ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

SUBTLE BIAS?

"Our reporter Tim Whewell has turned up evidence that the Gaza conflict is being used by radical Muslim groups here to stir up young British Muslims. Should the Government be doing more to counter the influence of these forces, and what could be the security consequences for all of us?"

Should the Government be doing more to counter the influence of Israeli forces (both in Gaza ) to counter the influence of these forces, and what could be the security consequences for all of us?

SUBTLE BIAS?

"Our reporter Tim Whewell has turned up evidence that the Gaza conflict is being used by radical Muslim groups here to stir up young British Muslims. Should the Government be doing more to counter the influence of these forces, and what could be the security consequences for all of us?"

Should the Government be doing more to counter the influence of Israeli forces (both in Gaza ), and what could be the security (and socio-economic) consequences for all of us?

Nothing relating to specific items but, please ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, why when I'm listening to radio4 in France, suddenly it says there are "copyright restrictions" on the program.

Frustrated or what?

Oh how typical of European hypocricy. The UK like the rest of the Euro-ecologists demanded the US sign Kyoto and reduce carbon emissions no matter what impact it would have on America's economy. Now when it's their money at risk, all talk of limiting carbon emissions goes out the window because it would be bad for business. The mother of all airports? Just like Saddam Hussein was going to win the mother of all battles? Found any of those thousands of missing pieces of luggage from the time the mother of all airport terminals was opened at Heathrow?

Never mind the radicalisation of young Moslems, what about the effect on middle aged white blokes like me?

I'm so disgusted at the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ not only allowing Israeli spokesmen to tell lies unchallenged, but to actually lie on their behalf. All this despite the fact that the Israelis are the very people denying the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ access to the facts.

I'm livid at the role of the government that are meant to be representing me, but in reality are dragging the name of the UK through the mire, by not only refusing to condemn Israeli butchery, but actually making it possible to provide them with arms the better to kill children with.

I was chatting to a ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ local reporter yesterday and he was utterly unaware of the ire at his employers for their reporting, so rarefied is the place.

Don't blame young people for the rank hypocrisy of the British establishment, take a long hard look at yourselves first. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has done more to radicalise all sorts of people in the past fortnight than any 'extremist'.

And in Gaza,

"The deployment of Israeli army reservists is significant. It is a commonplace of political speech now to talk of β€˜ownership’. This is not β€˜involvement’ in a process so much as organising complicity and joint responsibility. Other regimes have known well that to involve as much of the ordinary population in an armed conflict is to make all its members participate in responsibility for the actions of a few.

And this is what the Israelis are doing politically to their own population by involving the reservist in the destruction of Gaza and the injuries inflicted on women and children there. The thousands of ordinary workers, the teachers, the taxi drivers, the metal fabricators, the software designers, the students, have now, by their deployment in Gaza, been given the same β€˜ownership’ of the destruction and death being wrought there previously by the β€˜professionals’."

Cogent commentary

Peace
ed

NOT HAPPY TURKEY

"Israel is β€œperpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction,” Erdogan said at a recent municipal election campaign rally. β€œAllah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents."

Erdogan also called Israeli actions a "crime against humanity" and reportedly is refusing to take phone calls from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with his nation's troops in Gaza."



As this is one of Israel's fair brokers in the Middle East speaking, it needs to be listened to.

As Bush held his bowing out news conference, a stock taking is in order
how did US foriegn policy fare in recent years to (1) win hearts and minds of other people and (2) leave the world as a safer place for US people and its partner states.

In a Middle East valedictory speech on 5 December, summing up the nearly eight years of his two administrations, George W. Bush declared that ?the Middle East in 2008 is a freer, more hopeful, and more promising place than it was in 2001.?

Many observers of the onground realities in the Middle East disagree. Counting some of the important ways things are now worse, Daniel Pipes says Bush erred by the dozen and lists the following:


George W. Bush delivering his swan song on the Middle East.

Iran is closer to nuclear weapons, perhaps the single most alarming development of Bush?s era.

