BBC tows the "company line" when it comes to police harassment
RichA
corporations.
amateur photographer online:
Top Gear photographer story: BBC speaks out (update)
Thursday 3rd December 2009
Chris Cheesman
rights watch
The BBC has moved to distance itself from comments made by a freelance
Top Gear photographer who blasted the attitude of the Metropolitan
Police towards photographers.
Earlier this week freelance stills photographer Justin Leighton - who
shoots behind-the-scenes for the Top Gear programme and magazine -
said that taking photographs in London often raises suspicion, even in
areas where permission has already been given to shoot.
Leighton, who works for BBC Worldwide, condemned the 'nightmare'
attitude of the Met's officers, and in particular, Police Community
Support Officers (PCSOs).
The photographer blamed the behaviour of London's police for
restricting his shoots to locations away from the capital.
However, a BBC spokeswoman told Amateur Photographer: 'The BBC does
not share these views.'
The Corporation declined to comment further.
We understand that the makers of Top Gear may be reluctant to further
inflame photographers' relations with the Met.
Leighton's comments chime with many photographers, both amateur and
professional, who continue to complain about the attitude of police.
Last year, the escalating issue moved Amateur Photographer magazine to
launch its nationwide campaign to defend photographers' rights.
On Sunday BBC photographer Jeff Overs told the Andrew Marr Show he was
stopped while taking photos on London's South Bank amid fears he was
planning a reconnaissance operation for a terrorist attack.
Today, the anti-terror watchdog, Lord Carlile again criticised police
use of anti-terrorism powers to stop photographers.
In a front page story in The Independent Carlile said: 'The police
have to be very careful about stopping people who are taking what I
would call leisure photographs, and indeed professional
photographers.'
He added: 'The fact that someone is taking photographs is not prima
facie a good reason for stop and search and is very far from raising
suspicion.
'It is a matter of concern and the police will know that they have to
look at this very carefully.'
Earlier this year The Independent contacted AP for details of the
magazine's ongoing campaign to fight for the rights of photographers.
tony cooper
wrote:
>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
>corporations.
>
To what destination is the BBC towing the line?
Will they toe it when they get it there?
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Irwell
> On Thu, 3 Dec 2009 11:33:43 -0800 (PST), RichA <rande...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
>>corporations.
>>
> To what destination is the BBC towing the line?
>
> Will they toe it when they get it there?
Actually they are guilty of kow towing.
Paul Heslop
they're probably just moving it towards Murdoch so he can grab it and
pull them down into the hell known as Sky TV.
--
Paul (we break easy)
-------------------------------------------------------
Stop and Look
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/
Peter Twydell
<177e6123-b9f1-45f4...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
RichA <rande...@gmail.com> writes
>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
>corporations.
>
The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a
government department. The high ideal is that it is held in trust for
the public of the UK by the BBC Trust (the successor to the Board of
Governors following the renewal of the BBC Charter by the government in
2006).
Practically every government is convinced that the BBC is against it,
which probably shows that in general it gets things about right.
--
Peter
Ying tong iddle-i po!
RichA
> In message
> <177e6123-b9f1-45f4-8720-50334d5a3...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
> RichA <rander3...@gmail.com> writes>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
> >corporations.
>
> The BBC is not owned by the state.
>
> The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a
> government department. The high ideal is that it is held in trust for
> the public of the UK by the BBC Trust (the successor to the Board of
> Governors following the renewal of the BBC Charter by the government in
> 2006).
>
> Practically every government is convinced that the BBC is against it,
> which probably shows that in general it gets things about right.
No, it shows governments don't hold with any dissent when it comes to
things they own. Americans won't be familiar with this, but Canadian
and British governments hold an iron fist over all employees (party
members) in that any dissent is grounds for dismissal. American
politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to internal
party dissent.
Paul Ciszek
In article <dd7d2311-c6c2-4946...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
RichA <rande...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>members) in that any dissent is grounds for dismissal. American
>politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to internal
>party dissent.
Tell that to Dede Scozzafava; she'll be so relieved.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
Chris H
.com>, RichA <rande...@gmail.com> writes
>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
>corporations.
It does not own or run the BBC which is why they had the head of ACPO on
this morning to explain the police actions in another similar case...
The BBC got him to admit the police were wrong.
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Chris H
s.com>, RichA <rande...@gmail.com> writes
>On Dec 3, 5:55�pm, Peter Twydell <Pe...@twydell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message
>> <177e6123-b9f1-45f4-8720-50334d5a3...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
>> RichA <rander3...@gmail.com> writes>This is what happens when the
>>state owns and runs media
>> >corporations.
>>
>> The BBC is not owned by the state.
>>
>> The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a
>> government department. The high ideal is that it is held in trust for
>> the public of the UK by the BBC Trust (the successor to the Board of
>> Governors following the renewal of the BBC Charter by the government in
>> 2006).
>>
>> Practically every government is convinced that the BBC is against it,
>> which probably shows that in general it gets things about right.
>
>No, it shows governments don't hold with any dissent when it comes to
>things they own.
They don't own the BBC... in fact the government (of both persuasions)
has had to go to court to stop the BBC doing things in the past. Usually
the government looses the case
>Americans won't be familiar with this, but Canadian
>and British governments hold an iron fist over all employees (party
>members)
Most employees (civil service) are not permitted to be party members.
> in that any dissent is grounds for dismissal.
From the civil service or the poetical party?
> American
>politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to internal
>party dissent.
You don't live inthe real world do you?
Twibil
>
>
> > American
> >politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to internal
> >party dissent.
>
Uh, yes, and now think hard and see if you can recall what became of
McCarthy...
Yup. That's right. Reviled by just about everyone except Nixon, and
completely discredited in the end. He died a broken alcoholic, killed
by his own drinking: his name a watchword for everything America
shouldn't be.
Jim Bob
news:177e6123-b9f1-45f4...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
In the past, they may have upset some photographers, however I think their
position on the matter is now a lot clearer:
http://www.met.police.uk/about/photography.htm
Maybe public pressure led to these more clear guidelines, I don't know.
I've never had a problem with them, I've always found them OK. But, don't
call a Police horse "gay" in Oxfordshire: LOL
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4606022.stm
As for Top Gear, sometimes it appears that they do seem to push the
boundaries when it comes to causing disruption. That said, most of the
time, I think it's all just an act for the show anyway. Who knows.
Peter Twydell
<dd7d2311-c6c2-4946...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
RichA <rande...@gmail.com> writes
not to understand, let me say it again: THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT OWN THE
BBC.
As for political parties, when was anyone thrown out of one in the UK
for not toeing the party line, whatever that might be? I think that's
what you said, but your logic escapes me. As for dissent, Fleet Street
used to have some headlines permanently ready. Along with British
Leyland Strike, there was Scotland Fail to Qualify and Split in Labour
Party.
What colour is the sky on your planet?
Bruce
<Pe...@twydell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>As for political parties, when was anyone thrown out of one in the UK
>for not toeing the party line, whatever that might be?
Many Labour MPs were deselected in the 1980s for not being left wing
enough.
Chris H
Chris H
<J...@whatever.com> writes
>"RichA" <rande...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:177e6123-b9f1-45f4...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com..
>.
>
>their position on the matter is now a lot clearer:
>http://www.met.police.uk/about/photography.htm
>
>Maybe public pressure led to these more clear guidelines, I don't know.
>I've never had a problem with them, I've always found them OK. But,
>don't call a Police horse "gay" in Oxfordshire: LOL
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4606022.stm
>
>As for Top Gear, sometimes it appears that they do seem to push the
>boundaries when it comes to causing disruption. That said, most of the
>time, I think it's all just an act for the show anyway. Who knows.
ACPO were on the morning news (on the BBC :-) saying the Police had
over stepped the mark specifically in a couple of recent cases including
he BBC case and that in future the S44 etc would be used more carefully.
BTW the term "Policing by consent" has come up again. I think the Police
had realised they had overstepped things and the general public were not
supporting them. In the UK the Police only police by consent of the
general population.
The vast number of the UK police are not armed with guns. Only a baton
and CS spray. There are very few of them in reality. If the general
population does not support the police and want's to ignore them there
is nothing the police can do about it.
Policing only works in the UK because 95% of the population want it to.
Paul Heslop
> As for Top Gear, sometimes it appears that they do seem to push the
> boundaries when it comes to causing disruption. That said, most of the
> time, I think it's all just an act for the show anyway. Who knows.
It's all tongue in cheek but it has always struck me that much of what
they do is set up to look a lot worse than it really is. Obviously
when they play tricks on each other they are all well aware of what is
going on or the danger would be unacceptable and as far as I am
concerned most of what we see is scripted and played for laughs.
They did try to insist that the confrontation they had with rednecks
while in America was true but again I have serious doubts about that.
michael adams
"RichA" <rande...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:177e6123-b9f1-45f4...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
> This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
> corporations.
>
> We understand that the makers of Top Gear may be reluctant to further
> inflame photographers' relations with the Met.
Nothing to do with the state. Everything to do with not antagonising
the Met - that's the London Police to you, when "Top Gear" - a major export
earner, are always seeking permission to engage in some bordlerline legal
stunt or other, to be filmed on public roads.
What happens when you've got no TV makers with the originality and creativity
of the BBC - with the admirable exception of HBO who are forever short of funding
- is that you have to import stuff like Top Gear. Over here on the BBC, we watch
it right through.
Over there you sit through 20 minutes of commmercials per hour, for the privilige of
being allowed to watch the sort of low budget LCD dross the likes of Murdoch hopes
he can get away with. And which Murdoch knows won't upset the applecart or alienate
any of the big-money, who really pull the strings. While you just sit there with glazed
eyes and mouth agape, lapping it all up, while dribbling all over your pizza.
michael adams
...
tony cooper
<mjad...@onetel.net.uk> wrote:
>Over there you sit through 20 minutes of commmercials per hour,
No we don't. The most recent figures are 15:48 minutes on broadcast
and 14.55 on cable of non-fresh program. That's not all commercials,
either. That includes the re-cap portion (where what went on last
week is shown if applicable), news spots, and teaser material. The
commercials must be limited to 12 minutes per hour.
