I think there are still way too many people who don't look at these things and evaluate them, because their attitude is that if they can't recognise it as directly affecting them, they don't want to know. And they can't even see how things can / will have an affect on them at some point, because they can't be arsed examining stuff until it's too late.

and Justice for All wrote:
We never see anyone going 'Anders Breivik' on the BBC do we? Or CNN or FOX.
Its always schools etc.

Gilly wrote:
That’s quite true. I’ve long ago abandoned the naive notion that: people doesn’t know, because if the knew... [insert unrealistic expectations here].
It is partially true that most people doesn’t know what’s going on, but nowadays with the internet and all, that’s not much of an excuse and as you said most just can’t be bothered. Then you have people that simply don’t care, even after they get to know what’s really going on, they still don’t care, and that’s not apathy, that’s an attitude that if it’s not happening to them, or not affecting them personally they just can’t care less. Just like Andy said; americans know damn well that they’re killing people in the thousands in other countries yet they go ballistic when it happens in their back yard.

and Justice for All wrote:


There's a lot of things they'd rather not hear about.
The 3 stupid monkey problem

andyh wrote:
^ Key word: Self-interest!

Self-interest at the top, self-interest at the bottom.
Main reason why I’m not absolving people from responsibility anymore, nor giving them the benefit of the doubt.

news.google.co.uk
Stabbing
About 110,000 results (0.25 seconds)

bbc news search on stabbing
www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=stabbing

10,000+ news results.

16 January 2013
Peter Lewis murdered by William Jones on Cardiff doorstep, court told

South East Wales / NEW 18 hours ago
… could put himself in Peter Murphy "He eventually knocked on Number 13, Mr Lewis's house. Jones responded to a confrontation with Mr Lewis by stabbing…
Kieran Mason sentenced for stabbing John Howson in Coatbridge

Glasgow & West Scotland / 16 January 2013
A teenager who admitted stabbing a 57-year-old teacher who tried to stop a neighbour's car from being stolen has been given a non-custodial sentence.

15 January 2013
Henry Bolombi stabbing: Two accused of 2008 murder

London / 15 January 2013
Two Jamaican men have been charged over a fatal stabbing in London on New Year's Day in 2008. Onique Nembhard and Jamar Graham, who were extradited…
Stab attacker Stephen Savage jailed for glassing man in pub

Glasgow & West Scotland / 15 January 2013
… primary school has been convicted of glassing a man in a pub. Stephen Savage, 38, was jailed for 54 months for repeatedly stabbing William Punshon…

Ivan Esack jailed for murdering wife Natalie

Kent / 14 January 2013
… to life in prison for the murder of 33-year-old Natalie Esack. He admitted stabbing her 11 times at her salon in Ashford High Street but said…

11 January 2013
Jessie J event stabbing: Murderer requests appeal

London / 11 January 2013
A man jailed for murdering a father-of-two with a bottle at an event where singer Jessie J was performing wants to appeal his conviction and sentence.
Crumlin man jailed for stabbing former boxer
Northern Ireland / 11 January 2013
A County Antrim man has been jailed for a year for stabbing a former boxer four times in the back and head during a row over the victim's partner.

Man charged over Drogheda teenager stabbed on way home

Europe / 11 January 2013
A 21-year-old man is due to appear in court later charged in connection with the stabbing of a schoolboy in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland.
10 January 2013
Dogan Ismail stabbing: Teenager charged with murder

London / 10 January 2013
A teenager has been charged with the murder of a 17-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in south-east London. Dogan Ismail, from Peckham, was…
Shobhna Jethwa stabbing: Murder trial stopped

Beds, Herts & Bucks / 10 January 2013
The jury in the trial of a man accused of stabbing his married lover to death in Luton has been discharged. Sultan Khan, 51, of Durbar Road, denies…

9 January 2013
Killers treated by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership

England / 9 January 2013
… cousins for the killing of Alan Riddock outside a pub, while James Bible was detained indefinitely for stabbing his friend to death. While the…
David Corridon robbery stabbing: Five now found guilty

