Lies, damn lies, and BBC captions

Misleading through captions at the Beeb: Blogger arrests hit record high.

The article features prominently a photo of a Chinese soldier, and take a look at the caption:

Elections in China, Pakistan and the US could prompt more arrests

If you take the time to read the actual WIA report you will find that Egypt, China and Iran accounted for more than half of all arrests. This color chart (pdf file) shows two arrests in the US for "other", which the report doesn't clarify at all.(*)

But hey, there's going to be an election here in the USA, so the study, and the Beeb, have no problem jumping to conclussions, all the while assuming a pattern similar to Egypt's, where you get to do 4 years of hell for insulting Islam:

Countries are enforcing greater Internet regulation, which will only increase with the elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the United States this year. Assuming a pattern similar to Egypt's occurs, the number of political blogger arrests has nowhere to go but up. With already four incidents in January and February, we expect the number of arrests in 2008 will exceed that of 2007.

Yes, folks, you read it here: an American election is regarded in the same category as elections in corrupt and/or authoritarian China, Pakistan and Iran, and is therefore cause to believe that bloggers will be arrested in the same pattern as in Egypt.

Jumping to conclusions in leaps and bounds, for sure.

(*) Michelle Malkin found that

The first blogger arrested in America was Daniel Aljughaifi, "for terrorism". Yep. As in training with Al Qaeda. I'm pretty cool with his getting arrested.

Second? Jack McClellan. They give the reason for that as "For posting pictures of little girls, being a pedophile". Great! Enjoy prison!

Third is a little more complicated, but not too much. Josh Wolf, "For videotaping a burning police car." Yeah, not quite. He was arrested for refusing to turn over his video of a burning police car >b>to a grand jury in a criminal investigation.

Not exactly what one would call a pattern similar to Egypt's, isn't it?



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Bias at the Beeb?

Blame Israel, read later,
Fuel crisis threatens UN Gaza aid. The Beeb declares,

Israeli sanctions imposed in an attempt to force the Palestinian group Hamas to stop rocket fire have caused shortages

Having made that assertion, the Beeb then mentions the Hamas-generated strike by the Gaza oil distributors as "Israel says":

But Israel says Hamas is deliberately preventing fuel from being distributed.

It says there are a million litres of fuel at a border terminal which Gaza fuel distributors, with the backing of Hamas, have refused to collect in protest at the Israeli restrictions.

It's not until paragraph #15 that you read

The fuel shortages have been compounded since 7 April by a strike by Gaza's fuel distributors and petrol station owners, who have been refusing to pick up about 1 million litres that Israel has pumped into the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, saying the quantity is insufficient.

Not that that had anything to do with shortages...



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Pallywood, redux?

This BBC video (which bears the Hamas TV logo) has Richard Landes's reader asking several questions:

Two young men (and one bicycle) lie in the road. The young men show some traces of blood, the form of which resembles that produced by a knife wound. No sign of a shell crater or other damage is visible. In the distance is seen a collection of cars, one of which is claimed to belong to a cameraman killed by the the same shell. The footage continues by getting closer to this car. No obvious damage, fire or smoke is visible. A new camera angle then shows a vehicle marked with TV insignia in flames with heavy billows of smoke surrounding it and spreading prominently into the air. The camera of the camerman is displayed amid scenes of grief.

My puzzlement is:

- whether the injuries displayed on the young men are compatible with a tank shell
- whether a tank shell could have hit both the youngsters and a car 100 meters away
- why the car is not on fire in one image and is very prominently in flames in the other

Gates of Vienna points out that the BBC report itself

The events are drawn entirely from Palestinian accounts, presented from the Palestinian point of view, and transmit uncritically all the conclusions and value judgments of the Palestinian stringers who supply the material.

In contrast, anything that would reflect badly on the Palestinians is invariably preceded by the phrase "Israel says". Palestinian accounts are reported as fact, while Israeli versions are alleged, and obviously meant to be questioned.

"Indiscriminate shelling"?

Or staged?



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Today's flying pig moment: BBC admits inaccuracies in coverage

BBC admits inaccuracies in coverage

The BBC has apologized for significant errors in two recent news reports on Israel.

The first one had to do with the Beeb showing up at the wrong house

In a news item on March 7, following the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack, the BBC showed a bulldozer demolishing a house, while correspondent Nick Miles told viewers: "Hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his family home. Later, mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby."

