The Ratchet Turns

When it comes to stories like this, I take the Ann Coulter line: if it's such a good idea, how come it isn't being proposed by someone we can argue back to ?

Obviously, the inspiration for this law is the legislation covering paedoscum material, but are the two types really analogus ? The case against paedoscum material is simply that it usually involves, and certainly encourages, the exploitation of children. But is anyone necessarily being exploited by the material covered by these new laws ? After all, the material involves consenting adults - otherwise it would be covered by existing laws. All the banners can offer by way of justification is junk science: viewing this stuff makes people commit crimes. If nothing else, can people stop sneering at our ancestors for worrying about witches ? At least they had an excuse. Ignorant peasants have more grounds for fearing devilry than a modern day citizen has believing that viewing the wrong films can release Mr Hyde.

What really sticks in the throat in these cases is the unstated corollary to it all. Except in this case it's right out there:

This year five Law Lords sent Coutts' case back to the Court of Appeal to
"invite that court to quash the conviction".

It was argued that jurors in the original trial should have been
offered the option of manslaughter as well as a murder verdict.

Yep. If you're going to argue that the innocent should be deprived of their rights lest they be driven to crime, you're accepting that actual scumbags, who really have committed crimes, must similarly have been driven to it.

This is one of the central psychosis of modern Britain, the death of responsibility. Now PC Plod will be empowered to storm into Joe Perv's home, lest he be downloading 'Disciplined Dykes', but actual murderors will qualify for a couple of months at Lord Hoffman's theraputic retreat.

Not that I'm against the idea of exploring diffrent techniques for dealing with an individual such as Coutts. Hanging, gassing, electric chair.... I'm pretty open-minded, but no: accountability is out. What we have instead is an elephantine government clamping down on people who may go on to commit crimes at some unspecified point in the future. But don't worry: they're only targeting pervs, right ? Just like hate crimes laws were only ever going to be used to deal with genuine cases of intimidation.

And Here's Me At The Slave Market....

Here’s a question for Mrs Manners: what’s the protocol for linking to a post that doesn’t exist anymore. Laban accidentally murdered a post of his at B-BBC, but the subject was so weird, I’ve just got to have my 2p’s worth - hey, it's back again. Just think about that concept: Sandi Toksvig filing a travelogue from the Sudan.

Wasn’t filthy rich degenerates wandering round gawking at human misery pretty much what the Left once opposed ? I’m no fan of the whole Lefty ‘how can you drink when gays are being gassed in Devon ?’ line of argument, but even I have limits. Take the matter of you-know-what – I have the strangest feeling that ST might have had a livelier time had the locals known she was a practitioner of the ‘You’re the girl of my dreams/and so are you’ school of lurve’. Sudan is a close tie with North Korea for the world’s biggest hellhole, so how come it gets the ‘Wish you were here’ treatment (‘whatever you do, make time to take in the vibrant spectacle of the slave market’) ?.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Dear ol’ Sandy didn’t just offer up bad reportage, she also managed awful history too. Whatever you think of the British Empire, it was better than a country where slavery, genocide and female circumcision are routinely practiced, but Sandy went the other way, praising the Mahdist revolt against Britain. It’d be tempting for someone to ask her just what it was about the Mahdi’s ideology that appeals to her, but that would be to miss the point.

There’s been a few changes in Liberal Land this past couple of decades. In it’s own way, ST’s ranting is the perfect barometer of both the nihilism and the narcissism of the modern Left. ST’s position is literally senseless. But it doesn’t matter. Britain is not only bad, it’s the worst country there could ever be, ever. The end of slagging off Britian justifies any number of means, and if that means whitewashing absolute evil, well, that's a small prive to pay.

All of which is quite an insight into the modern Left, but does raise the question of why we should be forced to pay for it ?

That'll Leave A Mark

Richard asks the obvious question:

As a final note, in the paper today there is a story – curiously not on-line – where it notes with glee that "the American billionaire seeking to open a super casino at the Millennium dome" is facing a "fresh controversy" after one of his companies put misleading information on its website. This it picked up from a political blog and rushed into print with it.

But isn't it odd how this same newspaper, so purient about others’ transgressions, is quite happy to post faked photographs on its website while it, and the rest of the media, is unwilling to debate its own transgressions.

Non-Existant Phenomenom Detected

MJ points out the appearance of something that doesn't actually exist.

Who'd Have Thunk It ?

Three good proofs of guilt:

1. DNA
2. Witness Evidence
3. Sympathetic Profile By The BBC

For proof of point 3, consider the latest news about the Martyrs of Malaga. Turns out that their holiday lasted all of 7 hours. They flew over there to check out if it was worth going there, and have a look round in the dark. What's suspicious about that ?

