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| If Moses had entered swimming competitions ... |
Thursday, January 27, 2022
After School Satanic Club?
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/school.district.defends.decision.to.allow.after.school.satan.club.at.elementary.school/138047.htm
Brexit Growth.
The IMF today said it now expects British gross domestic product (GDP) to expand by 4.7 per cent in 2022 - cutting down its previous prediction of 5.0 per cent. Mail.
Beeb Goes From Bad To Worse.
A shocking excuse for the indefensible.
Accused of blaming the Jews, the BBC -- astoundingly -- does it again
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The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) has finally responded to the outrage over the BBC’s reporting of the antisemitic attack on a group of religious Jewish teenage boys in central London at the end of November.
The ECU report is simply jaw-dropping. With two minor exceptions, the BBC has doubled down yet again in refusing to acknowledge the disgraceful nature of its reporting of that event on December 2. Far, far worse are the justifications it now uses to defend it.
To recap, as I reported here, the teenagers who were on a trip to central London dismounted from their hired bus in Oxford Street to dance in celebration of the Chanukah festival. They were promptly abused by a group of men of Middle Eastern appearance who performed Nazi salutes, shouted “Free Palestine,” spat at the bus and hit it with their shoes (an insult in some Arab countries) as it drove the boys away to safety.
Part of this attack was videoed on a mobile phone from inside the bus. This recording, which was widely circulated on social media, was used in the BBC’s reporting of the event on both BBC London and BBC News Online. On BBC London, the reporter, Guy Lyons, said:
…we at BBC London did watch this footage and you can hear some racial slurs [sic] about Muslim people which does come from the bus… it’s not clear at the moment…what role that may have played in this incident.
The same claim of “anti-Muslim slurs” was made on BBC News Online. After protests that no such slurs could be heard, the BBC amended its News Online report to say “a slur about Muslims could be heard” — a certainty absent from its reference to the antisemitic nature of the attack as mere “allegations”.
Subsequently, members of the Jewish community who investigated the recording — as well as a forensic linguist, Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann of the University of Adelaide, in a report commissioned by the Board of Deputies — said the only words which could be identified in the recording were the Hebrew “tikra lemishehu, ze dachuf” which mean “call someone, it’s urgent”.
In its response to the complaints, which you can read here, the ECU says that having not only watched and read the relevant output but also
watched and listened to an enhanced audio version of the disputed recording [and] examined the editorial processes which led to the inclusion of the claim about an anti-Muslim slur in both the online and broadcast items,
it “partly upheld” the complaints “in relation to accuracy and impartiality”. But the only inaccuracy it found in the reportage was that
there was insufficient evidence that it [the “anti-Muslim slur”] had happened on more than one occasion.
The only departure from impartiality lay in “failing to reflect alternative views” about the very existence of this alleged “anti-Muslim slur”. As for the comment on BBC London that it wasn’t clear what role this “slur" may have played in the incident, it says this:
As is sometimes the case in unscripted broadcasting, it is apparent that the reporter’s intended meaning was not expressed with complete clarity, but what can be said is that he did not assert that the slur had played a role, and that, at that point in time, there were elements of uncertainty about what had happened which it was appropriate for the report to reflect.
“Not expressed with complete clarity,” eh. Well, that’s one way of putting it. And so the ECU rejected the charges of victim-blaming or false equivalence.
Let’s just pause here to revisit the import of the complaints about the BBC’s reporting.
The attack on the Jewish boys was, unequivocally, an unprovoked and antisemitic attack.
The “anti-Muslim slur” that the BBC claimed “could be heard” from inside the bus was not detected by others who listened carefully to the recording, and the BBC has produced no evidence to prove that it was uttered.
The effect of alleging that this slur had been heard, plus the explicit suggestion that it might have played a role in this “incident”, was to cast doubt upon the unprovoked and therefore antisemitic nature of the attack and thus spread blame onto its victims.
