Hope No-ones Intending To Fly This Week....
- Thread starter Shadow Leader
- Start date
BrianH
At the Start
Surely you're not suggesting that people who live in the north-west of England and who speak Arabic shouldn't be allowed to go on holidy to the Costa del Sol?
Bar the Bull
At the Start
I read the article below on the plane on the way to Italy last week. Everybody should read it.
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday August 16, 2006
The Guardian
A stick of lipstick is a killer. A tube of toothpaste is high explosive. Baby's milk is poison. A nailfile is key to mass destruction. For the first time since the Spanish Inquisition a book is a proscribed weapon of war. Such is the infinite delicacy of western society that nothing, absolutely nothing, can be tolerated if it carries the slightest element of risk. Lesser breeds in distant lands can continue their slaughter and mayhem. We may not consort with the great god of chance.
I had once thought that "health and safety" would do for aeroplanes before terrorism did. Some conclave of air-accident cardinals would take out their slide rules and decide that hurling millions of people into the air on two wings and an engineer's prayer was absurdly dangerous and could not continue. People would have to go back to using boats (until one sank).
I was wrong. Despite Lockerbie and a plague of terrorist plane bombs in the 1980s, despite three jets falling (unexplained) from the sky off Long Island in the 1990s, money talked and airlines kept flying. Last weekend John Reid described an attack on a plane as "imminent", though he inexplicably allowed planes to continue flying. An attack is now said to be "highly likely", yet they are still flying. The Home Office clearly has a lexicon unknown to ordinary mortals (other than airline lobbyists).
Now we are told that airlines will require three hour check-in times, with flying conditions comparable to those endured by paratroops on active duty. Airports will punctuate any foreign holiday with purgatory. Only the public's craving for exotic leisure and the government's fiscal indulgence of cheap flights keeps air travel's price/horror ratio in equilibrium.
But other modes of transport were no more user-friendly last weekend. Some bus companies decided to ban hand luggage too. Trains celebrated the demise of domestic aviation with a rash of cancellations. My destination in Wales was yet again unreachable by train. To get even within 50 miles to a "bus or taxi replacement" required an Arriva carriage as squalid as an after-hours pub, with no staff, a gang of raucous drunks and a television blaring rock music at full volume. Arriva is hell on wheels, while Network Rail at weekends is hell under them. A train to west Wales takes longer that it did when I was a boy. As for the same journey by road, the stop and crawl of the Midlands motorway network proves the ability of the British to endure a trance-like state for hours on end if only they can keep in motion.
Almost all Islamist terrorist attacks are on transport, as if in symbolic aversion to the west's preoccupation with mobility. Hence the ingenuity devoted to attacking planes, despite only one outrage since the 1980s. That one, on 9/11, would have been stopped were it not for the rivalry and incompetence of American security agencies, as Lawrence Wright shows in his vivid new account, The Looming Tower. Nothing will stop a psychotic madman from sometimes "getting through", but we can improve police work, as appeared to be the case in Britain last week. Good intelligence is the way to halt terrorism, not three-hour waits at airports or Home Office legislativitis.
Hyper-mobility lends itself to risk aversion. When we leave the presumed security of home and car on a jaunt, we expect to have our safety "guaranteed" by others, ridiculous as this is. Restriction tends to follow not common sense but hysteria, as with the old lady and the contact-lens fluid at the weekend. I have no doubt that one day a coach-load of children will cross into the path of another one and both will be wiped out, leading government to insist on crash barriers on every main road and compulsory seat belts for coaches. Travel may be safer than staying at home. The actual risk from terrorist attack may be negligible and declining. A dozen other risks may be more menacing and preventable, such as from food processing, skin cancer and hospital viruses. Yet so ignorant are the British of risk theory that they persistently believe politicians who tell them that terrorism is the "greatest threat facing the world today". It is not.
