Miscellany for a Hot Day
>> SUNDAY, JULY 03, 2011
There was a nice piece by Damian Thompson in the Telegraph yesterday about the Johann Hari dilemma. Is the means okay - even cheating - if it justifies the end? Hari’s views are unpalatable and immature. They would be; it seems he’s only thirty two years old, if a tad chunky for a young fella. But the principle is not unlike the line postulated by defenders of Charles Enderlin’s decision to air the unverified Al Dura story on France 2, which subsequently ‘went viral’ with dire consequences. These defenders said, “What does it matter whether it’s true or not? - we know it’s the sort of thing that happens all the time.” I've heard similar views expressed on the BBC, not to mention speakers who still give credibility to the incident.
The spat between Cameron and Bercow was announced on the radio this morning. I can’t remember if it was presented as a direct report from the pages of the Guardian, but in any case, that’s what it was. Funny, because the Telegraph seems to side with Bercow, and the Mail with Cameron. The Guardian seems to be facing a dilemma. To go with their ‘class’ or their ‘Semitic’ prejudice. They seem to have come down in favour of the first. After all, Bercow is hated for his pomposity, his stature, his traitorous politics, and most of all, for his wife. His Jewishness almost pales into insignificance. Whereas Tory Toffs Sam’n’Dave trump all that because they represent Eton, privilege and puppy dogs’ tails. The Guardian’s theory is that the feud stems from their differing backgrounds. When I heard that, I wondered whether ‘differing backgrounds’ was a euphemism for something sinister, but it’s class again.
Quite a few Jews are short. Let’s call it petite, which is what people call me. Occasionally, someone will ask me “Aren’t you tiny?” which I assume they feel free to do, probably not considering it to be rude, at least not as rude as it would be to greet a new acquaintance with “How d’you do? Aren't you podgy?” or aren’t you bucktoothed, bald, strange-looking or bandy-legged?
If you’re a man, though, they’d never say 'aren’t you tiny', unless they were saying it as an insult. David Cameron seems to think it’s perfectly okay to get a laugh out of calling Bercow a dwarf, which is not big and it’s not clever. So much as I’d normally say a plague on both their houses, I’m with the Jew. I guess that also means I’m with the BBC.
How Many Wars Is A Nobel Peace Prize Winner Allowed To Have Before The BBC Will Raise An Eyebrow?
The winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace is currently involved in military attacks on six different countries. Where is the BBC on this? Now the US President has even sent troops to invade yet another Muslim country:Somalia. Where are the BBC's war correspondents? Where is the BBC North America editor to give expert analysis on why The Obamessiah isn't a cowboy warmonger? Fortunately, Matt Frei is no longer around to tell you that He is a "reluctant warrior".
In case anyone here relies solely on the BBC for their information, I'll list the countries in which the US is currently militarily involved:
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia.
Back when the President was dithering deliberating over whether to join in the war on Libya, Mardell sneered at those who wanted to see "an unapologetically aggressive America storming ahead, out front, leading those who have the guts to follow". He also said that the President "didn't want to be seen leading the posse to lynch the bad guy." So what about now? Why is there no BBC discussion of how the US is blowing people up and targeting them for assassination without UN resolutions and without joining an international, NATO-led effort?
As Mardell himself said before hostilities against Ghaddafi commenced:
Many in Britain and the rest of Europe cheered when Obama was elected. They were fed up with the guy in the cowboy boots who shot from the hip. They seemed pleased with a US President who had no aspirations to be the world's sheriff. Now, some are shaking their heads, looking for a leader.So he is perfectly capable of criticizing people who wanted the President to go to war. Why, then, is he incapable of criticizing - publicly, anyway - the President Himself for not only going to a war that Mardell didn't like, but taking war into even more countries than Bush could ever have dreamt of?
Just before the US joined in with Cowboy Dave and Sancho Sarkozy, Mardell explained that the White House's reticence was due to the fact thatnobody wanted to make the US look like it was doing more of that nasty old imperialist aggression. So why does the bombing of Yemen and invasion of Somalia not look like it? If it walks like imperialist aggression and quacks like imperialist aggression......
Mardell at one point tried to convince you that The Obamessiah made the UN more relevant by forcing them to make the moral decision to attack Ghaddafi. He said it was a big deal because now nobody would think the US was "dictating what happens in the Muslim world". How about now, BBC? Why is invading Somalia or bombing Yemen without a wink at the UN different?
There's no
It was a big deal when everyone agreed that there would be no troops on the ground in Libya, as if that somehow certified the humanitarian bona fides of the "mission". So why is the BBC completely silent when the US sends troops in to invade another country altogether? I assume Mardell is on yet another vacation, but there are several other Beeboids assigned to the US, some of whom are allowed to give their own expert analyses on US issues. Where are they?
The BBC has no trouble running articles telling you about criticism of the French supplying weapons to the rebels in Libya, but cannot find a single person to criticize the President for ordering drone bombing runs in Yemen or Somalia, never mind Libya. The criticisms of His ramping up the war in Pakistan have been kept extremely low key as well. What a difference between now and when Bush was in charge.
As has been pointed out on this blog by so many people, there is also a marked absence of anti-war protesters. This isn't the BBC's fault (much), but surely there must be one curious Beeboid on staff who wonders why the anti-war crowd simply doesn't care about how many innocents The Obamessiah kills or may kill with His warmongering. I think they simply view the bombings and killings differently because it's Him. Somehow, He knows what's best, and wouldn't do it if it wasn't good for all of us. He works in mysterious ways, ours is not to reason why, etc.
The BBC's integrity when it comes to reporting on war has been severely compromised by their deep, unwavering bias in favor of the leader of a foreign country. Your license fee hard at work.