Those of with cable access can watch the show straight through on BBC
America.
> for the privilige of
>being allowed to watch the sort of low budget LCD dross the likes of Murdoch hopes
>he can get away with. And which Murdoch knows won't upset the applecart or alienate
>any of the big-money, who really pull the strings. While you just sit there with glazed
>eyes and mouth agape, lapping it all up, while dribbling all over your pizza.
It takes some chutzpa for someone from the UK to talk about the low
budget dross we are offered. Half the shows in the UK are about
sending in a 27 member team of decorators to redesign the airing
cupboards of some squat in Luton. Or, some show about the fattest
people or the biggest breasts in England. Or, how to buy tat cheaply
and auction it off for profit.
You do offer some good shows, though.
michael adams
"tony cooper" <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:96iih5tk7kof1qohf...@4ax.com...
That's antiques and collectibles though. And so can be informative
for people hunting round flea markets and the like.
>
> You do offer some good shows, though.
>
> --
> Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
But even if some UK "lifestyle and celebrity" TV is dross (relatively speaking)
some channels in the USA must be importing it, for you to be getting the chance
of watching it. No ? As I assume BBC America would concentrate on the better
stuff maybe including Bargain Hunt. Equivalent US "lifestyle and celebrity" TV
is presumably so bad, that nobody would even bother trying to import it into
the UK to start with. Even if they were paid to do so. We only get the occasional
highlights, Gerry Springer ran for a few series ISTR.
The only way most people have of knowing just how bad most US TV actually is, is
from reports by visitors to the US.
michael adams
...
Ray Fischer
>This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
>corporations.
What happens when you rightard conspiracy idiots want to whine is that
you make up facts to justify your lunacy.
>Top Gear photographer story: BBC speaks out (update)
As others have pointed out, the BBC is not government-owned.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
tony cooper
<mjad...@onetel.net.uk> wrote:
>But even if some UK "lifestyle and celebrity" TV is dross (relatively speaking)
>some channels in the USA must be importing it, for you to be getting the chance
>of watching it. No ? As I assume BBC America would concentrate on the better
>stuff maybe including Bargain Hunt.
I'm referring to what is available to me on BBC America, a channel
that I subscribe to. The "better stuff" includes what is listed at
http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/292/index.jsp How desperate for
employment one must be to spend their working day filming "Britain's
Worst Teeth".
Also available on BBC America are the shows hosted by David Dickenson,
that smarmy, oily, throw-back to 1970s clothing and hair style. Then
there's that outrageous egotist Gordon Ramsay getting paid to throw
profane tantrums.
Watching BBC-A one wonders how the English can drive when the roads
must be clogged with vans of television crews and overall-clad workers
about to tart up the inside and outside of every British residence.
The crew comes back to film a show on good housekeeping tricks. You
people need to watch an instructional video on using a hoover?
Don't get me wrong. I pay extra to subscribe to BBC-A because there
are shows on that channel that I watch and enjoy. I miss Parkinson
and now have to endure Jonathan Ross's "Babwa Walters" speech
impediment because he has interesting guests. The dramatic shows,
specifically the mysteries, on BBC-A are superb. I dearly miss "The
Green Wing", but like "Skins" (not so good lately, but good last
season) I'm looking forward to the return of "Gavin and Stacey".
There are other shows I like.
Your television is like ours in that you can watch good shows if you
are selective. Just ignore the rest. We have one of those magic
boxes that can be programmed to tape shows we select. The only thing
I watch "live" is (American) football. The rest is the shows we've
selected to tape and they are watched with the commercials (if there
are any) fast-forwarded through.
>The only way most people have of knowing just how bad most US TV actually is, is
>from reports by visitors to the US.
How can you judge American TV from this? I have friends that watch
trash TV and I have friends who watch boring shit that I'd never look
at. I'm not going to take someone else's word on the quality of
programming. You want to make a judgement on American TV, then you
watch enough of it yourself to make your own judgement.
Twibil
>
>
> It takes some chutzpa for someone from the UK to talk about the low
> budget dross we are offered.
Heh.
A couple of years ago I was contacted by a friend in the UK who'd just
seen a BBC "documentary" which reported that -among other things-
American school books didn't make *any* mention of the contributions
of Chinese cowboys to American culture. My friend wanted to know if
this were true, and, if so, whether it was evidence of American
prejudice towards Asians.
I told him that it's true that there is no mention of Chinese cowboys
in American history books, but that's because so far as anyone knows
there were no Chinese cowboys. (Or if there were, nobody ever recorded
that fact.)
Quite a few black cowboys, yup, common knowledge; and lots of Mexican
cowboys ("Vaqueros") in the southern states, but few if any Chinese to
be found anywhere.
I've wondered ever since then where that BBC producer got his "facts"
and why he never thought to simply check them out.
michael adams
...
There's nothing wrong with the "Duke" ! And "smarmy" people don't sport
genuine Northern accents or bang on in their autobiographies about
the values they picked up at their grannie's knee. He was adopted
BTW and is intersting in the sense he was already about 50 years old
when he was "discovered" for TV.
He used to sell top class Dormeil cashmere cloth for a living, straight from
the mill and knows his stuff sartorially speaking as well.
He was a naughtuy boy once but learned his lesson, so he says.
...
> Then
> there's that outrageous egotist Gordon Ramsay getting paid to throw
> profane tantrums.
In the UK he's limited to Channel 4. Most of the top chefs are egotistical
and competitive - thats courtesy of an obsevation by a top chef
who isn't, who regularly beats Ramsay in charity marathons -
Michel Roux Junior. Genuine top chefs spend 12 a day in their kitchens -
enough to unhinge anyone IMO. In addition Ramsay is spreading himself
too thin.
>
> Watching BBC-A one wonders how the English can drive when the roads
> must be clogged with vans of television crews and overall-clad workers
> about to tart up the inside and outside of every British residence.
> The crew comes back to film a show on good housekeeping tricks. You
> people need to watch an instructional video on using a hoover?
House renovation and decorating programmes are very popular with
married women as women are more home centred and they give them
ideas. They're less popular with their husbands as it's the husbands
who are going to have to bring about the transformation.
Dirty houses programmes make people with scruffy, but not rank
dirty houses feel they're not total failures after all. As they might
otherwise feel, after watching too many improvement programmes
>
> Don't get me wrong. I pay extra to subscribe to BBC-A because there
> are shows on that channel that I watch and enjoy. I miss Parkinson
> and now have to endure Jonathan Ross's "Babwa Walters" speech
> impediment because he has interesting guests. The dramatic shows,
> specifically the mysteries, on BBC-A are superb. I dearly miss "The
> Green Wing", but like "Skins" (not so good lately, but good last
> season) I'm looking forward to the return of "Gavin and Stacey".
> There are other shows I like.
>
> Your television is like ours in that you can watch good shows if you
> are selective. Just ignore the rest. We have one of those magic
> boxes that can be programmed to tape shows we select. The only thing
> I watch "live" is (American) football. The rest is the shows we've
> selected to tape and they are watched with the commercials (if there
> are any) fast-forwarded through.
>
> >The only way most people have of knowing just how bad most US TV actually is, is
> >from reports by visitors to the US.
>
> How can you judge American TV from this? I have friends that watch
> trash TV and I have friends who watch boring shit that I'd never look
> at. I'm not going to take someone else's word on the quality of
> programming. You want to make a judgement on American TV, then you
> watch enough of it yourself to make your own judgement.
The UK is a relatively small, densely populated country. Whatever people
in outlying regions claim, Scotland etc. the goverment, finance, and cultural
centre of the UK is still in the one place, London. Best theatres, art galleries
orchestras. And BBC HQ. Although there has been competetion since the advent of
commercial TV in the 50's, since the 1920's there has been one brodcasting organistion
with monopoly rights to broadcast in the UK through transmitters that reach everyone.
With an income guarenteed by legistlation but free from interference.
So that basically London has always been the centre of excellence, and
the BBC has been able to attract all the best talent from the UK
who could be guarenteed a nationwide audince. As a result the BBC
has become unquestionably the UK's most important cultural insitution.
This is all an accident of history and geography but still remains true.
Hardly any of this applies in the U.S. A much bigger country where the cities
and population generally are far wider spread out. The theatre capital is in New York,
the Film Capital is in Holywood and the best orchestra arguably is in Chicago. MOMA is
in NY the Getty in California. etc etc Again rather than have one single established
organisation, battling off competiton from commercial minnows, in the US
there are competing networks, none of which can claim an automatic first
call on talent, all of whom are dependent on commercial sponsorship and all
of whom are scratching around after the same dollars. And again none of whom
have a guarenteed nationwide audience reach.
Too much fragmentation and "choice" is the enemy of quality IMO There's only
so much talent to go around, and so it's better that's it drawn to an recognised
centre of excellence such as the BBC where a reputation can be established
which can be carried over to other networks. Life is simply too short to
waste it on channel surfing, IMO.
Or responding to trolls like the OP for that matter. Who is doubtless already
back under his bridge.
michael adams
...
tony cooper
wrote:
>On Dec 4, 9:51�am, tony cooper <tony_cooper...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> It takes some chutzpa for someone from the UK to talk about the low
>> budget dross we are offered. �
>
>Heh.
>
>A couple of years ago I was contacted by a friend in the UK who'd just
>seen a BBC "documentary" which reported that -among other things-
>American school books didn't make *any* mention of the contributions
>of Chinese cowboys to American culture. My friend wanted to know if
>this were true, and, if so, whether it was evidence of American
>prejudice towards Asians.
