OPEN THREAD


Enjoying the BBC’s  world class coverage of Ghadaffi’s fall? Here’s a new Open Thread for you to start the week – let’s see how quickly we can get to the 100 comments mark!

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143 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Hugh says:

    Just another circle-jerk about the common man rising up against an evil dictator. No mention of an Islamist takeover or bankrupt economy. 

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  2. Deborah says:

    Last night watching the 10pm BBC 1 news regarding Tripoli – why did I feel that the reporters were all sad that it appeared it was all coming to an end?  My thoughts were perhaps it gave them less reason to criticise this government for supporting NATO, perhaps they like Gadaffi and his courting of them, perhaps that they might be sent somewhere else – but I didn’t sense the jubilation that we normally see from this one-sided broadcaster.

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  3. pounce_uk says:

    Hello there, I hope you don’t mind. But I posted this late last night on the old Open Thread and I simply feel it could do with moving on up:

    Anyway here I am with a spice rum and coke (actually my second) and I’m watching the 10 O/Clock news and the bBC leads with..Libya.  
       
    Anyway  Rupert Wingfield-Hayes (I wonder if any Leftwing wankers will be happy if he gets shot dead because of his double barrel name) is advancing with the Rebels and I note that he and his crew are not only wearing dirty body armour but Helmets as well. (Looks like they are wearing them for a good reason instead of just for show) makes you wonder about the many videos were they walk around wearing body armour just for the sake of it.  
       
    When at around the 1.35 point on the video they do a runner (Note how the man who has his helmet in his hand has it fixed on his head in the next shot)  
       
    At the 2.16 point on the video they decide to bug out, look in the passenger side rear-view mirror for the next few seconds. Notice anything? This from a bBC which claims to refuse to take sides (How many times have they demanded a court order from the police in which to release film of riots ete in order to keep their respectability.)  
       
    By carrying armed rebels in the back of the vehicle the bBC have not only sided with one side, but also made themselves into legitimate targets. Remember that the next time the bBC play the victim card for one of their own by playing the impartiality card.  

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    • JIM SMITH says:

      Its worth noting that rum and coke are banned under sharia law…. Especially during Ramadan or some such bollocks…..

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  4. Daniel Clucas says:

    Sky’s coverage of this has been excellent, far and away better than the BBC’s offerings. Hopefully after the digital switch over, when Sky news is beamed free into every house, more people will realise just how poor their news coverage is. 

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    • Reed says:

      Agreed. Sky News makes BBC News24 look very sleepy indeed. I’m sometimes surprised they aren’t wandering around in their pyjamas. Wakey wakey.

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  5. pounce_uk says:

    I also posted this late last night on the current situation on Israel.

    So here I am on my third spice rum and coke and while having a butchers at the bbC arabic site I note that that the second story on their site is all about the ceasefire people are trying to knock up between Gaza and Israel.  Ceasefire? well according to the English site the world is still concerned about how Israel is busy killing innocent people in Israel. Now have a look at the time stamp on the bBC Arabic website for this story 16.02 GMT its now 23.23 or 22.23 GMT or 6 hours later. Anybody else wonder why the bBC airs a different story about Israel for the British than it does for its Arabic readers. Readers i should add who most likely get their news from Arabic news agencies?

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  6. Billy-no-mates says:

    Is it me or do I sense that the ending of the Libyan conflict (especially the imminant withdrawal of NATO forces) is being greeted through gritted teeth by dear Auntie. Perhaps it was all those resports in the past couple of week that said we were in trouble – running out of ammo, no clear objectives, forces chiefs in revolt,  blah blah blah. A vindication for Cameron – not if you listen to the Beeb, who now have to focus on the problems ahead as they go into full Jeramiah mode.

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    • pounce_uk says:

      I don’t know, but something has happened in which to tip the balance in favour of the rebels.  Funny enough the bBC which I exposed usings its vehicle as a troop carrier may be hinting towards the help NATO is giving by a couple of posts it airs today
      Nato answers Libya questions

      and
      News blackouts
      Can the modern media keep secrets – and should they?

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  7. james1070 says:

    Why is this happening, Tony And Gordon said Gaddafi was our ‘friend’.

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    • NotaSheep says:

      Don’t forget Peter ‘£8 million house’ Mandelson.

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      • Reed says:

        Perhaps he and his entourage can fly to London and be Mandy’s house guests. Why not, pretty much every other international scumbag terrorist organisation seems to be based in our capitol city.

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  8. George R says:

    Islam Not BBC (INBBC)’s political line on ‘Arab spring’ Libya:

    1.)Libyan rebels are largely wonderful, despite the numbers they kill, and given their Islamising instincts.

    2.) Libya will become ‘democratic’, like Erdogan’s Islamising Turkey.

    3.) Like Turkey, Libya ahould be mada a member of E.U. as soon as possible – adding 6 million Muslims to 80 million Turkish Muslims.

    4.) In the meantime, any Libyans who come to E.U. via Italy, etc should be made citizens of E.U. countries.

    5.) Libya should be given billions of pounds more for re-construction, paid for by EU and US taxpayers.

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  9. pounce_uk says:

    I see the bBC has changed its English Israeli news headline to conform with its 4pm Arabic news headline of yesterday:
    Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce, officials say
    The thing is while the bBC informs the English speaking world of how peaceful Hamas is, they don’t mention this story currently doing the rounds elsewhere:
    Seven rockets hit Israel after Gaza truce
    Seven rockets from Gaza hit Israel on Monday just hours after militant factions agreed an informal truce after four days of deadly cross-border violence in which 15 Palestinians and an Israeli died.The truce was hammered out after talks with Egyptian officials, and several hours later, Israel’s security cabinet held an emergency session during the night at which ministers decided to hold off from further attacks on the Palestinian territory, army radio said. Police said seven rockets had hit Israel since midnight causing no casualties but damage to several buildings; the military put the number at eight.Gaza also enjoyed a second night of clear skies, with no air strikes reported.

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  10. As I See It says:

    I would agree with the impressions noted here that:

    1. the BBC were slow out of the traps in reporting the imminent fall of Tripoli 

    2. they are not altogether happy about it

    Until late in the day the main themes of their reporting continued to be the defiance of the Gaddafi spokesman and the playing up of the horrors of war – also the theme of the regime as they desperately cast around for a ceasefire.

