66 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Deborah says:

    I think the start of an open thread is a good opportunity for me to thank both the contributors and people who post comments for their well considered and constructed points which make us realise that what the BBC gives us is only their version of the truth.  Thank you 

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  2. cjhartnett says:

    Yes-echo what Deboarh says!
    Thanks to David-our American correspondent, to Sue for the Middle East affairs and to Robin for Science.
    They therefore make Webb, Mardell, Bowen and Harrabin etc redundant…I know where the truth will be told. Not on the MSM either!
    As well as all the rest of us like Craig etc who keep a watching brief with fine comments.
    God Bless us all-and those upstairs who set it all up and keep it running!

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  3. Natsman says:

    Yes, what they said above…

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  4. Alcuin says:

    Melanie Phillips notes that the BBC is wheeling out a load of morally compromised celebs with a view to settling scores over exposure of their vacuous lifestyles by the press (presumable with the NotW leading the charge). She mentions Steve Coogan, Hugh Grant and Max Mosley. I would like to expand on the exhibitions of the first two.

    Coogan was the outraged “victim” in Newsnight’s little Kangeroo court on Friday. The agenda behind this pantomime was obvious to anyone wit eyes to see. First they got a hapless former NotW features editor Paul McMullan as the Aunt Sally. Then they wheeled out their big gun and moral arbiter (incidentally Labour party member, supporter and funder), former BBC DG Greg Dyke. Throw in the outraged Coogan, add the innefectual and scarcely sympathetic Emily Maitlis and light the blue touch paper. McMullan scarcely got a syllable out befire he was shouted down by Coogan. Far from asking McMullan to finish his point, she then turned to Dyke. If ever a Newsnight item was intended to generate more heat than light, this was it.

    Grant was on Question time, where he made the fatuous suggestion that while the broadsheets were OK and responsible, the tabloids should be regulated. A proposal both ridiculous, unworkable and pernicious.

    The Radio 4 Any Questions programme was devoted entirely to the hpone hacking issue. Caroline Spelman was inneffectual, but Matthew Parris was brilliant. He has gone up several notches in my estimation, and his contributions are well wirth listening to.

    A few pertinent quotes:

    At the BBC, where I worked for seven years, homosexuality was very nearly compulsory. – Patrick Muirhead

    When reading [P.D.] James, you do find yourself nostalgic for crack cocaine, anal sex and people calling themselves ‘mutha’. – Mark Lawson (Guardian)

    We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. – Thomas Babington Macaulay

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Can’t say that what’s been ‘wheeled out’ so far in the form of Prescott or Campbell has exactly set the moral bar too high, compromise-wise, in political terms either.

      Even that pipsqueak Miliband, who seems to have mostly been ‘in the room’ and hence has a degree of separation, is being only given outings to pontificate without challenge.

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      • Millie Tant says:

        “Even that pipsqueak Miliband…”

        Mr Pooter living it up! He’s loving every solemn moment posing on the box as serious politician and weighty pontificator with something of note to say.

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    • D B says:

      Brendan O’Neill covers some of the same ground as Phillips in his article on the “dictatorship of do-gooders“.  
       
      I particularly like his reference to “time-rich, tabloid-hatin’ Twitterers”. The BBC news agenda is increasinlgy driven by the obsessions of these people – a relativley tiny group, unrepresentative of the public, but whose views are shared by many at the BBC who then act as Twitter’s megaphone.

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    • George R says:

      “Letter from Simon Kelner”

      on ‘Newsnight’-Coogan-Self

      http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/letter-from-simon-kelner-2311871.html

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  5. noggin says:

    anyone see the marr show….  
    Rageh Omar  waxing on about the red cresent films(is that the bbc s new name 😀 )..muslim moh doc. sunday?  
    i giggled when marr, said “of course you could film in mecca..which most of us couldn t do”…hmmm why is that pandy?  
    can t afford the bus fare?..too exotic a place?…inclement weather?  
     or that maybe  it is a REAL “apartheid wall” situation, for any non muslim….  
    anyway soon changed the subject,( moh doc) in case any questions may get a little erm..difficult  
     
    mind you…..remember ‘An Islamic History of Europe’: utter utter bilge.      
    him, describing some non existent mythical, paradise  then, clenching his fist and squeezing a tear in anguish, (as he explained that the Christians were able to re-conquer Spain 🙂      
    …ahem….i know ragead…we could all be living in crapistan eh.      
           
    i wonder how many lefty beebos helped to film in multi culti Mecca,(titter).      
    The signs are very very bad,      
    pt1. theyve filmed in Jerusalem?? where the old, jew hating, child molesting murderer, never even went.      
    pt2. an EXCRUTIATING line up, of apologists, to drone on ignoring the painful truth, about this paragon of wickedness who made hitler look like a boy scout.      
           