>
>I told him that it's true that there is no mention of Chinese cowboys
>in American history books, but that's because so far as anyone knows
>there were no Chinese cowboys. (Or if there were, nobody ever recorded
>that fact.)
>
>Quite a few black cowboys, yup, common knowledge; and lots of Mexican
>cowboys ("Vaqueros") in the southern states, but few if any Chinese to
>be found anywhere.
I don't recall mention of any Chinese cowboys, but our railroad
expansion into the West would not have been as easily possible without
the labor of the Chinese. During our "Gold Rush" times, it was the
Chinese that fed most of the miners. Some say that what we call "chop
suey" was simply Chinese-prepared hash concocted in the US as a quick
and easy dish to serve to serve the miners.
>I've wondered ever since then where that BBC producer got his "facts"
>and why he never thought to simply check them out.
The problem with checking facts when you are going to develop a
television show is that reality might spoil the concept of an
entertaining concept.
tony cooper
<mjad...@onetel.net.uk> wrote:
>There's nothing wrong with the "Duke" ! And "smarmy" people don't sport
>genuine Northern accents or bang on in their autobiographies about
>the values they picked up at their grannie's knee. He was adopted
>BTW and is intersting in the sense he was already about 50 years old
>when he was "discovered" for TV.
>
>He used to sell top class Dormeil cashmere cloth for a living, straight from
>the mill and knows his stuff sartorially speaking as well.
He may have sold cashmere, but he's a flannel-mouth.
>> Watching BBC-A one wonders how the English can drive when the roads
>> must be clogged with vans of television crews and overall-clad workers
>> about to tart up the inside and outside of every British residence.
>> The crew comes back to film a show on good housekeeping tricks. You
>> people need to watch an instructional video on using a hoover?
>
>House renovation and decorating programmes are very popular with
>married women as women are more home centred and they give them
>ideas. They're less popular with their husbands as it's the husbands
>who are going to have to bring about the transformation.
What's the difference, though, between pandering to bored housewives
with shows about decorating schemes and pandering to bored housewives
with Jerry Springer slug-fests? Both are cheap entertainment without
any redeeming social value.
Not that that's wrong. Television is an entertainment medium. It's
designed to pander to different tastes. What is wrong is thinking
that your country's cheap pap is better than our country's cheap pap.
Twibil
>
>
> I don't recall mention of any Chinese cowboys, but our railroad
> expansion into the West would not have been as easily possible without
> the labor of the Chinese.
You've got it backwards: The Chinese worked on the Central Pacific
line that expanded from California into the *East*; eventually meeting
the Union Pacific at Promentory Point in Utah.
(Now; the U.P *did* expand westwards from Omaha -but they did it
largely with Irish labor.)
> During our "Gold Rush" times, it was the
> Chinese that fed most of the miners.
Well, no. There were certainly Chinese farmers in California, but they
largely grew foodstuffs that were intended for consumption by their
own countrymen, as the Chinese immigrants had not adapted well to the
American/Mexican meat-rich diet that prevailed here at that time.
The Chinese also set up and ran their own extensive potterys that
turned out ceramic food containers just like the ones they'd been used
to using back at home, and they were common all over central and
northern California for many years thereafter.
I've got one sitting on my fireplace hearth right now.
~Pete
michael adams
Presumably you've only seen him in "Bargain Hunt"*. On that he was replaced
by a genuine smarmo, Tim Wannacott. This guy's the real business,
waxed moustache, fancy waistcoats, upper class drawl, and he used to run
Sothebys in Chester. A very knowledgeable chap, who found out he could make
more money acting the clown and making a fool of himself. Which the Duke
for all his faults never does.
There's another BBC show about tracing your ancestors, and Dickenson's
real mother was descended from Armenian Carpet traders called Yussarion or
something, with a shop in the souk in Constantinople. He'd only found that
out a few years previously, when his real mother wouldn't agree to seeing him
for fear of upsetting her second husband. Which he accepted. That's where he
gets a lot of his colour from, that and accompanying his singer wife when
she gives concerts on pleasure cruises.
* For about the last two years he's had his own programme on a commercial
channel called "Dickinson's Real Deal". Which if you don't like him you'd
hate even more than Bargain Hunt.
>
> >> Watching BBC-A one wonders how the English can drive when the roads
> >> must be clogged with vans of television crews and overall-clad workers
> >> about to tart up the inside and outside of every British residence.
> >> The crew comes back to film a show on good housekeeping tricks. You
> >> people need to watch an instructional video on using a hoover?
> >
> >House renovation and decorating programmes are very popular with
> >married women as women are more home centred and they give them
> >ideas. They're less popular with their husbands as it's the husbands
> >who are going to have to bring about the transformation.
>
> What's the difference, though, between pandering to bored housewives
> with shows about decorating schemes and pandering to bored housewives
> with Jerry Springer slug-fests? Both are cheap entertainment without
> any redeeming social value.
Its not only bored housewives who are obsessed with home improvements.
Not that I've done any surveys but a majority of housewives probably are.
Home improvements, new furniture, new wallpaper, new curtains
like a kind of porn for them.
In any case it's about improving themselves. Its aspirational.
Whereas as much as I like Jerry Springer as a person, I find
his shows demean both the participants, who are encouraged to air
their dirty linen in public, the live audience who are hoping for
a fight to break out on stage, and people watching it at home.
>
> Not that that's wrong. Television is an entertainment medium. It's
> designed to pander to different tastes. What is wrong is thinking
> that your country's cheap pap is better than our country's cheap pap.
If it's not a better class of rubbish than yours, then how comes you buy our
junkas well as our good stuff ? Whereas with the odd exception such as Gerry
Springer we only ever buy your good stuff ? That's what I was saying before -
your junk TV is so bad you can't even give it away. That why the only
chance I'd ever get to see it, would be to visit the US and sit in a
hotel room all day long, with the curtains drawn.
michael adams
...
michael adams
>
> The problem with checking facts when you are going to develop a
> television show is that reality might spoil the concept of an
> entertaining concept.
"Deadwood" an otherwise perfect TV series IMO, is somewhat spoiled
by the fact that the producers haven't actually included a town
dentist or a tooth whitening salon so as to account for all the
characters having such flawless teeth. In the repeated episode shown
this week, Canary (Calamity) Jane took her first ever proper bath. But
it was Robin Seagart's flawless dentition in an earlier episode which
first brought this anomaly to my attention. As a serious actress I
very much doubt she'd have any objection to being made up to have gappy
or yellow looking teeth.
michael adams
...
Allen
OT, but until the Viet Nam war, in the southwest it was very hard to
find a decent Chinese restaurant unless you were closer than 50 miles of
the Southern Pacific. Then Vietnamese immigrants descended upon us and
many opened restaurants which served Chinese and other oriental dishes
along with their own cuisine. Now there are as many oriental restaurants
as Tex-Mex. And--I grew up in ranching country (my father was a
part-time rancher) and I never saw a Chinese ranch worker.
Allen
tony cooper
wrote:
>On Dec 4, 1:26�pm, tony cooper <tony_cooper...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I don't recall mention of any Chinese cowboys, but our railroad
>> expansion into the West would not have been as easily possible without
>> the labor of the Chinese. �
>
>You've got it backwards: The Chinese worked on the Central Pacific
>line that expanded from California into the *East*; eventually meeting
>the Union Pacific at Promentory Point in Utah.
Yes, I knew that. The railroads expanded to link with the west, but
not always in a westward direction as they were built. The net result
was the expansion into the West
>(Now; the U.P *did* expand westwards from Omaha -but they did it
>largely with Irish labor.)
>
>> During our "Gold Rush" times, it was the
>> Chinese that fed most of the miners.
>
>Well, no. There were certainly Chinese farmers in California, but they
>largely grew foodstuffs that were intended for consumption by their
>own countrymen, as the Chinese immigrants had not adapted well to the
>American/Mexican meat-rich diet that prevailed here at that time.
I was thinking of the labor aspect. The Chinese were the cooks of the
mining camps.
Wilba
> Jim Bob wrote:
>>
>> As for Top Gear, sometimes it appears that they do seem to push the
>> boundaries when it comes to causing disruption. That said, most of the
>> time, I think it's all just an act for the show anyway. Who knows.
>
> It's all tongue in cheek but it has always struck me that much of what
> they do is set up to look a lot worse than it really is. Obviously
> when they play tricks on each other they are all well aware of what is
> going on or the danger would be unacceptable and as far as I am
> concerned most of what we see is scripted and played for laughs.
I don't know how they get away with not wearing helmets when they are
cutting up the track. (I understand why they wouldn't want to wear them
while they are performing for the camera - that's not the point.) I wonder
how they get away with setting such an irresponsible and unsafe example, and
how they get away with it from an insurance and liability POV? I guess
there's some lawyer's distinction between an activity that requires a helmet
(e.g. "a speed event"), and what they get up to.
tony cooper
I don't know that you do. What you may think of as our "good stuff"
is not what I might think of as our "good stuff". I don't know what
you are buying over there. Based on some off-hand comments I read in
other newsgroups, Brits are pretty familiar with some of what I
consider to be pretty crappy shows.
Rating something as the "good stuff" is purely personal.
>In any case it's about improving themselves. Its aspirational.
Aspirational?
It's Jerry - not Gerry - Springer, by the way.
Paul Heslop
The insurance thing is an interesting point though. Mind you even the
track runs are not completely honest in that they apparently only
shoot so much themselves and the rest is left to someone else, who
probably does wear a helmet.
I just look at it as pure entertainment nowadays, like a bunch of kids
playing with their toys.
Wilba
Exactly, and that's refreshing. :- )
You know they did a local version here in Australia? Hideous!