The house, however, was not demolished; the BBC was embarrassed when news reports from other broadcasters showed the east Jerusalem home intact and the family commemorating their son's actions.
...
The fabrication was exposed by Boston-based media monitor CAMERA, which revealed that the images used by the BBC were similar to photos taken by the Palestinian news agency Maan from the demolition of the house belonging to Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Shehadeh in Bethlehem on March 7.

Sorry, wrong address.

Then there was the made-up-of-whole-fabric item:

In a second incident, in a news item entitled "Israel jets strike northern Gaza" on March 14 on their News Web site, the BBC reported that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians in an operation targeting Kassam rocket launch sites in Gaza, and claiming that the United Nations secretary-general had described it as an attack on civilians.

"The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket firing team... UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinian civilians, calling them inappropriate and disproportionate," the report said.

The second item was erroneous because
a. it didn't describe as "attacks on civilians" the Palestinian rocket attacks
b. Ban Ki-moon's statement was made two weeks before that particular attack
c. Ban Ki-moon's statement didn't describe Israel's operations on Gaza as 'attacks on civilians,
d. Ban Ki-moon's statement did describe Palestinian rocket attacks as 'acts of terrorism.'

Why does the apology qualify as a flying pig moment? Because The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage. (h/t Israel Matzav)

One question for the Beeb: Why this pattern of fabrication?

In Friday's podcast we talked about Second Draft, Yaacov Ben Moshe and Richard Landes's new project

This website is devoted to exploring some of the problems and issues that plague modern journalism. In this age of globalization, the media has unprecedented influence on the way we see the world. And yet, whether out of misplaced good intentions, unconscious agendas and predispositions, or unwarranted faith in false information, they can get the story dramatically wrong. Therefore, we want to revisit and critique journalism's "first draft of history", and hopefully produce a more accurate second one.

Now, more than ever, we need to hold journalists accountable: as you can read in the Jerusalem Post article, it was a member of the Manchester Jewish community who detected the lie.
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Remember that BBC paintball outing?

Last December I posted that the Beeb, rather than taking the trouble of finding law-abiding British Muslims that have completely integrated into society, and have them discuss the issues of the day at a nice restaurant, decided instead to take a few acussed terrorists paintballing on February of 2005, paying for the privilege.

All in the name of fun, while filming their program Don't Panic, I'm Islamic.

The Been was so far above the panic stage that

Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police.

That is, A BBC producer failed to give police information that would have helped track down the July 21 bombers.

Hamid, by the way, referred to himself as Osama Bin London. On Tuesday he was found guilty of training men in secret camps in the Lake District and New Forest to prepare them to fight abroad, including the four failed suicide bombers of 21 July 2005.

UPDATE, Thursday February 28:
More on Osama bin London and British Terror Training Camps



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The Beeb calls them "conservatives"

The news: A bunch of guys go to the mall to check out the girls, and they get arrested after the mutaween filed a complaint.

Saudi men arrested for 'flirting'

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.

The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.

The How does the Beeb describe the mutaween?

The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

Backwards, repressive, sexually frustrated, yes. "Conservative"? Only in the Beeb's perverse eyes.

Another attempt of the Beeb to associate American conservatism with Islamist backwardness?

Probably.



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Today's bunch of hooey

Medieval diets 'far more healthy'

If they managed to survive plague and pestilence, medieval humans may have enjoyed healthier lifestyles than their descendants today, it has been claimed.

Survive the plague? Hardly. the plague was a death sentence - over 99% of people infected died from it. You didn't catch the plague and lived through it.

Their low-fat, vegetable-rich diet - washed down by weak ale - was far better for the heart than today's starchy, processed foods, one GP says.

And while they consumed more they burnt off calories in a workout of 12 hours' labour, Dr Roger Henderson concludes.

But the Shropshire GP accepts that life for even prosperous peasants was tough.

Tough?

Here's life in the anarco-syndicalist commune:


How tough was it?

"If you got to 30 in those days you were doing well, past 40 and you were distinctly long in the tooth," he concedes.

Maybe that would explain the low rates of heart disease, perhaps?


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This week's terrorist field trip at the Beeb: Paintball

BBC 'took terrorist trainers paintballing'and paid them to go on the field trip, too. as part of their reality-TV program Don’t Panic, I'm Islamic,:

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don’t Panic, I'm Islamic, screened in June 2005.