THAT UNIQUE QUALITY
Just watched Chris Patten on the Marr Show extolling the qualities of BBC output. Quite. So then I endure a few minutes of pouting Suzanne Reid's "Sunday Morning" programme to discover that the panel of "expert" commentators includes Terry Christian and a former burglar. That's the sort of quality that so distinguishes the BBC and which Chris Patten (David Cameron's man) thinks is worth £3bn a year.
Is the BBC Incapable of Impartiality?
>> SATURDAY, JULY 02, 2011
We’re not the only ones to have noticed the BBC’s problem with impartiality. Andrew Griffiths MP has written a piece about it in The Commentator. “Is the BBC incapable of impartiality?”
He is particularly concerned with the politically unbalanced panels on Question Time.
Andrew, where have you been all this time? Maybe you should start reading this blog.
How They Spend Our Money
Now, if you found Life of Brian funny, particularly the scene about 'Weleasing Woderick', you'll love the new newsreader at BBC Radio Solent. Not only is she unable to read aloud (words like 'legislature' prove awkward, and 'sister ship' somehow becomes 'ship sister') but she has a speech impediment that means 'Cameron' becomes ''Camewon', and 'aggressive' becomes agwessive'. And, of course, 'radio' becomes 'wadio'.
How does someone who can't read aloud become a BBC newsreader? Is there no stage of the application process at which someone points out gently that a news reader has to convert the written word into clear, easily understood, spoken word? Do they employ window cleaners who can't reach the windows? Or drivers who can't drive?
Cherry Ripe
People accuse me of cherry picking when I present my arguments against the BBC’s one-sided reporting of matters related to Israel.
It’s my job to put my case. I’m not going to put theirs too. I’m acting for the prosecution so to speak. Do defence lawyers put the case for the prosecution and the prosecutors likewise argue on behalf of the defence? No they don’t, because they’re on opposite sides.
The BBC shouldn’t be on an opposite side. It shouldn’t be on any side, least of all on the particular side it has chosen.
We’re talking flotilla again I’m afraid. Jon Donnison’s report, Today R4 7:17 (link) was painful. He asked people in Gaza if they think flotillas are good. By now everyone should know that they’re not actually carrying much humanitarian aid, so we can’t pretend that they’re intended to relieve a humanitarian crisis. So instead they have to find another away to defend them. They’re good now, they’re saying, because they show that the people of Gaza are not forgotten. Fat chance of that.
A left-wing Israeli is heard saying the blockade must be lifted. Could the inclusion of an Israeli voice be Donnison’s attempt to provide balance? The reason why there has to be a blockade seems to have escaped both her and Donnison.
Donnison mentioned last year’s violence on the Mavi Marmara “when nine activists were killed by the Israeli Navy” but fails to remind us that they were attacked with iron bars. That’s how he sees it, Panorama or no Panorama. All Jane Corbin’s work, disappeared down the memory hole of inconvenient truths.
Right at the end of the report, as if Donnison had remembered, belatedly and somewhat reluctantly, that we are supposed to regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation, he introduced the final Gazan pro-flotilla spokesperson as “no friend of Israel OR Hamas”
My point is that the BBC has no business openly and blatantly putting the case for the flotilla. It is a publicity stunt, cynically and deliberately designed to provoke loss of life, which will be mercilessly exploited by Israel’s enemies. If that happens, it will be regarded as a great success by the organisers. Nothing less will satisfy them.
The BBC is cherry-picking, and that is utterly wrong.
U.S. News The BBC Thinks You Don't Need To Know
>> FRIDAY, JULY 01, 2011
While they're eager to tell you the latest updates from the White House spokesman, celebrity gossip, irrelevant death tattle, a human interest story about a US Communist who moved to the paradise of China, every new detail on a celebrity rape case, and a non-story about how a manufacturing increase really isn't one (but it made for a good opportunity for a headline to mislead the lazy reader into thinking that The Obamessiah's economy is on the mend), there are quite a few things going on in the US that might be of more interest and import.
The BBC's North America editor has been rather silent since his lastdismissal of a newly-declared Republican candidate for an election that's 18 months away. One would think there are a number of issues on which he could comment. For example:
Public sector unions versus the Government is the biggest story in Britain right now (in between live coverage of Kate & Wils' Canadapalooza, I mean). One would think that the exact same issue coming to a boil in a few US states would be worth your attention. Only the BBC has been silent about the events in Wisconsin and Ohio.
Many people here probably remember a few months back when the BBC actually did report on public sector union protests against the evil Republicans who (insert NUT/PCS talking point about attacking the poorest and most vulnerable here). As was pointed out here at the time, the BBC's coverage was biased in favor of the unions and censored news of violence and unlawful behavior by union supporters which might harm the cause in the public eye. The point is, though, that the BBC though you should be informed about the union's cause, all the way until they lost. Then....silence.
The problem for the BBC is that it turns out that at least part of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's victory has, contrary to the protests at the time, in fact been good for schools. One school district even went from a $400k budget deficit to a $1.5 million surplus. Sure, there are about to be 354 teachersand a number of desk-jockeys laid off because of budget cuts, but there is also going to be a big increase in school vouchers. More independent schools equals more choice for students and parents, and more jobs for teachers: if they're worth it.
Seeing as how this is directly relevant to what's going on in Britain right now, this ought to be of interest to you. Except it's on the wrong side of the Narrative.
In Ohio, another Republican Governor who defeated the incumbent Democrat in November just passed a major state budget in which he cut a lot of stuff and practically made up for a $6 billion+ deficit over the next two years - all without raising taxes. This is the exact opposite of what the President just recommended (and about which the BBC made sure to inform you), and the kind of plan which Justin Webb told you doesn't exist.
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