    Why haven t we seen Jian, Hindi, or Sikh extended docs      
    or one indepth about the talmud, or jewish faith      
    over many days?…..why such disproportionate coverage?      
    why a muslim head, of religious programming disproportionate to the vast majority of viewers?      
    Why is he is showing marked bias, particulary on so called flagship programmes, that include religion like biq questions, sunday live etc, –  to islam? disproportionate to to other faiths?    
     
    anyone hazard a guess 🙂   


    i am sorry to keep banging on with this
    but i can see this doc in particular, (with the BBC moniker), finding its way into multi culti RE lessons in the future. for OUR youngsters
    impressionable minds
    Devoid of the FACTS from islams own,(if one can consider them so, & muslims certainly do) authentic texts, & i know some of what i have written above appears harsh, murderer? well yes..in one soiree in particular beheading 200 jews in one session HIMSELF.
    i could go on but no need.
    look, either this loathsome individual is as the texts say, and should be avoided at all costs for anyone with an ounce of sanity…or
    they are false… & why? would such abhorrent falsehoods be written as authentic texts?.
    if the BBC uses “Authentic” material it better go on AFTER the watershed.

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    • matthew rowe says:

      “i am sorry to keep banging on with this” don’t worry Noggin your  clever and well thought posts on this are great !
      keep it up !

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      • noggin says:

        well well, ep 1,,,,,,50 mins of (victim),moh, (oppressed),moh
        (i kid you not….poor little), moh…..
        a deft change of emphasis, from moh to THE prophet, bludgeoned home at every opportunity thereafter.
        A fluff piece of the worst kind, did i say EXCRUTIATING line up of apologists, literally the living end…. one drawling man of peace drone,(they shoe horned in R.Spencer for ahem…balance 🙂  don t blink wink wink)

        Omar skirting around anything possibly erm shall we say “difficult” 😉
        handpicking deliberately obscure reasons for hmmm VIOLENCE
        ie “upset” re VIOLENCE, “offended” re VIOLENCE, “cartoons” re VIOLENCE, “writing a book” re VIOLENCE… oh i m sure you get the picture.
        a prime example :-
        Glibly stating “people can come from all over the world to Mecca”
        ….NO THEY CANNOT not if they re non muslim, they can t
        this constant drip drip name dropping, from the talmud/bible
        just like abrahamic faiths etc etc, no it is not, it considers everything
        non islamic to be perversion of the worst kind..worse still rectified
        AND you know what that means.
        Piously bleating out that well used apologist drone “theres no compulsion in religion” and expects us to believe the Western understanding of it. Not the islamic narrative…ie. the observable behaviour of Muslims over 1350 years.
        What have Muslims done, when they have conquered, by force or otherwise, non-Muslim lands and peoples?
        Ans. They offer three possibilities: death, conversion, and, at least to those who can be classified as ahl al-kitab or “people of the book,” permanent status as dhimmis, with a host of political, economic, and social disabilities which together added up to lives of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity
        and…and…and…
        there is so much whitewash ALREADY

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      When Marr brought up the subject of people who had objections before even seeing the feature, I thought, “Here we go, Islamophobia time.”  It was really stupid the way Marr pretended that he didn’t know if Omar was a Mohammedan.  He should have just said, “You’re a Muslism, and so this will be told from a Muslim perspective,” which would have been fair enough, and actually was the result of the phony, “Are you? Mmm.”

      In any case, that even further raised my hopes of a real complaint being spoken out loud.  Except Marr then said the party who objected before even seeing the programme were the Iranians.  The only objection worth discussing, you see, is the Iranian complaint. Although, we don’t know what it actually was because the discussion of that topic ended with Marr’s speculation that it was about Shia versus Sunni.

      And that was it.  Nobody else seems to have raised an eyebrow, pre-emptively or not.

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  6. Alcuin says:

    While on the subject of Rageh Omaar, I would like to mention one of his remarks on (not sure which) Start the Week or In our Time. He said that he thought that the Muslim concept of Jihad probably evolved from the experience of the Muslims during the Crusades. Omaar is a Muslim and there can be no way he cannot know the true origin of Jihad.

    In the Islamic Trilogy (Koran, Sunna, Hadith), only 3% of references to Jihad relate to “spiritual struggle”. While the word means literally “struggle”, there is no doubt that all other references to Jihad in the Trilogy are to war, conquest, banditry, enslavement and forced conversions.

    Omaar is not making any sort of honest mistake here, he is lying. His programmes on Mohammad will, in the manner of his series “The Islamic History of Europe”, will be the most fawning and nauseating hagiography yet of the founder of this plague on humanity, leaving out the raids, the massacres, the womanising and the vindictive persecution of enemies real and imagined.

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    • noggin says:

      It appears that Aus maybe going down the same suicidal route,
      a government guy sacked for associating islam,(or more correctly moh with terrorism?) calling him”the first terrorist of Islam, very strange” as someone not a millionn miles from the point of this thread, says that?, according to so called yet again authentic Islamic texts?

       “I have been made victorious through terror” (Bukhari 4.52.220).