    The BBC’s big narrative (and natch, the left generally: see Guido Fawkes on Ed Miliband’s war) was to have been all about casualties and NATO responsibility for the suffering – lets just hope that the BBC are wrong.

    As for some Beebs being embedded with the anti-Gaddafis – well they are NATO allies. The place may go to the dogs after Gaddafi but at last for a moment I’m happy for the BBC to be ‘dancing with the rebels’.

    The point is that they will only have tried to cover this to placate the extreme views of much of their Islamist constituency.

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  11. George R says:

     INBBC message on LIBYA – forget Al Qaeda of  Islamic Maghreb.

    Who does INBBC turn to for its propaganda on all matter Islamic: the Islamic Quilliam Foundation? -as today when some ‘ex’ jihadist from Quilliam pontificated, unchallenged by Kearney, about Libya, Islam and Al Qaeda of Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

    Two correctives for INBBC:

    1.)”Ideals Trump Interests in Obama’s Libya Policy”

    by Raymond Ibrahim

    http://www.meforum.org/2871/ideals-trump-interests-in-obama-libya-policy

    2.)
    “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM] pillaging weapons from Libya”

    http://news.helium.com/news/12908-al-qaeda-in-the-islamic-maghreb-pillaging-weapons-from-libya

     

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  12. cjhartnett says:

    Will the BBC be showing us any footage of Blair meeting our old Libyan colleague in the fight against terror?
    I thought Brown wrote a book on Loyalty…well it was not courgae, because he had none,…oh,
    Maybe Blair could do a book signing in Tripoli, whilst we smuggle our old chum out…that should provide the distraction we need.
    Tell you what…that hospice we sent Al Magrabhi to over there seems to be a miracle…any chance of us getting the plans to that before it becomes another mortuary for the Jews/Christian…and indeed anyone but BBC stooges?

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  13. George R says:

    “Benedict XVI in Spain: a triumph for this ‘meek man of mighty action’ (despite the best efforts of the BBC) ”

    (by Damian Thompson)

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100101735/benedict-xvi-in-spain-a-triumph-for-this-meek-man-of-mighty-action-despite-the-best-efforts-of-the-bbc/

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  14. pounce_uk says:

    Wow, even the Cork Evening Echo gives you a more informative (and uptodate) news service than the bBC:
    Truce fails to halt Gaza rockets
    Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired rockets and mortars into southern Israel today, despite an unofficial truce meant to defuse days of escalating violence.

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  15. Span Ows says:

    The BBC’s love of anything that goes against Britain, especially traitors.

    “What was disgraceful, though, was the structure of the programme. For many, The Reunion‘s version may be the first they have heard of the subject. It is the duty of the BBC to apply to history the impartiality on which its Charter insists. Yet, as with the same programme’s treatment of the 30th anniversary of the Brixton riots (which this column criticised on March 28), the entire panel was on the same side. Blunt was a virtually innocent victim, we were told, and the only villain was the press.”

    “The Reunion propagated the theory that spying for the Soviets in the Thirties and Forties was nothing worse than an excess of zeal. This is a shocking untruth. Hitler and Stalin were moral equivalents. Indeed, at the time when Blunt signed up for the Soviet Union, Stalin had actually killed far more people than Hitler because the Führer was only just getting into his stride. The BBC would (rightly) never dream of making a programme which sought to excuse traitors who worked for the Nazis.”

    In our generation, Blunt’s equivalents are the intellectual apologists for Islamist extremism. No doubt it will turn out that some of them worked secretly for countries like Iran, and no doubt, in due time, the BBC will laud them too.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8714975/When-will-the-BBC-ever-tell-the-truth-about-Anthony-Blunt.html

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    • Span Ows says:

      Just helped Guido in the right direction too…

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      • matthew rowe says:

        Good one Span Ows read Guidos bit and I have to say wrong tree comes to mind the BBC endlessly steal stories of twotter and Faceache and that’s a better angle for enquiry!

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        • Span Ows says:

          I agree…and I have caught Guido copying and pasting whole paragraphs without attibute too! (I pointed it out in the comments (it was several months ago) but the blogpost was never changed so either he and the other blog writers there don’t read the comments of don’t care.

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  16. Alfie Pacino says:

    I’m so looking forward to Al Magrahi being handed over to the Americans.
    Shame on Gordon Brown and the last Government for greasing the wheels on his release.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      No thanks, send him back to Scotland.  He can live on a council estate in Glasgow on full benefits.  For humanitarian reasons, of course.

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  17. Louis Robinson says:

    A dangerous hurricane is heading for the Florida coast. Is this another example of his little run of “bad luck” to be quoted by the President of the USA for the falling stock market. Mardell should explain.

    http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/54053/irene-destined-for-us.asp

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  18. Cassandra King says:

    Only one year left for the polar bears

    Or so the WWF says. Quote below from 2004

    “Assuming the current rate of ice shrinkage and accompanying weight loss in the Hudson Bay region, bears there could become so thin by 2012 they may no longer be able to reproduce, said Lara Hansen, chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund”

    SOURCE

    The WWF is one of the BBCs prime souces of information/predictions/unedited and unverified scare stories. These stories bought wholesale from the WWF in huge quantities by the BBC are always wrong/a pack of lies/propaganda/cynical exploitation of uncertainty.

    Funnily enough the cross fertilisation of ideas and strategies between the WWF and te BBC and the met office is clear when you realise that a former head of the WWF is now ensconced at the met office, another deceitful lying gang of CAGW cult fraudsters.

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    • Span Ows says:

      I think there are many, MANY snippets like this that will be coming out soon – the Internet is a wonderful thing. Only a couple of decades ago it would have been a report in a magazine that would be pushed to raise funds and activist and later no one would remember – nowadays, they’re fecked! 

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  19. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Just before his dishonest segment about the Social Market Foundation and the DWP, Evan Davis, along with Justin Webb, highlighted a few bits from the morning papers about Libya.  Taking a page from Craig’s playbook, they were, in order:

    The Independent
    Guardian

    Then Justin Webb brought up editorials:
    The Times
    Guardian
    Telegraph (because they said that only the Red Crescent and not the Red Cross should be allowed to help out in the aftermath in Libya)

    Then Davis mentioned the Mail, but only to sneer at their story about a rumored network of tunnels and bunkers beneath Tripoli.