Liverpool / 9 January 2013
Two brothers have been convicted of the murder of a man who was stabbed at a house in Liverpool. Nicholas and Willis Nelson were found guilty…
Chef Peter Cumming admits Lynda Brown dinner party murder

Glasgow & West Scotland / 9 January 2013
… after she told him that she had already eaten. Peter Cumming, 58, faces a life sentence for fatally stabbing Lynda Brown, 63, at their home in…
Richard Green admits fatally stabbing son John Paul in Springburn

Glasgow & West Scotland / 9 January 2013
… not protecting him from alleged sexual abuse when he was a child. Richard Green, 63, stabbed 32-year-old John Paul Green through the heart at…

Adrian Locke stabbing: Micah Golding charged with murder

England / 9 January 2013
… was found outside a property in Worcester. Adrian Locke, of Wych Road, Droitwich Spa, died from stab wounds after being found outside 42a Teme…
8 January 2013
Facebook rage: Liam Jones jailed for stabbing Rebecca Williams

Mid Wales / 8 January 2013
… pulled out the carving knife and began stabbing her. Struggling to breathe He added: "He attacked her. He was stabbing out at her to the area…
David Corridon robbery stabbing: Three guilty of murder

Liverpool / 8 January 2013
Three people have been found guilty of murdering a man who was stabbed at a house in Liverpool. David Corridon, 32, was stabbed at a house on…

Thats just the front page back to the 8th.

Gilly wrote: It's very hard to disagree with this. I do wonder with regards to the US, though, how bad it's got to get before some people think maybe we don't live in the land of the free. Maybe there's just an outside chance that the county has been taken over by a pretty fascistic mentality. How many people need to be on food stamps before this happens? How big and plentiful do the ghettos have to get? How many trillion does the country need to be in debt? How many countries do they need to go to war with? How many people need to be locked up in private prisons? How many more drug arrests? How many more bank bailouts? How much more completely unpunished massive banking fraud? How many more banksters or lobbyists appointed to key governmental positions? How many more lands need to be drone bombed? How far does the police need to be militarised? And so on. People still suck it up, turn up and vote for the same people, and then state that Obama is "doing his best".
and Justice for All wrote: I have to agree that the BBC should be bled dry. I was writing a book about this, but I don't know if I'll ever get it finished, but I know from doing this that over 95% of households in the country have a TV licence.

If you don't want the same old government-- don't vote.

Don't want crack pushers round your door -- don't buy crack.

Don't want banks --- don't use them.

Don't want shiitty processed food---don't buy it.

Don't want the world filled with plastics-- bring canvas bags on your shopping trips.

Don't want crappy propoganda and shit music for the masses-- don't watch and don't listen.

Don't want a military industrial complex making money from arms sales----BUY AS MANY GUNS AS YOU CAN!

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Why throw the baby out with the bath water?

The Saville thing does not stop with one BBC personality.

It may vey well be corrupt but not nearly as fucked up as Murdoch's and Berlusconi's empires.

I personally think that is both what you say and at the same time a cultural asset depending on which pat of the BBC you are talking about.

Of course, on might say that their mission statement of "education and enterrtaining" in the public interest is patronsisng and presumptious not to mention undemocratic but massive private corprations like FOX are hardly democratic either. The worship of the free market is in practice just a load of deregulation that allows big firms to fleece the consumer.

Of course, because the BBC have been made out to be left leaning (quite the opposite) by whackjob wingnuts who listen to Alex Jones and his closet Republicanism then any chance to take it down will be siezed upon.

Perosnally, even though 90% of iot is shit, I like my Dr. Who, my Sherlock, my B;ack Adder, my Red Dwarf, the Office, Extras, Porridge, Alexie Sayle, Screen Wipe, Stuart Lee, QI, David Attenborough, Life on Mars, League of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers and monty Python.

mikey mikey wrote:
I'd rather see the lot go

mikey mikey wrote:
The MIC is making money selling arms to the middle east and israel and getting govt subsidies for doing so.

Its a nice side earner selling small arms to the yanks I guess but every gun they ever sold probably doesn't add up to the profit from a single arms shipment to israel.