Pakistan is close to becoming a nuclear-armed, Islamist rogue state.

The price of oil reached all time highs and only collapsed in recent months due to a U.S.-led recession.

Turkey has gone from being a stalwart ally to the most anti-American country in the world.

The doctrine of preemption has been discredited.

Arab rejectionism of Israel has spread.

Democracy efforts in Egypt have collapsed.

Hizbullah grows in power in Lebanon.

The Taliban may again run Afghanistan.

Hamas took power in Gaza and may next control the West Bank.

To those who judge things by the global outcry over Gaza on the streets from Guatemala to Guernica, it appears as if Ismail Haniya and company pulling more crowds than George Bush would ever have dreamt/dread about.

HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARDS

manchester me (#5) "I'm so disgusted at the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ not only allowing Israeli spokesmen to tell lies unchallenged, but to actually lie on their behalf."

That's not the way that I have seen and heard it. I think the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has done its best to let Israeli Government spokespersons go unchallenged simply because the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ doesn't, as you say, have independent access to evidence to directly challenge what is said. Under these circumstances, I think they've done a rather good job of letting incredulity and mendacity 'speak for itself'.

According to ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ;

"Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said Hamas's military machine was taking "serious punishment" and that Israel was "advancing towards the end game". Hamas also insisted it was "approaching victory". "

If this is Hamas' idea of victory, what is their idea of defeat? I guess they figure if you hit a baseball bat with your head enough times, you'll break the other guy's bat.

"Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya stated in a televised address from a secret location in Gaza that the group was "approaching victory". "

"Aid agencies say Gaza's 1.5 million residents are in urgent need of food and medical aid."

Victory usually requires sacrifice.

Kirsty who?

ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, you should be ASHAMED of you coverage of the Gaza conflict. It's turned into propaganda and lies.

I watched the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news at one this lunchtime and it used stock footage of Palestinians in a market buying fresh Aubergines and other vegetables.

You lot are just puppets for the British Government and YOU MAKE ME SICK!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

MarcusAureliusII (#10) "If this is Hamas' idea of victory, what is their idea of defeat?"

You appear to have to have a lot which is obvious to many others explained to you.

Hamas has martyred itself in order to show Israel in its true colours to the international community. That has been its victory. See the UN and Turkey's (#7) reactions as examples. All clear now?

We are told the world was made in 6 days of work and one of rest. On the eighth day the people began to fight and haven't stopped since. They have ears that hear everything except each other. Perhaps a day will arrive on which some brain cells will be delivered. Would we know what to do with them?
Alternatively, we could destroy ourselves and peace would have some hope.

Hi JJ, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has not only allowed Israeli propagandists state that Hamas broke the ceasefire, I've heard their own news presenters say it as if it were fact.

On 04/11/08, the IDF killed 6 Hamas men thus ending a period of 4 months in which they hadn't fired a single rocket. Hamas maintained their stance even though Israel maintained the blockade.

White phosphorous has been talked about in many media for the past 5 days, yet the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ have only just began to question the IDF version of the truth.

The Israelis were allowed to present a cock and bull story to ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ viewers when they shelled a UN school, killing around 40 people. Since then Regev and friends been shown to be comprehensive liars on this incident, yet the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ have not made this clear.

All this and the narrative of the past 60 years is somehow missing, as if Palestinian resistance to being walled into a tiny space is is completely illogical.

Just another middle-aged white (Christian, as it happens) bloke wanting to agree with most of the sentiments expressed by 'manchester me' (number 5).

Don't politicians like Ms Blears and Mr Milliband realise that they're wasting their time with their platitudes and talk about 'getting information out'. We all know that, whatever legitimate complaints the Israelis may have, what they are doing in Gaza is appalling and will outrage most people, regardless of race or religion. We also know that if the US wanted this Israeli onslaught to stop, it would stop now; and if Britain wasn't in such an obsequious relationship with America we would have condemned it forthrightly instead using the weasel words our politicians repeatedly use.