    Has anyone at the BBC mentioned yet that the Independent hired a known public disorder instigator and then had to fire him for inciting violence and vandalism and attacks on the police?

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  20. Martin says:

    Poor old BBC, they’ve been getting a bit of stick for their slightly behind the curve coverage of Libya (is there something going on?). Sky’s Alex Crawford and team did a great job, so what did the BBC do to try to get their reporter some attention?

    “They said they were shot at” and the BBC kept playing over and over poncy hack screaming “Drive drive drive”.

    Funny as both Sky and ITV hacks have also been shot at and had explosives go off whilst reporting and didn’t trun it into a hissy fit.

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

       Martin, just like the President, the BBC has been leading from behind.

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    • Reed says:

      Agree with you about Sky’s Alex Crawford, Martin. Her reporting has been excellent, as has most of Sky’s coverage. I’m sure if more people were able to access Sky News the BBC’s supposed position as the provider of news for the nation would be seriously under threat. The complacency of guaranteed funding and the assumption of superiority is their competition’s best weapon.

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  21. David Preiser (USA) says:

    The Beeboids are definitely hating having to say that Cowboy Dave was right about kicking Ghaddafi’s ass.  Beeboid standing in Downing St. just now having to say through clearly gritted teeth that Cameron’s original stance seems to have been “vindicated”.  His opening line:

    “I don’t think there’s been out and out triumphalism” in No. 10.

    No suggestion of poor behavior there, then.  They are hating it.  Too funny.

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  22. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Beeboid David Willis from Washington on the News Channel just now, doing what appeared to be a strange combination of reporting and a Kenneth Williams impersonation.  His brief, naturally, was to explain how The Obamessiah Administration was taking the best course of action, and so he told us that, like always on Libya, the President is looking to “Arab allies” and the vague transitional council to take the lead.  Which Arab allies do we have, exactly?  Saudia Arabia?  Which “Arab ally” can actually do anything at all?  We weren’t told.

    No mention of leading from behind.  And it’s not dithering because He’s already decided that someone else must take action.  No, instead the BBC presents the President as being the wise one, because just like when Mugabe was butchering his people before his own re-election, the BBC line is that only people of the same skin color are allowed to do anything.  But of course the US wants everything to turn out just peachy, so it’s all good.  Not a report so much as an assurance that the President is on top of things and has the right idea.

    Tim Willcox fortunately brought reality into the picture by reminding Willis that from the start the President has been “very luke warm about it” (the war against Ghaddafi).  This is balance, sure, but it assumes that a BBC correspondent taking one side of an issue is standard procedure.

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    • Billy-no-mates says:

      Yes, its amazing I thought like many others that he was doing nothing – he was letting Europe sort it out, he didn’t want anything to do with it .. but apparantly “it was Bazza wot won it ” all along

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    • Billy-no-mates says:

      Also just heard that the “US drones tipped the balance of power”

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        No surprise there, Billy.  As we all know – and the BBC refuses to acknowledge – The Obamessiah has killed way more people with drones and taken them into more foreign countries than Bush could ever have dreamt of.  
         
        I guess that’s just another type of “sophistry” Justin Webb described as “confusing His enemies”.

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      • pounce_uk says:

        Strange how the bBC doesn’t mention any of these RAF strikes conducted during the last few days:

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      • cjhartnett says:

        Surely it will have been the BBC that did it….wiping brows and stitching white flags to which ever side is nearer and has a chilled minibar!

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  23. Techno Mystic says:

    Just sat through a Look North feature on car insurance in Bradford, unusual for me as I usually avoid BBC North like the plague.

    One teenage girl was quoted £53,000.  Bradford has seven times the national average of uninsured drivers.

    A Labour MP is holding a “summit” to make everything better.  So that’s alright then.  Sorry, beeb, I think you’ve misunderstood the problem there…

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    • cjhartnett says:

      Think -if we were a real northerner unlike Balls, Benn etc…it would be a “summat”!
      Bet Hardy is unraveling his mittens in fury…poor soul only has Steel and Thomas to feed him his “material”!

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  24. Peter Capriole says:

    SO soon after Starkey’s horrific revelation that he had reread a speech by Powell, guess what’s on BBC parliament tonight:

    1911       CENTENARY LECTURE: ENOCH POWELL1911 Centenary Lecture, Episode 6Lord Norton delivers a lecture on Enoch Powell in the State Apartments of the Palace of Westminster, from Tuesday 14 June.FACTUAL CURRENT AFFAIRS POLITICSToday on BBC PARLIAMENT from10:10pm to 11:05pm

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    • cjhartnett says:

      Thanks for this Peter!
      Will be doffing my homburg in his honour!
      If the BBC hates him so much-he`s GOT to be onto something!

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  25. Andrew says:

    Tonight’s University Challenge decides to get the boot in on the govt thanks to Paxman.

    I can’t recall it word for word but two of the contestants on tonight’s episode are on it before the university tuition fees rise would mean that it wasn’t possible.

    Never pass up a chance eh?

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    • Buggy says:

      Yup, Paxo quoted the Merton, Oxon. captain as having decided that the college should enter U.C. this year because with the current government’s policies on tuition fees, university teaching would basically cease to exist some time before next year.

      Wonder what their St Andrews’ opponents thought of the little prig’s opinions since three of the four were presumably paying fees (two being English and one from West Virginia) ?

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      • As I See It says:

        This could set a BBC game show trend. I’m quite looking forward to Richard Hammond asking Total Wipeout contestants for their views on the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement before they have a go on Dizzy Dummies.

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    • Carti says:

      Oh God, is there no bloody escape? Despite the modern preponderance of mind-numbingly drab scientific questions massively beyond the GENERAL knowledge of the reasonably well-informed viewer (but no doubt in keeping with the BBC’s Brave New World), I still find ‘University Challenge’ on the iPlayer most weeks for a half-hour’s brain work-out, one of my increasingly rare visits to Beebland.

      Now I find I have to tolerate Paxo bellyaching about government policy as well. The quote was, “(the Merton captain) says that “given the current government position on higher education we thought university teaching may have come to an end before there’s another series and we didn’t want to miss the bus”.