The BBC paid Mr Hamid, an Islamic preacher who denies recruiting and grooming the men behind the failed July 2005 attack, a £300 fee to take part in the programme, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

Bad enough, you would think. But it doesn't end there:

Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police.

Brought to you by the taxpayer-supported corporation that refers to Muhammed as <the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

John Noonan notices that the activities at the terrorists' camp read like something you'd find at a gymnastics day camp.

Meanwhile, I wonder if they coudln't bother find law-abiding British Muslims that have completely integrated into society, and have them discuss the issues of the day while having a meal in a nice restaurant instead.

No word if the Beeb is planning further terrorist field trips to the laserpark.



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News from Iraq: The Times are changin'

Via Gateway Pundit, at the New York Times,


NYT Interactive has more.

At the Times of London,
Road From Damascus
Iraqis are voting with their feet by returning home after exile:

The figures are hard to estimate precisely but the process could involve hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are certainly large enough, as we report today, for a mass convoy to be planned next week as Iraqis who had opted for exile in Syria return to their homeland. It is one of the most striking signs that not only has violence in Baghdad and adjacent provinces decreased dramatically in recent months, but confidence in the economic and political future of Iraq has risen sharply. Nor is this movement the action of men and women who could easily reverse course and turn back again. Tighter visa restrictions imposed by Damascus mean that those who are returning to Iraq cannot assume that they could quickly retreat again to Syria if that suited them. This is, for many, a one-way decision. It represents a vote of confidence in Iraq.

The homecoming is not an isolated development. The security situation in Baghdad, while far from totally peaceful, has improved substantially in the past few months, with civilian fatalities falling by three quarters since the early summer. This has been reflected on the streets with markets, clubs and restaurants that had been closed for months, especially at night, now reopening. This good news has not attracted the attention that it should because critics of the conflict in 2003 and its aftermath have been extremely reluctant to acknowledge progress in the country. Yet even observers from publications long hostile to US policy in Iraq, such as The New York Times, are finally conceding that "the violence has diminished significantly since the United States reinforced troop levels in Iraq and adopted a new counter-insurgency strategy".

The "surge" associated with General David Petraeus is indeed paying extraordinary dividends. The positive effects were seen in Anbar province, which had become a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and are increasingly seen in the Iraqi capital. It has enabled Sunnis to disassociate themselves decisively from al-Qaeda in Iraq, in effect switching sides, while some of the extreme Shias linked to the rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have felt obliged to observe a ceasefire. All these fundamental shifts have allowed Iraqis the chance to rebuild an economy that, particularly with oil at its current price, should be among the strongest in their region. This opportunity has been recognised by exiles such as those who have been located in Syria. Iraq can only benefit from the return of some of its most talented citizens

A.J. Strata:

But there is another statistic which is also important - the number of terrorists killed and captured, and the amount of weapons caches seized and destroyed.

At the BBC:
Iraqis return home 'in thousands'

An estimated 1,000 people a day are returning across Iraq's borders having previously moving abroad to escape the violence, Iraqi authorities say.
...
The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, estimates about 45,000 Iraqis returned from Syria in October - the first month of the school year.

One factor in their return is likely to be a sharp and sustained drop in all kinds of violence, particularly in parts of the capital Baghdad, over past months following a US-Iraqi military "surge".

Via TigerHawk, Ralph Peters:

THE situation in Iraq has im proved so rapidly that Democrats now shun the topic as thoroughly as they shun our troops when the cameras aren't around.

Meanwhile, at the box office...


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Facebook, demographics and the Beeb

Updated
Facebook reveals the BBC as a liberal hotbed

The BBC has frequently been accused of having a liberal bias.

But now the corporation's own staff appear to have confirmed this by revealing their political views on the networking website Facebook.

A survey of BBC employees with profiles on the site showed that 11 times more of them class themselves as "liberal" than "conservative".
...
Research by the conservativehome. com website showed that 1,340 staff put themselves in the "liberal" or "very liberal" category, compared with just 120 who were "conservative" or "very conservative". Some 340 regard themselves as "moderate".

Regular readers of my blog certainly know that. A quick survey of my posts can tell you of their love of Che, their conveing al-Qaeda propaganda, and on and on.