The zest for travel is as old as pilgrimage, the result of human curiosity and a longing for novelty. Freedom of movement is seen as the natural companion to freedom of speech. But as that admirable geographer John Adams constantly reminds us, hyper-mobility erodes the bonds that hold family and society together. It is the enemy of civic pride, good neighbourliness and clean air. The yearning for the holiday cottage, air miles and the fly-drive weekend break denudes home communities of their vigour and disrupts destination ones. It uses quantities of energy while creating migratory hordes in perpetual and polluting transit.
The Blair government is a slave to hyper-mobility syndrome. It has driven down the real cost of motoring, boosted cheap air travel with minimal taxes and increased rail subsidies. It promotes children going long distances to a "choice" of schools and patients to a choice of hospitals. It wants not urban density but green-belt housing estates, office parks and hypermarkets. It is content to see local clinics, ambulances, post offices and shops close in favour of "regional" ones. Every planning policy is transport-heavy. Too bad if children grow obese through no longer walking to school and half the lorries on the motorway run empty. In 1950 Britons travelled an average of five miles a day. Now they travel 30, and the government expects the next generation to travel 60.
To reverse the pro-mobility bias in planning and tax policy would reverse these malign tendencies. An anti-mobility bias would promote family and neighbourhood cohesion and protect communities whose decline is so bewailed by the same politicians who pander to hyper-mobility. It would help make us - and the planet - healthier.
Nor is this visionary talk. Hyper-mobility is at last under assault. Middle East wars and soaring Asian demand for fuel are making petrol more costly. "Green taxes" may yet curb air and car travel. Road congestion charging is on the way. Travel, in which I admit I too indulge, was once an expensive luxury. It will become so again, and be the more tolerable for it. One foreign holiday a year instead of three is hardly a devastating lifestyle infringement. To all this the risk-averse regulator and the counterterrorist fanatic are now adding their pennyworth of restraint. There is a silver lining to the cloud.
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday August 16, 2006
The Guardian
A stick of lipstick is a killer. A tube of toothpaste is high explosive. Baby's milk is poison. A nailfile is key to mass destruction. For the first time since the Spanish Inquisition a book is a proscribed weapon of war. Such is the infinite delicacy of western society that nothing, absolutely nothing, can be tolerated if it carries the slightest element of risk. Lesser breeds in distant lands can continue their slaughter and mayhem. We may not consort with the great god of chance.
I had once thought that "health and safety" would do for aeroplanes before terrorism did. Some conclave of air-accident cardinals would take out their slide rules and decide that hurling millions of people into the air on two wings and an engineer's prayer was absurdly dangerous and could not continue. People would have to go back to using boats (until one sank).
I was wrong. Despite Lockerbie and a plague of terrorist plane bombs in the 1980s, despite three jets falling (unexplained) from the sky off Long Island in the 1990s, money talked and airlines kept flying. Last weekend John Reid described an attack on a plane as "imminent", though he inexplicably allowed planes to continue flying. An attack is now said to be "highly likely", yet they are still flying. The Home Office clearly has a lexicon unknown to ordinary mortals (other than airline lobbyists).
Now we are told that airlines will require three hour check-in times, with flying conditions comparable to those endured by paratroops on active duty. Airports will punctuate any foreign holiday with purgatory. Only the public's craving for exotic leisure and the government's fiscal indulgence of cheap flights keeps air travel's price/horror ratio in equilibrium.
But other modes of transport were no more user-friendly last weekend. Some bus companies decided to ban hand luggage too. Trains celebrated the demise of domestic aviation with a rash of cancellations. My destination in Wales was yet again unreachable by train. To get even within 50 miles to a "bus or taxi replacement" required an Arriva carriage as squalid as an after-hours pub, with no staff, a gang of raucous drunks and a television blaring rock music at full volume. Arriva is hell on wheels, while Network Rail at weekends is hell under them. A train to west Wales takes longer that it did when I was a boy. As for the same journey by road, the stop and crawl of the Midlands motorway network proves the ability of the British to endure a trance-like state for hours on end if only they can keep in motion.
