You are currently browsing the daily archive for December 16th, 2006.
Reuters, managing both to be factually inaccurate and horrendously insensitive . . . and all in just 7 words:
First, she wasn’t dead when the images were made. Secondly, she was a young woman who was murdered.
And let us not forget this: THAT garbage headline comes to us courtesy of the “news” organization that shudders, for example, at even the thought of using the word “terrorist“.
The BBC ineptly reports:
A chain-gang in Guantanamo-style boiler suits marched on Downing Street to call for the release of UK citizens held at the US detention camp…
If that is the reason for this protest then those protesters are badly informed, for as the BBC itself knows there are NO UK citizens currently being held at Camp Delta.
What the protesters are apparently doing is of course demanding the UK government move to speak for people who had “leave to remain” in Britain, but who are in fact citizens of other countries who were captured in third countries by the US. It is not unlike protesters in the US demanding the US government work for the release of Mexican “Green card” holders captured outside the US and being held in Australian confinement after joining a force in Afghanistan that was determined to launch terror attacks in Sydney. Someone, therefore, should probably point out to the BBC that “leave to remain” and UK citizenship are NOT quite the same thing.
…Family members handed in a letter for Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying he is key to the men’s release.
The Amnesty International protest called on the government to intervene to secure the men’s return home.
Home being where? It isn’t Britain; they aren’t “Britons” and weren’t here when captured. Nevertheless, that’s powerful stuff that from Amnesty. Expected, really, for as the organization tells us:
…AI is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government or political system, nor does it support or oppose the views of the victims whose rights it seeks to protect. It is concerned solely with the impartial protection of human rights…
Obviously, Amnestly has never quite understood that “human rights” itself constitutes an “ideology”. And its notion of “impartiality” has particularly gone downhill in recent years. In any event, when AI starts holding similar rallies with participants dressed up as, say, kidnapped Israeli soldiers who have vanished without any trace whatsoever after having been captured in illegal “cross border raids” into internationally recognized Israeli territory, one might consider AI once again to be something approaching a serious human rights organization.
However, until that time AI remains what it has proven itself to be time and again since September 11, 2001: an organization trying to ride on its trademark name made in the past defending non-violence-espousing “prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience” (and especially opposing their capital punishment), but which is now an appellation that is terribly mostly debased owing to the organization’s agitating unceasingly on behalf of those involved in acts of warfare/violence.
The only conspiracy theory surrounding the Royal Family yesterday was whether Kate Middleton’s presence at Sandhurst to see her boyfriend, Prince William, pass out as an officer of the British Army was a signal that the couple plan to marry…
…Miss Middleton, who met the 24-year-old Prince when they were studying history of art at the University of St Andrews, in Fife, spent the ceremony grinning and chatting to her parents. As William passed by carrying an SA80 rifle, she pointed him out excitedly.
ITN used a lip reader to translate Miss Middleton’s comments to onlookers — who told them that she said: “I love the uniform. It’s so so sexy.”…
Of course, ITN. One can only imagine that the other leader in, errr, quality TV newsgathering, Sky News, is probably furious ITN thought of that first.
The BBC reports:
Detectives investigating the murder of a 90-year-old widow who had been the victim of a burglary at her Swansea home are examining CCTV images.
The body of Avril Evans was found by her 60-year-old son at her end of terrace home in Grandison Street in Hafod at 2100 GMT on Thursday…
…Thirty police officers are working on the murder case which was launched after Mrs Evans’ body was discovered downstairs in her home…
It’s a shame even a couple of those thirty weren’t around before she was burgled and murdered in her own home. But why none were is completely understandable, of course. After all, before we get all judgemental we must not forget how all those mobile “safety” cameras always need manning.
The BBC reports amusingly on the latest Iranian elections as if they were taking place in an actual democracy:
…The study of languages should also be compulsory in primary schools, a report for the Department for Education and Skills said. Lord Dearing, the architect of student tuition fees, made the recommendations as part of a review into the crisis surrounding language teaching…
…Schools needed to offer a wider range of languages and make classes more appealing.
Russian, Mandarin and other eastern languages, such as Japanese, should be offered. Tongues spoken in inner-city communities, such as Urdu and Arabic, should also be encouraged.
He called on the Government, which has encouraged pupils to study French, German and Spanish, to drop regulations governing which languages are acceptable, giving schools “considerable autonomy” for the first time. “There is evidence that a broader diet of languages can engage learners as well as providing a national pool of expertise,” he said…
One wouldn’t want to be awkward, nor to suggest to Lord Dearing how to do his job of course. However, this being England and all might it not be a better first step if the government opened such reform by first encouraging the study of English?
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