      I don’t remember him sneering so openly at the utter philistinism of Charles Clarke a few years ago in the wake of his appalling but predictable attack on the Classics and consequently education for its own sake.

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      • Buggy says:

        On reflection, though the Merton captain was certainly being a ridiculous and alarmist prig, he didn’t actually express his opinions on the programme. It was Paxman’s decision to relay them: without his intervention none of us would have been any the wiser about the contestant’s political opinions.

        Time to bring back Bamber, anyway. I always put his name after “…and asking the questions…..” in any case.

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  26. pounce_uk says:

    I see the bBC rewrites a charge of racism directed towards an American Jewish exchange student in Scotland by making the victim appear to be petty:
    St Andrews students accused of Israel flag racism
    Two St Andrews University students committed a racist breach of the peace by insulting the flag of Israel, a court has heard.

    I mean how petty can the Jewish git get.
    And here is how STV report the very same incident:
    Students ‘called Jewish colleague a terrorist and violated Israeli flag’
    Two St Andrews University students are on trial for racially abusing an exchange student from the US in a drunken outburst.

    I wonder how the bBC would ahve reported this story if the victim was a peaceful muslim who woke up to abuse from 2 drunken EDL supporters, who called him a terrorist, pissed in his sink, wiped their bollocks over a pakistani flag and tthn afterwards abused him on facebook and then just to make sure that the jewish twat got the message, they slipped a letter under his door and abused him some more.
    Well you can bet your bottom dinar that
    St Andrews students accused of Pakistani flag racism wouldn’t be the title of their article.

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  27. pounce_uk says:

    I see the bBC hasn’t mentioned how several Grad Missiles have been launched from peaceful Gaza during the holy peaceful month of Ramadan by very peaceful followers of a very peaceful relgion agaisnt the nasty hooked nosed jews who for some reason haven’t bother to reply to the message of peace and love sent over by their next door neighbours.  
     
    Yeah it must be somebody else seeing as the nice people of Gaza are observing a ceasefire and here is how the Pals themselves report the story. Maybe the bBC could learn a thing or two from them.

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  28. Andrew says:

    Mardell still won’t let it go.  Some will recall his “subtle” blog post on what an idiot Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman was by dressing it up as about how shallow gaffe analysis was.  In it he tried to prove how Bachmann was as bad as suggested by saying this:

    But Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker makes a convincing argument that other Bachmann statements which have been labelled gaffes – such as arguing that the founding fathers fought against slavery – are the reflection of her world view, not factual mistakes. You might not like that world view, but beyond derision there is a debate to be had.

    Having decided to go back to that convincing argument he talks about I found this was what had been written:

    Bachmann’s comment about slavery was not a gaffe. It is, as she would say, a world view. In “Christianity and the Constitution,” the book she worked on with Eidsmoe, her law-school mentor, he argues that John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams “expressed their abhorrence for the institution” and explains that “many Christians opposed slavery even though they owned slaves.” They didn’t free their slaves, he writes, because of their benevolence. “It might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible.”

    So it would seem that she doesn’t make a cogent arguement that all of her gaffes are her world view after all. 
    As pointed out at the time, Mardell’s article is hatchet job criticising what he has decided is her world view.
    Not that this should be a surprise to anyone but if he feels that identifying someone’s world view is a legitimate criticism, lets have a quick look at his masquerading as impartiality:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14595207

    Its a fair enough question – do Rick perry’s claims stand up.  In it he uses this paragraph:

    Texas has weathered the recession better and created more jobs than most states, although unemployment is only a little below the national average. But Mr Perry claims the Lone Star State is booming and that much of it is down to his policies, which he wants for the rest of the US – low tax, low regulation, and as it happens, low wages in many cases.

    Two links in this story.  Now if you were the North American editor of massively funded state broadcaster, one might think you could test this idea by calling some economists at some of the many fine US universities or some wall street analyst – wouldn’t you?

    Well go take a look at the source for that second link.  I guarantee you won’t be on it two minutes before you work out where the owner stands on republicans and Tea Party folk. Nothing wrong with that and that is her perrogotive as a blog owner, but not as source of back up for a so called impartial news outlet.

    My question was how the hell did he find this site? Maybe he’s a regular – who knows.  I took a look at sites that point back to this site.  Apparently Huff Puff is one site.  That’s a clue in istelf as to the leanings of all the sites that point back to this one.  Most of the links to this site come from the following sites:

    http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/category/youth-leaders/

    http://www.beyondthechoir.org/page/ABOUT

    http://www.desdemonadespair.net/

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/08/13/perry-tinnitus/

    http://upsideofinertia.wordpress.com/

    http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/

    That last link has by far and away the most links to this site.  When lecturing us on the dangers of worldview Mardell would probably do well to remember that small addage about people in glass houses.

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    • Span Ows says:

      Andrew, he probably knows the woman, she’s a friend, he stays there when he’s in Colorado: I can think of no other reason for a direct link in a BBC news blog.

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  29. pounce_uk says:

    Well just like how the bBC takes its time in which to report any attacks by Hamas agaisnt Israel, it appears they do the very same thing with Turkey. Here is the current state of affairs between Turkey and the Kurds (well according to the beeb)  
    Turkish jets hit Kurdish rebels again in northern Iraq  
    Turkish warplanes have hit rebel Kurdish bases in northern Iraq for the second night, the separatists and Turkish media say.  


    The article which was extant as of last thursday (the 18th) reports on how the Turks have bombed the Kurds for a second night.  
    Here is what is happening on the ground at the moment:  

    PKK: Turkey bombs north Iraq for sixth day  
    ARBIL – Turkish aircraft bombed north Iraq on Monday, the sixth day of a bombing campaign against bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the region, a rebel spokesman said.  “Turkish aircraft targeted the Kortek, Qandil and Jabal Mattine regions from midday until 3:00 pm (1200 GMT),” Ahmed Denis said, referring to areas that are respectively in the provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Arbil, and Dohuk, which make up the autonomous Kurdistan region.

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  30. George R says:

    Is this possible, BBC-NUJ?:

    White cricket commentator gets racial abuse from non-white Indians-

    “BBC’s Jonathan Agnew gets ‘racist abuse’ on Twitter”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/8716511/BBCs-Jonathan-Agnew-gets-racist-abuse-on-Twitter.html

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    • George R says:

      BBC-NUJ: more preferential treatment for UK immigrants from Indian subcontinent advocated, including in the game of cricket.