Bob Larter
Tell me about it! It was crap compared with the original.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------
mikeos
> "tony cooper" <tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:96iih5tk7kof1qohf...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 17:30:55 -0000, "michael adams"
>> <mjad...@onetel.net.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Over there you sit through 20 minutes of commmercials per hour,
>> No we don't. The most recent figures are 15:48 minutes on broadcast
>> and 14.55 on cable of non-fresh program. That's not all commercials,
>> either. That includes the re-cap portion (where what went on last
>> week is shown if applicable), news spots, and teaser material. The
>> commercials must be limited to 12 minutes per hour.
Strange. When we watch a US show on TV, most "hour long" shows, like SVU
and CSI come out at around 40 minutes once the commercial breaks are
stripped out.
Paul Heslop
> > I just look at it as pure entertainment nowadays, like a bunch of kids
> > playing with their toys.
>
> Exactly, and that's refreshing. :- )
>
> You know they did a local version here in Australia? Hideous!
I think they said on this week's show the only country where it isn't
a big thing is america. but essentially it really does need the
presenters it has to be what it is. the old top gear was way more
serious.
Paul Heslop
so do they just show the british version over there now?
Paul Heslop
I have to say that may be true of most commercial progs now.
Neil Harrington
>>
> To what destination is the BBC towing the line?
>
> Will they toe it when they get it there?
Now if only "tough" rhymed with "dough" we could examine this even further.
As it is we'll just have to pour over you're reply.
Neil Harrington
> On Dec 3, 9:23 pm, Oliver <rup...@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> American
>>> politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to
>>> internal party dissent.
>>
>> McCarthy.........!
>
> Uh, yes, and now think hard and see if you can recall what became of
> McCarthy...
>
> Yup. That's right. Reviled by just about everyone except Nixon, and
> completely discredited in the end.
Except of course that he was mostly right, which keeps him from being
*completely* discredited. He certainly was reviled, and is so to this day.
Such was the power of the left-leaning press. Nowadays it's mostly only
Hollywood types who still have that warm, fuzzy feeling toward communists,
at least openly.
Neil Harrington
> In message
> <dd7d2311-c6c2-4946...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
> RichA <rande...@gmail.com> writes
>> On Dec 3, 5:55 pm, Peter Twydell <Pe...@twydell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In message
>>> <177e6123-b9f1-45f4-8720-50334d5a3...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
>>> RichA <rander3...@gmail.com> writes>This is what happens when the
>>> state owns and runs media
>>>> corporations.
>>>
>>>
>>> The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation
>>> nor a government department. The high ideal is that it is held in
>>> trust for the public of the UK by the BBC Trust (the successor to
>>> the Board of Governors following the renewal of the BBC Charter by
>>> the government in 2006).
>>>
>>> Practically every government is convinced that the BBC is against
>>> it, which probably shows that in general it gets things about right.
>>
>> No, it shows governments don't hold with any dissent when it comes to
>> things they own. Americans won't be familiar with this, but Canadian
>> and British governments hold an iron fist over all employees (party
>> members) in that any dissent is grounds for dismissal. American
>> politics permits a great deal more latitude when it comes to internal
>> party dissent.
>>
>>
> seem not to understand, let me say it again: THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT
> OWN THE BBC.
Then who does own the BBC?
Allen
<snip>
> Except of course that he was mostly right, which keeps him from being
> *completely* discredited. He certainly was reviled, and is so to this day.
> Such was the power of the left-leaning press. Nowadays it's mostly only
> Hollywood types who still have that warm, fuzzy feeling toward communists,
> at least openly.
>
You are a very sick and very uninformed man. Why are you reading this ng
when you are probably still using wet plates? Goodbye.
Ray Fischer
Ah, the smeell of rightard propaganda in the morning. Smells like ...
fascism.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Bruce
wrote:
>Peter Twydell wrote:
>> I meant that the BBC had got it right, not the governments. As you
>> seem not to understand, let me say it again: THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT
>> OWN THE BBC.
>
>Then who does own the BBC?
This page - About the BBC - should tell you all you need to know:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/purpose/what.shtml
Chris H
Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>Then who does own the BBC?
No one as such... it is funded by the License fee and governed by the
BBC Trust.
It is not state owned nor is it a commercial organisation in the sense
that it has no advertising or sponsorship. Hence it is completely
independent.
This is why it is one of the very few completely independent news
companies in the world. It works very hard to be independent and
impartial .
SO much so that not only both the left and right wing political parties
in the UK have claimed the BBC works for the other side (in equal
amounts of complaints) but the centre party also complains the BBC is
anti them too :-)))
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Neil Harrington
Thanks.
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
? "RichA" <rande...@gmail.com> ?????? ??? ??????
news:177e6123-b9f1-45f4...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
> This is what happens when the state owns and runs media
> corporations.
>
>
> Top Gear photographer story: BBC speaks out (update)
>
> Thursday 3rd December 2009
> Chris Cheesman
> rights watch
>
> The BBC has moved to distance itself from comments made by a freelance
> Top Gear photographer who blasted the attitude of the Metropolitan
> Police towards photographers.
>
> Earlier this week freelance stills photographer Justin Leighton - who
> shoots behind-the-scenes for the Top Gear programme and magazine -
> said that taking photographs in London often raises suspicion, even in
> areas where permission has already been given to shoot.
>
> Leighton, who works for BBC Worldwide, condemned the 'nightmare'
> attitude of the Met's officers, and in particular, Police Community
> Support Officers (PCSOs).
>
> The photographer blamed the behaviour of London's police for
> restricting his shoots to locations away from the capital.
>
> However, a BBC spokeswoman told Amateur Photographer: 'The BBC does
> not share these views.'
>
> The Corporation declined to comment further.
>
> We understand that the makers of Top Gear may be reluctant to further
> inflame photographers' relations with the Met.
>
> Leighton's comments chime with many photographers, both amateur and
> professional, who continue to complain about the attitude of police.
>
> Last year, the escalating issue moved Amateur Photographer magazine to
> launch its nationwide campaign to defend photographers' rights.
>
> On Sunday BBC photographer Jeff Overs told the Andrew Marr Show he was
> stopped while taking photos on London's South Bank amid fears he was
> planning a reconnaissance operation for a terrorist attack.
>
> Today, the anti-terror watchdog, Lord Carlile again criticised police
> use of anti-terrorism powers to stop photographers.
>
> In a front page story in The Independent Carlile said: 'The police
> have to be very careful about stopping people who are taking what I
> would call leisure photographs, and indeed professional
> photographers.'
>
> He added: 'The fact that someone is taking photographs is not prima
> facie a good reason for stop and search and is very far from raising
> suspicion.
>
> 'It is a matter of concern and the police will know that they have to
> look at this very carefully.'
>
> Earlier this year The Independent contacted AP for details of the
> magazine's ongoing campaign to fight for the rights of photographers.
I think all this "anti-photography" attitude ver silly. The Al Qaeda didn't
go around the WTC, with large SLRs in broad daylight, taking photos. Neither
they did ask a policeman the coordinates of the WTC, or what would happen if
a jet hit one. They worked in concealment and disguise. It's silly to expect
terrorists to behave so, and is unfair to treat every law-abiding citizen as
a possible terrorist (read-shoes with explosives etc.)
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering
mechanized infantry reservist
hordad AT otenet DOT gr
Neil Harrington
> In message <rP-dnScQDY9f4YfW...@giganews.com>, Neil
> Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>> Then who does own the BBC?
>
> No one as such...
Since it's a corporation it ought to be owned by *somebody*.
> it is funded by the License fee and governed by the
> BBC Trust.
Who are the people in the BBC Trust who govern it, and who selected them for
their jobs?
>
> It is not state owned nor is it a commercial organisation in the sense
> that it has no advertising or sponsorship. Hence it is completely
> independent.
Since it is funded by a license fee, as a practical matter that sounds
pretty much state owned to me. I am assuming that it is some sort of state
officials who also select the people who make up the BBC Trust. I don't
think it's possible to have *any* enterprise "completely independent" which
that much state involvement.
>
> This is why it is one of the very few completely independent news
> companies in the world. It works very hard to be independent and
> impartial .
But it has for some time had a considerable reputation for being left wing,
both here in the U.S. and evidently in Britain too.
Google brings up many other articles making much the same assessment.
>
> SO much so that not only both the left and right wing political
> parties in the UK have claimed the BBC works for the other side (in
> equal amounts of complaints) but the centre party also complains the
> BBC is anti them too :-)))
The fact that everybody complains about something isn't really evidence of
even-handedness.
Bruce
wrote:
>Chris H wrote:
>>
>> This is why it is one of the very few completely independent news
>> companies in the world. It works very hard to be independent and
>> impartial .
>
>But it has for some time had a considerable reputation for being left wing,
>both here in the U.S. and evidently in Britain too.
When a right wing government is in power, it accuses the BBC of being
left wing. When a left wing government is in power, it accuses the
BBC of being right wing.
The current left-of-centre government was so obsessed with what bit
alleged to be the BBC's alleged right wing bias that it insisted BBC
TV News should fire its Chief Political Correspondent and replace him
with someone who was more to their liking. The irony was that a
determinedly impartial individual (Robin Oakley) was replaced by
someone (Andrew Marr) who was probably no less impartial but gave the
government a very much harder time than his predecessor! Serves them
right for interfering.
However, there can now be no doubt that the BBC's independence is now
compromised since the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly, a weapons
inspector who worked in Iraq and cast doubt on the British
government's claims about weapons of mass destruction that we all know
did not exist. Kelly had expressed his doubt to a BBC journalist,
Andrew Gilligan, who reported it in 2003 and was pilloried by the
government for doing so. The government "outed" the weapons
inspector who soon after was found dead in a field near his home. A
verdict of suicide was recorded, although there is widespread doubt as
to whether this happened. We may never know the truth.