       Sydney Morning Herald, July 10:

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      As it happens, I was just reading a relevant piece in History Today magazine (sorry, subscription only).  From the June 2011 Issue, Vol. 61 Issue 6.  The opening paragraph, on pg. 47:

      When Mohammed the Prophet of Islam (ever heard the BBC use the qualifier?) died in 632 the new religion had already gathered a number of impressive victories on the battlefield.  The armies of Islam quickly and easily conquered teh Arabian peninsula before moving on to take the homelands of their various neighbours.  Marching out of Arabia in 639 they entered non-Arab Egypt; 43 years later they reached the shores of the Atlantic; and in 711 they invaded Spain.  In just 70 years they had subdued the whole of North Africa, instituting a new order.  This conquest, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was more comlpete than anything achieved by previous invaders and the changes it wrought proved permanent.

      So the Mohammedans were fighting to subdue the West 300 years before the First Crusade was even dreamt of.

      There’s also this, on pg. 49:


      The reaction of the native Egyptians to the Arab invasion was mixed.  Heraclus, who regained Egypt from the Persians in 629, had been working towards the forced conversion of the Coptic Christian majority to his own Chalcedonian branch of Christianity. Having been allowed to practice whichever brand of Christianity they chose by the Zoroastrian Persians, many Egyptians were happyt to welcome the Muslim invaders, who offered the same promise of religious freedom.  Left to pursue their religious rites and to retain ownership of church property as long as they paid the jizya.  Copts enjoyed greater freedom than under their co-religionist overlords from Constantinople.  Jizya was one important reason why the Muslim armies that conquered North Africa did not follow a policy of enforced conversion of local populations: any increase in the Muslim population of a newly occupied land meant a reduction in tax revenue.

      So much for the justice and tolerance inherent in Islam that the BBC always tells us about.  It’s really about exploitation.  And the tolerance never lasts, as the majority end up converting anyway.  In any case, this is a perspective I’ve never heard from the BBC.

      I note also in this article by an actual historian (who has not been asked by a producer to come up with something along a specific agenda) there is frequent use of emotional terms like “conquest” and “subjugation”.

      And finally, near the end of the article on pg. 53:

      As the 14th-century Andalusian historian Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi tells it, on reaching the waters of the Atlantic Uqba (Ummayad governor and empire expander of North Africa in 670) rode his horse into the ocean, crying out:  ‘Oh God, if the sea had not prevented me, I would have galloped on forever like Alexander the Great, upholding your faith and fighting the unbelievers!’ While possibly apocryphal, the account rightly remains one of the most famous and colourful from the period and is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the Arab conquests.

      So yes, it seems that Omar told a lie.

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  7. cjhartnett says:

    Note that the BBC did not get Marcus Brigstocke to play the role of Muhammad then-after I proposed that they are remarkably similar…eco friendly, wind turbines, approve of the Brighton lifestyle…and of course are equally comical!
    So no doubt we`ll be getting a Ka`aba black square over the crib-the “schoolyard”-walking down the aisle-playing with his kids-beheading differently abled Semites. Be great to see Rageh illustrate Muhammads life without anyone playing him!
    That Teddy Bear didn`t want to be considered after the unpleasantness in Sudan a few years back!

    Noggin says it all far better that I…but the only reason why the BBC put out this pap is “because they are scared not to”…speed bumps for us, but a red carpet with Axminster woven through it for the Muslim Brothers.

    Noted that my local “diversity” day that the Council put on yesterday had every flag on earth round the perimeter-even South Sudan!…but they didn`t seem to feel the need for the Israeli one.
    In their books on ethnic monitoring-guess which “vulnerable group, subject to attacks and harrasssment” did NOT get any recognition or counting in?
    Thank God they-now WE-don`t need the State to defend them-now US!
    God Bless Israel and the USA!

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    • noggin says:

      it makes you seethe, as you know the beebo message boards
      SHOULD be overloaded,(as should be normal for a  corp WE pay for) with comments on this,
      but you know they won t, down to an intentional  lack of opportunity, & slimy  BIASED moderator tactics…very reminicent of the infantile way some youtube channelers behave, listening beebo

      would anybody trust beebo with letters to the editor, e-mails etc?

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  8. Umbongo says:

    With all the hoo-hah over News International it’s refreshing to see that Today is able to do the equivalent of walk and chew gum at the same time.  While keeping up the noise on NI, the re-structuring of Southern Cross provides Humphrys with “evidence” that publicly provided care is infinitely superior to any private sector provision (on the “continuity of care” argument) to which Danny Alexander decided not to disagree.

    SC is being restructured: that the homes are not being closed; that care will continue; that the landlords are not actually going to be running the homes (as Humphrys ludicrously implied) was not mentioned until the chairman of SC was allowed his say.  To anyone with a passing interest in the way the private sector works, this restructuring is a classic administration of an insolvent company.  The creditors are effectively taking control of/safeguarding the assets they financed while the basic business – providing care for the elderly – continues.

    The situation is worrying, of course, for the homes’ customers but there is no indication that one – let alone tens of thousands – care-home residents are to be turned out on to the streets.  Accordingly, the continuous screaming of “market/private sector failure” and panic inducing rhetoric by Humphrys and the rest of the BBC ignorati are a disgrace to journalism.  This conduct by the BBC is as culpable in its way as the NOTW debacle since it constitutes a deliberate objective of frightening the vulnerable while smearing the private sector: an 8-word description which sums up the general policy of the BBC rather more accurately than “nation shall speak peace unto nation”.