It’s worth now looking in further detail at the tortuous and utterly disreputable way in which the ECU tries to deny the gravity of the BBC’s journalistic offence. It states:
It was on the afternoon of 1 December that it was first identified as containing an anti-Muslim slur (in the form of “Dirty Muslims”), and the recording was subsequently assessed by at least seven members of BBC London news staff and a senior editor in network news, all of whom agreed that the phrase “dirty Muslims” could be heard, before a decision to include a statement to that effect in BBC output was made.
Why were no fewer than eight journalists apparently involved in verifying this alleged slur? Does this not suggest a very high degree of doubt about a remark whose inclusion — without any such doubt being expressed — would have a potentially incendiary effect?
Appallingly, the ECU then tries to shift some of the blame for this “anti-Muslim slur” claim onto the Jewish defence organisation, the Community Security Trust (CST). Having applied to the CST for clearance to use the video recording, it says, the BBC turned to the CST for “verification”. It goes on:
Properly, however, the BBC did not rely on its own assessment alone. The claim was put by the reporter in the television item to the representative of the CST with whom he had been dealing, who replied (in a WhatsApp exchange which the ECU has seen) in terms which the BBC took as confirmation that the phrase in question had been spoken and, in the ECU’s judgement, it was entirely reasonable to take them in that sense. We should make clear, however, that we do not say the CST’s response determined the BBC’s decision to include the claim in its output — it was only one part of the decision-making process, but it does have some significance for the ECU’s view on the outcome of that process.
With hindsight, and in the light of subsequent evidence that the recording was open to another interpretation, it might be argued that even further verification should have been sought, but the situation at the time was that no alternative interpretation had been proposed, and in our view the elements of internal scrutiny taken together with the CST’s response amounted to an editorial process which we would regard as more than sufficient in any but the most extraordinary circumstances.
We therefore do not believe we can fairly find that the decision to broadcast the claim in question constituted a breach of editorial standards, even if it were accepted in the light of later evidence that the claim itself was questionable. And, in view of allegations of latent or even active antisemitism which have been made, the ECU considers it important to say it was manifest from the evidence we have seen that the decision, whether or not mistaken, was made entirely in good faith.
Note the weaselly phrase “in terms which the BBC took as confirmation that the phrase in question had been spoken”. In other words, we can reasonably infer, the CST actually said no such thing. If it had done so, we can be sure the ECU would have told us exactly what it had said. Is this dumping on the CST not utterly shameful?
It gets worse. The ECU says it commissioned a report on the mobile phone recording from a firm of translators. Three of the four translators involved “construed” the sounds in question as the words “dirty Muslims,” and one as the Hebrew for “call someone, it’s urgent”. The ECU itself watched and listened to “a version of the material” with enhanced audio, and with further enhancements supplied to the head of the ECU by a BBC sound engineer. The recording was also listened to by senior members of BBC News management and a member of staff “with a working knowledge of Hebrew,” and was also discussed with the BBC’s Jerusalem Bureau
with input from native Hebrew-speakers there (though with inconclusive results, which led to the commissioning of the firm of translators).
So after all this enhanced and non-enhanced listening by so many people, was this “anti-Muslim” slur actually proved to have been uttered?
And here, at the very nub of this affair, the ECU slips into ludicrously pretentious gobbledegook which suggests the answer to that question is “no” . It never actually says this, concluding instead that as a result of
the contesting interpretations of the material under consideration… it might not be possible to determine with certainty which of them is correct on the basis of the recording alone.
But inadvertently, in trying to dodge the answer but inescapably if circuitously implying that no such slur existed other than in the minds of those who claimed to have heard it, it also reveals the very same warped mindset of which the BBC has been accused. For it says:
In this connection, the ECU notes the suggestion, in a report commissioned by the Board of Deputies from a Professor of Linguistics, that BBC staff may have misheard the phrase as a result of the “Apollonian tendency”, which he describes as the mind’s inclination to create order or meaningfulness, especially when encountering unfamiliar information.
Although it might be observed that such a tendency might apply as much to those undertaking investigations on behalf of others as to BBC staff, it corresponded with the experience of members of the ECU, both as investigators of complaints and in their previous roles as programme-makers, in which they had encountered cases where the same audio material can genuinely be construed in entirely different senses by different listeners. The interpretation arrived at may well depend on cues which the listener is unaware of having received and, once arrived at, may be very difficult to controvert.