After an enquiry into the affair which whitewashed the government's
role in Kelly's demise, the BBC's chairman, Gavyn Davies, its director
general, Greg Dyke, and Gilligan all resigned from the BBC, and the
BBC's system of governance was substantially altered. The government
further threatened reductions in the future TV licence fee that funds
the BBC, a clear warning that the BBC must follow orders.
From then until now, BBC News has been running scared of the Labour
government and will do almost anything to avoid upsetting it. An
example has been the restrictions placed by government on the BBC's
reporting of the Israeli massacres in Gaza.
There can be no editorial independence when the BBC is forced to
kowtow to politicians in this way. On the other hand, there can be no
editorial independence when US TV news channels are forced to kowtow
to politicians, their sponsors, special interest groups, lobbyists
and, to some extent, their own fanatical right-wing presenters and
audiences.
For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
channel.
Neil Harrington
Very interesting.
>
> There can be no editorial independence when the BBC is forced to
> kowtow to politicians in this way. On the other hand, there can be no
> editorial independence when US TV news channels are forced to kowtow
> to politicians, their sponsors, special interest groups, lobbyists
> and, to some extent, their own fanatical right-wing presenters and
> audiences.
You may be confusing editorial independence with fairness. American TV news
channels are not "forced to kowtow to politicians, their sponsors, special
interest groups [or] lobbyists." They have editorial independence enough,
but when the major broadcast networks as well as public broadcasting for the
most part lean well to the left, not because they are "forced to" but
because that is their ideological slant, the result is neither fair nor good
news reporting.
For example, it has now been just over two weeks since the "ClimateGate"
scandal broke and it continues to develop, but it has been studiously
ignored by ABC, NBC and CBS news departments though well covered by Fox News
and many online news sources, and even to some small degree by the reliably
left-leaning NY Times.
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2009/20091204111405.aspx
This isn't because the MSM are "forced to kowtow" to anyone, it's because
mostly they are by choice solid Democratic Party loyalists -- and also
devout believers in the new religion of The Sky Is Falling Because of
Man-made Global Warming, which is currently a major Democrat belief system
and cause. Therefore any and all evidence showing the new religion to be a
fraud is deemed not newsworthy and to be suppressed if possible.
>
> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
> channel.
That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
competitors. When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
impartiality. Organizations are run by people, and people have politics. In
the U.S. at least we can get both sides.
Neil Harrington
>>
>> What's the difference, though, between pandering to bored housewives
>> with shows about decorating schemes and pandering to bored housewives
>> with Jerry Springer slug-fests? Both are cheap entertainment without
>> any redeeming social value.
>
>
> Its not only bored housewives who are obsessed with home improvements.
> Not that I've done any surveys but a majority of housewives probably
> are. Home improvements, new furniture, new wallpaper, new curtains
> like a kind of porn for them.
>
> In any case it's about improving themselves. Its aspirational.
>
> Whereas as much as I like Jerry Springer as a person, I find
Why on earth do you "like Jerry Springer as a person"?
> his shows demean both the participants, who are encouraged to air
> their dirty linen in public, the live audience who are hoping for
> a fight to break out on stage, and people watching it at home.
That's what Jerry Springer's show is all about. (Duh.) Why else would anyone
watch Jerry Springer? It's a fairly successful formula -- others use and
have used it too, maybe starting with Geraldo Rivera before he began
thinking of himself as a serious commentator. Springer, Maury, et al., make
their fortunes out of such trash.
>>
>> Not that that's wrong. Television is an entertainment medium. It's
>> designed to pander to different tastes. What is wrong is thinking
>> that your country's cheap pap is better than our country's cheap pap.
>
> If it's not a better class of rubbish than yours, then how comes you
> buy our junkas well as our good stuff ?
What junk of yours do we buy? The only British-made stuff I've seen in
recent years on TV has been Masterpiece Theater, which is usually very good,
and two or three sitcoms which I guess you have to be British to enjoy.
There has been some marvelous stuff in the past. I was crazy about The
Avengers (in the two Emma Peel seasons anyway), but that was back in the
'60s. The Prisoner was sort of entertaining, if pretentious -- and Monty
Python was marvelous at its best, but uneven. The Forsyte Saga was great.
All those things are way in the past. What have you done for us lately?
> Whereas with the odd
> exception such as Gerry Springer we only ever buy your good stuff ?
What sort of thing do you consider our "good stuff"? We have some very good
crime shows. I'm not aware that we have any sitcoms worth watching. There
was one, "Back to You," which I really liked but it was canceled after one
season (I don't think they even finished the season on the air) for some
inexplicable reason. "Lost" was really intriguing for the first couple of
seasons, then fizzled as far as I'm concerned. If there's anything else we
have that isn't crap I'm not aware of it. The last really good sitcom we had
was "Cheers," and that eventually ran out of gas. A really promising cartoon
sitcom, "This Just In," was canceled after five or six shows, probably
because it deeply offended liberals.
> That's what I was saying before - your junk TV is so bad you can't
> even give it away. That why the only
> chance I'd ever get to see it, would be to visit the US and sit in a
> hotel room all day long, with the curtains drawn.
With few exceptions, the only TV I watch now is Fox News and a couple of the
Sunday morning political commentary programs, The McLaughlin Group on PBS
and George Stephanopoulopopulous on NBC. (I know, I know. I just like to
spell it that way.) For entertainment I mostly watch DVDs, not TV.
Bruce
wrote:
>Bruce wrote:
>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>> channel.
>
>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>competitors. When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>impartiality. Organizations are run by people, and people have politics. In
>the U.S. at least we can get both sides.
You really know *nothing* about the BBC, nor about UK television news
in general. Even the commercial TV stations strive for impartial,
objective reporting. For many years, BBC News and Independent
Television News (ITN) competed, not on the basis of differing points
of view, but rather on the basis of which would be more impartial and
objective. Standards of journalism were very high, and they remain
high, but with pressure being brought to bear by government there is
no longer complete confidence in objectivity.
Of course the UK does have its fair share of partial and opinionated
journalists, but they are mostly to be found writing in newspapers and
online, with very little evidence of them on television.
As for the difference between UK and US television news, we can see
several US news channels on satellite TV and those we don't get on
satellite are usually available online. After a lifetime (I'm 55) of
watching balanced, responsible, objective reporting on British I find
the biased and opinionated reporting on US TV News quite offensive.
The idea seems to be to tell viewers what to think, and how to think,
rather than giving them an impartial report and letting them make up
their own mind, which is what British TV viewers expect - indeed
demand. The amount of shouting on so much of US TV news, and the
extremely low standard of debate, combine to give the impression of an
attempt to appeal to the worst in people. Presumably, those low
standards are a result of aiming both the bulletins *and* the adverts
mainly at people of lower intelligence. That would not be acceptable
here.
Paul Heslop
Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff about us
'socialists'
Wilba
They totally didn't get that it's about how those three characters interact.
You can't just copy the formula.
tony cooper
wrote:
>What sort of thing do you consider our "good stuff"? We have some very good
>crime shows. I'm not aware that we have any sitcoms worth watching.
It's all about personal taste, but I feel that "30 Rock" is as good a
sitcom as you will see. Over on HBO, "The Larry David Show" is well
worth watching.
Wilba
> Wilba wrote:
>
>>> I just look at it as pure entertainment nowadays, like a bunch of kids
>>> playing with their toys.
>>
>> Exactly, and that's refreshing. :- )
>>
>> You know they did a local version here in Australia? Hideous!
>
> I think they said on this week's show the only country where it isn't
> a big thing is america. but essentially it really does need the
> presenters it has to be what it is. the old top gear was way more
> serious.
We've only seen the shows from the new era, '02 onwards. We started in the
middle, and when it took off they went back to the beginning.
I fear I'm going to miss it from now on, since it has moved to another
network that doesn't broadcast in my area.
Bruce
<paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Fox 'news' the single worst offender.
Yes, it's atrocious. An insult to anyone with intelligence, but
popular in the USA. Go figure, as they say. ;-)
>Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff about us
>'socialists'
Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff. Period.
Wilba
Aparently the Aussie version is still going -
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/shane-warne-to-co-host-top-gear-australia/story-e6frfmyi-1225789058228.
Chris H
Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>
>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>> channel.
>
>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>competitors.
It does ITN, C4 FIVE, CNN, Sky and all the news papers. +all the local
independent news stations.
>When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>impartiality.
I agree and the BBC has no monopoly.
>Organizations are run by people, and people have politics. In
>the U.S. at least we can get both sides.
No evidence of that so far.
Neil Harrington
"Bruce" <docne...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:5cnlh5lh59gp3msgp...@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 5 Dec 2009 15:19:38 -0500, "Neil Harrington" <ne...@home.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Bruce wrote:
>>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>>> channel.
>>
>>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>>competitors. When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>>impartiality. Organizations are run by people, and people have politics.
>>In
>>the U.S. at least we can get both sides.
>
>
> You really know *nothing* about the BBC, nor about UK television news
Right. Here's a fellow who does though -- lives there, evidently:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018556/climategate-its-all-unravelling-now/
> in general. Even the commercial TV stations strive for impartial,
"impartial" is itself a matter of opinion. If your views are the same as the
reporter's, you regard him as "impartial." If you have been thoroughly
indoctrinated by a news service with one point of view, you naturally see
that news service as "impartial." No doubt most Soviet citizens in the
Stalinist days believed Pravda was perfectly impartial too. The fact that
you apparently don't even begin to comprehend how this works only
illustrates how well it works.
> objective reporting. For many years, BBC News and Independent
> Television News (ITN) competed, not on the basis of differing points
> of view, but rather on the basis of which would be more impartial and
> objective.
<guffaw!>
So you believe impartiality and objectivity are entirely relative things.