Almost all Islamist terrorist attacks are on transport, as if in symbolic aversion to the west's preoccupation with mobility. Hence the ingenuity devoted to attacking planes, despite only one outrage since the 1980s. That one, on 9/11, would have been stopped were it not for the rivalry and incompetence of American security agencies, as Lawrence Wright shows in his vivid new account, The Looming Tower. Nothing will stop a psychotic madman from sometimes "getting through", but we can improve police work, as appeared to be the case in Britain last week. Good intelligence is the way to halt terrorism, not three-hour waits at airports or Home Office legislativitis.
Hyper-mobility lends itself to risk aversion. When we leave the presumed security of home and car on a jaunt, we expect to have our safety "guaranteed" by others, ridiculous as this is. Restriction tends to follow not common sense but hysteria, as with the old lady and the contact-lens fluid at the weekend. I have no doubt that one day a coach-load of children will cross into the path of another one and both will be wiped out, leading government to insist on crash barriers on every main road and compulsory seat belts for coaches. Travel may be safer than staying at home. The actual risk from terrorist attack may be negligible and declining. A dozen other risks may be more menacing and preventable, such as from food processing, skin cancer and hospital viruses. Yet so ignorant are the British of risk theory that they persistently believe politicians who tell them that terrorism is the "greatest threat facing the world today". It is not.
The zest for travel is as old as pilgrimage, the result of human curiosity and a longing for novelty. Freedom of movement is seen as the natural companion to freedom of speech. But as that admirable geographer John Adams constantly reminds us, hyper-mobility erodes the bonds that hold family and society together. It is the enemy of civic pride, good neighbourliness and clean air. The yearning for the holiday cottage, air miles and the fly-drive weekend break denudes home communities of their vigour and disrupts destination ones. It uses quantities of energy while creating migratory hordes in perpetual and polluting transit.
The Blair government is a slave to hyper-mobility syndrome. It has driven down the real cost of motoring, boosted cheap air travel with minimal taxes and increased rail subsidies. It promotes children going long distances to a "choice" of schools and patients to a choice of hospitals. It wants not urban density but green-belt housing estates, office parks and hypermarkets. It is content to see local clinics, ambulances, post offices and shops close in favour of "regional" ones. Every planning policy is transport-heavy. Too bad if children grow obese through no longer walking to school and half the lorries on the motorway run empty. In 1950 Britons travelled an average of five miles a day. Now they travel 30, and the government expects the next generation to travel 60.
To reverse the pro-mobility bias in planning and tax policy would reverse these malign tendencies. An anti-mobility bias would promote family and neighbourhood cohesion and protect communities whose decline is so bewailed by the same politicians who pander to hyper-mobility. It would help make us - and the planet - healthier.
Nor is this visionary talk. Hyper-mobility is at last under assault. Middle East wars and soaring Asian demand for fuel are making petrol more costly. "Green taxes" may yet curb air and car travel. Road congestion charging is on the way. Travel, in which I admit I too indulge, was once an expensive luxury. It will become so again, and be the more tolerable for it. One foreign holiday a year instead of three is hardly a devastating lifestyle infringement. To all this the risk-averse regulator and the counterterrorist fanatic are now adding their pennyworth of restraint. There is a silver lining to the cloud.
Very interesting stuff, taking a much broader and social view of the inane promise that terrorists will do for us all. 'Terrorism' was at work in Kenya, in Cyprus, in Spain, in all kinds of guises in the Far East, long before it was at work more overtly today.
People didn't foreswear their African holidays because of uprisings by the Mau Mau - in fact, thousands of whiteys were swarming into various African countries during the 1950s, thanks to the British Government's urgings to get out there and populate the colonies. I can't recall a mass boycott or draconian embargoes dragging on for years against the Cypriots, either, even though EOKA shot or kidnapped numbers of British servicemen. We weren't urged to never set foot in Israel and M&S wasn't shut down by the Home Office, even after radical Zionist-led, un-British activities ended in bombs and death.
