Documentary on Churchill’s decision to shell the French Fleet in Oran

Yesterday we saw how a backgrounder on Jerusalem produced by the BBC World Service’s ‘BBC Minute’ misled its target audience of “young people” with regard to the 1949 armistice lines.

Last month BBC Minute produced two more of the items that it portrays as “making sense of the news” – this time relating to the Gaza Strip.  In those two items – still available online – once again a BBC Arabic journalist misled audiences with inaccurate information and presented context-free portrayals.

The first item is titled “BBC Minute: On Gaza clashes” and was published on May 16^th.

“Gaza witnessed what’s described as the deadliest day of violence since 2014. Some 58 Palestinians were killed and Palestinian officials say around 2,700 were wounded during clashes with Israeli troops. It comes amid weeks of rising tension. We hear from the BBC’s Nida Ibrahim, who is in Gaza.”

BBC…

The bill stopping foreigners from buying houses in NZ has emerged from select  committee study with   significant   amendments.  Associate  Finance  Minister  David Parker   says the  new law will ensure the  market  for homes  is a  “NZ  market  not  an international  one”.  He  contends  Kiwis  should not be outbid by  “wealthier  foreign buyers”.

But the same bill now includes a move to encourage  “foreign direct  investment”  in forestry.   Forestry Minister Shane Jones says the legislation –  by bringing forestry rights into the overseas investment regime – will help promote high-quality foreign investment  which puts more emphasis on genuine benefits for New Zealanders.

So – foreign money  for  NZ homes  is  dirty but  foreign money for  NZ  trees is clean?

Shoaib Daniyal in Scroll:

Recently, my friend and colleague Victor Ray published a very interesting essay in Inside Higher Education. In it, he makes three claims about conservatives in academia:

1. Demands for intellectual diversity are not made in good faith.
2. Conservatives “dominate” higher education.
3. There is no diversity within conservative thinking.

I agree with #1 but I think #2 and #3 are simply incorrect. Let’s start with agreement: There are exceptions, of course, but many people who claim to represent conservative view points are not really interested in genuine engagement. Probably the most obvious case are the types of people who invite Milo Yiannopolous, Ann Coulter and other conservative “performance artists” who come to college campuses. They’re shock jocks, not real intellectuals.

But on the other points, Victor is not quite right. To be fair to Victor, let me quote him directly: “The second false premise that promoters of so-called diversity of thought…

According to The Sunday Times, shocking report shows that only four percent of robberies in England and Wales in 2017 were solved.  Only three percent of burglaries were solved. That is a dismal record and indicates that criminals can effectively act with impunity in victimizing citizens.

(From the film “Good Morning Vietnam”)

For years I showed the Robin Williams’ film “Good Morning Vietnam” to my history classes.  The movie reflected Williams’ genius, empathy, and commentary pertaining to a conflict that tore America apart.  I introduced the film because I wanted students to get a feel for a different aspect of the war which the character of Adrian Cronauer apply portrayed. Williams’ is also known for many other ground breaking and important films that include, “Dead Poets’ Society,” “Good Will Hunting,” “The Fisher King,” and the cartoon voiceover of “Áladdin,” along with a number that did not achieve recognition, but reflected Williams’ many talents.  Williams was a multifaceted individual whose onstage comedic insanity expressed a certain poignancy when one got passed the mask that the comedian presented to his audiences.  When he died in 2014 a cultural void was created which may never again be filled.  Williams…

Here is Jonathan Haidt, talking on globalism and nationalism and why they are incompatible. There are some real problems with global thinking, and Haidt exposes them, one by one. We get remarkably confused as to what human nature is all about, and shifting psychology and changing generations and just where we get off track. It’s an interesting talk. Just slightly over 10 minutes. Big audience. April, 2018.

Jonathan Haidt is an American social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His academic specialization is the psychology of morality and the moral emotions. Haidt is the author of two books: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (2006) and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012). He is also the founder of the Heterodox Academy to support viewpoint diversity in academia: https://heterodoxacademy.org/ In this talk from…

We’ve talked before about how the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has abandoned its historically useful mission, now taking after “hate speech” and including among the purveyors of said speech—on a list of “anti-Muslim extremists”—both Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Nawaz is a practicing Muslim, and Hirsi Ali a former Muslim and now a Muslim reformer whose latest book lays out a peaceful series of steps (granted, mostly impractical ones, like “getting people to stop taking the Qur’an literally”) to defuse Islamist extremism.

Nawaz threatened to sue the SPLC for labeling him as an anti-Muslim extremist. The SPLC then quietly removed its “field guide to anti-Muslim extremists” from its website, but now they’ve had to do more. Here’s a tweet from Nawaz’s foundation, Quilliam, detailing how the SPLC had to apologize and pay big bucks to settle the issue.