One may be impartial, and another may be *even more* impartial. Terrific!
> Standards of journalism were very high, and they remain
> high, but with pressure being brought to bear by government there is
> no longer complete confidence in objectivity.
>
> Of course the UK does have its fair share of partial and opinionated
> journalists, but they are mostly to be found writing in newspapers and
> online, with very little evidence of them on television.
In other words, your TV news people march obediently in lockstep, while your
newspaper people think for themselves and are allowed to have differing
opinions. I can accept this: I have no experience of British TV but have
read some of your newspapers' online editions, and am well aware that they
have different points of view. I find this a good thing; I suppose to you
it's just confusing and annoying.
>
> As for the difference between UK and US television news, we can see
> several US news channels on satellite TV and those we don't get on
> satellite are usually available online. After a lifetime (I'm 55) of
> watching balanced, responsible, objective reporting on British I find
> the biased and opinionated reporting on US TV News quite offensive.
I find *bias* offensive when it distorts or misrepresents the facts. I have
no problem with *opinionated* reporting since I do not expect reporters'
brains to be made out of pablum. I have opinions and am not surprised when
others have them too, and not necessarily the same as mine.
>
> The idea seems to be to tell viewers what to think, and how to think,
> rather than giving them an impartial report and letting them make up
> their own mind, which is what British TV viewers expect - indeed
> demand.
How would they know? British TV viewers are not the ones collecting the
facts, or they would not need news services in the first place.
> The amount of shouting on so much of US TV news,
You seem to be talking about commentary programs rather than news programs.
Perhaps you don't have both types on your TV and so don't realize there's a
difference. What "shouting" programs are you talking about, exactly?
I understand your members of Parliament regularly do quite a bit of shouting
at each other in those hallowed halls. To me that seems like not a bad thing
at all and I wish our congresscritters could do the same thing. Recently one
of our representatives called out "You lie!" while the president was
addressing the joint Congress (Obama was in fact lying at the time) and was
severely scolded for it afterward, by both parties, as it was a severe
breach of protocol. He had to apologize. Members of Congress just aren't
allowed to do that sort of thing: there are rules.
Our straight news programs don't contain shouting either. News reporters
may, however, raise their voices and even show emotion when they are on
commentary programs. Even *British* reporters do that when on American
programs. <gasp!>
> and the
> extremely low standard of debate, combine to give the impression of an
> attempt to appeal to the worst in people. Presumably, those low
> standards are a result of aiming both the bulletins *and* the adverts
> mainly at people of lower intelligence. That would not be acceptable
> here.
Aren't you afraid of walking into things, with your head held in that
position?
Neil Harrington
"Chris H" <ch...@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
news:U65jIDfr...@phaedsys.demon.co.uk...
> In message <Xr2dnbGbMrDAXYfW...@giganews.com>, Neil
> Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>>
>>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>>> channel.
>>
>>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>>competitors.
>
> It does ITN, C4 FIVE, CNN, Sky and all the news papers. +all the local
> independent news stations.
>
>>When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>>impartiality.
>
> I agree and the BBC has no monopoly.
It is, however, a government-funded corporation, eh? Supported by taxes
and/or license fees, rather than competition in a free market.
>
>>Organizations are run by people, and people have politics. In
>>the U.S. at least we can get both sides.
>
> No evidence of that so far.
Then you just haven't been paying attention.
Neil Harrington
I'll take a look at 30 Rock. I don't get HBO.
Ray Fischer
>
>"Chris H" <ch...@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
>news:U65jIDfr...@phaedsys.demon.co.uk...
>> In message <Xr2dnbGbMrDAXYfW...@giganews.com>, Neil
>> Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>>>
>>>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>>>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>>>> channel.
>>>
>>>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>>>competitors.
>>
>> It does ITN, C4 FIVE, CNN, Sky and all the news papers. +all the local
>> independent news stations.
>>
>>>When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>>>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>>>impartiality.
>>
>> I agree and the BBC has no monopoly.
>
>It is, however, a government-funded corporation, eh? Supported by taxes
>and/or license fees, rather than competition in a free market.
And that is exactly what makes it more objective: It's not pressured
by the need to keep advertisers happy.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Paul Heslop
I happened to flick through onto an item about the health bill and the
way Fox presented it you would think their president was a criminal or
something. they also showed footage of obviously racist rednecks
opposed to the bill as if they were good nd sane people with a right
to be aggrieved... amazing.
Paul Heslop
Shane Warne? :O)
Paul Heslop
that would be a shame, it seems to be going off into a whole new area
of tastelessness :O)
Wilba
Like I said. Hideous! :- )
Chris H
Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>
>"Chris H" <ch...@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
>news:U65jIDfr...@phaedsys.demon.co.uk...
>> In message <Xr2dnbGbMrDAXYfW...@giganews.com>, Neil
>> Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>>>
>>>> For all its flaws, and for all the pressure placed on it, the BBC is
>>>> still much nearer to the ideal of impartiality than any US TV news
>>>> channel.
>>>
>>>That would be much closer to being believable if the BBC had any
>>>competitors.
>>
>> It does ITN, C4 FIVE, CNN, Sky and all the news papers. +all the local
>> independent news stations.
>>
>>>When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>>>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>>>impartiality.
>>
>> I agree and the BBC has no monopoly.
>
>It is, however, a government-funded corporation, eh? Supported by taxes
>and/or license fees, rather than competition in a free market.
Which explains why on the few occasions when the Government has tried to
influence the BBC they have had to go to court to get a court order to
make the BBC do something. They loose more often than they win.
You clearly have no understanding of things outside the USA. In previous
discussions I have had with you: You have proved to be very blinkered
and seem to believe a lot of US Republican propaganda.
You mentioned Pravda and how it fed Propaganda to the USSR. A friend of
min in a good position to know (trains people at Brag and Hereford) said
some years a go that the difference between the General soviet
population and the USA populations was that the Soviet population knew
when it was being fed propaganda!
BTW how can the BBC have a "left wing " bias and be pressured by the
government? The Current UK government is right wing and fully supported
GWBush's Republican position in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing has
changed in the UK or the BBC when the US president changed to Obama
(Democrat)
The BBC reporting is the same. If the UK government hasn't changed the
reporting should have done if the government has any influence like you
suggest. Also the BBC should have been showing marked support for the
Republicans as the Government was fully supportive of GWB.
Your premise just does not hold water. The evidence does not support
it.
Neil Harrington
"Allen" <all...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:S46dnQtdBsKPHofW...@giganews.com...
> Neil Harrington wrote:
> <snip>
>> Except of course that he was mostly right, which keeps him from being
>> *completely* discredited. He certainly was reviled, and is so to this
>> day. Such was the power of the left-leaning press. Nowadays it's mostly
>> only Hollywood types who still have that warm, fuzzy feeling toward
>> communists, at least openly.
>
> You are a very sick and very uninformed man. Why are you reading this ng
> when you are probably still using wet plates? Goodbye.
<guffaw!>
Why not just be honest and frank, and say you don't like what I'm saying but
you really have no argument to the contrary? Honesty and frankness are
admirable qualities, and would probably make a much better man of you.
Neil Harrington
"Paul Heslop" <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4B1B7013...@blueyonder.co.uk...
> Bruce wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:41:59 GMT, Paul Heslop
>> <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >Fox 'news' the single worst offender.
>>
>> Yes, it's atrocious. An insult to anyone with intelligence, but
>> popular in the USA. Go figure, as they say. ;-)
>>
>> >Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff about us
>> >'socialists'
>>
>> Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff. Period.
>
> I happened to flick through onto an item about the health bill and the
> way Fox presented it you would think their president was a criminal or
> something.
Well, "criminal" is a rather specific legal condition, but "or something"
certainly fits. Obama has done little but make promises and break them since
he started running for president, and while it would be something of a
stretch to call him a criminal he clearly has no compunctions about breaking
the law, as witness his illegal firing of Inspector General Walpin.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Gerald-Walpin-speaks-the-inside-story-of-the-AmeriCorps-firing-48030697.html
If you're that fond of Obama I wish we could send him to you. You'd love him
because he regularly berates and apologizes for America, which attitudes
must be high on your list of desirable qualities in a politician. He on the
other hand does not seem particularly fond of Brits, so it's unlikely he
could be induced to move there except by main force.
> they also showed footage of obviously racist rednecks
> opposed to the bill as if they were good nd sane people with a right
> to be aggrieved... amazing.
How "obviously racist rednecks"? Are you suffering from some really strange
psychiatric condition? The health care bill is a 2000+ page monstrosity
which would be ruinous to our existing health care system, greatly increase
taxes and other costs especially for the elderly and the young, inevitably
impose health care rationing and would still leave 25 million or so
uninsured. It's an abopmination.
Yes, we really are "good and sane people with a right to be aggrieved," and
most of us (not just Fox News watchers as you seem to believe) are indeed
aggrieved. The more Americans learn about the proposed health care bill the
more they despise it, and despise Obama too. Whatever his continuing
popularity in Europe he is increasingly unpopular here at home, as shown by
poll after poll. He would never get elected today, even running against a
flawed candidate like McCain. Of course 19 out of 20 blacks might vote for
him again as they did a year ago, but no other demographic group would want
him.
Rasmussen Reports (our most accurate poll as far as actual voting
predictions are concerned) shows Obama continuing at an all-time low. Here,
look at the graphs. Enjoy!
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Kennedy McEwen
<docne...@gmail.com> writes
>
>However, there can now be no doubt that the BBC's independence is now
>compromised since the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly, a weapons
>inspector who worked in Iraq and cast doubt on the British
>government's claims about weapons of mass destruction that we all know
>did not exist. Kelly had expressed his doubt to a BBC journalist,
>Andrew Gilligan, who reported it in 2003 and was pilloried by the
>government for doing so. The government "outed" the weapons
>inspector who soon after was found dead in a field near his home. A
>verdict of suicide was recorded, although there is widespread doubt as
>to whether this happened. We may never know the truth.