      Tonight, ‘Newsnight’ has the following Pakistan-born immigrant to Britain, not asking whether Asian cricket players are doing enough to integrate into English cricket, and into British society, but:

      ” Sarfraz Manzoor considers if English cricket is doing enough to integrate Asian players.”

      Why do not Mr Manzoor and the ‘Asians’ who have emigrated here or been born here regard themselves ‘British’? Do they support Pakistan or India or England at cricket?

      The BBC-NUJ in its ‘multiculturalism’ has fallen into the apartheid political mindset on this. It is the same at BBC-NUJ radio ‘Asian network’ station, where the self-designation of the multitudinous participants is into as some sort of classification ‘Muslim-British’,  ‘Hindu-British’, or Asian-British’, but rarely as BRITISH, unhyphenated.

      And this is  Manzoor’s political objective, as previously indicated in one of the many BBC programmes he has fronted:

      “Don’t Call Me Asian which examined the rise in British Indians and Pakistanis defining themselves by their religion and nationality rather than simply as British Asians;”

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarfraz_Manzoor

         0 likes

        • As I See It says:

          The England cricket team are doing pretty well – just confirmed as number one in the world.

          So what does Newsnight ask? Are there enough ‘Asians’ in the team?

          I switched off and so remain unenlightened by this BBC cricket-themed polemic.

          So, England is doing ok but needs Asians – tell me BBC, did I miss some form of metaphore?

             0 likes

          • Millie Tant says:

            I don’t think it was asking whether there were enough which would be a relatively open question. I think it was taken as read that there weren’t and that the English cricket authorities were culpable.

               0 likes

    • Deborah says:

      The BBC sees it as its duty to ‘encourage’ the use of ‘e’ technoloogy including Facebook and Twitter.  Perhaps if the BBC acknowledged this is promoting private companies its employees could get on with the job that they are supposed to be doing (as far as I know not Aggers) instead of pushing a political agenda in time paid for by us the licence payer.

         0 likes

  31. Span Ows says:

    Looking forward to David’s fisking of Mardell. I just posted a comment there but suspect that it won’t show:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14624414

    “Unlike UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Mr Obama didn’t feel the need to break his holiday and travel back to work, although he does have the excuse that he is taking a break, such as it is, in his own country”

    This one paragraph has enough snide, lies, innuendo and sheer shite to write a full pagerebuttal.

       0 likes

    • Buggy says:

      “……taking a break, SUCH AS IT IS……..”

      What on earth does the highlighted phrase mean ? Is He not on holiday ? Perhaps the “Martha’s Vineyard” that He, Chewie and the kids are visiting isn’t the upscale coastal resort at all, but rather Michelle’s latest spectacular White House gardening project ?

         0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Mardell’s post truly is moronic.  It’s incredibly twisted to even remotely compare the situation of Cameron facing the burning of his capital city and The Obamessiah making speech about the possible resolution of a conflict in a foreign country in which the US isn’t leading.  There is no rational reason for the comparison, unless one is viscerally biased against the Prime Minister and felt the need to dig.  There’s no reason at all for the President to cancel a vaction for this.  Bias.

      There are really only two things to say about the rest of Mardell’s post.  First, once again we see him championing the President’s foot-dragging as Him being a laudably reluctant warrior, rather than being the dithering joke who really thought sanctions were working.  Secondly, can someone please show me where Mardell explains how Libya is now a “vital US interest”?

      I mean, he says it is up front and at the end.  But nowhere does he explain why.  It’s an anomaly, unrelated to the rest of it. Just another White House talking point faithfully regurgitated, with little thought.

         0 likes

      • Andrew says:

        I mean, he says it is up front and at the end.  But nowhere does he explain why.  It’s an anomaly, unrelated to the rest of it. Just another White House talking point faithfully regurgitated, with little thought.

        As my late grandmother’s neighbour used to say “He opens his mouth and lets the wind blow his tongue around”

           0 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      My comment is still there and has the most recommendations…a massive…3  😀

         0 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        It’s got 4 now 😉

           0 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        5 now.  I finally found your comment.  But where was Mardell actually lying about Cameron?  It’s a false comparison, sure, but I don’t get where he lied.

        And I forgot to sneer at Mardell for the qualifier, “such as it is…”  More tireless defense of the leader of a foreign country,  Mardell is so dedicated he feels he needs to explain that the President isn’t really on vacation, still working hard, still saving the world, still taking the job with Him.  Why, one might be tempted to think that some people are actually criticizing Him for taking a vacation among some of the wealthiest white people in the country while much of the rest of the population is struggling to find work.

           0 likes

        • Craig says:

          6 now. 
           
          The lie/gaffe comes at the end of this: 
           
          Unlike UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Mr Obama didn’t feel the need to break his holiday and travel back to work, although he does have the excuse that he is taking a break, such as it is, in his own country.  
           
          Cameron was in fact on holiday in Cornwall – as much a part of Britain as Martha’s Vineyard is part of the United States! 
           
          Mardell gets it wrong again.

             0 likes

          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            Thanks for the correction, Craig.  I was thinking about the riots, of course, when Cameron came back from Nigeria or something.  I didn’t realize Mardell meant about Libya.

            So he really did lie. Again.  His boss should really be reconsidering the position of someone who is so thoroughly, constantly uninformed about things.  He’ll probably get a promotion instead, just like Justin Webb did.

               0 likes

          • Millie Tant says:

            It’s a very odd sentence. He didn’t actually say that David Cameron was abroad. He either cynically put two statements close together that would amount in the reader’s mind to an implication and serve as a swipe at the PM, while providing Obama with a separate reason or excuse why he might not have felt the need to come back, or he really is completely ignorant and did not know that David Cameron was in Cornwall. Could he really not know that? I find it hard to believe he wasn’t reading the papers and watching the news, detailing the PM’s whereabouts.

               0 likes

            • David Preiser (USA) says:

              Hey, maybe Mardell made the same mistake I did about which time Cameron broke from vacation.

                 0 likes

              • Reed says:

                Excusable for you, David. Not for someone who calls himself a journalist.