Given the number of terror-based deaths (including the WTC, including the Federal Building (gosh - not a Muslim in sight!), including the bombings in Bali and of various embassies - not that I seek to minimize one death at all) - contrast and compare with worldwide hurricanes, earthquakes and the tsunami, and it's a no-brainer. You stand far more chance of meeting a nasty, unexpected end in the USA or the Far East through 'acts of God' than by someone bawling 'Allah-u-akbar!" on your Cheapo Airlines flight to Malaga.
People didn't foreswear their African holidays because of uprisings by the Mau Mau - in fact, thousands of whiteys were swarming into various African countries during the 1950s, thanks to the British Government's urgings to get out there and populate the colonies. I can't recall a mass boycott or draconian embargoes dragging on for years against the Cypriots, either, even though EOKA shot or kidnapped numbers of British servicemen. We weren't urged to never set foot in Israel and M&S wasn't shut down by the Home Office, even after radical Zionist-led, un-British activities ended in bombs and death.
Given the number of terror-based deaths (including the WTC, including the Federal Building (gosh - not a Muslim in sight!), including the bombings in Bali and of various embassies - not that I seek to minimize one death at all) - contrast and compare with worldwide hurricanes, earthquakes and the tsunami, and it's a no-brainer. You stand far more chance of meeting a nasty, unexpected end in the USA or the Far East through 'acts of God' than by someone bawling 'Allah-u-akbar!" on your Cheapo Airlines flight to Malaga.
simmo
Senior Jockey
This is your "word of the week", isn't it?
simmo
Senior Jockey
Surely that, even in the vernacular, would be "don't **** wit me, sweetheart".
Perhaps that could be made the motto of the Zionist Expansionist Imperialist Government Of The Democratic Republic Of Israel?
I don't confuse Zionist ambitions with being Israeli and/or being Jewish, simmo. I've used the term deliberately, since I am more than well aware that there are plenty of non-Zionist Israelis. If you think that's my 'word of the week', that's because this week, I shall mostly be using 'Zionist' and not, incorrectly, 'Israeli' to describe the agenda behind the multiple, unpunished and largely ignored intransigences since 1967.
Today's word: differentiate.
Use: to differentiate between being Jewish, being an Israeli, being a Zionist. One, a person of the Jewish faith who may live (almost) anywhere in the world. Two, a citizen of Israel, who may be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. Three, an adherent to the belief of a Land of Zion (see Bible, Torah, etc., for details).
Today's word: differentiate.
Use: to differentiate between being Jewish, being an Israeli, being a Zionist. One, a person of the Jewish faith who may live (almost) anywhere in the world. Two, a citizen of Israel, who may be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. Three, an adherent to the belief of a Land of Zion (see Bible, Torah, etc., for details).
simmo
Senior Jockey
I know.
You still sound like a five year old who has just learned a new word.
Shadow Leader
At the Start
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
Can't say I had any problems today - queues were no longer going through to the departure lounge than normal, security didn't upend my bag and haul all the crap out (they didn't even open it), BA were as excellent as ever in ensuring a 2 minute wait to drop luggage off and there were no delays. Can't say I was loving taking my shoes off and walking through barefoot mind!!
They were disallowing all liquids though - even lip balms - but I was expecting that anyway. Once you were through to the departure lounge though you could buy whichever liquids you wanted and take them on the plane! They still haven't banned glass bottles of wine on the flight either - because a glass bottle can do far less damage than a nailfile...
They were disallowing all liquids though - even lip balms - but I was expecting that anyway. Once you were through to the departure lounge though you could buy whichever liquids you wanted and take them on the plane! They still haven't banned glass bottles of wine on the flight either - because a glass bottle can do far less damage than a nailfile...
Shadow Leader
At the Start
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
How could I have done after you stood me up, Aunty?! 
simmo
Senior Jockey
that being the case, then could you at least use it where the distinction is necessary and not as a replacement for the word Israel where you (wrongly) feel that your argument is given more weight by being slightly more inflammatory about the government/military of that country.
Just to keep it on my level.
How many bleedin' times, simmo, am I going to have to make the distinction between what is Zionism and not the COUNTRY THAT IS ISRAEL?