This isn't a minor point. Liberals always claim that their objection to what they call 'racial profiling' is justified becuase there are so many other factors that can be used to profile. Well, here it is. Even the Indie - the paper for people who think the Guardian is too right-wing - can see that this sounds like garbage.

Incidentally, the Indie report strongly hints that the Polar Exporers were paid by the BBC. It would be interesting to hear if this is true and if so, whether any of the other passengers were paid at the same rate for their story - and, if not, why not ?

Aside from purely financial considerations though, the BBC's coverage of the Michellin Men of Malaga made 'Hello' magazine look like the Spanish Inquisition (and, as a corollary to that, they smeared both the airline and the passengers). Didn't anyone at the BBC feel the need to do any kind of 'due diligence' here ? Or was the story 'too good to check' in the way it chimed perfectly with the BBC's own prejudices ? And does anyone think that a story from the opposite angle would get onto the air so easily ?

Yes, that last question is rhetorical.

UPDATE:

Down in the comments, Rotty Pup reminds us that the BBC has a record of trying to conjure up 'Islamophobia' atrocity stories.

How The BBC Does It

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" - Winston S Churchill

Well, we do what we can - The BBC

It’s worth remembering that bias isn’t just about the what, it’s also about the when. Consider the reporting of the Monarch Airlines incident. Needless to say, the BBC leapt at the chance to whine about Islamophobia. In fact, so anxious was the BBC to race to air that they left some of the facts behind.

A day later, the BBC tried again. Unfortunately, those pesky facts just got away again. They did, however, manage to include critical comment from MP Khalid Mahmood to go with the first article’s comment from Tory homeland security spokesman, Patrick Mercer. If you were waiting to hear the other side of the incident, you would have had to wait another 24 hours before the BBC got round to carrying anything more than the most perfunctary comments from someone who was on the actual plane, featured in an article helpfully entitled ‘Malaga passenger defends actions’ with the none too subtle implication that these actions needed defending. Lest you have failed to pick up the subtle hint that he’s a bad guy, we’re also told ‘He denied this reaction had been racist.’ Well, quite. In so far as the BBC has failed utterly to provide any actual evidence for a racial motivation, the line has absolutely no purpose other than as a sly innuendo.

See, that’s the thing. The BBC would no doubt claim that by including comments from a passenger, they were being balanced, but were they ? For 48 hours the BBC was happy to spin the whole incident as racial in nature. It was only when that meme was firmly lodged in the public consciousness that they gave one of the targets of that smear a right to reply (and even then they couldn’t resist taking shots at him).

The point is this: for forty-eight hours the passengers on this plane were denounced as racists, paranoids or morons. Now, the BBC has graciously allowed one of the passengers to put his side of the story, they’ll no doubt claim they’re providing balance, but that’s a ludicrous claim. By giving one side a 48 hour head start, the BBC allowed them to set the terms of the debate – which is why, for example, when you see a headline like ‘Malaga passenger defends actions’, you just know it isn’t going to be Abdul of the Antarctic explaining his zany bomber shtick.

Everyone Needs A Hobby

Did you hear about the guy who blew his garage doors off with a home made bomb ? They say he would have got away with a lighter sentance, except Orla Guerin testified that the the whole town had been flattened.

How Could He Be Anything Else ?

Laban reveals the obvious-in-retrospect news that C4's John Snow is the grandson of a World War I General. I'm pretty sure further research will reveal he once issued an order of the day claiming heavy shelling helped produce a vibrant and innovative combat zone while barbed wire was a myth conjured up by the Daily Mail.

The Chickenhawk Meme Is Now Departing Gate 24

If nothing else, at least the Islamopaths branching out into exploding lucozade has robbed Liberals of one of their most annoying talking points. Right up until two minutes ago, Liberals were arguing that you weren't qualfied to have an opinion on the war unless you yourself has served in the Army (but only if you support it - Libs aren't required to have spent two years living as dhimmis before they're allowed to urge surrender)

Never mind the train wreck interpretation of democracy this argument requires - just think how suddenly things have changed. Now, when the security professionals have warned of an impending attack against airliners, you can't move for Liberals ostentatiously rolling their eyes and claiming that all the cool kids just know it's all bogus.

We're Just Lucky He Wasn't Holding An Inflatable 747 While He Gave His Speech

If you want to know what’s wrong with British politics, just consider this week’s exchanges on counter-terrorism. Labour’s position is ludicrous, boiling down as it does to stating that terrorism is such an important topic, we shouldn’t debate it. This proposition is so insane that it would seem indefensible, but Cameron almost manages to make it sound reasonable.

David Camerons’ greatest talent is that no matter how low Nu Lab sets the limbo bar for political debate, Cameron manages to bring it down just that little bit further. Consider the substance of Cameron’s latest intervention. Or rather the lack thereof.