Ed Driscoll has some observations on the Beeb's 'Powerfully Corrosive Internal Culture'

Also don't miss this:


Biased BBC has more.

Update:
On the subject of Facebook,
Over at Newsbusters, Matthew Sheffield links to Patrick Ruffini's excellent article, The Early Adopter Effect

It was after I started reached the mid-20s that I stumbled upon something that may help quantify the early adopter bias. High school and college users were pretty consistently about 4-8 points more liberal than conservative. That’s sort of where you’d expect them to be given the 18-29 year old vote. And Facebook’s market penetration with this cohort is such that this is likely to be a highly representative sample of Americans that age.

But the older you got, through users in their 20s, the more liberal the user base became. It was inexorable. Each year, liberals picked up a couple of points on conservatives. My fellow 29-year olds on Facebook are +25.3% liberal. The 20-year old bracket is +4.5% liberal.

Given how stable the numbers were for college/high school users, with much higher numbers, this seemed unlikely to suggest an actual demographic shift in Generation Y.

But something else was going on. As liberals were picking up steam, the number of Facebook users were getting progressively smaller with each age cohort.

It makes perfect sense when you think about it. These users represent early adopters who never used Facebook in college. The people who joined Facebook since it opened up, or finagled a way into it before then using a stray alumni .edu address like I did.

This is pretty strong evidence of a liberal/early adopter correlation. Non-college Facebook users in their late twenties are two to one liberal where their college age counterparts are pretty closely matched.

That two-to-one ratio probably correlates with usage of other high-end web services and even traffic to the candidate sites themselves. It also gives quantifiable backing to the idea that Republicans stand to gain as the universe is widened entering the general election, as I've long suspected.

Here's my facebook page, and I belong to the Newsbusters group, too.
--------------------------------------------
For more Saturday reading, don't miss The Wahington Times's fabulous round-up.


Techorati: BBC
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Well, that didn't take long

U.S. Prosecution of Muslim Group Ends in Mistrial.

The Beeb didn't take long in declaring them innocent: Their report started with "A mistrial has been declared in the case against an innocent Muslim charity..."

I'll add a link to the video report if the Beeb posts it.

The Beeb {hearts} Che

Last week I predicted

expect another fellational report soon since "the island prepares for commemorations to mark Che Guevara's death 40 years ago."

I didn't have a long wait:
On Friday: Che: The icon and the ad

Today: Hero. Rebel. Revolutionary. These are words one often hears in association with Ernesto Che Guevara. And, of course, reporting about the compulsory attendance rallies as if they were voluntary: Cuba pays tribute to Che Guevara

Other commemorations are being held in Bolivia and Venezuela, countries where the Argentine-born hero was active.

In today's video, which must have been narrated while the worshipful reporter was kneeling down: Forty years after the death of Che Guevara some of the people who fought alongside him have paid tribute. Starting with the opening words,

The Argentine revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara, a visionary, a man of ideas

But the reporter doesn't stop there:

the Argentine doctor... after the victorious revolution in Cuba... he is still remembered in Bolivia with affection by those who fought alongside him... but the poverty and injustice he fought against have not gone away

Wait - there's more:

If you go to the Spanish BBC page, the Beeb actually has a video of testimonials to go with the Remembering Che memorial page, complete with flash quotes from their beloved:
"Hay que endurecerse sin jamas perder la ternura" (We must toughen up without losing tenderness);
"Seamos realistas y hagamos lo imposible" (Let's be realistic and do the impossible);
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado" (I'd rather die standing than live on my knees);
"El conocimento nos hace responsables" (Knowledge makes us responsible);
"Si no hay cafe para todos no habra para nadie" (If there's not enough coffee for all, there won't be any for anyone).

The Beeb forgot this words, also from Che: "We don't need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it's necessary to execute him. A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."

The Beeb buried in a corner a link to El Che, el déspota which talks about Che's executions, glossed over by saying that Che wasn't perfect because he was only human.

The Beeb has paid tribute indeed, as does the Tehran Times

Not one name of the 216 documented victims of Che Guevara in Cuba in 1957-1959 (PDF file).

Not a word about Che's homophobia:

He thinks about that cruel ritual he has witnessed so many times, when the guards strip all the prisoners naked and parade the most handsome in front of the newly arrived inmates to find out who among them is gay. He thinks about how anyone who gets aroused is taken away for a special mandatory "rehabilitation" program that includes the application of electrical currents to the genitals.