Look, try this: if we were discussing Germany in the context of 1939-45, we'd correctly talk about Nazi expansionism, but incorrectly (or lazily) about 'German expansionism', because it was the Nazi party which drove the expansionist ambitions of the German government, military, etc., but not ALL Germans were in favour of the Nazi party or its ethos. (Particularly German Jews, of course.)
It is elements of Zionist expansionism which drive the Israeli Government and its military today, not the 'State of Israel' itself. A country does nothing by itself, does it? It is the FORM of its government at a given time which drives what happens.
Therefore, it is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very and, once more for emphasis, VERY, important not to confuse Israel, the country (with both its non-Jewish and Jewish non-Zionistic citizens) with Zionism. I would not say 'Israelis are stealing Palestinians' land' because only certain Israelis - those with Zionist beliefs - are doing so. Tarring all Israelis with the same brush is ridiculous, since 'Israeli' includes 'Israeli Arab' as much as 'Israeli Jew'!
Now, if you insist on confusing a country with a radical religio-political stance, then I shall come over and staple your ears to your head. But only for your own good, and in a warm and caring way, of course.
Look, try this: if we were discussing Germany in the context of 1939-45, we'd correctly talk about Nazi expansionism, but incorrectly (or lazily) about 'German expansionism', because it was the Nazi party which drove the expansionist ambitions of the German government, military, etc., but not ALL Germans were in favour of the Nazi party or its ethos. (Particularly German Jews, of course.)
It is elements of Zionist expansionism which drive the Israeli Government and its military today, not the 'State of Israel' itself. A country does nothing by itself, does it? It is the FORM of its government at a given time which drives what happens.
Therefore, it is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very and, once more for emphasis, VERY, important not to confuse Israel, the country (with both its non-Jewish and Jewish non-Zionistic citizens) with Zionism. I would not say 'Israelis are stealing Palestinians' land' because only certain Israelis - those with Zionist beliefs - are doing so. Tarring all Israelis with the same brush is ridiculous, since 'Israeli' includes 'Israeli Arab' as much as 'Israeli Jew'!
Now, if you insist on confusing a country with a radical religio-political stance, then I shall come over and staple your ears to your head. But only for your own good, and in a warm and caring way, of course.
simmo
Senior Jockey
Columbia Encyclopaedia
The rise of the Zionist movement in the late 19th cent. was influenced by nationalist currents in Europe, as well as by the secularization of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, which led many assimilated Jewish intellectuals to seek a new basis for a Jewish national life. One such individual was Theodor Herzl , a Viennese journalist who wrote The Jewish State (1896), calling for the formation of a Jewish nation state as a solution to the Diaspora and to anti-Semitism
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el, “the Land of Israel”).
Encarta Encyclodaedia
Zionism, movement to unite the Jewish people of the Diaspora (exile) and settle them in Palestine; it arose in the late 19th century and culminated in 1948 in the establishment of the state of Israel
Wikipedia
Zionism is a national liberation movement, a nationalist and political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel
So, I think that we can agree that Zionism is ideological. I suspect that we can further agree that I and most other normal people in the Western world are Zionists, in as much as we believe that there should be a Jewish homeland within what once was Palestine (and before that Judea).
On the 15th of August, you said "no mention of the Zionists nuclear interests, I take it".
I would suggest that the nuclear weaponry to which you referred, is not owned by an ideology, but is, in fact, owned by the state of Israel.
On this occasion, it is my belief that you have confused an ideology with a state.
On looking through your other posts on the matter, there are other instances where you have used the word Zionist (let's just remind ourselves that this means a belief in a Jewish homeland within Palestine) in reference to actions undertaken by the whole of Israeli military, whether or not the forces or their commanders that undertook the action actually held a belief in Zionism or any expansion thereon.
Furthermore, bearing in mind the true definition of Zionism, I suspect that the quantity of "Jewish non-Zionists" within Israel is minimal, as to be so, these people would be urging Palestine to reclaim their land from Israel.