Cameron urges a clamp down on Islamic fundamentalists, and to this end he wants to repeal the Human Rights Act. Good so far, except he wants to replace it with a Bill of Rights, huh ? Ah yes, bottom line: whatever laws Parliament passes, we’ll still be bound by 8744 European conventions and the like. Call it a Human Rights Act, a Bill of Rights, a Scumbag Entitlement Act (my choice) or whatever, we’ll still be right where we are now, until our MPs do the job they’re paid for and start making our laws instead of outsourcing to a load of Eurotrash Liberals.

Cameron’s next Big Idea is even worse. He wants to make wiretap evidence admissible in court. What’s wrong with that ? Simple: take an activist judge, mix with moonbat lawyers and stir in the rules on disclosure and what we’ll have is either the security services forced to give a step-by-step guide to surveillance techniques, or the case thrown out.

Still, he has one more idea: spend more cash – hardly a revolutionary idea from an opposition party – but doesn’t know exactly what on. We’ll carpet bomb the Home Office with money and hope some hits a useful program.

Cameron’s intervention is quite literally pointless. He has injected himself in the debate merely to make noise and stir trouble. Hey – normally I’m all for Ya Boo politics, but we’re at war. Lunatics are plotting to bring down airliners but the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition can’t see beyond a cheap sound bite. I think this movie sums it up well:

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

This Post Completely Deleted By The Author

Well, completely deleted in the Orla Goering sense. I mean, I’ve moved a couple of commas around, which is practically the same. I’m guessing everyone’s read about DfH’s latest bust ? Oops – make that everyone in the blogosphere. The MSM doesn’t want to know. So remind me again: which side is it that has multiple layers of fact-checking and a code of professional ethics ?

Not to say that there isn’t a certain grim amusement seeing the Orlons’ defenders in the comments to the original post. The best excuse saw was the guy trying to claim that the undamaged parts of the town weren’t actually part of the town, no, they were part of the suburbs. Huh ? What happened to all that indiscriminate carpet bombing ? Suddenly, the bloodthirtsy ZioNazis are respecting local zoning laws ?

Not to beat a dead horse to death, but this is where all the MSM’s pious rhetoric comes home to roost (next to the mangled metaphors). Here we have a BBC reporter caught lying on camera. Hey, it’s not the first time questions have been raised about either the Orlon or the MSM in general. Remember the MSM’s three-line whip when questions were raised about Qana ? Now it turns out that ‘Green Helmet’ admits to staging photographs – but only in a good way though. Then there’s the Evil Jew Swing – and all this is just in the last few days.

The MSM have all the money and the technology, but bloggers keep popping up and catching them in the act. The more effort they put into defending themselves on a specific point, the more other incidents come to light. Who’s in a ‘quagmire’ now, losers ?

The MSM likes to preach about its vital importance to democracy, but what we’ve seen in Lebanon is an industry in a complete moral meltdown. You find yourself wondering just what they’ll get caught doing next. This isn’t about rogue individuals. The whole industry has followed a code of virtual omerta on the subject of misconduct, while some have actively attacked those who’ve raised questions.

The MSM can’t have their cake and eat it. They can’t disparage the ‘unregulated’ blogopsphere while closing ranks around crooks in their own industry. Pretty much the defining feature of a profession is that it regulates the conduct of it’s members. If the MSM is going to claim special privileges for its members while resolutely refusing to demand any ethical standards from them, then journalism ceases to be a profession and becomes a cartel. Or, to put it another way, just how much worse could bloggers be ?

Thousands Saved, Liberals Horrified

Unfortunately, this headline isn’t literally true. It’s not like they don’t deserve it. Thousands of lives have been saved through employing a tactic Liberals screechingly denounced as worthless and amoral. Of course, normal disclaimer applies. Liberals have defined torture down to the point where there is no useful distinction to be made between the average Travelodge and Aushwitz. But, just this once and for the sake of their insane argument, let’s specifiy that we’re talking about actual torture. Hey – thousands of innocents spared vs a jihadi in pain, hmmm – I’m sure we can make this a win:win scenario somehow.

Even the Guardian itself is under no illusions about about just how devastating this turn of events is for Liberals. Hence, the sudden urge to downplay the Left’s previous positions.

In 2004 the Court of Appeal ruled - feebly - that evidence obtained using
torture would be admissable as long as Britain had not "procured or connived" at
it. The law lords rightly dismissed this in December last year, though they
disagreed about whether the bar should be the simple "risk" or "probability" of
torture.

They might have argued about where to draw the line, but in the end they decided that the government had to prove that evidence had not been obtained by torture – a logical as well as legal absurdity which was nevertheless hailed by Liberals as a great step forward for human civilisation.