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  9. pounce_uk says:

    How the B in bBC stands for bias.  

    Last week was the anniversary of the suicide bombings in London on the 7th of July 2005. The bBC as the state broadcaster never mentioned it once.  Today is the 16th anniversary of Srebrenica. The bBC feels the British public needs to be informed about that.

    Just as it feels we need to be informed about how Imans in Lancashire are being taught about the ills of smoking.  Then there was the article over the weekend about how somebody built an illegal church in the UK. Now contrast that single incident with the numerous examples of mosques built in the Uk without planning permission aka…illegal. A subject the bBC never seems to illuminate.   

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  10. pounce_uk says:

    Blackburn imams in Ramadan quit smoking call
    Imams in Lancashire are to receive training from the British Heart Foundation to help them advise mosque-goers to quit smoking during Ramadan.


    The charity said that people from southern Asia are 50% more likely to die from heart disease than the general population.
     
    Above is a bBC article about how Islamic preachers (Imans) are receiving training in which to be able to get smokers to quit during Ramadan. Let’s see..Imam, Ramadan,I take it the bBC is talking about Muslims. Yet the next paragraph in typical bBC double speak (It seems white man does talk with forked tongue) Then masks the Islamic connection by saying that people from South Asia are more prone to Heart disease. It seems that the bBC mission statement ‘Don’t blame the Muslim’ is perfectly presented for all to see in this biased article. No wonder the bBC is spending so much time looking at Wapping. It doesn’t want people to start looking at its own peccadilloes. Silly me you can’t, they have a court injunction which prevents you from doing so.

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    • Roland Deschain says:

      Hey, at least they’ve mentioned the fact that Muslims light up cigarettes.  The BBC tries not to mention it when Muslims light up their errant daughters.

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  11. cjhartnett says:

    Looking forward to the health zealots squirting their water pistols at the smoking imams and followers as they smoke outside Friday prayers in Balsall Heath or Manningham.
    Or will that be let pass on account of cultural sensitivities like TB and honour killings…indeed, would offering your daughter up for marriage or offering her a ciggie be the bigger crime?…oh dear, what are we to do?…Where is Raj Persaud when you need him eh?

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  12. pounce_uk says:

    The bBCs  green agenda, Richard Black and those nasty Nuclear power plants.
    Fukushima: Nuclear power’s VHS relic?
    By Richard Black,Environment correspondent, BBC News.
    The most obvious cause of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station was the massive wall of tsunami water that swept the site clean of back-up electricity generation on 11 March, removing cooling capacity from reactor cores and resulting in serial meltdown.
    Would a newer reactor have fared better? Was the relationship between industry and regulators too close? Perhaps.

    So the bBC’s ace reporter talks about the US holding onto Nuclear technology (unlike the Russians who shared their technology with everybody..Not) is the reason why the world is full of unsafe Nuclear reactors. In fact according to Black, the US didn’t get it right with their reactors either. But then he is the world’s foremost expert on environmental issues. Take for example the reactors in question, not once does he mention that they were hit by a double wammy. They survived the earth quake, the reason they didn’t survive the tidal wave is because the walls at 20ft high were no good against the unprecedented 50ft waves. Nor does he mention that the reactors were in line to be closed down. (half of which had been) Nor does he mention that what transpired could not happen in the latest reactors. You see the Fukushima reactors were built in 1971 over 40 years ago. Now look at how safe cars have become in that time: crumple zones, seat belts, airbags, Abs etc.. then contrast that with the Nuke industry.
    The bBC peddling green issues as the only way.

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  13. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC , The Immigration Advisory Service and the facts.
    Immigration Advisory Service goes into administration
    The Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) has gone into administration, BBC News has learnt.The free service is one of the leading charities giving legal advice and representation to immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK…
    BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw says the reasons why the charity is in administration are unclear, but cuts to the legal aid budget and to fees for doing legally-funded work are thought to be contributory factors.

    So the tax payer funded help service for illegal immigrants has had to close down and according to the bBCs expert its all down to cuts to the legal aid budget. Which is strange as further down the article there’s this:
    The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, said the IAS’s decision to go into administration was “theirs alone”. A spokesman said: “During recent stewardship activities LSC raised concerns around financial management and claims irregularities which prompted IAS trustees’ to conclude that the organisation was no longer financially viable.

    Get that. It wasn’t the budget cuts to legal aid which forced the IAS to close but rather financial mismanagement. Different story ,different angle and not the Governments fault. But not at the bBC.

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  14. George R says:

    Islam Not BBC (INBBC) remembers ‘massacre’ of ‘Bosnian Muslims’ in 1995.

    But INBBC doesn’t remember ‘massacre’ of ‘mainly British non-Muslims’ by Islamic jihadists in London, 2005.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14106212

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  15. John Anderson says:

    In an earlier thread Robin Horbury took Richard Black to task – again – over his misleading article on temperature data.