                   0 likes

                • David Preiser (USA) says:

                  Reed, I hope that if I was paid £92K pa (if not more), I’d at least try to be aware of where the Prime Minister was when I was making a reference to him.

                     0 likes

                  • Reed says:

                    Quite right, David. Details are important. As someone pointed out in a previous post, small inaccuracies (whether deliberate or accidental) might not cause too much of a problem on their own, but in larger numbers can distort a story greatly. This is even more the case when a so-called journalist uses deliberate inaccuracies to push an agenda in a stealthy manner.

                       0 likes

            • Craig says:

              I suspect most people will take it to mean that Cameron was holidaying abroad, in contrast to Obama. If that’s not what Mark Mardell meant to say, he certainly did write a very ambiguous sentence.

              Talking of Justin Webb…on the first paper review of yesterday’s Today he quoted the Daily Mirror, whose headline Plonker! attacked David Cameron for being on holiday in Cornwall (and being photographed drinking wine):

              “Probably worth mentioning the Daily Mirror. I mean given the news that we were getting I think only ten minutes or so ago that David Cameron has [starts sniggering] yet again had to cut short a holiday, come back to London…possibly after his people read the front page of the Daily Mirror. Er, ‘Plonker!’, the Mirror says, next to a picture of David Cameron opening a bottle of plonk, or at least of wine. “The country’s in crisis, yobs rioting in the streets, the economy in meltdown. Where’s David Cameron? Uncorking a bottle of wine. His fifth holiday of the year, etc, etc.””

              That’s a classic bit of uninformed, on-the-hoof BBC speculation on Justin’s part, isn’t it?

              The subject was returned to later the same hour, when Evan Davis talked to BBC political correspondent Ben (son of Tony) Wright:

              Evan Davis: Ben, firstly, we should just talk about this holiday issue, this picture on the front of the Daily Mirror of David cameron opening a bottle of wine. He again seems to have been caught having to come home, cut a holiday short?

              Ben Wright: Yeah, yesterday he was photographed buying some scallops and lobsters in a fish shop in Cornwall. Now he’s back, events having cut short his second holiday of the summer.”

                 0 likes

              • David Preiser (USA) says:

                Gotta love how they’re actually thinking it’s a gotcha moment.  How is Cameron supposed to be running things in Tripoli, FFS?  It’s not like he’s ordering battle plans and ought to be in the War Room right now.

                No world leaders ever take a vaction when their troops are on active duty in a war zone?  Stupid Beeboids just can’t help themselves.  They don’t even realize what they’re doing.

                   0 likes

                • Craig says:

                  Yes. It obviously didn’t even occur to Evan Davis, the enthusiastic Ben Wright or Justin Webb to raise this obvious counter-argument to the Mirror‘s attack. Not even as part of their mission to report impartially (ahem!) No, instead they just gave it air time (twice) and left it hanging, unanswered.

                     0 likes

  32. George R says:

    LIBYA.

    The following is all part of the Islamic ‘Arab Spring’ which the West’s useful idiots (inc INBBC) advocate:-

    ‘Jihadwatch’:
    Libyan draft Constitution: “Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)”

    [opening excerpt]:

    “Maybe the secular, democratic, pro-Western forces among the Libyan rebels will keep anything like this draft Constitution from being implemented. How likely do you think that is? It seems extraordinarily unlikely to me, and yet it is taken for granted by all those who wield power in the U.S. and Europe.”

       0 likes

  33. Jonathan S says:

    the BBC just spouts a load of bollocks, Newsnight, BBC News 24, Question Time, The One Show et al, it’s all a load of shit

       0 likes

  34. Martin says:

    What a shock, Newsnight having a discussion on Cameron’s ‘liberal intervention policy’ with…. two Labour politicians.
    Yet again the BBC fail badly and show their  bias.

       0 likes

  35. Roland Deschain says:

    I read the shocking news that Andy Coulson received the payments from News International which were legally due to him under his severance agreement.

    It’s disgraceful, I tell you.  David Cameron’s head must roll for this.

    Incidentally, why is it always Robert Peston’s job to report breathlessly on this subject?

       0 likes

    • Cassandra King says:

      Gotta keep those groundless smears flying around, must keep the spotlight away from the left and where it belongs.

         0 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Unbelievable (it’s also the 2nd biggest news of the day according to the UK News page and there’s even a link on the main news page 9a.m. BST)

      “According to sources, Mr Coulson’s contractual leaving pay was given to him in instalments until the end of 2007 – which means he continued to be financially linked to News International for several months of his tenure as David Cameron’s main media adviser.”

      The disclosure that Mr Coulson maintained a financial relationship with News International after moving into a sensitive role in the Tory Party will be controversial.”

      FFS! No news day? Slow news day? No, just anything to hit the opposition (and in this case they have BOTH their main oppositions in one place: Conservatives and Murdoch)

         0 likes

      • Jeremy Clarke says:

        Robert Peston preaches to the tribe: “[W]hich means he continued to be financially linked to News International for several months of his tenure as David Cameron’s main media adviser.

        “The disclosure that Mr Coulson maintained a financial relationship with News International after moving into a sensitive role in the Tory Party will be controversial.”

        Breaking news!

        ‘Robert Peston has “financial links” to the BNP, it has been disclosed.

        ‘BNP members have a “financial relationship” with the top BBC reporter because they pay the licence fee that funds Peston’s salary, it has been alleged.

        ‘The news is set to rock the BBC and will be controversial. So controversial that Western civilisation will come crashing down and Peston will lose his gold-plated pension. Maybe.’

        Tosh. Utter tosh. Dont’cha just love the “news”?

           0 likes

      • Span Ows says:

        just as an update…it’s STILL there! 2nd place only to Libya.

           0 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Just some further info: I have commented on Peston’s article and at the Spectator where they are helping Peston and BBc for some reason. BUt a comment caught my eye:

       

      “Peston is in fact dumb in revealing this; a compromise agreement is not widely circulated,nor are the terms known by many people,particularly if senior managers are involved.

      This narrows down dramatically the potential sources…

       

      He cannot possibly have checked the facts as Coulson and NI would not comment under the terms of their agreement.

      It is therefore just a further example of poor journalism. Given that Peston must know this is the case unless he is terminally thick, it begs the question ‘why now?'”

