Robbo said "The latest EconTalk was a good conversation with a moderate Palestine sympathiser, born in Gaza, but living in the USA. Listening to it has pretty much brought me back to my original view of Gaza being, like Northern Ireland, a victim of organised criminals milking an ideological problem."

I think the problem is much worse than that now. Hamas has had 18 unopposed years to absolutely brain wash the population in to believing the Jews are evil incarnate....so now we are dealing with an entire generation of psychopaths only too happy to murder and rape Jews for the crime of being Jews (as we saw on the 7th of October...which is what actual genocide looks like).

Unless the world is prepared to go hard at the de-nazification of Gaza that place will remain similar to any Democrat run city, an absolute shit hole.

tomo,
Thanks for the link. Certainly on target, though preaching to the choir with you and me. The closing part reminded me of Winston's glimmer: If there is hope, it lies in the proles. Seems to apply to the climate nonsense; the establishment won't heal itself. Will share with some of my proletarian friends.

The latest EconTalk was a good conversation with a moderate Palestine sympathiser, born in Gaza, but living in the USA. Listening to it has pretty much brought me back to my original view of Gaza being, like Northern Ireland, a victim of organised criminals milking an ideological problem.

My next thought was that we might characterise this century so far as the years of prolonging problems. From that Multiple Sclerosis charity, to Gaza, to global warming, to Australia's Aboriginal "Voice", the purpose has not been to address the problem, but to subsist off it for as long as possible.

Was in a brief discussion about "forcings" at Jo Nova's yesterday. Everything's brief there: you just get into stride and it's all forgotten. I only got the 5-minute argument and I'm sure I paid for the full half hour!

Anyhow, odd that he seemed to be defending the strange concept.

tomo,
The e-bike schemes never made sense to me: doomed to commercial failure. The rampant vandalism was a surprise though. Usually socialist schemes have a honeymoon period where the ideals seem to work, but the e-bike schemes often went straight from inception to basket-case.

Ofcom does pay very well, but they seem to have missed the point about bias, don't they? Hidden bias is bad, but what's the problem with open bias? I don't think logic is in the equation though, they just want rid of GBNews. GBNews seem to have been cooperating in their own downfall, and might have been wiser to have fought from the beginning. With one "controversial" presenter after another departing the scene, it looks like the Yes Prime Minister "salami slicer" analogy. Is there any meat left?

Mailman,
Thanks, but no need to apologise. Since you enjoy games with names, you might check out anagrams of my name. There's a two-word one which is funny and, sad to say, extremely apt. Happy hunting.

The ABC's coverage of Gaza fits your description of the BBC's: never a mention of hostages, anything from the Israelis is called a "claim", but what comes from the Gazans is presented as fact, etc. And unlike in the UK, we don't even get an opportunity to "vote" with a licence fee: the ABC gets over $1 billion straight out of our taxes.

Not really worth getting your blood pressure up about though. I'd rate the movie V for Vendetta as quite good (in a curate's egg way), and its best part is the relaxed way the high-ups at the BTN channel decide how to spin each event for that evening's news report. That's exactly how i see the ABC News going together, and I think more and more people are seeing it that way.

AAAAAAnd breathe!