I again suggest that your sole reason for using the word Zionism, incorrectly or not, is solely to add weight to your argument and is does not stem from any heartfelt desire to separate the government/military of Israel from those who wish to maintain a Jewish homeland within what was once Palestine(Judea).
The rise of the Zionist movement in the late 19th cent. was influenced by nationalist currents in Europe, as well as by the secularization of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, which led many assimilated Jewish intellectuals to seek a new basis for a Jewish national life. One such individual was Theodor Herzl , a Viennese journalist who wrote The Jewish State (1896), calling for the formation of a Jewish nation state as a solution to the Diaspora and to anti-Semitism
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisra'el, “the Land of Israel”).
Encarta Encyclodaedia
Zionism, movement to unite the Jewish people of the Diaspora (exile) and settle them in Palestine; it arose in the late 19th century and culminated in 1948 in the establishment of the state of Israel
Wikipedia
Zionism is a national liberation movement, a nationalist and political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel
So, I think that we can agree that Zionism is ideological. I suspect that we can further agree that I and most other normal people in the Western world are Zionists, in as much as we believe that there should be a Jewish homeland within what once was Palestine (and before that Judea).
On the 15th of August, you said "no mention of the Zionists nuclear interests, I take it".
I would suggest that the nuclear weaponry to which you referred, is not owned by an ideology, but is, in fact, owned by the state of Israel.
On this occasion, it is my belief that you have confused an ideology with a state.
On looking through your other posts on the matter, there are other instances where you have used the word Zionist (let's just remind ourselves that this means a belief in a Jewish homeland within Palestine) in reference to actions undertaken by the whole of Israeli military, whether or not the forces or their commanders that undertook the action actually held a belief in Zionism or any expansion thereon.
Furthermore, bearing in mind the true definition of Zionism, I suspect that the quantity of "Jewish non-Zionists" within Israel is minimal, as to be so, these people would be urging Palestine to reclaim their land from Israel.
I again suggest that your sole reason for using the word Zionism, incorrectly or not, is solely to add weight to your argument and is does not stem from any heartfelt desire to separate the government/military of Israel from those who wish to maintain a Jewish homeland within what was once Palestine(Judea).
simmo
Senior Jockey
PS. Here's a present for you. 
:lol: :lol: Get ready....
But you've actually supported my usage of 'Zionist ambitions', simmo! A Jewish homeland was granted and artificially formed - that's Israel. Since then, there have been land grabs by Jewish settlers, with the support and encouragement of their government and their military (expansionism) which are illegal and which are outside the boundaries of said Jewish homeland. They have escaped any form of international punishment and continue to intrude into Palestinian-owned areas, pushing out those people, and thus exceeding the boundaries of their own homeland.
There are many - as in thousands - of non-Zionist minded people living in Israel who do not agree with these actions. They are, naturally enough, Arab Israelis whose families remained in what was Palestine but was transformed into 'Israel' in the 1940s. And, possibly surprisingly, there are Jewish Israelis who know what their government and military is doing is illegal and, therefore, wrong and also immoral. They do not support the expansion of Israel's boundaries.
The Zionists (those who wanted a 'Land of Zion') got their wish. They got a homeland, called Israel, awarded to them. They were and are not content with this. They are illegally and unethically expanding their borders by brute force and are being met with armed resistance, which is what one expects in such cases. All that is required for normality to return, is for ISRAEL (not the phony 'Zion' the Zionists are attempting to create) to return to its assigned borders and stop its illegal incursions into land nominated for Palestinian use. That's what Jimmy Carter's excellent article made a case for, and that's what I agree with.
I can't make it any clearer, and I need to find that box of staples...
But you've actually supported my usage of 'Zionist ambitions', simmo! A Jewish homeland was granted and artificially formed - that's Israel. Since then, there have been land grabs by Jewish settlers, with the support and encouragement of their government and their military (expansionism) which are illegal and which are outside the boundaries of said Jewish homeland. They have escaped any form of international punishment and continue to intrude into Palestinian-owned areas, pushing out those people, and thus exceeding the boundaries of their own homeland.
