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Omar Bakri Mohammed: The Sun speaks!
Today, Page 3 lovely Keeley (18, from Bromley) is staggered that cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed can get away with his sick rants. She says: “I find it amazing that he has been allowed to stay this long. Why the government have put up with him and his vile views is beyond me.”
What I find amazing is that this obviously quite important issue is only being covered by Murdoch’s newspapers today.
What I find amusing is the Page Title at The Sun in today’s news results (see screengrab).
The Sun – Bakri speaks to Sun (and gets a fair hearing, of course)
The Sun – Send him Bakri: He could be prosecuted and jailed for inciting murder, as many of his outraged fellow Muslims demand. But that would mean he’d still be in Britain and costing all of us money. Bakri must be put on a plane and sent back where he belongs. That’s what he claims to want. If Syria and Saudi Arabia won’t have him, we’ll have to dump him somewhere on a lonely island.
Costing all of us money? Surely not all of us… Mr Murdoch doesn’t pay any tax in this country that I’m aware of.
The Times – Radical cleric who has never been prosecuted
Do you remember the other week when Christians were threatening violence and bloodshed over a few swear words? They were also fond of claiming that Christianity was an easy target and no-one would dare target Muslims in the same way. But The Scum didn’t lay the boot into them. They did, however, find time to give Omar Bakri Mohammed a good going over.
Oh, I have an answer from Stephen Green of Christian Voice regarding that circular, but need him to clarify his answer before I publish anything.
UPDATE – Bigdaddymerk has made an interesting 5Mb WMV available. It’s a segment from last week’s What The Papers Say concerning JS:TO. And Media Watch Watch notes here that John Beyer has extended MediaWatch-UK’s ‘taste and decency in the media’ remit to include complaints about taxi fares. Why, it’s almost as if he’ll take any chance he can get to bitch about the BBC… or get his name in the papers.
Posted in Rupert 'The Evil One' Murdoch
2 Comments
Tories and Lib Dems put their stalls out
BBC NEWS | In Depth | Party policies at a glance
BBC – Tories set to unveil tax cut plan
Guardian – Defection of MP derails Howard’s election plan: Michael Howard was last night struggling to get the Conservatives’ £35bn election message back on track after it was knocked sideways yesterday by an MP’s high-profile defection to Labour and a morale-sagging opinion poll.
BBC – Tory tax cut proposals: Your views
BBC – Kennedy launches Lib Dem poll bid
Guardian – Kennedy names election battlegrounds (includes link to full speech): Charles Kennedy today accused the government of campaigning on “the politics of fear”, as he launched the Liberal Democrats’ campaign for the next general election. Declaring his own party “united, principled and ambitious”, he made it clear the Lib Dems would fight the expected May 5 poll on a platform of opposition to the Iraq war, council tax, student top-up fees and identity cards. In the wake of the weekend defection of former Conservative minister Robert Jackson to Labour, Mr Kennedy accused the Tories of now “fading away as a national party”.
Scotsman – Libdem Warning to Labour over Hung Parliament: Liberal Democrats will not “bail out” Tony Blair if there is a hung Parliament, leader Charles Kennedy warned today. Labour is set for another landslide victory, according to the polls. But Mr Kennedy said his party had its best chance for two or three decades and would benefit from a “mixed pattern of voting” across the country.
Ironically, any landslide will result – at least in part – from fear of a return to Tory rule. Which doesn’t really seem to be on the cards, now does it? Why, it’s almost as if someone has been misrepresenting the level of the threat… one can only wonder why.
Perhaps – just perhaps – it’s to reign in the protest vote…
Washington Post – Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy (transcript here): President Bush said the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath. “We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.”
Boy, that worked out well, didn’t it?
Blair has said more than once that the people would get a chance to decide if he acted correctly in Iraq at the polls… but during the recent EU and local elections, a lot of effort went into keeping Blair (and therefore Iraq) out of the picture and – when this didn’t work – Blair actually urged voters to put aside their feelings about Iraq when they cast their ballots.
For many people, this election will be their only chance to call Tony Blair to account for Iraq.
But how many people do you think will hover over their form and hesitate if there appears (emphasis on appears) to be a danger of a Conservative victory?