Yes, I’m aware that there are many Libertarians who oppose torture as well. These people were perfectly summed up in the Onion headline ‘Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Brigade’. Personally, I think if you see July 7, the Motoons and the bare shoulders of humiliation, but you still truly believe the real threat is from the Black Helicopters, you’re nuts, but at least these folks are consistent. When did the Left start taking out onions for our lost freedoms ? Not here, here, here or here, that’s for sure. It’s only when the government starts clamping down on lunatics who fly airliners into buildings that the Libs start waxing lyrical about freedom.

In its own way, the Liberal position on alleged torture is the perfect metaphor for their whole approach to the war on terror. Liberals insist that they’re utterly opposed to terror, it’s just that they have a super, special, sophisticated plan to beat it that involves doing the exact opposite of what any sane person would recommend. Ditto, they claimed their opposition to torture was based on a coldy rational judgement that it didn’t work. Well, now we know: in a carefully-controlled experiment it was found that the deft use of torture could save thousands of lives. As a result, Liberals are forced to rely on pseudo-New Age garbage. Hmmm..mass slaughter vs polluted credentials. It’s a toughey, but I think we should go with the ‘no mass murder’ option.

It’ll never get any easier than this. The Right thinks we're in a war up to our necks, so we should do whatever it takes to stop the enemy. Liberals think we should be prepared to sacrifice thousands of lives, and sacrifice them not so the rest of the Army can reach Dunkirk, or so that the fleet can escape into open waters, no – they must die so we don’t pollute our credentials, we don’t infringe on our national karma, and our psychic moppet remains unspanked. What more need be said ?

Smackhead Nation

Laban passes on the news that, once again, our immigration system has focused like a laser on only the most desirable of New Britons. But what did we expect ? These guys aren't coming here because they want to be British, they respect Britain or they even like it. They're here for the money.

Far be it for me, cold-hearted Conservative that I am, to criticise greed, but why should anyone expect these people to give a toss about Britain ? They're the logical end product of modern Liberalism. As ever, Mark Steyn says it best:

Contemporary Canadian, British, Dutch and Swedish nationality is to a large extent self-mocking. In 1997, you may recall, the federal government marked the 50th anniversary of Canadian citizenship with the usual maple boosterism, in this case posters showing people of every conceivable hue with their hands circled around the globe. That's Canadian citizenship as the state sees it: there are no Canadian people, only whatever people from whichever spot on the planet happen to be in Canada at any particular moment.

Hell, why shouldn't Poles despise us ? Few nations can have as bloody a history as Poland, yet despite being utterly destroyed three times, Poland lives on, with its culture and sense of self intact. When Poles come over here, they see a country with a far happier history but also a cultural death wish, splashing round in the cess pit of post-modern, non-judgemental, multicultural, Liberal filth. We're an aristocratic drug addict, shooting up the family fortune, and assuring ourselves that throwing away our birth right on rubbish proves how sophisticated we are. What's to respect ?

Jews You Can Use

The Guardian's Comment is Futile site has an article warning of the dangers of anti-Semitism. Fortunatly, it turns out not to be the End Times as yet. The article manages to warn of the dangers of Judenhesse without once using the words 'Islam' or 'Muslim'. Nope - the real danger comes from...... yep, our own white trash selves. One more BT ad featuring Maureen Lipman, and it'll be Holocaust II.

Hey, the Guardian might not like Jews, but in the great game of victimhood poker, even the denziens of Golders Green will do as a useful stick to beat native Britons with. All of which leaves just one question unanswered: is there a non-Yiddish equivalent to the word 'chutzpah' ?

Outrage D'Jour

Ok, technically an outrage of a few jours gone by, but still – it’s a lu-lu.

Did you like the bit where the judge tries to justify leniency by pointing out that even though the degenerate in question threatened the vic with a knife, he didn’t actually use it ? Well, he didn’t stab the vic. Good for him! See, he’s not a bad lad, after all. Now, what was that about Liberals being on the side of the scum ?

Guardian Denounces Liberalism, Murder Still OK

In the Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash deplores the cultural cess pit of modern Britain. Nope, it isn’t Mel P playing a prank, it’s the latest excuse for the Jihadis: they’re alienated by the meaninglessness of modern life.

Apparently, self-awareness isn’t a big seller with the Left. Could there be a better example of the cultural nihilism of modern Britain than the readiness of Liberals to surrender our nation to a bunch of savages ?

Hey, when the kids go out to get paralytic and have sordid sexual encounters, at least they actually follow through. Meanwhile, Guardianistas churn out sermon after sermon on the wonders of alternative lifestyles, civil liberties and the rest of the Liberal agenda, but as soon as some bearded lunatics appear, it turns out they were just kidding anyway.