In that Board of Deputies-commissioned report, however, Professor Ghil‘ad Zuckermann follows up the sentence quoted by the ECU with this observation:
The problem with the Apollonian tendency in language arises from the fact that a person applying his/her Apollonian tendency only uses what is accessible in his/her brain. A Briton visiting Japan might well hear the Japanese expression for “not at all”(following”thank you”’) as Don’t touch your moustache! instead of どういたしまし て dou itashimashite. The Briton would need a lot of chutzpah, however, to jump to a conclusion that the Japanese person talking to him is alleging that he, the Briton, has too much facial hair (my emphasis).
Indeed; such a conclusion would be highly unlikely. And that’s the point. For if those eight BBC journalists really did construe what they heard as an “anti-Muslim slur” on the basis of “cues which the listener is unaware of having received,” this means that, when watching and listening to a recording of an attack upon Jews, the “cues” in their brains translated unfamiliar sounds into an attack by Jews.
Deeply disturbing, if true; but more disturbing is that the ECU thinks that this exonerates the BBC from the most serious charges of a breach of editorial standards.
Even by the BBC’s normal standards of obfuscation when it comes to complaints against it, this ECU report is a shocker. It’s good news that Ofcom is now to investigate this whole affair. The ECU report itself should be added to the charge sheet.
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Efficiency NOT Tax Rises! (Whatever happened to Toryism, BTW, Boris?)
Boris REFUSES to scrap hated tax rise as thousands sign petition to save pensioners.
Blogger: the sensible thing to do would be to stop the NHS wasting tens of billions annually and also to sack two thirds of the bureaucrats.
A simplification of the bureaucratic system would have further monetary benefits.
If Boris goes, Sunak, my former favourite cannot possibly takeover. He has no concept of conservative economics.
Clarifying That Shocking Betrayal of The Laws of The Land! - In Law This Is A Prima Facie Situation - A Malum Prohibitum.
Jury clears Christian climate activists who climbed on top of train.
Rev Sue Parfitt and Fr Martin Newell(Photo: Christian Climate Action)Christian climate activists who prevented a Docklands Light Railway train from leaving a London station during rush-hour have been cleared.
Anglican priest, Rev Sue Parfitt, 79, and Fr Martin Newell, 54, stood trial this week alongside retired university lecturer Philip Kingston, 85, who is also a Christian.
All three are members of Christian Climate Action (CCA), the Christian arm of Extinction Rebellion.
They defended their actions at the Inner London Crown Court, claiming they had "tried everything else" before mounting the DLR train in October 2019.
The activists staged the protest at Shadwell Station in East London, holding up commuters for over an hour.
All three denied obstructing an engine or carriage on a railway.
They said in their defence that their actions were a proportionate response to the escalating climate crisis and a lawful protest under the Human Rights Act.
Judge Silas Reid had told the jury to consider protections for protesting under the European Convention of Human Rights, which he said "gives them and us the freedom of belief, expression and the right to freedom of assembly".
"Are we sure that a conviction of the defendant for obstructing the railway is necessary in a democratic society in the interest of public safety, prevention of disorder or protection of rights and freedoms of others?" he said.
Christian Climate Action said, "We are grateful that this court case has allowed the critical state of this climate emergency to be in the media." CT.
Pastor Lorenzo - and More.