Posted in UK General Election 2005
2 Comments
Government website sucks: shock finding
The Times – A new travel website will get its users nowhere, fast. And we have found it’s got a Wapping glitch: Transport Direct, the travel advice line and website that was supposed to show passengers the fastest route from A to B, was first mooted by John Prescott in 1999 as part of his transport vision. But the service, two years behind schedule, has been launched to the confusion of those determined to reach their destinations by public transport. Car drivers, by contrast, are faced with a system that seems to have been imbued with Utopian ideas about rush-hour traffic.
(Link via BigDaddyBlog.)
Posted in Teh Interwebs
1 Comment
Hersh: Iran is next
I would regard this report very seriously if I were you… not least because Hersh also revealed much of the detail behind the Abu Ghraib scandal. (Which, I’m sure you’ll all be comforted to know, was entirely the fault of this one misguided man. Or perhaps these misguided men. And not anyone senior in the Bush administration.)
Of course, if your head is wired in such a way that George W Bush Can Do No Wrong, then this may for you be a good reason to disbelieve the following report. Not that it will matter to you. Recent history teaches us that those most in favour of war have the least exposure to it.
*cough*
Seymour Hersh – The Coming Wars – What the Pentagon can now do in secret: George W. Bush’s re-election was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control – against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism – during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way…. “This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah – we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”
CNN – Journalist: U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran: In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was “riddled with inaccuracies”… “I don’t believe that some of the conclusions he’s drawing are based on fact,” Bartlett said.
I’ve read that sentence a number of times, turned it upside-down and even held it up to a mirror, but I still can’t find the denial.
A man scans the landscape and sees an army massing on the horizon. He sees what he thinks are around 50 tanks, 36 jets and roughly 10,000 troops. Of course, his numbers being wrong would mean that the report is “riddled with inaccuracies”… but there would still be an army massing on the horizon.
That whole thing about the reintroduction of the draft (with tell-tale signs going back way into last year) was so obviously a last-minute pre-election scare-tactic by the Demmycrats.
UPDATE – Guardian – Special forces ‘on the ground’ in Iran
UPDATE – Ohh, look! Some more good news (via Pugh Watch)…
BBC – Iraq ‘could become terror haven’: Iraq could become a breeding ground for terrorists, with survivors taking their experience to use around the world, a new US intelligence report warns.Veterans of jihad in Iraq could eventually replace the al-Qaeda hierarchy, the CIA’s National Intelligence Council says.
UPDATE – Here’s a list of items you cannot take to the Presidential Inauguration. Eggs and pretzels are not listed, but these could quite easily be covered under “any other items at the discretion of the security screeners that may pose a potential safety hazard.”
UPDATE – You may be interested to learn that instructions given to official performers in the parade include: “a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.”
Bid *up*, stupid…
The meaning of life is now available for purchase on eBay: Here it is, the ultimate truth in existence, the meaning of life. It is contained in this small envelope on a plain piece of white lined paper. Nothing showy, only the absolute truth. It could be a single word, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whoever makes the winning bid will discover its secret… Why am I putting this information up for sale? First because I know it will garner attention to the truth I have found, and second because I will be giving any money raised from this auction to charity. I am not selling this for material gain, but only to help humanity. I hope everyone seeing this will consider that when they make a bid.
Told You So…
See? The system works.
Links via Hotlinks and Biz Stone; Genius (please note insertion of semi-colon).
UPDATE – I saw this a few months ago. Not sure if I blogged it… Abu Ghraib Tactics Inspire Torture in Neighbor Egypt
Posted in George W. Bush
4 Comments
I am Jack’s complete and utter sense of astonishment
Posted in Christ...
Comments Off on I am Jack’s complete and utter sense of astonishment
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise
This is a heads-up for all proxy-bloggers, some information about how well you’re doing and some ideas about what you can do during the upcoming election.
A star (*) denotes a blog that is in need of love (i.e. there hasn’t been a fresh post for a while).