There are many - as in thousands - of non-Zionist minded people living in Israel who do not agree with these actions. They are, naturally enough, Arab Israelis whose families remained in what was Palestine but was transformed into 'Israel' in the 1940s. And, possibly surprisingly, there are Jewish Israelis who know what their government and military is doing is illegal and, therefore, wrong and also immoral. They do not support the expansion of Israel's boundaries.
The Zionists (those who wanted a 'Land of Zion') got their wish. They got a homeland, called Israel, awarded to them. They were and are not content with this. They are illegally and unethically expanding their borders by brute force and are being met with armed resistance, which is what one expects in such cases. All that is required for normality to return, is for ISRAEL (not the phony 'Zion' the Zionists are attempting to create) to return to its assigned borders and stop its illegal incursions into land nominated for Palestinian use. That's what Jimmy Carter's excellent article made a case for, and that's what I agree with.
I can't make it any clearer, and I need to find that box of staples...
simmo
Senior Jockey
Not quite....
I agree that you have used it correctly in certain instances. Unfortunately that has not been consistent, leaving me with the impression that your "view" is the antithesis of Fox News and is thus of little use to the impartial observer.
That said, I accept that you won't accept that, but I believe that the point is made.
Is there any horse-racing on today?
Simmo, you pay me a huge compliment by saying that my view is the antithesis of Fox's - not that I have the personal knowledge you have of this tabloid tv (I'm relying on non-Con Brian's many vehement castigations of it). Here:
ANTITHESIS: a figure in which thoughts or words are balanced in contrast; a thesis or proposition OPPOSING another; opposition; the direct opposite.
So I'm delighted to represent a contrast to anything which fails to evenhandedly portray a situation or issue. News should be news, not opinion. In the case of this topic on here, as a discussion item, it contains both fact and personal construct.
One need not be 'impartial' unless one is reporting just news - i.e., just facts. I am actually aware of and writing in terms of facts, but you're wilfully choosing to ignore the background to the current issue, which is necessary in order to discuss the topic in the round. Any partiality would be naturally disclosed in so doing, since it would point out the illegality of one party's actions against another's.
Why would impartiality be necessary? This is a discussion forum, not a news reporting desk. You won't find impartiality on the racing section, that's for sure. We favour this horse, we don't favour that. We favour this team for football, we laugh derisively at another. Life is all about partiality, or it wouldn't make a bit of difference as to who we married or who we voted for, or whether we liked garlic ice-cream or preferred strawberry ripple. I suggest that you have confused 'impartiality' with 'inaccuracy' - the first is not essential to a discussion (in fact, it is the very basis of a forum) while the other is anathema to reasoned debate.
ANTITHESIS: a figure in which thoughts or words are balanced in contrast; a thesis or proposition OPPOSING another; opposition; the direct opposite.
So I'm delighted to represent a contrast to anything which fails to evenhandedly portray a situation or issue. News should be news, not opinion. In the case of this topic on here, as a discussion item, it contains both fact and personal construct.
One need not be 'impartial' unless one is reporting just news - i.e., just facts. I am actually aware of and writing in terms of facts, but you're wilfully choosing to ignore the background to the current issue, which is necessary in order to discuss the topic in the round. Any partiality would be naturally disclosed in so doing, since it would point out the illegality of one party's actions against another's.
Why would impartiality be necessary? This is a discussion forum, not a news reporting desk. You won't find impartiality on the racing section, that's for sure. We favour this horse, we don't favour that. We favour this team for football, we laugh derisively at another. Life is all about partiality, or it wouldn't make a bit of difference as to who we married or who we voted for, or whether we liked garlic ice-cream or preferred strawberry ripple. I suggest that you have confused 'impartiality' with 'inaccuracy' - the first is not essential to a discussion (in fact, it is the very basis of a forum) while the other is anathema to reasoned debate.
simmo
Senior Jockey
Perhaps I have. Your use of the word "Zionist" has, at times, been inaccurate.
How's that?
simmo
Senior Jockey
Yes.