(From Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana, page 256).

Then there's Che's specialty:

Che specialized in psychological torture. Many prisoners were yanked out of their cells, bound, blindfolded and stood against The Wall. The seconds ticked off. The condemned could hear the rifle bolts snapping ..... finally – FUEGO!!

BLAM!! But the shots were blanks. In his book, "Tocayo," Cuban freedom fighter Tony Navarro describes how he watched a man returned to his cell after such an ordeal. He'd left bravely, grim-faced as he shook hands with his fellow condemned. He came back mentally shattered, curling up in a corner of the squalid cell for days.

While the Beeb shows plenty of photos, it doesn't show this one:

Humberto Fontova speaks on Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. Watch his entire lecture - all forty-five minutes.

And by the way, Che didn't have a medical degree. Fontova has documented that on the last day of his life Che admitted he was not a doctor.

The Monkey Tennis Centre has more on The BBC’s vile infatuation with Che Guevara. Blue Crab Boulevard is posting. Babalu has more. Don't miss Marc Masferrer's essay on Che Guevara's bloody legacy.

As Paul Berman said, The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time.



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This comes as no surprise

BBC's Newsround fed youngsters Al Qaeda propaganda, claims ex-spy chief

Newsround is aimed at viewers aged between six and 12.

On its website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."

After the public complained, the text was amended.

It now reads: "Al Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East.

"People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries."

Now take a look at that statement:

People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries

In the Beeb's fevered mind it's OK to tell young children that the murder of 3,000 innocent people is justified because "Al Qaeda is unhappy".

I agree with Dame Pauline,

Dame Pauline, who headed the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee and is described as the most formidable female diplomat Britain has produced, said the new version was even worse.

"It still says it's all America's fault, and now for daring to be involved in the Middle East at all," she said.

"It wasn't 'people linked to' al Qaeda who killed 3,000 people that day, it was al Qaeda itself.

"Osama bin Laden even boasted of the attacks. Is the BBC really saying that if you're 'unhappy' it's quite normal behaviour to murder people?

"Is the BBC so naive as to take al Qaeda's propaganda at face value? Or is there something more sinister at work here?"

Dame Pauline knows what she's talking about: she is Britain's former spy chief and a former BBC governor.

Biased BBC has been following the story since June.



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Don't tell Janet, and today's items

Janet-my-personal-trainer will have me doing 100 push-ups if I ever bring this up: Demi Moore spent $300,000+ on personal trainers (h/t Maria).

The article doesn't say how much Demi spent on acting lessons.
----------------------------------------------------------
John Edwards's botox seems to be working only on one side of his forehead.

Is his hairline receeding?
----------------------------------------------------------
Hsu-Zeno: "Norman Hsu had other programmers."
----------------------------------------------------------
Working for the BBC
----------------------------------------------------------
Weather stumps forecasters. Again.

Dean, and today's items

Via Instapundit, hurricane Dean is getting worse. The Irish Trojan's Blog advises that people in Jamaica and the Yucatan peninsula leave the area now. This is the time to do it, folks.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Princeton University tops the US News & World Report list of American Colleges and Universities.

On the one hand, while I'm not a PU alumna, I've greatly enjoyed all the classes that I've audited at PU: The professors are enthusiastically pleased to be teaching undergraduates, they are throughly knowledgeable in their fields, and I greatly admire their scholarship and human qualities.
On the other hand, with an endowment of nearly $12 billion and undergrad tuition and fees nearing $50,000/yr, it's a good thing PU is ranking at the top - for that kind of money, it should. Several colleges are painfully aware of that, and are trying to look into a different ranking system.

Another issue is that getting into PU is next-to-impossible. No matter how good a student you are, the odds are only 1 in 12, at best maybe 1 in 10. But that will be a post for another day.
-----------------------------------------------------------
BBC bias?
Watch this video: The BBC correspondent in Athens wears the PLO scarf to report on the Athens brush fires.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Via Larwyn, time for the bullet woman photoshop!
And let's not forget the Minnesota man, and the puppy, too.
-----------------------------------------------------------
If you're about to have quadruplets, leave Calgary.