    This new post from WattsUpWithThat takes Black apart totally on his claims that sceptics can only argue by means of cherry-picking:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/11/the-bbcs-richard-black-engages-in-goldilocks-picking/

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  16. Roland Deschain says:

    Apologies if someone else has already posted this:
    If Rupert Murdoch is too powerful, then so is the BBC

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  17. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC and its use of lubricating oils in which to please its Hezb-allah masters.  
    Israel-Lebanon sea border dispute looms over gas fields  
    A maritime border dispute is looming between Israel and Lebanon that could set off a new conflict over lucrative energy reserves. The neighbouring countries have declared overlapping boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea… The Israeli line gives it more territory than the one that Lebanon drew and submitted to the UN several months ago.  
    The bBC reports on how those nasty hooknosed jews are stealing the resources of the Lebanese according to a new maritime map drawn up by Lebanon this year. Funny enough the bBC while providing a map of the region doesn’t (For some reason) point out where those oilfields are.  
    Well here is a map of where those gas fields are, notice anything ? 

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    • pounce_uk says:

      And here is the real reason behind the bBCs latest diatribe against the jews:  
      Hizbullah claims that that the natural gas fields recently discovered in the Mediterranean, belong to Lebanon and warned Israel against extracting gas from them. Iranian English language paper “Tehran Times” quotes Hezbollah’s executive council chief Hashem Safieddine as saying that it would not allow Israel to loot Lebanese gas resources.  
      And  
      Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi said yesterday that his government was considering claiming a stake in the natural gas reserves recently discovered off the coast of Israel, according to Egypt’s newspaper Fahmi observed that three other countries besides Israel – Lebanon, Cyprus and Turkey – were also considering staking claims on the gas reserves.  
      And  
      Last August, Lebanon submitted to the United Nations its version of where the maritime border should be – the exclusive economic zone. In November, it submitted its version of its western border, with Cyprus. The Lebanese proposal does not include the large Tamar and Leviathan gas prospects, operated by Delek Energy and U.S. company Noble Energy.  
      What is it with Muslims demanding and stealing anything they don’t have?  Instead of saying it how it is, the bBC says it how it thinks it should be..Muslims victims, jews crooks.  
      Here is little more information which the bBC doesn’t provide the reader with:  
      Nobel Oil  
      Tamar gas field  
      Leviathan gas field  

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Thanks for this, pounce.  Interesting source, this Menas Association.  They seem very straightforward and impartial, even though they look to the BBC and Guardian a lot for their news.

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  18. George R says:

    Glenn Beck in Knesset, expresses his solidarity with Israel (video clip)

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/your-people-is-my-people-beck-delivers-speech-before-jewish-politicians-knesset/

    Next week, INBBC’s Jeremy Bowen? Only kidding.

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  19. pounce_uk says:

    How the bBC pulls the wool over your eyes over the so called plight of poor Palestinians in Gaza.
    The bBC has run numerous articles this past month on how the nasty jews are withholding Aid to Gaza and that those very small ships that are currently berthed in Greece are the only means in which to get food to these people under siege. Well here is one story the bBC doesn’t want you to know about:
    Palestinians take part in Championship Horse Jumping
    I wonder how the British people would respond if this story was aired at the bBC?

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  20. Hugh says:

    The BBC has been successful in implying that the Coalition Government was remiss in its dealings with Murdoch and NI and Cameron has failed to point out the obvious about what happened and when. If Cameron doesn’t start to forcibly make this point, as opposed to wringing his hands about the awfulness of it all, he’s finished. PMQs is his last chance to nail this, and if he fails he may as well resign.

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  21. james1070 says:

    The power of the BBC, television accounts for 70% of news sources and the BBC has 73% share of television news.


    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/07/the-bbc-has-a-monopoly-and-its-abusing-it-says-timmontgomerie.html

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  22. David Preiser (USA) says:

    As predicted, the BBC isn’t telling you the whole truth about the US budget and debt situation.  Once again we hear only the White House point of view.

    Everything in the BBC report frames things from the President’s perspective.  All Republican statements are presented as intransigence, and again the “newly empowered” (translation: evil Tea Party extremists-influenced) Republicans are merely singing the same old ideological song.

    What the BBC isn’t telling you is that the President basically tried to force the Republicans to accept His ideological taxes or take the blame.  There really were no entitlement reform details given by the President, contrary to His BBC-celebrated claims that He’s been willing to take some heat from His base while the evil Republicans have not been willing to compromise.  The President isn’t reaching across the aisle much at all, contrary to His claims, yet the BBC isn’t telling you.

    The BBC is also censoring the information that the President is acting against the advice of His own debt commission.  It’s not just nasty old extreme-right Tea Party crazies telling the Republicans to keep on protecting the wealthy, which is the exact opposite of what the BBC has been telling you.

    Also, contrary to the White House propaganda the BBC has been disseminating to the exclusion of real news, it’s not just the evil rich the President wants to tax more.  Small businesses and the very middle class He claims to protect are going to get hit as well.