       

      Could get interesting…Peston should know exactly what a compromise agreement is and what it involves.

         0 likes

  36. George R says:

    A Growing Anger in Europe

    The article emphasises the political censoring role of Swedish social democrats; but the same applies to the role of the British political elite, inc BBc-NUJ.

       0 likes

  37. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Okay, Beeboids and defenders of the indefensible, riddle me this:  Now that the US and other white, Western imperial powers are on the brink of affecting regime change in yet another brown-skinned country, where is your anti-war crowd?  Why isn’t the BBC asking this question?

       0 likes

  38. pounce_uk says:

    The bBC reporting the murder of a policeman in Sri lanka and half the story.

    Policeman lynched in Sri Lanka town

    A policeman has been killed by angry residents of a town in north-west Sri Lanka in a vigilante attack sparked by fear of nocturnal prowlers in the area.The prowlers, known as “grease devils”, have been accused of assaulting women at night in recent weeks. Residents say the security forces are involved. The policeman was hacked to death in the town of Puttalam and there were also clashes elsewhere on Sunday night.The police deny wrongdoing and the army has set up two new posts in the area. “As several Muslim groups in the east tried to disrupt peace, we had to deploy a brigade for security,” government spokesman Lakshman Hulugalle told BBC Sinhala.

    Well the bbC doesn’t say who carried out the lynching , but they do point in the direction of whom the culprits were. Here is how South Africans are informed of what is happening in Sri lanka:

    Colombo – A policeman was beaten to death by a Muslim mob in north-western Sri Lanka where clashes between residents and security forces have been reported over the past week, officials said on Monday.The policeman on traffic duty was hit with iron rods and poles late on Sunday in Puttalam, 180km north of Colombo.”Two unarmed policemen encountered a Muslim mob,” a senior police official said. “One of them had run away, and the other was attacked without any provocation.”Witnesses said the mob blamed the police for a spate of recent incidents in which unknown men entered villages and harassed women.More than 2 000 Muslims gathered near the mosque in Puttalam after Sunday’s attack, but soldiers opened fire to keep the crowd away.


    Several clashes between security forces and Muslims living in coastal areas have been reported this month.The army killed one person in a Muslim crowd on August 12 in the south-eastern village of Potuvil. The local people claimed intruders were sexually harassing village women.


    On August 15, Muslims protested in the north-eastern village of Kinniya, claiming three unknown people had been found in the village at night and later escaped into a navy camp in the area.Villagers burned tyres and held a government official hostage for hours until several people previously arrested were released.

       0 likes

  39. TooTrue says:

    To add to people’s take on the poor quality of BBC output on Libya, the World Service’s reporting yesterday was truly pathetic. There was Martin Price humming and hawing and trying desperately to create the impression that he knew something about what was going on around him. He said something like, “Um, let me get this right,” as he tried to figure out north from south and east from west while trying to work out where the rebels were situated. Even the BBC guy back in the studio who was asking Price for info seemed embarrassed as he thanked Price for his ‘reporting.’

    Then there was this incredible coup as the WS found a fifteen-year-old-girl, resident in Tripoli, to “inform” them about what was going on in the city. Naturally, she didn’t know much though what she did know was more than Martin Price’s dismal contribution.

    Then the reprehensible Rupert Wingfield-Hayes (as pounce posted on page 1 of this thread) acted the bold war correspondent embedded, of course, with the rebels and making much of apparently having to flee from an encounter between them and Gaddafi forces. The WS liked that one so much they played it over and over. I guess they had nothing else to impress the audience with.

       0 likes

  40. Cassandra King says:

    Fresh from hiding the evidence against the guardian about criminal activities the BBC comes out with yet another smear against Andy Coulson and David Cameron, its groundless, its a poisonous smear and its a perfect BBC story.

    Andy Coulson has a two year contract with the NOTW, he leaves and is given the payoff his contract demands. All perfectly normal as any BBC executive/quangocrat/NHS executive/council fat cat would testify. Nothing wrong with a company honouring its contract is there?

    Well the left is desperate to perpetuate its smear campaign against NI and Murdoch and Cameron so all of a sudden the normal and perfectly legal contract termination payout ecomes a source of fabricated outrage for the guardian and the BBC.

    So the BBC ignores clear evidence that the left wing press engaged in hacking/bribery of public officials but gleefully leaps on this non story in rder to smear their enemies. Andy Coulson has the nerve to receive money from his old employer in line with a perfectly legal and much use contract stipulation that the BBC executives have used to their advantage for years? HOW VERY DARE HE! Oh the bare faced cheek eh?

    And the BBC claim to be impartial?

    And BTW a new employer has no right to investigate the terms of a private employment contract of a new employee, a private and confidential contract between employer and employee. Cameron would not have known anything about the details of Coulsons contract with the NOTW and what does it matter anyway? This desperate smear story is typical of the left, typical of the degenerate left trying to steer the story away from them and onto their enemies.

    THE BBC? BENT BASTARDS COMMUNE.

       0 likes

    • matthew rowe says:

      Good post wonder how many Labour party /union members work at the BBBC ?  they would have to pay dues wouldn’t they ? so there fore they have financial links to a political party and it’s union paymasters which is totally wrong/hypocritical and should be investigated by a flag ship current affairs show!lol!  but being  the pack of thieving liars they are no one hold yer breath !

         0 likes

  41. George R says:

    LIBYA.

    A detail for INBBC:

    “Why this is the moment Libya’s Islamic extremists have prayed for”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2029026/Libya-Tripoli-falling-moment-Islamic-extremist-prayed-for.html#ixzz1Vpug9WwJ

       0 likes

  42. Cassandra King says:

    Two front page stories on the same day using the same sources with the same links sharing much the same language and ‘evidence’ and displaying an uncanny similarity to each other.

    Now what are the odds that two independent news outlets come out with the same story on the same day? Does it seem likely that these supposedly seperate MSM outlets can churn out near identical smears on the same day?

    What you see is a closely coordinated smear campaign carried out by two close an allied political partners working together as one body, one axis.

       0 likes

  43. deegee says:

    The current violence between Israel and Gaza has filled the column inches but the really important news seems to have almost totally escaped the BBC.