We need a hub to support the UK economy.

We need large public spending projects to stimulate the economy.

We need an integrated transport policy.

A new airport in the Thames estuary would provide the solution.

Part publicly funded, part private, it would provide jobs for the area as well as improving the transport links.

Since 1997 I have insisted on avoiding the use of Heathrow, whether flying on business or for pleasure. This has nothing at all to do with delays, bottlenecks or anything that a third runway- or even a fifth terminal- would solve. It is simply down to the impolite, arrogant and offhand way that customers are treated. The last time I was there I had to intervene between a bemused in- transit passenger and a member of staff who was bawling in her face, "It's not MY problem if you can't speak English!"
Since then I always fly from Manchester to Schiphol Amsterdam, Munich or Frankfurt; the difference in staff attitude is remarkable - polite, friendly and efficient.No amount of runways will fix Heathrow's organisational culture problems.

DISAPPOINTMENT - GEORGE W BUSH.

So Dubya, we hear, from his own smirky lips, was 'disappointed' when no WMD were found. He certainly means to stop as he went on! Disappointed! Disappointed?
Isn't that what normal people are when they get socks for Christmas?
Our Dopy Tony joined your war George - (ostensibly) because Sadam DEFINITELY had WMD. That's WAR George - not socks. When you have caused untold mayhem and misery - George - and not found any WMD because THEY WERE NOT THERE, you need something a bit stronger than disappointment.
Let's see: 'mortification'? No - you might have trouble with a word that complex. Try 'shocked'. Better still: 'humiliated'. You were humiliated George. I would explain that as 'made to look a fool' but you were ahead of me.
As for Tony, was he disappointed? Perhaps you might strike a Disappointment Medal for him, to mark mission accomplished i.e. Sadam disarmed. (That's irony George.)

manchester me (#16) I accept that many of our politicians have an Israeli bias (the opening piece tonight was outrageous in focusing on Muslims as many indigenous British are equally angry about our government's response), but following ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News 24 and Newsnight over the last couple of weeksfent has left me in no doubt that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has been bending over-backwards to let Israel hoist itself with its own nefarious rhetoric. Incidentally, prima facie (i.e from shell codes) it may well be that the White Phosphorous (WP) munitions munitions are . One can't expect the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ to challenge the IDF when they can't get first hand evidence. THAT WOULD BE bias. I understand why you are incensed though.

Wow, you white middle-aged middle-class people actually do know a thing or too. It's just a shame that most people swallow the 'news' wholesale without even questioning any aspect of it, or bothering to read up on it.

"Israel's approaching the endgame of its operation in Gaza."

But surely they've still got another week till Obama's inauguration?

A whole heap of carnage still to be wrought until then.

CHILD’S PLAY (#15 - your theme my take)

In myth and tales of valour, the theme of a journey of enlightenment and self improvement is often present. Few are left unstirred by such tales. I hold the view that they are allegorical of human life, and they call to us to dedicate ourselves to engender optimum-functionality in the highest number of births. But we don’t.

Currently babies are born to serve Mammon – to be units of work and consumption. That being the focus and emphasis, few attain much in the way of maturity, and even fewer attain a high level of human competence.

This is the current state of 6+ billion individuals on this planet.

Two things prevent change. One is that the immature do not look with relish on the responsibilities of adulthood. The other is that we now have so little wisdom, that a change from a β€˜doing’ world to a β€˜being’ one is beyond the envisioning of 'leaders'.

Books are being written that attempt to define mankind’s problems and to offer solutions. Education, TV, parenting, obsession with: money, possessions appearance and fame, all feature, and a lot more. None address the innate impossibility for any human to be completely whole and competent; a consequence of being born unfinished.

That impossibility acknowledged, the value of promoting nurture to an optimum of maturity (which Jung is reported to have said, takes till middle age) is paramount.
Increasingly, we behave as if a baby will β€˜work it out’ as it goes along, ending up -by default - secure, confident, content and competent. But, daily, we deny and remove the very nurture every individual needs to become a truly competent human.