    Unfortunately, you have no idea about any of this because the BBC is quite simply an extension of the White House press office.  It’s ideological, and they aren’t going to stop doing it.  All at your expense.

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  23. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC, US Aid to Pakistan and half the story.
    What effect will US military cuts have on Pakistan?
    Pakistan is eager to play down the recent American decision to cut a third of its annual military aid budget, as the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan reports from Islamabad. A conference of the army’s top brass said last month that it had in any case received far less money than the US had promised over the last 10 years.
     
    Reading the above article you are given the impression that the US is wrong to withhold Aid to Pakistan, what with it needing the money to purchase equipment needed to defeat Islamists and to help pay off its IMF loans, it may have to divert funds from much needed civil projects in which to make ends meet.

    And here is what the bBC doesn’t tell you. Pakistan has since 1948 received over $30 billion in Aid from the US. In fact it is one of the biggest benefactors of American largess . Why the Guardian has knocked up an article  breaking down exactly what monies (by year) Pakistan has received.

    Then there’s that bBC’s reporters view that by withholding aid Pakistan will not be able to afford the weapons to fight Islamists inside Pakistan. The thing is Pakistan has been found to have been diverting the vast majority of its Aid monies to purchase weapons systems designed to fight India, Yes that India which Pakistan has never defeated in every conflict it has started due to that Islamic code of honour. Which kind of explains why Pakistan has 250 JF 17 fighter jets (Chinese version of the F16) on the order books, then there’s the much more capable JF10 of which Pakistan has around 150 ordered. Both are fighters and together account for more fighter aircraft than the UK has, yet the  so called bBC experts who argue that the British MOD purchases the wrong weapons doesn’t utter a squeak when it comes to Pakistan spending money it can’t afford on weapons against an enemy whom it has no chance of defeating.
    Which is why Pakistan has a Nuclear Bomb and again its a weapon system of no bloody use against terrorists, yet the bBC doesn’t ask questions why Pakistan needs a Bomb when it can’t even provide roads and sewers for its people.

    No to the bBC, the US is wrong, while remaining silent on the £2 billion the UK is now going to hand over every year.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Well, I have to admit it’s nice for once not to see the BBC slavishly supporting everything the President does.

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  24. Hugh says:

    @JHT Bit by bit the BBC are sticking this on Cameron and he’s doing nothing about it. He should get on Sky and independent radio and remind people that the shit happened during Labour’s term of office, that the BBC are losing all sense of proportion, and that it’s a tragedy 280 journalists, most of whom weren’t even employed by NOTW in 2001-02, are losing their jobs.   

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    • John Horne Tooke says:

      Cameron is looking for damage limitation – he has no “vision”, he has no corner to fight except his own. Self preservation is the name of the game he cannot defend a postition that changes sometimes daily. As for the journalists employed in NOTW he probably does not give 2 hoots for them regardless of their circumstances.

      The BBC have done to Murdoch what they did to CO2 and Cameron is powerless, because he thinks he needs good PR.

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    • Millie Tant says:

      David Cameron weakened his position by employing Coulson, seemingly in the teeth of warnings and exhortations but it seems equally that he had his reasons.  Now, the last thing he needs or wants is to be seen defending the NoW, job losses or not, and I am sure he is not going to compound his recklessness by handing that kind of ammo to MillipEd who is so busy milking the whole thing already for political advantage and to get Cameron. Getting Cameron I am sure is something he dreams about. His only hope of ever having power, after all,  is for some extraordinary calamity to befall the PM and the government.

         0 likes

  25. dave s says:

    Interesting technique adopted by Rageh Omar in his programme tonight.
    I was expecting a straightforward account of the beginnings of Islam setting it in a historical context and concentrating on the life of it’s founder.
    He made continual references to the present day – Salman Rushdie,position of women , freedom of worship , no compulsion  and so on.
    Rather an odd approach almost apologetic and definitely made with an eye to what he may think of as Western hostility to Islam.

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    • George R says:

      Alternatives to INBBC-Al Jazeera propaganda on Islam.

      Books:

      http://www.jihadwatch.org/recommended-books-to-understand-jihad-dhimmitude.html

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    • noggin says:

      well well, ep 1,,,,,,50 mins of (victim),moh, (oppressed),moh  
      (i kid you not….poor little), moh…..  
      followed by a deft change of emphasis, from moh to THE prophet, bludgeoned home at every opportunity thereafter.  (conveniently missing out on his mentioned uncles reading/reciting of previous scriptures)

       Rageh is hand picked for harmlessness on this one..very VERY

       
      obscure on the meat n potatoes issues…..waxing on,(& on & on)
      while wistfulling gazing into the ether on debatable nonsense.