It’s possible that the Jihadis think our civilisation is weak and decadent because of the actions of 19 year old slappers, but I’m guessing that their confidence has rather more to do with a Liberal establishment so firmly mired in a swamp of post-modernism, multi-culturalism, moral equivalence and the 57 other varieties of Liberal Stupid, that their first reaction on hearing of an attempt to slaughter thousands of innocents is to make excuses for the savages. Or to put it another way, here's a voice from a time when Liberalism and treason weren't synonymous:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Outrage D'Jour

No dhimmitude here, no sireee!

It's The Zombie Jihad!

Hey, back in the day being an insider meant you knew where the bodies were buried. Now, it means you know where they're being dug up. Let's hear that song one more time:

I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get
competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that
is being described.

Hey, the dead might have risen again, but the MSM's credibility is still sinking fast.

Question D'Jour

All the chaos surrounding air travel does raise one question: will the cost of all this be included when next the ‘Open Borders’ lobby try to prove the economic benefits of immigration ?

What You Won't be Reading In The MSM...

OK, I’m a pessimist. I thought that catching one of the Qana snappers photoshopping his pics would give the lie to the MSM’s claim that their super-duper, magic multi-layer systems would have detected any fraud at Qana, but the MSM would still claim his work there was completely kosher – ahem! – and it wasn’t till later in the same week when he turned into a dirty fraud (no doubt driven to it by those pesky bloggers).

I just couldn’t see staging of photos leaving the same kind of physical evidence as photoshopping. A photoshop leaves a fake picture, but with staging you’re left with indirect evidence. Oops. Maybe not – breaking the media’s code of omerta, a German channel has broadcast footage from Qana of dear old ‘Green Helmet’ directing the media and organising second takes.

Let’s think about this. We’re not talking footage shot by hidden camera or spy satellite. Green helmet wasn’t caught in an unguarded moment. Bottom line: no one of above moron intelligence can look at the scene and see anything other than a staging.

The video was out there when AP’s Kathleen Carroll claimed to know ‘from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described.’

The video was out there when Roy Greenslade was calling these charges an ‘unreasoned and disgraceful attack’.

The video was out there when the Telegraph’s Shane Richmond sneered at ‘armchair photo experts’ speculating on ‘whether this rescue worker has enough dust on him’.

See, this is what I was saying. We’re no longer talking about ‘bias’. Bias implies shading, editing, nuance. We’re talking about an outright lie. MSM journalists worked themselves into a rage about anyone calling the photos staged, even while a video showing the staging in progress was out there. Hey – maybe they just weren’t aware of the video. But hang on..... these people claim the right to speak with authority about the war, but aren’t aware of what’s happening in their own industry. Hello ? That’s their excuse: ‘not biased, just unbelievably ignorant’. To swallow that, you have to believe they are completely incompetent.

Personally, I go with option two. They were lying. Think about that. Not only were they prepared to carry photos staged by a group of terrorist loons, the whole industry was prepared to lie about it. Just something to remember next time you hear them preaching about the dangers of the unregulated internet.

Talking Points

Laban detects a certain mixed message in the Left’s talking points re: the latest counter-terrorism bust. Me, I’m still wondering how we can have a diverse cross-section of as yet unknown people in custody, yet the Left can so clearly put its finger on what motivates them. It’s like there’s something linking the suspects...

US uber-blogger Ace wonders why the MSM, which just spent the last week telling us that allegation of Hezb’Allah manipulating the news from Lebanon didn’t matter because the coverage was ‘essentially true’, seems obessed with the possibility that the UK and US governments may be trying to spin the news. Isn’t it ‘essentially true’ to say that the terrorists want to kill westerners ?

Some of us are just wondering if the folks claiming this operation is bogus because the terrorists weren’t actually caught in the act, are the same people who say that if the police really thought St Jean the Martyr was dangerous, they would have acted sooner. Hey, if you’re going to insist that’ it’s only a real bust if the bomber is caught with his finger on the detonator, don’t complain if the arrest team occasionally jumps right instead of left.

Speaking Truthiness To Power

It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor.

Lucky for her she won't have to imagine it then, hey ? Now we know. While the MSM was issuing hysterical denunciations of those rotters in the blogosphere, Reuters was publishing photos from the Rolf Harris of Photoshop. In the blink of an eye, we've gone from fraud being unthinkable, to fraud being unthinkable except for the guy caught commiting it.

The winner of Best In Show was undoubtedly the Telegraph's Shane Richmond, who - no kidding - managed to slip a reference to Abu Grahib into an article that slipped seemlessly from denouncing bloggers as 'conspiracy theorists' to explaining that the fact the MSM was caught running bogus pictures proves that the system works. Huh ?