French Kebab Rap dreams of... America

The latest YouTube sensation in France: Yilmaz Karaman, aka Lil'Maaz, a Kurdish Turk who works at a kebab joint, singing a rap about

I want the American dream
to make kebabs for Americans
To open up a chain of kebab restaurants
My lebab shop
Name on dollar bills

The Beeb's report didn't mention that part.

For now Lil'Maaz is getting paid in euros.

In other kebab news around the world,
A Crawley (England) kebab house is so highly regarded by its customers that web sites are being set up in its honour
A kebab shop owner is being retried for murder.
And rocker Mick Nash (who I'd never heard of until now) blames his stroke on kebabs.

This has been today's kebab news round-up from here in Princeton, where you can get kebabs at Zorba's, 183 Nassau Street.

A comment on "Shilling For Auntie"

E. Buki of Pamphlet Primer and Bleuet left a most interesting comment to yesterday's post, Shilling for Auntie:

I have to thank the British taxpayers as my son was born on their bill. My wife is a British citizen and has her rights to the National Health Service. Never mind the incompetence that the midwives in the NHS hospital displayed in not helping open the passages my son passed through and which nearly suffocated him before his first breathe. The point is that while my wife and I waited for her cervix to open to the optimal metric width I watched a talk TV program on the BBC. The usual complaints about US military power in Iraq was discussed and when a retired member of the British Armed Forces called in to provide his opinion something approximating this exchange occurred.

Host: So what you are saying is the US did not go into Iraq simply because of WMD but because of sanctions against Iraq that were not being upheld by the UN?

Caller: That is correct.

Host: Well then why hasn't the US gone in to enforce the sanctions against Israel?

Caller: Oh G-d, well Israel's Army isn't like Iraq's Army was.

Host: So, what you are saying is that since the Israeli Army could protect itself against the Americans that is why the US is leaving them alone and even supporting them.

Caller: Uh yeah, I think that makes sense.

It’s this sort of misinformation that British Television should now be made famous for. I would have liked the host of this program to be reminded that there are no UN sanctions against Israel.

I am sorry I can't remember the program's name but it ran on February 16th 2006. I don't recall which BBC channel either. I was focused on more meaningful issues in my family life.

Another interesting method used to install political agendas is typified by the following. I sat amazed as a documentary shown with footage taken from news, private cameras and security cameras told the story of Britain's single largest traffic mishap. Traffic became backed up on the M-1 and M-5 and G-d knows how many other major expressways. An accident had caused the mother of all pileups and back-ups on these major arteries as well as the side roads leading to them. Due to the backup of traffic and lack of routes off the highway those scheduled to take over in the towers of one of London's airports could not make it to work. Those who had been working the tower all night were forced to remain although exhausted. Passenger planes collided due to this, which further aggravated the state of transportation in the nation. People were stranded overnight on these transportation venues. I think they called this documentary "The Day Britain Stood Still". It was something of the sort. Lawsuits and sackings ensued from this mess and even years later all involved were traumatized by the deaths in the air, the deaths on the road and the deaths of those who had been stuck over night on the highways in freezing weather. It wasn't until the story went black that one was informed they had watched a mockumentary designed to teach the people of Britain what could happen if one or the other political party had its way in deciding how much money went to the Ministry of Transportation. It’s not the same as distorting the news or excluding relevant information but it is similar in its intent to express a bias as truth.

Thank you, E. B.

Shilling for Auntie

It doesn't take much digging to find example after example of the BBC bias:
From just the last 24 hours:

• Yesterday the BBC suspended a number of editorial leaders.
• Democracy Project posts about the Beeb's use of fake competition winners.
• Melanie Phillips writes about The protocols of the BBC, the latest on a number of incidents where the BBC has lied about or misrepresented Israel.

Then there was the story they made up out of whole cloth about the Queen throwing a snit last week.

And the time the BBC Radio 4 Today program host got his comeuppance, when trying to patronize John Bolton, who the Beeb characterizes as a "strident character".

In other, habitual, ways the Beeb's impartiality is nonexistent, for instance:

• The folks at the Beeb don't bother remove anti-Semitic comments from its Noticeboards.
• The BBC uses "peace be upon him" when referring to the prophet Mohammed in its Islam page of its official Religions and Ethics website - shouldn't they be referring to Jesus, then, as "Our Lord Jesus Christ" in its Christianity page?