      A fluff piece of the worst kind, did i say EXCRUTIATING line up of apologists, sheesh! literally the living end…. one drawling man of peace drone,(they did however shoehorn in R.Spencer for ahem…balance 🙂  don t blink wink wink)  
       
      Omar skirting around facts & anything possibly erm shall we say “difficult” 😉  
      handpicking deliberately obscure reasons for hmmm VIOLENCE  
      ie “upset” re VIOLENCE, “offended” re VIOLENCE, “cartoons” re VIOLENCE, “writing a book” re VIOLENCE… oh i m sure you get the picture.  
      a prime example :-  
      Glibly stating “people”… can come from all over the world to Mecca”  
      ….NO THEY CANNOT not if they re non muslim, they can t  
      A  constant drip drip name dropping, from the talmud/bible  
      just like abrahamic faiths etc etc,
      well no it is NOT, it considers everything  
      non islamic to be a/. perversion of the worst kind..b/.worse still rectified  
      AND you know what that means.  
      Piously bleating out that well used apologist drone “theres no compulsion in religion” (knowing full well this was soon abrogated)..and expects us to believe the Western understanding of it. Not the islamic narrative…ie. the observable behaviour of Muslims over 1350 years.  
      What have Muslims done, when they have conquered, by force or otherwise, non-Muslim lands and peoples?  
      Ans. They offer three possibilities: death, conversion, and, at least to those who can be classified as ahl al-kitab or “people of the book,” permanent status as dhimmis, with a host of political, economic, and social disabilities which together added up to lives of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity  
      and…and…AND…  
      there is so much whitewash ALREADY

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    • jarwill101 says:

      dave s, lets hope Rags continues the apologetic tone into embarrassment, & then silence. Or, even better, condemnation of an anti-civilisation, totalitarian ideology that stretches from north Africa to Indonesia, &, wherever it proliferates, reduces life to a retarded, violent, medieval quagmire of stagnation & unreason. Hearing about Islam’s doctored history is an irrelevance when the all too real threat it poses in the here & now is beating its hate-filled chest just around the corner. Go to it, Rags, tell it like it is, & do your part to release your Muslim brothers & sisters from the double yoke of poverty & ignorance that their political masters & clerics are so terrified of dismantling. Now that would be groundbreaking TV. Unfortunately for Rags, it would also be terminally headbreaking. Ah, the ‘religion of peace’.

         0 likes

      • noggin says:

        well, there has been much obfuscation already, ….
        just wait for the next round, of verbal contortions, it is following the usual “muslims the great victims” narrative, bludgeoned home in ep 1,(this is still used by islam today)

        Which is the thinly veiled, (if you excuse the pun) excuse for the following murder subjegation..whole plethora of despicable abhorrent acts.
        The, convenient revelation, the ridiculous aspect of “abrogation”
        look…If you don t follow the quran, which has no context , which i will get to…no chronology, a third of which is incomprehensible,  poorly recalls old testament stories, and older texts  stolen christian hymns,(most word for word, which have obviously come from mohs uncle). & a erm “god” who kept changing his mind, then you have to trawl through hadith/sira to make some sense, of mohs life,(all very VERY bad news).

        The plain reason, he hated jews soooo much, they laughed him out of
        the joint, with his i m the messiah routine.
        They told him he was NOT,(just a very naughty boy 🙂 ), so he must have told them…. “i ll be back” gulp!
        and of course he did return. can t wait to see that little nugget explained away.

        So far there is much ignorance, denial, obfuscation, wistful silence
        how this, can be continued may make hilarious viewing…as the violence
        destruction, murder RAMP UP through his adult life

         

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        • noggin says:

          whoops…please insert “with his i m a prophet routine”..not messiah
          a pythonesque slip
          well…on this man,(or religion ) of peace, business

          so far then….. i leave with a little touch of IQ2.

          “Islam is complex and tripartite: there is the Qur’an, its teachings and the life of Mohammad; there is the tradition of Sharia, and then there is what Muslims do now. Thankfully, what Muslims do now offers hope. Most Muslims now exercise their judgement as moral beings, without referring to defunct Holy books. However, the Qur’an itself is bad, really bad. Muhammad himself was also a bad man; he had child brides, multiple wives and beheaded Jews.

          The reality of the situation remains; Islam is an unstable component as a religion. 1000 years ago, the Mutazilites tried to reform the religion and they were wiped out. Today, the people who are leading the religion, making decisions for it and promoting it refuse to debate these issues.

          Neither is it an accident, or a small detail that the largest Sunni state, Saudi Arabia, the most important in the world, is a closed prison of a society. Facts like these are not small, accidental details of Islam, nor are they ‘paradigms’. Claiming Islam is a religion of peace is nonsense. It is turning hope into truth”

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          • Grant says:

            noggin,
            I am enjoying your posts here, a sort of cross between Martin and cj ( and that is a compliment ).
            One pun I liked was “potatoes” and “waxing”.
            But, really , what do the BBC and their Lefty fellow travellers ( and I include the current Government ) think they have to gain by spouting Rageh’s nonsense  ?  This sort of garbage just encourages extremism. Playing with fire and for what purpose ?
            When has appeasement ever worked ?