Since Shaneless brings it up, I'd point out that the US Army was investigating events at Abu Grahib long before they became public knowledge. More to the point, the US Army hadn't been rubbishing anyone who pointed out the potential for abuse right up until these events were revealed. Richmond and his fellow travellers would still be calling all and sundry 'conspiracy theorists' if Reuters had employed a better P-shopper.

Hairsplitting to the contrary, the point is surely this: when allegations about Qana first emerged, the MSM assured us that such frauds would be easily picked up by their 'multiple layers of fact-checking'. Now we know that even blatant photoshopping goes undetected, the whole thrust of the MSM's argument has collapsed. It turns out that even if the photos were faked, they were 'essentially true' - the MSM's own version of slightly pregnant - or, indeed, fake but accurate. Needless to say, qualifiers like essentially true weren't much in evidence prior to these latest revelations.

Now, the wheels have well and truly come off. The MSM's whole reporting of the conflict is in play. Here's probably the best round-up of the current situation. To the point: it would be simpler to name those aspect of MSM reporting which haven't raised suspicions. Yes, the MSM can claim that thousands of bloggers and blog readers have all got together to persecute them for no reason at all, but could they stop calling other people conspiracy theorists ?

There's a wider point here. It goes to the nature of modern Liberalism. Here we have a group of rich and powerful multinationals exposed as frauds trying to pervert the political agenda, by the hard work of ordinary citizens. It's the type of story the media usually loves, but I'm not holding my breath for any latter day Erin Brockovich-style fawning coverage of DFH. Ditto, consider the question of the Qana timestamps. The MSM are anxious for us to know that the timestamps may not reflect the time the pictures were actually taken, but they won't actually release the raw data. What happened to the public's right to know ? Nope - instead we get Roy Greenslade, apparently on a bonus for each use of the phrase 'right-wing', claiming that even asking questions risks the lives of jounalists. Huh ?

Let's try a little thought experiment here. Think what the MSM would say if any other industry behaved the way the MSM is doing. Exactly. Jounalists like to posture as fearless seekers after truth, but now it turns out that they're fearless seekers after truthiness, stuff that's not within the strict sense of the word true, but tells a greater truth. In other words, they lie to push their own agenda.

Isn't this just a perfect microcosm of modern Liberalism ? Journalists might still blather about representing the little guy, but then we get charmers like the Sunday Mirror's Sharon Van Geuns screaming abuse at the peasants. Why not ? Sixties radicals fought the system so they could grow up to impose speech codes, racial quotas and zero tolerance policing (but only for some crimes). The Left has become everything it claimed to despise. The degeneration of jounaists from alcoholic hacks chasing down stories to metropolitan yuppie scum dealing in symbolism is the story of the collapse of Leftism's moral basis.

Is Anyone Keeping Track ?

Scott on form, as ever. Not to go off at a tangent, but a thought occurred while reading this line:

But the apparent reticence of the Independent was nothing more than a ruse, Saturday's entire front page being devoted to advertising the rally - as well as the critically important accessory, a "Unconditional Ceasefire Now" t-shirt modelled by 22 notables, including Bianca Jagger, "rap artist" Sway Dasafo, Shade Skinyemi (59, "on a gap year") and former BBC luminary Anna Ford.

Is anyone keeping score on just how many ex-Beeboids turn out to be moonbats ? We're supposed to believe the BBC doesn't have an agenda, but it seems like one second after its staff are off the payroll and free to speak their minds, they start channelling the George W Bush Conspiracy Generator.

Compare the number of barking moonbats to the number of ex-Beeboids who espouse even mildly Conservative viewpoints. Exactly. To coin a phrase, where's the diversity ?

The Tuskegee Experiment In The 21st Century

There's a lot of anti-Scottish feeling in England at the moment, but I'm warming to the place. A lot of the objections are based around the fact it's a socialist hell hole. I go the other way, I think that's great. It's perfect, a Tuskegee Experiment for Socialism.

That's why I'm not surprised by this - this is what Leftism means, what it always meant. It's just that previously they've had to keep a lid on the lunacy, but now they have a whole country where politics covers the whole spectrum from Marx to Trotsky, we can see the world the Left wants to create. No excuses about colonialism, debt or the like this time. Here's a First World country for the Left to experiment on. Draw your own conclusions.

At Least The Professionals Are Running The Show

Yep, Opus Dave are at the helm now. No more will they allow local associations manned by county bumpkins to screw things up. The hip and happening yuppie scum at Conservative Central Office will run things properly……..but not yet. Give ‘em six months or so. Hey, how were they to know there was an election coming ?

