blogolob
Maureen Lipman at the Engage meeting against the Israel boycotts
David Hersh at the Engage meeting
Anthony Julius and Alan Dershowitz’s article in Times Online on why the boycott is not just wrong, it’s anti-Semitic
A number of short videos of conference speakers are online at the Engage web site
I would happily pay for a BBC that was maintained by voluntary subscriptions. I would pay the £130 odd per annum that I’m currently charged for the compulsory licence tax and I’d even pay a little more. At a subscription rate of around £15 per month, the BBC’s output of drama, current affairs programmes, documentaries, comedies, wild life and children’s programmes would still represent the greatest bargain in television. My children tell me that I should pay the money for Doctor Who alone.
But the BBC is not financed by voluntary subscription, it’s financed by a tax on every television watching household in the UK. And for a service paid for by a national tax we need more than just great programming. We need truth, integrity and neutrality. Here the BBC falls short and, as is evidenced by the links below (and there are hundreds more where they came from), it’s been falling for quite some time.
BBC’s grovelling apology to Queen over ‘tantrum’ film
BBC caught with pants down
The BBC exposed
The BBC - time for a rethink?
…what the BBC says and what the BBC means
Biased BBC
BBC refuses to remove neo-Nazi, racist lies from its message board
Who’d trust Auntie now?
The Middle East Times reports that the Iraqi city of Basra has been gripped by fears of giant badgers stalking the streets by night.
Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumors of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was allegedly released into the area by British forces to spread panic.
British army spokesman, Major David Gell, believed the animals to be a kind of honey badger, mellivora capensis, which, though fierce, are not usually dangerous to humans.
“They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They’re nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don’t stalk humans and carry them back to their lair,” he said.
Attempting to reassure the populace, Major Gell insisted:
“We have not released giant badgers in Basra”
We believe you, Major. (thanks: Conflict Blotter)
Give people a way out by condemning foreign policy on its own injustices. Condemn terrorism by its inherent injustice. And put the Grand Canyon in between them.
Zahed Amanullah, an associate editor at altmuslim, tells it how it is at Pickled Politics.
Advice for musicians… and bloggers, from the High Priestess.
Having just watched Channel 4’s documentary “The War on Britain’s Jews” (warning: if you’re going to read the comments in the ‘Culture Forum’ on this Ch4 link, you might need a stiff drink), I was interested to come across this piece on La Russophobe:
Since the early modern period and until the middle of last century, attitude toward Jews has served as a litmus test. It seems that whenever a nation began persecuting its Jewish population, it inevitably lost its global standing and was either defeated in war or simply collapsed. Examples include: imperial Spain, tsarist Russia, Hitler’s Germany and, most recently, the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, extending a welcome to the Jews coincided with the rise of the Netherlands, Britain and many German city-states.
In medieval Europe, Jews were early promoters of international commerce and nascent globalization. Being a widely scattered diaspora, they could establish business ties among their co-religionists everywhere. Tolerating Jews meant opening up to the outside world, while persecuting them signified the closing of the national mind, which led to eventual decline and defeat.
The litmus test endures, but in addition to Jews, it now covers attitudes toward immigrants from less-developed countries and the gay community.
Naharnet has reported that
Syrian troops on Thursday reportedly have penetrated three kilometers into Lebanese territories, taking up positions in the mountains near Yanta in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
News of the invasion has also been reported by al-Mustaqbal and confirmed in an email exchange between Michael J Totten and Michael Young, the opinion page editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star.
Syrian authorities had instructed all Syrian citizens residing in Lebanon to return to their country by July 15, 2007 and rumours are rife that a major eruption will take place in one week’s time.
World Net Daily reports that Palestinian sources involved in the negotiations to free Alan Johnston claimed that Britain told Hamas that it would free from jail an extremist sheik, accused of serving as al-Qaida’s spiritual adviser in Europe, in exchange for the release of Alan Johnston.
According to a spokesman for the Dughmush Clan (kidnappers of Alan Johnston)
“We wanted to avoid a bloodbath in the Gaza Strip. It’s forbidden for a Muslim to shed the blood of his Muslim brother.”
Dughmush Clan ‘peace lovers’ have reportedly been used as contract killers by both Fatah and Hamas. Some of the clan’s senior figures have been marked for retribution for the killing of Hamas operatives. Alan Johnston’s kidnapping was masterminded by Qattab al-Maqdesy, a veteran member of the ‘hippie’ group al Qaeda.
A Hamas official described the Dughmush Clan as
“nothing but a group of thugs operating under the cover of Islam”.
I think he meant it as a compliment.