The resultant big kids are unprincipled, dirty, angry, hedonistic and dangerous. Welcome to your world.

I thoyught the interview with Deneyurve was an excersise in Kirsty tryuing to rile and aggrevate the actress. She did not offer the French ladyu one iota of respect byut went for the cheap tabloid qyuestion to tryu and get a reaction and retyurned to the syubject of her father's war statyus time and again. What was Kirstyu tryuing to prove? The interviewer then threw in the yusyual 'and yuoyu like sex' What was that all aboyut? Not good Kirstyu, sorryu boyut the mis spells.....compyuter!

barrie (#20) Yes, but sadly, as most people live in a closed, solipsistic psychological world where what they say, think and feel matters as much, if not far more, than what they do, what you say will pass most people by. History will indeed judge the USA under his administration by outcomes, regardless of his Hollywood farewell speech. He knows that, as did his speech writers, hence the reference to the small numbers of doubters in 'the elite' (aka the brighter observers) who they believe count for little in our ever more dumbed down liberal-democracies. Just keep those Gausian sex-differences (where the female range is shorter than the male) and mean ethnic differences (especially salient at the tails) in mind and how means are still, ever so insidiously, shifting to the left through the hit on the female elite who crave freedon/salience/independence now at the expense of our genetic future.

In reply to #6 above,

What's questionable about

"
The deployment of Israeli army reservists is significant. It is a commonplace of political speech now to talk of β€˜ownership’. This is not β€˜involvement’ in a process so much as organising complicity and joint responsibility. Other regimes have known well that to involve as much of the ordinary population in an armed conflict is to make all its members participate in responsibility for the actions of a few.

And this is what the Israelis are doing politically to their own population by involving the reservist in the destruction of Gaza and the injuries inflicted on women and children there....."

Inconvenient truths?


ed

gaza in the uk

these days you get a much better balanced view by watching a selection of ytube videos rather than national TV.

Take the Sat Gaza protest march in London. its clear from ytube that there was a spectrum of things going on including quiet very english speeches by Eno to predictions by Tariq Ali to the usual Galloway megaphone. Yet all national tv news had was the violence and the Galloway megaphone as if that was it. On Ytube we see there were israelis on that march but not national news.

even on ytube there were version of videos that had the maytrdom feel spoken of in NN. So its common currency in modern uk?

And given the current structure of uk politics it is hard to say uk is not biased?

so for a good spectrum of an event ytube is for me better than old style national news .

Airport Debate?

more heat than light?

Bush

Wasn't Cheney the executive? Bin Ladin still free must nag ?

In addition to the demographic (and now miltary) warfare being waged in Israel/Palestine, just consider the trend in NYC which I have referenced repeatedly, that in London (where 99.9% of population growth over the next 30 years is projected to be in BME groups), the fact that both of these cities have been central to the financial services contribution to the liberal-democratic economies, and that in 1986 they even had to pass a Proposition in Califiornia (the home of Hollywood etc) for English to remain the official state language.



If it isn't education which makes people what they are, it's what they are made of, i.e DNA.....?

Looking at demographic maps for Palestine, London, NYC and Califirnia over the decades is revealing. Ask yourselves why this has occurred in Palestine, NYC, London and the state of California, and what the economic and hegemonic advantages to some might be whilst they've 'philanthropically' laid down a smoke screen of advancing freedom, choice, civil liberties and equality.

In addition to the demographic (and now miltary) warfare being waged in Israel/Palestine, just consider the trend in NYC which I have referenced repeatedly, that in London (where 99.9% of population growth over the next 30 years is projected to be in BME groups), the fact that both of these cities have been central to the financial services contribution to the liberal-democratic economies, and that in 1986 they even had to pass a Proposition in Califiornia (the home of Hollywood etc) for English to remain the official state language.



If it isn't education which makes people what they are, it's what they are made of, i.e DNA.....?