Sounds Like A Job For The Handicapper General

One of Labour’s key players on education has called school choice ‘naïve’. Is it ironic or just stupid that an alleged expert on education uses such a moronic arguement ? Thirty years of near-monopoly control of the institutions has robbed them of the ability to make an actual argument, so all they’re left with is variations on the theme of calling Conservatives stupid.

I’m not sure a guy who claims that school choice could lead to some schools being ‘bloody awful’ should be calling anyone else naïve. Judging by trivia such as literacy rates, I think we’ve got the whole awfulness angle pretty much covered already. But don’t worry, Bazza’s got a plan. He’s thinks school admissions should be by lottery.

No, seriously.

It don’t get any easier than this. On the one hand, we have the ideal of parents as empowered consumers, on the other, head teachers meeting to divvy up the fresh meat. What more need be said about the difference between Left & Right ?

Never mind the superficial stupidities – like parents of three kids potentially ending up with a school run that looks like the mark of Zorro. Consider the underlying philosophy. Liberals have been telling us for years that teachers are like really smart brain surgeons, but with a dash of Merlin. Now, Bazza’s telling us that the only way to improve results at a school is to press gang smart kids onto the school rolls. As far as alchemy goes, this is like turning lead into lead.

And that’s the nice interpretation of what Bazza is saying. The alternatives are even worse. Maybe he thinks that if only working class kids sit next to aristocrats, they’ll turn out to be as smart as Prince Harry. Well, maybe not. Or it could just be that he’s finally realised the truth about Labour’s core support, and decided that there’s nothing worse he can do to rich kids than make them sit next to Labour brats.

Or it could just be, and I realise I’m going out on a limb here, that Bazza understands perfectly well that the problem with school choice isn’t that it’ll create terrible schools, but that it will expose them. Once parents have the chance to evacuate their kids from Loser St Comp over to Destiny Academy, a whole bus load of senior managers are going to be getting that ‘naked on the street’ feeling.

Ann Coulter joked that the traditional greeting at Democrat conventions was ‘and what do you teach ?’ The same holds true for Britain. Forget the miners, they were mere amateurs. Ditto, the lawyers - they might be running the show, but it’s the teaching unions that have a death grip on the Left.

Now Nu Lab is faced with a dilemma. Carry on as before with head teachers carving up the supply of customers, or go over to a real system of school choice, with consequent risk of Jimmy Stoner and friends getting the old heave ho’. It’s a toughey, all right, but I think the union paymasters will win out.

Israeli Attacks Continue, MSM Credibility Badly Damaged

I may just be the last person in the blogosphere to note this, but just in case, here's the big news: Al-Reuters has been caught using Al-Photoshop. There's a good summary here.

Can We Shoot Him Now ?

As Viz reminded us, Friday night’s a drinking night. If any further motivation was needed, just consider who the Jeremy Whine show had on today’s show to argue against the evils of hooch: George Galloway. What ? Was he worried there was still some people in the country who didn’t hate him ? At least if he was hammered, he’d have some kind of excuse:

Hey, I had to keep yammering on about saluting his indefiniability, it was the
only way to keep him distracted so he didn’t realise I’d Gordon Browned all his hooch.

But no, George wants us to know he was completely sober while palling around with absolute filth. Admittedly, he’s still not the worst role-model the neo-prohibitionists could have, but still: you have to wonder about a lifestyle when so many spokesmen for it turn out to be scumbags.

Business Is Booming

Looks like the Islamopath fun day is back on at Alton Towers. Should be a blast.

No Biking Without A Licence

The debate over whether or not Liberals genuinely bought into the ecoloon idea that the Earth was about to be turned into cigarette ash, or whether they were just using it as an excuse for more control freakery, has been settled (although I do hear that opponents are planning a protest Raleigh).

Liberal Logic

See, those Liberals must be smarter than us. Me, I’m still trying to work out how come Iraq proves that you can’t use military power to impose order on a society, but the war in Lebanon means we need to send a peace-keeping force into Hezbullahland ? Then again, maybe the Left are just opposed to imperialist attitudes, y’know, like suggesting that a war between an Iranian/Syrian proxy army based in Lebanon and a US-backed Israel is down to Tony Blair.

Memories of St Jean

Who’d have thunk it ? An Islamopath turns out to be a nonce. Hey, if it’s good enough for Mo...

Of course, that does bring back memories of a certain event in July 2005. Don’t let the L3 kid you. Even when we thought the Bill had capped a Tango, the Left had the black armbands out for a 'victim of state terror'. Naturally, when it was revealed that St Jean the Martyr was only an illegal immigrant and fraudster, the sanctimony was thick enough to slice.