>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397625.stm
Apparently the murderer drives a white Fiat Uno with a bodged rear paint
job. ;-)
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
Neil Harrington
Propaganda is not necessarily false, as you appear to believe. Yes, of
course there is Republican propaganda as well as Democratic propaganda, each
side presenting its own viewpoint, and yes, I do (not entirely but for the
most part) subscribe to the Republican viewpoint since I am a conservative.
Facts are facts. Calling facts "propaganda" because you'd rather not look at
them does not make them into something else.
>
> You mentioned Pravda and how it fed Propaganda to the USSR. A friend of
> min in a good position to know (trains people at Brag and Hereford) said
> some years a go that the difference between the General soviet
> population and the USA populations was that the Soviet population knew
> when it was being fed propaganda!
Again, this seems to illustrate your misconception of what propaganda is.
Most people "being fed propaganda" by the government probably are aware of
that, whether they would use that term for it or not, since such propaganda
is generally pretty obvious. If you mean "being lied to," that is something
else.
Obama has lied repeatedly to the American people. He lied when he assured
Americans they would be able to keep their present health insurance if they
wanted to. His intention all along has been to squeeze out private insurance
plans and replace them with a "single-payer" (euphemism for all-government)
system. He more or less said so years ago, but has kept quiet about that
idea since running for president.
Increasingly the American people know this now. Few people (if any) now
believe Obama's oft-repeated promises that, for example, "no one earning
less than $250,000 a year will have their taxes increased BY A SINGLE DIME!"
This is not a matter of "propaganda," it's a matter of being lied to. See
the difference?
Paul Heslop
> > they also showed footage of obviously racist rednecks
> > opposed to the bill as if they were good nd sane people with a right
> > to be aggrieved... amazing.
>
> How "obviously racist rednecks"? Are you suffering from some really strange
> psychiatric condition? The health care bill is a 2000+ page monstrosity
> which would be ruinous to our existing health care system, greatly increase
> taxes and other costs especially for the elderly and the young, inevitably
> impose health care rationing and would still leave 25 million or so
> uninsured. It's an abopmination.
>
whatever your view on social welfare etc has nothing to do with the
fact that the people on film that day were not anything more than
racists. Of course it is easier to spot bigotry when you don't live
within a society which still seems to accept that some of its states
find the colour of someone's skin offensive. I can't recall the exact
wording on the placards etc but there was little doubt to their
thoughts on Obama.
> Yes, we really are "good and sane people with a right to be aggrieved," and
> most of us (not just Fox News watchers as you seem to believe) are indeed
> aggrieved. The more Americans learn about the proposed health care bill the
> more they despise it, and despise Obama too. Whatever his continuing
> popularity in Europe he is increasingly unpopular here at home, as shown by
> poll after poll. He would never get elected today, even running against a
> flawed candidate like McCain. Of course 19 out of 20 blacks might vote for
> him again as they did a year ago, but no other demographic group would want
> him.
>
Hell, I would be shocked if you did support him. the very fact that he
got in took me totally by surprise, but by heck I'd be more than
shocked if he does get back in. There's little point in discussing
this with you, you are coming across as one of my sadly prejudiced
view of WASPS, sad because I allow it to colour my judgement of a
country where doubtless there are millions of right minded and caring
people, where social justice doesn't have to mean flying the communist
flag. I wish you well and I hope you get the leader you really
deserve.
Ray Fischer
>
>"Paul Heslop" <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:4B1B7013...@blueyonder.co.uk...
>> Bruce wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:41:59 GMT, Paul Heslop
>>> <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >Fox 'news' the single worst offender.
>>>
>>> Yes, it's atrocious. An insult to anyone with intelligence, but
>>> popular in the USA. Go figure, as they say. ;-)
>>>
>>> >Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff about us
>>> >'socialists'
>>>
>>> Americans really do seem to swallow a lot of stuff. Period.
>>
>> I happened to flick through onto an item about the health bill and the
>> way Fox presented it you would think their president was a criminal or
>> something.
>
>Well, "criminal" is a rather specific legal condition, but "or something"
>certainly fits. Obama has done little but make promises and break them since
You are a stinking liar and an obvious bigot.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
> Neil Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>"Chris H" <ch...@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
>>>>When a single corporation has a national monopoly on TV news
>>>>coverage it is pretty naive to imagine they are going to be a model of
>>>>impartiality.
>>>
>>> I agree and the BBC has no monopoly.
>>
>>It is, however, a government-funded corporation, eh? Supported by taxes
>>and/or license fees, rather than competition in a free market.
>
>Which explains why on the few occasions when the Government has tried to
>influence the BBC they have had to go to court to get a court order to
>make the BBC do something. They loose more often than they win.
>
>You clearly have no understanding of things outside the USA.
Arguably he has no understanding of things INSIDE the USA. All he
seems to be capable of is parroting right wingnut hate and propaganda.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Neil Harrington
While Bush (either Bush) was far from ideal, of course I would rather have
him than Obama. It's like asking whether I'd rather have a head cold or lung
cancer.
>
>> > they also showed footage of obviously racist rednecks
>> > opposed to the bill as if they were good nd sane people with a right
>> > to be aggrieved... amazing.
>>
>> How "obviously racist rednecks"? Are you suffering from some really
>> strange
>> psychiatric condition? The health care bill is a 2000+ page monstrosity
>> which would be ruinous to our existing health care system, greatly
>> increase
>> taxes and other costs especially for the elderly and the young,
>> inevitably
>> impose health care rationing and would still leave 25 million or so
>> uninsured. It's an abopmination.
>>
> whatever your view on social welfare etc has nothing to do with the
> fact that the people on film that day were not anything more than
Unfortunately I don't have any idea what video you're talking about.
> racists. Of course it is easier to spot bigotry when you don't live
> within a society which still seems to accept that some of its states
> find the colour of someone's skin offensive. I can't recall the exact
> wording on the placards etc but there was little doubt to their
> thoughts on Obama.
Indeed, you are faithfully parroting the notion planted again and again by
Obama himself: "If you don't vote for me you must be racist." You appear to
be a very easily indoctrinated fellow. I wish you could "recall the exact
wording" -- some people are able to discover "racism" in all sorts of things
having really nothing to do with racism. "When in doubt, assume racism"
appears to be the rule.
>
>> Yes, we really are "good and sane people with a right to be aggrieved,"
>> and
>> most of us (not just Fox News watchers as you seem to believe) are indeed
>> aggrieved. The more Americans learn about the proposed health care bill
>> the
>> more they despise it, and despise Obama too. Whatever his continuing
>> popularity in Europe he is increasingly unpopular here at home, as shown
>> by
>> poll after poll. He would never get elected today, even running against a
>> flawed candidate like McCain. Of course 19 out of 20 blacks might vote
>> for
>> him again as they did a year ago, but no other demographic group would
>> want
>> him.
>>
> Hell, I would be shocked if you did support him.
That is one shock you will never have to endure.
> the very fact that he
> got in took me totally by surprise,
It was closer than the numbers indicate, and more or less a fluke. By that
I mean Obama was actually running behind McCain in the polls until very
shortly before the election, when news developments really having little or
nothing to do with them hit the Republicans very hard and left them no time
to recover.
> but by heck I'd be more than
> shocked if he does get back in.
You never can tell. Again, much depends on national and/or world
developments between now and then, regardless of what Obama does or doesn't
do. That's democracy for you.
> There's little point in discussing
> this with you, you are coming across as one of my sadly prejudiced
> view of WASPS, sad because I allow it to colour my judgement of a
> country where doubtless there are millions of right minded and caring
> people,
There are, but those are exactly the ones you don't like. I'm not a WASP,
though.
> where social justice doesn't have to mean flying the communist
> flag.
Interesting that you think it *might* mean that.
> I wish you well and I hope you get the leader you really
> deserve.
I hope we do too.
Bruce
Unfortunately, the leader Neil Harrington deserves is ...
... Sarah Palin. ;-)
Paul Heslop
oh do stop! :O)
Neil Harrington
You have my permission to address me directly.
Whatever Palin's (real or imagined) shortcomings, her qualifications for the
job so far exceed Obama's as to make comparison odious. She would have
brought actual executive experience to the presidency. Not just as the very
successful governor of a state; even when she was mayor of little Wasilla
she gained more executive experience than The One had ever had before he
became president. (And boy, does it show.)
Obama's executive experience seems to have been pretty much limited to his
work as a "community organizer," i.e. instructing gaggles of welfare
recipients in techniques such as blocking banks' driveways and occupying
lobbies in order to obtain loans for which they were nowhere near qualified.
In this important work he was closely associated with ACORN, arguably the
most corrupt and criminal organization of its kind the country has ever
seen.
During his time as a U.S. Senator, I think about all he did was head up one
subcommittee -- which never held a hearing -- but of course that may be
because he was spending all his time running for president.
And of course Palin is known to have been born in the U.S., making her
eligible to be president. No one seems to know for sure where Obama was
born, but the overwhelming probability is that it was in Kenya -- making him
the first American president constitutionally ineligible to be president.
That is the only really *important* "first" about Obama -- not the matter of
his race, which is only important to people who obsess about race.
Ray Fischer
>
>"Bruce" <docne...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:d1vnh5h29in9grt0t...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:59:41 GMT, Paul Heslop
>> <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Hell, I would be shocked if you did support him. the very fact that he
>>>got in took me totally by surprise, but by heck I'd be more than
>>>shocked if he does get back in. There's little point in discussing
>>>this with you, you are coming across as one of my sadly prejudiced
>>>view of WASPS, sad because I allow it to colour my judgement of a
>>>country where doubtless there are millions of right minded and caring
>>>people, where social justice doesn't have to mean flying the communist
>>>flag. I wish you well and I hope you get the leader you really
>>>deserve.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the leader Neil Harrington deserves is ...