Looking at demographic maps for Palestine, London, NYC and California over the decades is revealing. Ask yourselves why this has occurred in Palestine, NYC, London and the state of California, and what the economic and hegemonic advantages to some might be whilst they've 'philanthropically' laid down a smoke screen of advancing freedom, choice, civil liberties and equality.

People should watch this video if they think that what is going on in Gaza is a 'Jewish' thing...



What is going on in Gaza is against HUMANITY and ALL people from ALL religions and faiths should stand up against it.

NOT IN MY NAME!

We all had a good laugh last night as Clive Solely spluttered and stuttered his way through his absurd defence of heathrow expansion. I think we should have more of this type of debate.

I think it would be wonderful fun if Newsnight got Jeremy Greenstock to debate the middle-east peace process with Lorna Fitzsimmons.

Every decent person is outraged by the Gaza conflict irrespective of race, colour or religion.

It does not surprise me at all that young Moslems are becoming radicalised. This is what happens when people do not have a voice and are increasingly marginalised. As a non moslem, I feel like this myself. We espouse our great democracy, but the reality is that these have been eroded over the last few years in politics and law. If people have no voice in the decisions of our country, there is no democracy.

My personal views -

UK's trade gap hits record level

Britain's goods trade deficit with the rest of the world stretched to Β£8.3bn in November, its widest margin since records began more than 300 years ago.

Should News Night get back to the economy ?

I think so.

Gaza

I feel sorry for the children of Gaza ,as this is not of their making , but sadly this is true in most conflicts around the world.
I think NewsNight is right to be cautious on what it airs , there is a lot of unverified allegations going around.
Until the shooting stops we will not have the facts to formulate a personal opinion.


Suggestion

How about doing a investigation into why the UN appears not to have a plan for voluntary evacuation of the children of Gaza or other hot spots if a shooting war breaks out ?

Worth asking about even if it's unrealistic once a battle has broken out.

Steve-London (#34) "Should News Night get back to the economy ? I think so"

Well, in part, yes. If the economy is projected to contract by 2.4% this year, isn't still less than it has grown for excluding last year) each of the previous 16 years? is it not the case that we are just seeing a major correction to shark-like continuous movement forward ('growth'), i.e a bubble?

I'm not surprised banks are reluctant to lend, as there has been too much encouragement of consumerism/business over recent decades. That's a harsh thing to say given the pain which many people are going to experience, but that lack of pain in the past has been euphoria induced. What needs to go to the wall is the self-delusory nonsense which has all but destroyed rationality in recent decades.

How can nearly 50% of the population possibly go to university without devaluing higher education? How will golden handcuffs improve the plight of inner city schools which have ever worsening genetic intakes? The media report as if they have no grasp that education is an ability selection process and that this is normally distributed.

#28,

"these days you get a much better balanced view by watching a selection of ytube videos rather than national TV."

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Namaste -ed

AN ALL TOO CONVENIENT PARANOIA?

has remarked on the odd nature of Israel's rationalizations/justifications, now . Is it not time that we acknowledged that amongst Israeli's (and Jews elsewhere), there may be an increased clinical likelihood to over-respond to criticism in ways which others might respond with soime variant of 'mea culpa', or at least, less drama? Is it just greater prevalence of neuroticism or narcissism (e.g. believing that one is a 'chosen people' i.e special) which accounts of this, as the behaviour one sees when they are threatened is definitely extreme, would go a long way to explaining the hostility which they have elicited for generations and there does exist some evidnece for a higher prevalence of dysfunction in the hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis in teh Askenzaim.

It is not anti-semitism to be hostile to outrageous behaviour, it's merely corrective criticism and ruling this out would be better than ignoring it as an explanation (CYP21, C6P21).

lewarcher (#32) "I think it would be wonderful fun if Newsnight got Jeremy Greenstock to debate the middle-east peace process with Lorna Fitzsimmons."