Apparently, the Dextrosphere were pigs for taking MSM reports at face value (yep, Libs will even throw Al-Beeb under the bus if it means they can whine about the Right), but now we’ve had just about every Liberal face card in the country sharing a stage with a pervert, that’s of no interest whatsoever. Hey – it’s not like there weren’t clues out there. The Forest Gate Kittens make the Addams family seem like Terry & June. And it’s not like it’s a first offence either. Anyone remember Garri Holness ? At least you could leave your kids with Jeffrey Archer.

Sometimes, It Takes An Idiot

A friend of mine is a nice guy except for one thing: he really does believe the world is secretly run by guys in skullcaps. Which is why I was surprised to hear his take on the latest events in Lebanon. He asked why Hezbullah fire rockets at Israeli cities when they could use them on the Israeli soldiers killing their people. So that’s it: commentary from an actual anti-Semitie is now more penetrating than that from the MSM.

Are The MSM Committing War Crimes ?

The way the MSM’s ‘Qana massacre’ meme is being shot to pieces, expect them to be demanding an immediate cease-fire soon. EU Referendum led off, while Confederate Yankee and NRO’s media blog also raise good points. Come to think of it, isn't this kind of pounding all very.....disproportionate ?

Ah yes, that's the thing, of course. The MSM have been seeking Israeli war crimes for weeks, but the only confirmed casaulty has been the English language. They tried to claim Israel was committing a war crime by bombing infrastructure but, strangely, few people were enraged by allegations of the ruthless murder of flyovers, while others wondered why, if screwing up the transport system was a war crime, Ken Livingstone wasn't on trial at the Hague.

Ditto, all the MSM's hysterical blathering about 'disprortionality' boiled down to a complaint that the Israelis weren't letting themselves get killed nearly enough. No wonder the MSM were so keen to carry Hezbollah's latest snuff movie. At least they don't have to try and conjure up some insane legal principles out of thin air to explain why the death of the innocent is genuinely horrific.

The Yang of the MSM’s desperate attempts to try to find some way – any way – to call Israelis war criminals requires the Yin of a determined effort to avoid the elephant on the table, namely that Israel wouldn’t be ‘committing’ these pretend war crimes anyway, if it wasn’t for Hezbullah committing actual, real war crimes by placing military assets in civilian areas. There’s no word games required here: it’s a gross violation of the rules of war – the more so, as it appears to be an act of deliberate policy. Libs keep yammering about international law, well, here it is: the blame lies with the side that positions their forces in civilian areas, not the attacker. Not that you’d know this from the MSM.

That’s the other thing. Liberals consider Qana proof positive of the evils of Israel, but it’s equally revealing about the MSM. We know Hezbullah likes to site its launchers in civilian towns. Partly that’s to make it harder for Israel to find them, but isn’t it also to garner favourable publicity when the inevitable collateral damage happens ?

It’s not as if the MSM - with a few honourable exceptions - has any apparent scruples about carrying even blatant propaganda. Consider the evidence from EU Referendum, it’s quite obvious that the pictures the MSM presented as representing a ‘rescue operation’ were nothing of the sort. At best, they were dramatic reconstructions. Yet, the MSM reported them as genuine. All of which raises the question: haven’t the MSM crossed the line from sympathetic observer of Hezbullah lunacy to active participants ?

What I’m saying is this: Hezbullah are conducting military operations from civilian areas secure in the knowledge that the MSM will not only use the consequences to indict Israel, but that they will do so in the teeth of the evidence. In other words, Hezbullah’s war crimes are predicated on the support of the MSM. The MSM’s reluctance to cover issues such as, say, Hezbullah’s policy of preventing the evacuation of civilians is not merely contemptible – it makes them a part of the crime.

By the way, lest any Liberals want to claim that our MSM – multiple layers of fact checking and all – is just being bamboozled by the slick media skills of Hezbullah, I would remind them of the death sentence passed on former commander of the Japanese Army in the Philippines, Tomoyuki Yamashita. The General was sentenced to death for atrocities committed by the men under his command, not because he ordered them, or was even aware of them, but because he should have been aware of, and should have acted to prevent, these atrocities. After Qana, the MSM can never again claim that they didn’t have grounds for suspicion.

If nothing else, can we be spared Fergal Keane’s ostentatious emoting ? Not when we now know that Father Fergal of the Fractured Heart has no problem with dead kids being used for five hour photo ops. This isn’t about journalistic ethics this is about basic, common or garden decency.

Equally, we are no longer talking about ‘bias’. The MSM’s reporting is actively aiding the commission of war crimes. Hezbullah puts civilians in harm’s way, the MSM uses the subsequent casualties to denounce Israel. Each feeds off the other, both are guilty. Just something to be borne in mind next time the MSM waxes lyrical about the West losing ‘moral authority’.