Paddy Tipping is my MP – 3rd in Yahoo and 1st in MSN for ‘paddy tipping’
Keetchwatch* – 2nd in Google and MSN for ‘paul keetch’
Glenda Jackson MP* – Voidstar feed is 2nd in Google for ‘glenda jackson mp’, blog is 1st in Yahoo for ‘glenda jackson’
Steve Pound Proxy Weblog – 2nd (feed) and 5th (blog) in Google, 2nd in Yahoo
Michael Clapham MP* – 8th (feed) in Google, 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘michael clapham’
Jeff Ennis MP* – 5th (feed) and 10th (blog) in Google, 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘jeff ennis’
Eric Illsley MP* – 3rd in Google, 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘eric-illsley’
Stalking David Blunkett* and Big Blunkett* have both ceased activity since his ministerial resignation, but the authors should prepare for action. They’ve got excellent coverage in Google, Yahoo and MSN… and Blunkett is still a Labour MP and an important ‘face’ that is likely to be used during the election.
Keith Vaz, MP – 1st in Google, Yahoo and MSN for ‘keith vaz’! Cracking effort! This has a lot to do with it being a comprehensive blog with regular posts. In fact, this blog deserves your special attention.
Almost David Lepper, MP* – The Blogger Profile for this site is 5th in Google for ‘david lepper’, the Voidstar feed is 10th. The blog itself is 1st in Yahoo and MSN for the same query.
Frank Dobson MP* – The Voidstar feed is 6th in Google for ‘frank dobson mp’, the weblog itself is 2nd in Yahoo and 4th in MSN for ‘frank dobson’
Nick Raynsford MP* – 3rd in Google and 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘nick raynsford’
Lewis Moonie MP* – 2nd (feed) and 7th in Google for ‘lewis moonie mp’, 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘lewis moonie’
(Not) Alan Milburn – This proxy-blog is 2nd in Yahoo and 3rd in MSN for ‘alan milburn’, but best we can do in Google is 8th (and that’s the Voidstar feed) for ‘alan milburn mp’ – so this weblog needs some serious Google-juice. This blog needs the most love. Please link to it.
GidleyWatch – A shining star in our collection, in that it resulted in Sandra Gidley starting a weblog of her own. The proxy-blog is 6th in Google, 2nd in Yahoo and 3rd in MSN for ‘sandra gidley’
sarah teather is my mp – 2nd in Google, 1st in Yahoo and MSN for ‘sarah teather’
Not the real Jim Cousins Blog – The Voidstar feed is 6th in Google for ‘jim cousins’, the weblog is 1st in Yahoo and MSN
NEW: Pugh Watch – 5th in Google for ‘john pugh’ (not sure how I missed this one, but it’s there)
So – if you’re up for it – I’d like all proxy bloggers to stand by for full-on Election Mode.
If you get campaign material, scan it and display it.
If a local candidate does something interesting, report it.
If a local candidate says something questionable, refute it.
If a local candidate says something that’s total bullshit, reveal it.
This blog and others (I’m guessing Honourable Fiend will be among them) will be very interested in what you have to say and display.
We’re going to blog this election live. We’re going to kick arse and take names. And that’s just for starters.
PS – You. Yes, you. Do you live in or near the constituencies of the blogs listed above? You are? Well, that’s just lovely. Perhaps you’d care to help out.
And even if you’re not, perhaps you’d care to lend some scanning or scan-hosting support. So much of what gets said, promised or suggested during an election gets lost. It’s important that it be preserved.
PPS – I’m working on Blair Video II and need 8-12 questions that you would ask of Tony Blair. No more than 4-8 words. Leave them under Comments if you like or email me directly.
Mike Read: candidate for sainthood
BBC – Pop stars unite for quake victims: Singers including Sir Cliff Richard and Boy George are recording a charity single to help raise funds for victims of the Asian tsunami. They hope the song will raise more than 2 million pounds for the relief fund. The song, titled Grief Never Grows Old and described as a melancholy ballad, was written by radio DJ Mike Read.
And here’s the true story of how it all came to be:
Mike Read
(UPDATE – Link text changed for Google-juice porpoises.)
True facts:
Together, the people involved are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. They hope to raise two.
If you say ‘Mike Read’ really fast, it sound like ‘my greed’…