>>
>> ... Sarah Palin. ;-)
>
>You have my permission to address me directly.
Except that you run away from people who challenge you.
>Whatever Palin's (real or imagined) shortcomings, her qualifications for the
>job so far exceed Obama's as to make comparison odious.
ROFL!
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Paul Heslop
>
> "Bruce" <docne...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:d1vnh5h29in9grt0t...@4ax.com...
> > On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:59:41 GMT, Paul Heslop
> > <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >>Hell, I would be shocked if you did support him. the very fact that he
> >>got in took me totally by surprise, but by heck I'd be more than
> >>shocked if he does get back in. There's little point in discussing
> >>this with you, you are coming across as one of my sadly prejudiced
> >>view of WASPS, sad because I allow it to colour my judgement of a
> >>country where doubtless there are millions of right minded and caring
> >>people, where social justice doesn't have to mean flying the communist
> >>flag. I wish you well and I hope you get the leader you really
> >>deserve.
> >
> >
> > Unfortunately, the leader Neil Harrington deserves is ...
> >
> > ... Sarah Palin. ;-)
>
> You have my permission to address me directly.
>
> Whatever Palin's (real or imagined) shortcomings, her qualifications for the
> job so far exceed Obama's as to make comparison odious.
and that about sums it up. do you actually work for Fox?
Peter Twydell
mentions Barack Obama, George Bush, or anything else to do with domestic
politics in the USA in an unrelated thread automatically loses.
It's like listening to children arguing. You stink! No, you stink! You
stink more!
It's bad enough that Christmas is being forced down our throats again,
without having to read all this boring stuff.
--
Peter
Ying tong iddle-i po!
Neil Harrington
> Neil Harrington wrote:
>>
>> "Bruce" <docne...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:d1vnh5h29in9grt0t...@4ax.com...
>> > On Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:59:41 GMT, Paul Heslop
>> > <paul....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >>Hell, I would be shocked if you did support him. the very fact that he
>> >>got in took me totally by surprise, but by heck I'd be more than
>> >>shocked if he does get back in. There's little point in discussing
>> >>this with you, you are coming across as one of my sadly prejudiced
>> >>view of WASPS, sad because I allow it to colour my judgement of a
>> >>country where doubtless there are millions of right minded and caring
>> >>people, where social justice doesn't have to mean flying the communist
>> >>flag. I wish you well and I hope you get the leader you really
>> >>deserve.
>> >
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, the leader Neil Harrington deserves is ...
>> >
>> > ... Sarah Palin. ;-)
>>
>> You have my permission to address me directly.
>>
>> Whatever Palin's (real or imagined) shortcomings, her qualifications for
>> the
>> job so far exceed Obama's as to make comparison odious.
>
> and that about sums it up. do you actually work for Fox?
Hardly. I am happily retired, and have been for many years.
Chris Malcolm
> Chris H wrote:
>> In message <rP-dnScQDY9f4YfW...@giganews.com>, Neil
>> Harrington <ne...@home.com> writes
>>> Then who does own the BBC?
>>
>> No one as such...
> Since it's a corporation it ought to be owned by *somebody*.
>> it is funded by the License fee and governed by the
>> BBC Trust.
> Who are the people in the BBC Trust who govern it, and who selected them for
> their jobs?
>>
>> It is not state owned nor is it a commercial organisation in the sense
>> that it has no advertising or sponsorship. Hence it is completely
>> independent.
> Since it is funded by a license fee, as a practical matter that sounds
> pretty much state owned to me. I am assuming that it is some sort of state
> officials who also select the people who make up the BBC Trust. I don't
> think it's possible to have *any* enterprise "completely independent" which
> that much state involvement.
Why on earth don't you google up BBC ownership, funding, independence,
etc., and find out, instead of wittering on with this sort of
stunningly ignorant speculation? The history and facts are very well
known, very well published, and how it all works (or doesn't) much
debated, including by the BBC and in the British Parliament.
Note too that only the BBC's domestic broadcasting is funded by the
licence fee, and that within carefully specified limits the BBC is
also permitted to earn money. The funding arrangements and commercial
operations have all been carefully designed to ensure that the primary
guiding principle and raison d'etre of the BBC is preserved, which is
complete independence of both political and commercial bias.
There are plenty of dreadful examples around the world of what happens
when media are controlled by governments or commercial companies!
--
Chris Malcolm
Neil Harrington
"Chris Malcolm" <c...@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:7o4otkF...@mid.individual.net...
And that doesn't tell you something?
>
> Note too that only the BBC's domestic broadcasting is funded by the
> licence fee, and that within carefully specified limits the BBC is
> also permitted to earn money. The funding arrangements and commercial
> operations have all been carefully designed to ensure that the primary
> guiding principle and raison d'etre of the BBC is preserved, which is
> complete independence of both political and commercial bias.
I doubt such "complete independence" is possible in any one organization.
Again: organizations are run by people, and people have opinions and biases.
Those at the top will always have at least some tendency to hire and promote
other people with opinions and biases that comport with their own. Thus for
example the entire top level at the NYTimes has become leftist-"liberal"
over the years even though the Times has some conservative reporters and
commentators, and the result is that the Times is editorially
leftist-"liberal."
>
> There are plenty of dreadful examples around the world of what happens
> when media are controlled by governments or commercial companies!
No doubt, but who other than "governments or commercial companies" would
ever be in a position to control the media? The best you can do is have
different news media organizations in competition with each other, which
should result in offering the public opposing views and opinions. Obviously,
that will never happen with government-controlled media.
George Kerby
On 12/7/09 7:59 AM, in article 6SodqCFl...@twydell.demon.co.uk, "Peter
Twydell" <Pe...@twydell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I would suggest that you move to a coral atoll and leave humanity behind
forever.
George Kerby
On 12/7/09 10:29 AM, in article
3fWdnaxXXuIbsIDW...@giganews.com, "Neil Harrington"
<ne...@home.com> wrote:
The bleating masses confuse reality with SNL skits whilst getting thrills up
their legs. Pity the poor fooled.
Neil Harrington
"George Kerby" <ghost_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:C742943F.39AA8%ghost_...@hotmail.com...
Speaking of getting thrills up their legs, even Chris Matthews seems to be
becoming disenchanted with Obama. Now when Obama can no longer generate a
thrill up Matthews' leg, you know The One is really in decline.
Paul Heslop
no sense of humour either.
George Kerby
On 12/7/09 11:38 AM, in article
I7mdnf-We-04oIDW...@giganews.com, "Neil Harrington"
<ne...@home.com> wrote:
Naw. Matthews is still humpin' The One's leg like a horny mutt...
Neil Harrington
If that was your idea of sparkling wit, don't give up your day job.
J�rgen Exner
[nothing of any importance]
How come your nonsense is showing up again? I could have sworn I
killfiled you a while ago because of the ultra-right-wing crap you
insist to post on every non-occasion.
Indeed, I did: Author: Neil Harrington <sec...@illumnati.net>
I guess you had to change your identity because everybody had plonked
you and nobody would listen to your dilusional rantings any more,
leaving your all alone in your phantasie police state.
Well, back you go into the hole you crawled out of: ***PLONK***
jue
Paul Heslop
A man after my own heart.
George Kerby
On 12/7/09 3:06 PM, in article v7rqh5h0lojvi3n5p...@4ax.com,
For not caring, you seem to put an extraordinary amount of energy in a
plonk.
Watch your Carbon Footprint...
Bob Larter
> And of course Palin is known to have been born in the U.S., making her
> eligible to be president. No one seems to know for sure where Obama was
> born, but the overwhelming probability is that it was in Kenya -- making him
> the first American president constitutionally ineligible to be president.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahaha! So you're a 'Birther' as well.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Larter
> Bob Larter wrote:
>> Wilba wrote:
>>> Paul Heslop wrote:
>>>> Wilba wrote:
>>>>> Paul Heslop wrote:
>>>>>> Jim Bob wrote:
>>>>>>> As for Top Gear, sometimes it appears that they do seem to push the
>>>>>>> boundaries when it comes to causing disruption. That said, most of
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> time, I think it's all just an act for the show anyway. Who knows.
>>>>>> It's all tongue in cheek but it has always struck me that much of what
>>>>>> they do is set up to look a lot worse than it really is. Obviously
>>>>>> when they play tricks on each other they are all well aware of what is
>>>>>> going on or the danger would be unacceptable and as far as I am
>>>>>> concerned most of what we see is scripted and played for laughs.
>>>>> I don't know how they get away with not wearing helmets when they are
>>>>> cutting up the track. (I understand why they wouldn't want to wear them
>>>>> while they are performing for the camera - that's not the point.) I
>>>>> wonder
>>>>> how they get away with setting such an irresponsible and unsafe example,
>>>>> and how they get away with it from an insurance and liability POV? I
>>>>> guess
>>>>> there's some lawyer's distinction between an activity that requires a
>>>>> helmet
>>>>> (e.g. "a speed event"), and what they get up to.
>>>> The insurance thing is an interesting point though. Mind you even the
>>>> track runs are not completely honest in that they apparently only
>>>> shoot so much themselves and the rest is left to someone else, who
>>>> probably does wear a helmet.
>>>>
>>>> I just look at it as pure entertainment nowadays, like a bunch of kids
>>>> playing with their toys.
>>> Exactly, and that's refreshing. :- )
>>>
>>> You know they did a local version here in Australia? Hideous!
>> Tell me about it! It was crap compared with the original.
>
> so do they just show the british version over there now?
For a while, they were actually showing both.
Bob Larter
> You can't just copy the formula.
Exactly right, IMO.