Somebody certainly needs to do that. I remember seeing Greenstock before a Select Committee protesting about of Civil Servants are gagged from telling the truth whilst politicians can get away with distorting what they are provided with with impunity, but the Civil Service Code allows this to be the case, i.e. it's a sine qua non for doing the job 'professionally'. Far too few people fully appreciate just how far allegiance to the Code goes, even after the David Kelley case.

I wonder how many listening to Lorna Fitzsimmons fully appreciate the ties of the organisation she now heads. Maybe Paxman could be encouraged to take her on? There are many others like her though, e.g. Denis McShane, Jim Murphy.

#37 Jaded_Jean

"It is not anti-semitism to be hostile to outrageous behaviour"

No but readers may take into account you are a race "realist", you are hazy about whether the Holocaust happened but do like to quote ludicrous statistics on 1930's Jewish survival rates, Hitler and Mussolini did "good things and bad things", you don't like "anti-fascists", you are not a Nazi or a BNP member but you don't like liberal democracy etc etc.

First time readers should be able to read between the lines

"Every decent person is outraged by the Gaza conflict irrespective of race, colour or religion."

Quite true, which is why its a bit sinister that Newsnight, and other ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ outlets, are falsely conveying the impression that only Muslim extremists are appalled by the mass slaughter going on in Gaza.

And then there are the strange 3 and 4 year old stories about Harry and Charles being racists. Is that a diversionary tactic? Or is it an attempt to divide Muslims and other ethnics minorities from the rest of the country and prevent the nation being united in a common cause?

On the economy there is a new economic action announced almost by the hour. I still haven't stopped laughing about the government (Mandelson?) encouraging business to spend on training in the recession - when most of them are struggling with the lack of liquidity to survive rather than increase training.

But there isn't going to be a recovery until there is seen to be credible action.

You can't have that until it is acknowledged what went wrong. So whilst the government disclaims responsibilities and looks at the banks (who operated in markets the government should have controlled and regulated better) nobody is really going to buy the notion of really tiny, nano-sized green shoots of recovery. Once its clear the real problems have been tackled it might just happen - otherwise we probably lose another year or so to the crash.

Brown "saved the world economy" is going to be right up there with "mission accomplished".

Perhaps Jeremy should get a representative of 'Neturei Karta' for interview.

Now, that would be interesting.

And if you don't know who Neturei Karta are...Google it!

Peace ....

the usual suspects have the usual procrastinations, the usual get out clauses, the minute you try to press them on finer detail like the atrocious child casualties it has no effect on them and they hide behind the old tired formula of Hamas rockets, the same Hamas rockets that have been fired for years with the same minimal effect, the nearly thousand deaths in two weeks against the ten deaths over the same period, how can these apologists for Israel's carnage make a worthwhile argument? Louise Ellman never ever refers to Israeli attacks on defenceless civilians, only the isolated Israeli casualties, will not enter the legality of occupied territories, likewise with Tony Blair who has overseen on his watch the biggest slaughter of innocents in the middle east and yet has nothing to say about the excesses of Israeli policy. Imagine if these deaths were the other way round? It would never happen.

The imbalance in killing , and the disparity is even greater where children are concerned.

29.9.2000-30.11.2008
Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces
4850
Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
47
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
727
Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians
335
Foreign citizens killed by Palestinians
54
Foreign citizens killed by Israeli security forces
10
Palestinians killed by Palestinians
594
Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces
955
Israeli minors killed by Palestinians
123


, but they can be reduced with proper care.

;-((
ed

thegangofone (#39) "First time readers should be able to read between the lines"

Steady on, you clearly haven't yet mastered reading the lines themselves yourself. The risky bit about 'reading between lines' is that it makes one ever so prone to just making stuff up/missing the point.

See Mark Regev for an instantiation. To give credit where it's due, the Major who serves as spokesperson for the IDF did a creditable performance in response to persistent heckling by - see my earlier NN post on the nature/alleged purpose of munitions.

My personal views -

#35

Hi Jean

GDP vs Trade Balance

Remember GDP includes total economic activity within the UK(including the effects of Government spending with it's borrowing).

GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)

Does this include Government debt interest repayments ?

The balance of trade figures only relates to our trade balance with the rest of the world. How much money we earn or not in the global marketplace.

Sadly our trade balance has been in the red for near on 8 years now. Last year it was close to Β£40 billion.

Debt -

I agree with you about the consumer debt issue to a degree, but is this not just a symptom of an underlying problem of us not earning enough money in the global market place to afford the lifestyle we want or expect to have.
So instead of earning it we borrowed it, all very unsustainable in the long run.

University -
I don't have a problem with people learning but they also need to have the ability to apply what they have learnt in the real world (job market).

Still as a non university person , I still admire academic achievement.

wanabee07 (#42) Too radical/Pythonesque for Newsnight I should imagine.

It's worth noting that according to their own tradition, the original tribes didn't just wander out of Israel in order to further explore and civilize the world. This unfortunate pattern was then repeated throughout . For such a relatively small group, it does, prima facie, appear to be a very unfortunate, and perhaps unique, history.

It's a common human failing that those unaware of the adverse consequences of their behaviours upon others tend to (inevitably perhaps?) treat any criticism/censure of their actions as 'persecution'. Sadly, this also renders them incorrigible.

Steve-London (#46) I was making an implicit reference to this

As to the value of higher education - it's been grossly inflated through sending nearly half the population to university. Post graduate degrees are now like first degrees. It's a real mess. Kids these days don't have a viable, realistic, elite, reference class. That's New Labour's anarchistic legacy (with the help of the Neo-conservatives before them..).

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

49. At 10:03pm on 13 Jan 2009, wanabee07

"This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules. "

It wasn't this then?



Thanks...

Go1 #39

"ludicrous statistics on 1930's Jewish survival rates,"

Tell that to The Jewish Library which publishes these figures. All very 'kosher'.

LOSING PEOPLE

NewFazer (#51) thegangofone does not appear to understand what it means to have a below replacement level Total fertility Rates (outside the orthodox in Israel), nor that the Ashkenazim have a higher prevalence of Non Classic Adrenal Hyperplasia which reduces fertility (and renders one prone to atypical stress responses) even further than other Europeans quite aside form that induced by Liberal-Democracy. With a TFR of 1.1 a population halves in a generation (30 years). With a TFR of 1.3 it does so in 60 years. Displaced persons after WWII were a major problem, and it should be remembered that Jews deported to the Eastern Territories ended up in Soviet territory. The Iron Curtain in the late 1940s and the beginning of the Cold War would have distorted statistics on Jewish survival rates (they were no longer in Eastern Europe or even accessible in Easter Europe). There was of course a new Exodus from the USSR in the 80s/90s. In this context, it's also worth bearing in mind that Abbas, President of Palestine, did his controversial PhD in Moscow in the 1980s under Primakov (Jewish) who one must assume knew a thing or two about the history...

I just think rational people should keep open minds under the circumstances as the above account fits the facts as well as any other explanation in my view.

Whilst on the subject of cognitive tilt is another phenotypic indicator of the non-dichotomous nature of sexual-dimorphism (bear in mind what I've posted before about prevalance of NCAH polymorphism in different groups and how CYP21 variants subtly shift sex-steroid biochemistry and possibly behaviour).

#52 "(they were no longer in Eastern Europe or even accessible in Easter(n) Europe)."

That is, some of it wasn't strictly Eastern Europe anymore as the boundaries of Poland shifted left, rendering some of Eastern Poland 'Russia' and some of Germany Poland. In addition, Eastern Europe became somewhat inaccessible to the West, whilst in the Soviet sphere, there was a concerted effort to reduce the type of nationalism or grouping so characteristic of Judaism which would presumably have encouraged assimilation. The Soviets wanted to make the Germans look bad after the war to make National Socialist politics unappealing, so did the allies, albeit for different reasons.

Speaking of , a real ride -

;-)
ed