All the while, the Beeb is playing with a huge budget of close to $7billion (£3.2bn) which from the most part comes from British taxpayers, who are supposed to take it all in, passively and receptively.

So it is with amusement that I read this article by Simon Jenkins, who believes that

The castigation of the corporation in the royal photo-shoot affair has lost all sense of proportion

It's not just the "royal photo-shoot affair", Simon.

Of course, having the tip of the iceberg finally surface does get people upset and asking them for zero tolerance, doesn't it?

Update
As I was saying...



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The full story, the modern Wife of Bath, and today's other items

My friend Captain Ed posts on A Case Of Missing Context At The Gray Lady

Readers who want the whole story have to read the Los Angeles Times to find out what else Maliki said about the Iraqi position:

Maliki, a Shiite, put on a brave face in the wake of the rising demand in the U.S. among Democratic and Republican legislators for withdrawal from Iraq.
He pleaded for time, pledging to achieve the passage of legislation that Washington has demanded as a condition of its continuing support, including an oil revenue sharing law, a revised constitution and the easing of government work restrictions for former supporters of President Saddam Hussein, who was captured, tried and executed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Maliki also said that Iraqi security forces could use more training from U.S.-led forces and needed more weaponry.

You know the NYT's faltering when you get the full story from the LAT.

Also via Captain Ed, a terrific article by Rod Liddle, Having a torrid time at the BBC - Busy Blurting Confessions. Nobody lets it rip like the Brits, and Liddle's in fine form. Read it all, but here's a sample,

Then came the television news teams 'fessing up that they may have inadvertently misled the public over the single European currency, the inherent competence and decency of Hamas, Fatah and the Taliban, the desirability of unconstrained immigration and the notion that bunging loads of money in aid to Africa would solve that continent's problems. Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff about the dangers of smoking and global warming and being fat. The BBC's "gypsy unit" turned up too, to confess that not everyone who had reservations about encroachment by Britain's traveller community were necessarily racist middle-class bigots. They were late, though, because their cars had been nicked.

Rod Liddle knows what he's talking about since,

Rod Liddle left his post as editor of the BBC's Today programme in 2002, after a row about impartiality in an article he wrote for The Guardian.

Rod, if you're reading this, email me when you come to Princeton and I'll buy you a beer.

Rod also writes about Jane Felix-Browne, a.k.a. Zaina Mohamad al-Sabah, the latest incarnation of the Wife of Bath who was fond of pilgrimage and fond of a much younger man. Jane/Zaina, like the Wife, has been married five times, is middle-aged (if people live to be 102, since she's 51), enjoys travel, and married a much younger man (a 26 yr-old).

There ends the resemblance to the WoB: the WoB might have been madly in love with her young husband but she wasn't crazy enough to marry the 1380s equivalent of Osama Bin-Laden's son and move to Saudi Arabia.

One must consider, however, that the WoB was a woman of the 14th Century, and Jane/Zaina's now the daughter-in-law of a guy that wants to send us back to the 10th Century, so it's all in the spirit of the times.

Time and time again I have seen many marriages fall apart where the age difference was >15 years (but never one where the husband already had another wife since I've never met any polygamists), but let's just say that'll be the least of Jane/Zaina's troubles.

Osama, or so they say, is praising the martyrdom of others:

"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr,"

says he, while depriving himself of that happiness. it's time to resurrect one of my old limericks from back in 2004:

There once was a boy named Osama
who never respected his mamma.
He blew up the World Trade
and is now in a cave,
hiding away, like Saddam-a

I realize that my limerick is a rerun, but so is Osama's video; that completes the trio.

Venezue-lan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, sneers at Al-Qaeda's 'amateur' killers from his prison cell in France.

Not that that makes them less deadly.

On to unrelated stuff:
The French are a lot bigger optimists than I thought: Now they have free bicycles. Bon chance on that, mes amis!

Francis Porretto has a post on Fred Thompson which convinced me that the Dems must see Fred as the first viable Southern Presidential candidate since Bill Clinton - and they are scared.

Never mind men's neckties; how do you walk in these?

Should a country this crazy have nuclear weapons?
Speaking of insanities, Dr Sanity has the Carnival




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I've heard that things are bigger in Texas...

... but I never heard that they were bigger in India, too:

Granted, I'm not the most experienced woman in the world, but those look awful big.