Its worth noting a lot of the arms manufacturers are not in the US btw...

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/23/knife-crime-statistics

^Will more gun control fix this?

Perhaps ban knives? Issue licenses for chefs?

mikey mikey wrote: All of which could be produced by commercial television equally well, see Red Dwarf. I don't even have a problem with the BBC existing in exactly the format it is now, with its precise existing content. But I disagree with the licence fee. I can't agree with pensioners being legally compelled to fund Strictly Come Dancing whether they like it or not, or indeed can afford it or not. Yet the BBC strongly fought against giving free TV licences to those aged over 75:

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/b...ers-TV-licences.html
But think nothing of paying salaries of hundreds of thousands and indeed millions. The amount of money wasted on frivolity and largesse by that 'public service' corporation is appalling.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Its just another stealth tax for a job for the boys lark.
BBC is total crap now anyway, all the programs listed by MM are all done and dusted now.
Same applies for RTE in Ireland, also a bunch of useless tossers.

The problem with the UK is that there's no-one to compete with Sky, again that harks back to doing nothing about it a long time ago.

andyh wrote: Apparently BT are putting billions into trying to compete with Sky for television sports rights. Hard to see them as a plucky underdog, though.

I can't see BT trying that on until the next gen broadband gets rolled out.
They're still a long way off that yet, despite the hype.

The tipping point will be around 100MB broadband and 98%+ coverage at that speed as a minimum.

From that point onwards there's the possibility of tv broadcast over ethernet on the fly for all sorts of stuff and perhaps some choice.
I do see the govt taxing people with broadband tax around then of course, they might call it the new tv license or whatever.
Same old shit.

andyh wrote: I did wonder about the practicality of streaming such a service through broadband given that most of the country gets shitty speeds. They are nonetheless boasting about trying to compete with Sky:

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jan/10/...-sky-sports-coverage

Key to it is latency (low ping times) just as much as speed.
That only really comes with fibre and the UK is a long way off total fibre coverage.

Sherlock is brand new. Dr Who is bigger than ever. Stuart Lee is ahead of it's time and he has really just mad an entrance into the national TV. Charlie Brooker is producing new and innovative stuff currently.

Not done and dusted. So sorry Andyh but

As for WUB's comment about Red Dwarf; it was only taken up by commercial TV because the formula had already been established for decades.

The pioneers of it were the BBC and they rightly (IMHO) did not want to take it further.

One of the bst things about the Beeb has been their policy of finishing a project at the peakof its popularity (not always but often) and this just never happens with American shows (e.g. LOST, Heroes etc). They suffer from marketting. As unfair as the TV Liscence is, it allows afor this and a lot of "bad-for-business but good for quality-legacy" decisions. It also allows for aesthetic/quality decisions to overall marketting ones.

A good example is The Office and the Office USA (stilll limping on).

I am not saying that commercial TV is not capable of quality but I think the BBC is not just part of commercial entertainment but part of our infrastructure.

While Andy and WuB, you both agree with me on many things, we do depart on issues like this and other similar issues like the NHS.

So no, I do not want to see it all go and be left awash in commercial "choice" which is only manufactured consent.

And no amount of "free market" rhetoric has been able to convince me otherwise.

K-Bone wrote:
Trying to ban guns would work out about as well as trying to ban alcohol. Oh wait, they did and guess what: bootleggers!!

By all means, let's address the core issues and make the world a gun-free place! But in the meantime, let's keep the battlefield level.

Why should John Q. American have his home broken into and his wife & daughters raped/killed just because some low-life shitbag is a little slow on the old "love & light" uptake and chooses to break the law and own guns to commit crimes while law abiding folks suffer unecessary consequences? Criminally minded people are going to be just THAT for as long as there is a reward in it for them. Yes, guns do make it easier for some people in some situations to kill a higher number of folks at a time than if they were relegated to using just baseball bats or crow-bars. But if somebody has murder in their heart they will kill you with their very own fucking body-weight if it means gettin' it done!!

Guns are NOT the problem. Emotionally challenged, spiritually vacant people ARE.

Heh, guess I went the long way around in saying "I agree with ya!"