit marched up and down, waving his pistol, and screaming ‘No permissio’.
Yes I have fond memories of the place. As to watching Sky sports all day long, I can but dream, for I have a two year old daughter who runs me ragged.
Nice chatting with you but I must off now to mums & toddlers group. Keep working now.
I forgot to add that this being Surrey the mums are the yummy mummy types, not the inner city dog type. Bye