               0 likes

            • noggin says:

              hi Grant,
              well you know, it does go right from the top down ,(& i mean very top)
              from Obama, getting so so concerned &  really, really  involved, over a few settlements,(legit if you take away the spin) on the other side of the world ?
              but no concern at all …nay wilfull ignorance, over a building celebrating the mass murder of 1000s NYers, at 9/11, that is at ground zero…that purposely spits in the face of every patriot, victims & their families….
              i ask you where is his moral compass?

              truly “the world turned upside down”

              you know from the very bottom, those who REALLY know the impact
              it is a different story…but they get no voice…so you get the likes of the EDL…& la de da…. immediately vilification

              Appeasement never works……my feeling its worse than that

              & as for our shower of soundbiters, big boy dave n co, i ve seen nothing
              that gives me any hope…their so busy syphoning off anything thats left of our economy to their millionaires club…
              sheesh! it comes to something, when an old dear from the lords, shows a bit of the dunkirk spirit, & more backbone than the entire cabinet,(not a vertebrae between them).

              “ragehs nonsense” say that again 🙂  & it hasn t even started yet.
              & wheres the ability to recourse…on the BBC…..where?
              i refer to my first post on this below,…

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  26. John Anderson says:

    Here’s another senior US political commentator  – a Democrat pollster – that the BBC would not dream on inviting to comment on Obama’s track record :

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/07/11/pat_caddell_on_obama_does_this_guy_have_any_idea_what_he_is_doing.html

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  27. George R says:

    It’s the issue of illegal immigration, so expect BBC-NUJ to be bland.

    1.) ‘Daily Mail’:

    “Millions in legal aid for asylum seekers was misspent by collapsed immigration charity”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013724/Millions-legal-aid-asylum-seekers-misspent-collapse-immigration-charity.html#ixzz1RsH5E3jP

    2.) BBC-NUJ:

    “Immigration Advisory Service goes into administration”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14105065

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  28. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Saw an interview on SKY (which honestly is serving the cause of rounded news no better than the BBC, if perhaps more for obsessive Westminster Village reasons as I can’t believe it’s ratings any more) with Alan Johnson.

    He seemed keen on the notion that there’s a limit to how far this can and should go, bearing in mind he and others were and are only as good as what they were told. When in charge. At the time.

    So, crooked media… bent coppers. Clueless pols. Nail ’em. Full book. Or vote ’em out. Let the true victims see justice catch up with the truly complicit. Campbells & Prescotts running interference for Miliband… not so keen. Compo money to war victims’ relatives, not luvvies.

    Especially given Mr. Johnson’s butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth claim that, actually, they went easy on the whole thing because they didn’t want to seem to be playing petty party politics.

    That… seems a stretch, and in trying to have the best of both worlds he ultimately falls simply between two stools.

    I want the criminal and the complicit nailed. But… all of them.

    So if some journo without an ethical bone in his or her body goes down, plus a dopey top boss, and a clueless Minister too, over some nasty stuff about phone message records… then I want the whole set also applied to bending rules on info gathering and shaping editorial to rig elections, getting folk killed and driving countries at each others’ throats.

    Swopping one bunch of incompetent minority self-regarding elite social engineers for another won’t wash, especially mainly on the basis of hypocritical opportunism. 

    Anything else would be too unique to be credible.

       0 likes

    • Grant says:

      My site,
      Quite !
      What comes over to me is the sheer low quality of the politicians, journalists and plods all wallowing together in the gutter. I wouldn’t employ any of them to clean a toilet.
      Heaven help us. Do we really deserve this ?

         0 likes

  29. George R says:

    INBBC, Lyse ‘the humanity of the Taliban’ Doucet, Karzais and her smiley report on Islamic Afghanistan, didn’t see this coming.

    ‘Telegraph’:

    “Hamid Karzai’s brother killed in Afghanistan”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8631640/Hamid-Karzais-brother-killed-in-Afghanistan.html

    BBC-NUJ report:

    “Afghanistan: Karzai brother in assassination attempt”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14118884

    Of course, Ms Doucet was with President Karsai’s brother recently.

    (For those with access go to BBC i-Player and to 36 mins in for Karzai food and drink interview.)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012g0dl/Afghanistan_The_Unknown_Country/

    Next week, a smiley INBBC report on the wonderful people of Israel. Only kidding.

       0 likes

  30. Millie Tant says:

    I meant to mention who was on The Daily Politics yesterday.  

    Yes, indeed, none other than Ubiquitous Maguire. How does he do it? Isn’t he supposed to be working for a newspaper? Yet he is never far from the Beeboid screen. He must have something that appeals to the Beeboids over and above the many other newspaper journalists.

       0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Maybe the Gaurdianistas camped in the green room were spread a bit thin at the moment, not just guest ‘commenting’, but upstairs in strategy meetings chaired by Pesto with a voice link to Ali, ‘Pede & Prezzer?

      I think that was what I heard from a source who tweeted via a Facebook posting by Sarah, ‘liked’ by Justine. ‘Becks seems to have been bumped off the ‘in a relationship’ list with the coven.

      Maybe she passed on some girl talk she shouldn’t. The ‘in-crowd’ just h8 that.

         0 likes

  31. George R says:

    A non-INBBC, non-Rageh Omaar, non-Al Jazeera analysis of MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD:

    Spencer: The West Courts the Muslim Brotherhood–and Its Own Destruction

       0 likes