    We know, as pounce_uk as so often pointed out, that BBC military reporting is often even less informed than their science reporting but is this an excuse to justify the almost total absence of reporting on the success of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system?

    I ran a Google search for Gaza, “Iron Dome” site:bbc.co.uk and found only one report even mentioning it in the last week and that buried one paragraph deep in the story. The last BBC report on the system was way back in April and hasn’t been updated.

    Israel’s system has been reported as 93% successful against Grad rockets. Why is this important? The Grad is a military quality rocket (as opposed to the shorter range crudely built Kassam rocket). Hamas and Hizbullah have thousands. It is a popular weapon, imported (for example by the Taliban) and manufactured (for example, by Iran) around the world and now Israel’s experience shows it can be beaten.

    That should be a big story! 

       0 likes

    • pounce_uk says:

      What I find most disturbing about the bBCs coverage of the situation along the Gaza/Israeli border is how, while the bBC is ever so quick (along with names and ages of so called victims) of Israel aggression. The bBC drags its feet when Israel is the victim of Palestinian aggression. Be it families getting murdered in their beds, Children getting killed or even rocket attacks during a ceasefire. I get the impression that the bBCs mission statement for Israel is to withhold any news which places Islamic terrorist groups in a negative light and thus keep promoting the view that only Israel is the only belligerent actor in the region.

      Which is how young impressionable people in the UK have been brainwashed into holding anti-Semitic views.

         0 likes

      • Billy-no-mates says:

        You might find this article interesting – although not directly about the BBC it is an analysis of Norway after the masacre but it touches familiar themes recognisable in the UK
        http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/after-the-massacre-anti-semitism-islam-and-norway/

           0 likes

        • jarwill101 says:

          Thanks for the link, Billy. A depressingly similar story to much of the rest of Europe. Muslims seeing special treatment as their divine right, a bent mass media, the ‘mind-designers’, brimming with reflexive anti-Semitism, Quisling politicians & so on. I wish I didn’t have to read it, but I refuse to put my head in the sand. The comments that accompany the article are of great interest, as well. I sometimes think the followers of the crescent moon, & their aplogists, will bore many of us to death long before the black battle flag flies over Downing Street. They, like nagging, dysfunctional children, demand our constant attention. There comes a time to slap them down. I hope it isn’t too late.

             0 likes

  44. Span Ows says:

    (Also posted on Murdoch thread)

    ‘The hysteria over Andy Coulson is getting out of hand’  
     
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/100101888/the-hysteria-over-andy-coulson-is-getting-out-of-hand/  
     
    “Forget the high drama of Libya where a tyrant is being toppled. The story that’s really getting people agitated is the remuneration enjoyed by a former newspaper editor. Andy Coulson’s pay-off deal with News International was revealed by Robert Peston (who else) on the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News last night. It turns out that, horror of horrors, Coulson was paid some of his severance package after signing up in July 2007 as the Conservative Party’s  director of communications (salary £275,000).”

       0 likes

  45. john says:

    Right Cameron : grow a “pair”.
    As Sky News report on the last few hours of what was once Gadaffi’s Libya, what was the State Broadcaster up to ?
    Yes, obviously concentrating on a far more important issue :
    Some crap about the Hillsborough Disaster.
    The BBC’s coverage of news outside of Sheffield has been late, risable, biased and contrite.
    Right Cameron : if you don’t grow a “pair” and reduce to tears the bastards who work in Bush House – I and others will remind the British Public how spineless you are when it comes to crimes against the licence fee payer.

       0 likes

  46. Grant says:

    Just watching the BBC 24 hour news coverage of Libya. The gloom at the BBC is palpable. Their hero for 42 years has been toppled. It must be awful to be a Beeboid at this time.  They are concentrating on the “looting” of the mad dogs compound. Where do they think the money came from in the first place ?
    Beeboids are truly vermin !   

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Jeremy Bowen probably accidentally left a personal item behind last time he visited, so they’re obviously concerned.

         0 likes

      • Grant says:

        David P,

        Ha !   I don’t even want to speculate on what kind of personal item Bowen might have left !  But, it does remind me of his schoolboy delight at meeting his hero.  Pitiful, really. 

           0 likes

      • jarwill101 says:

        His spare pair of glass eyes?

           0 likes

  47. As I See It says:

    News 24, just flicking between Sky and BBC. Sky is at the heart of the Gaddafi compound with the rebels. BBC correspondent still being shown riding with Gaddafi’s son last night. Pictures speak loader than words.

       0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      I don’t have Sky – but even checking their live-blog of events in Tripoli has shown much more thorough and close-in coverage than anything I have heard or seen from the BBC.  

      Sky News losses are about 20 million a year ?    So total costs about 100 million a year or so ?

      A mere fraction of the costs of BBC news,  but very often far better and more up-to-date.

         0 likes

  48. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Excellent BBC Newsgathering priorities today.  They do report that some rapper had a minor skiing accident and needed a few stitches.  But they don’t bother to report that VP Biden has told the Chinese that he fully understands their One-Child policy.

    What we ended up doing is setting up a system whereby we did cut by $1.2 trillion upfront, the deficit over the next 10 years.  And we set up a group of senators that have to come up with another $1.2 to $1.7 trillion in savings or automatically there will be cuts that go into effect in January to get those savings.  So the savings will be accomplished.  But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China.  You have no safety net.  Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.  The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people.  Not sustainable.

    The BBC loves it as well, so I suppose it’s only a matter of time before they leap to his defense.  If they don’t just censor the news entirely, that is.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      UPDATE:  Yep, the BBC censored it from their own report on Biden’s speech to the Chinese.  Laughably, they mention human rights anyway:


      And in a reference to human rights, he remarked that Beijing should cherish an exchange between citizens, students and their government.

      But not their female embryos…..

      I’m taking a screen shot in case of stealth edit.

         0 likes

  49. As I See It says:

    No sign yet of Gaddafi and his sons….? Someone should ask their mate Mr Bowen.

       0 likes

  50. RGH says:

    “Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is considered a friend, and was once quoted as saying: “Those who feel irritated by our friendship with President Gaddafi can go jump in the pool.” The retired president apparently never forgot Gaddafi’s support for the African National Congress during its struggle against apartheid.”

    Surely not!

    This can not be.

       0 likes