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‘I wonder, why isn’t he with me? When he hasn’t done anything wrong…’ |
Thank you for praying and campaigning for Pastor Lorenzo, who is being held in a maximum-security prison and facing a ten-year prison sentence. Pastor Lorenzo was tried just before Christmas and was expected to be sentenced earlier this month. However, his family have heard nothing, enduring an agonising wait for news. David, his son, told us: ‘…they keep lengthening the whole process, unfairly accusing a man who, all he did was express what he feels and what he thinks....and time passes and does not stop, the skin wrinkles and ages and [he] does not see his children growing, nobody knows how much I miss him…Only the feeling of my heart knows how much I want my dad to be here, only that, together with us’ |
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Join us at the Justice Conference online |
On Thursday 3 February, 8-9pm (UK time) CSW is sharing at The Justice Conference online event, Lift up your voice: humanity. This event is hosted by Tearfund and we’re delighted to be sharing alongside Open Doors, and hearing from speakers who have fled persecution in China and Iran. This will be a fantastic opportunity to learn more about how we can pray effectively, ask questions, and hear more about the situation on the ground, particularly China's new restrictions that will make online religious gatherings illegal. The event is online-only and won’t be recorded, so please book your free tickets to watch live. |
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Do one thing for justice |
In 2022 we’re inviting your church to do one thing to make a stand for freedom! Why not book a CSW speaker to share at your in-person or online service? You and your congregation will hear stories of those suffering for their faith and how you can make a difference. Or you could follow our Lent discipleship series, Stories from the Wilderness, in partnership with 24/7 Prayer, which includes videos and materials for your small groups. We have lots more suggestions on our website. Which one will your church choose? Help your church to do one thing for justice in 2022. |
Excellent. Right To Sue.
Brian Walker, who worked at Southmead Hospital in Bristol before resigning, claims he was treated unfairly by the health service for expressing 'traditional biblical' views to colleagues. Mail.
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
One More Reason Why Voting Democrat Is Not Possible For Christians. (Just the same in the UK with Labour and Lib Dems.)
The decline in Christianity among Democrats is bringing steep polarization
(Photo: Unsplash/Andy Feliciotti)
A telephonic poll by The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports has given a shock to many Republicans about the views of average Democrats regarding basic rights.
Around half of Democratic voters (48 percent) believe government should be able to imprison and/or fine those who question the efficacy of vaccines, while only 27 percent of all Americans would support such infringement of free speech. CT.
Sounds Sound.
BUT it would also help if he were to stop illegals crossing the Channel - OR - announce that once discovered, every illegal will be deported; there can be no consideration for refugee status; citizenship will NEVER be granted.
PC? - No Thanks!
PC? - No, no and thrice no!
Unbelievably, every now and again a writer in the media will seek to defend political correctness and does so by claiming spuriously and possibly disingenuously, that 'it gets people to be nicer and fairer to each other.'This is precisely why PC is not actually defensible - it does not make for less persecution - but more! It fuels 'The Law of Unintended Consequences'.
It trivialises; it demeans; it reduces free speech; it has an agenda; it is humourless; it is catch-all; is always left-leaning; it is seldom logical and it creates masses of wholly unnecessary resentment.
All you have to do if you really want people to treat each other with more respect is to encourage the following of what Christ had to teach us.
That leaves precious little room for nastiness, spite and unreasonableness.
What all must remember is that PC is not and never has been based on benevolence or love of humanity - but only on control thereof!
Monday, January 24, 2022
England Level The T20 Series In Barbados With A ONE RUN Victory.
Some appalling bowling from the once Mr Reliable, Chris Jordan, and little better from a Mahmood who wilted under pressure, nearly lost this game for England.
It was a real struggle after a very mixed batting performance.
Ooh. Thanks, Brexit! Without This Prompt, In The EU, We'd Have Done NOTHING!
Are you watching, Elon? UK to build its OWN £2.5bn gigafactory after Tesla Brexit snub.
THE UK is set to build its own electric battery capabilities after a British start-up secured a £2.5bn investment to build UK's very own gigafactory.
08:24, Fri, Jan 21, 2022 , a promising new startup, has received £2.5billion in investment to produce its electric vehicle batteries in Northumberland. Electric battery start-up secured £1.7bn from Tritax Group, a real estate investor, alongside the fund manager abrdn. It also received hundreds of millions from the Government, in a major boost to the UK's bid to develop a domestic supply chain. Express.
So Methodism Isn't A Cult In Kenya, Then?
Most Kenyan Churches Ban Politicians from Pulpits, Except for Methodists.
Evangelicals join Anglicans, Catholics, and Presbyterians in restricting campaigning during worship services.
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Calls for investigation after monk killed at Ukrainian monastery A law firm representing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has said the ...
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£650,000 appeal launched to save two crumbling churches. St Tyfi’s Church, Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire (Photo: Friends of Friendless Churches...
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