3 little......BANNED animals

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by BBKing

That one nearly ended up with Becks on the monitor. The forum's resident Defender Of Israel, you mean?

I'll defend any nation full of shadayim tov

Originally Posted by BBKing

d) The missus doesn't want to move outside W4, except to LA and I'm not bloody mad enough to do that.

What's wrong with Lancaster?

[BBKing]

What's wrong with Lancaster?

About 250 miles too far north. Seriously, I'm trying to count up the number of times she's been appreciably north of London since we've been together and it's difficult to reach the fingers of both hands (about the same number of times she's been to the States). She has an old friend who now lives near Darlington which is about the only time she ever goes north. Her sister now lives in Liverpool though, so she'll be going there, possibly for the first time ever, sometime this year.

Like I said, London isn't England, it's almost a separate country now. Lot bigger and richer than Scotland too, eh? Not to mention a lot closer to Europe. So how about moving the English capital to Brum and we can hoist the flag (newts crossed on a bottle of whisky rampant) and sail off into the sunset.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Saaf_laandon_mo

I think as long as you start whatever you're gonna say with "Im not a racist but...." you should be fine to say whatever you want here.

That will not help. If certain members cannot call you a racist they will hint at you being a member of a party that are racist. Which i find myself having to repeat i am not and never have been, Or ever will be.

[alferret]

Something I found amusing in Richard Littlejohn's column, todays Daily Mail.

Pinky and Perky face a fatwa
Depressingly redictable that a government education agency has banned the Three Little Pigs because it might offend Muslims.

A digital book called the Three Little Cowboy Builders, based on the classic fairytale, has been rejected by a panel judging the annual Educational Resource Awards because the "use of pigs raises cultural issues".

Where do they find these people? I know it doesn't take much to upset Muslims these days, but apart from the usual beheading enthusiasts, is anyone really offended by the Three Little Pigs?

Though this might explain why we haven't seen much of Pinky and Perky lately. Maybe there's a fatwa out on them and they're chained to a radiator somewhere in Bradford.

What we have here is another case of brain-dead white "liberals" taking offence on someone else's behalf to the point of mental illness.

They even complained that the book might "alienate parts of the workforce [building trade]."

"Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down and builders are like pigs?"

Nurse! Since when did brickies become a vulnerable minority?

The only way this book is going to find its way on to a building site is if it's printed in Polish.

LINKAGE

Except of course it wasn't banned, but when was Littlejohn known for letting accuracy get in the way of rabble-rousing polemic?

See he managed to mention fatwa, though......

update - if you look on the Becta site, it says this
"The "Three Little Cowboy Builders" (a DVD resource produced by Shoo Fly Publishing, based on the "Three Little Pigs" story) is readily available on the market for those who wish to use it. It has not been banned by Becta or any of the other BETT Awards partner organisations.
However, it failed to be shortlisted for the BETT Awards which are run annually in partnership with BESA, EMAP Education, and Becta. There was a very high standard of entries this year and four high-quality products were shortlisted in this category ahead of "Three Little Cowboy Builders".

The product was not shortlisted by the judging panel because it failed to meet the required standard across a range of pre-defined criteria, especially in the areas of curriculum and innovation."

[BBKing]

Something I found amusing in Richard Littlejohn's column, todays Daily Mail.

Laughable. Not amusing. It's not amusing that he gets paid a million pounds a year for this drivel.

Private Eye this week serialises extracts from Nick Davies' forthcoming book on the press 'Flat Earth News' in which he interviews an ex-policeman and an ex-Mail journalist who told him that the Mail routinely hands over money to bent coppers and civil servants for information from the PNC and benefits databases. That's patriotic stuff, eh? Upholding British standards, and all that.

It's becoming more and more obvious that the book was simply not considered good enough for the awards and the company behind it forwarded it to someone with a axe to grind and both decided to use the 'muslims ban xxx' formula to get attention and stir up anti-muslim feeling, andthe papers and public are more than happy to help

Originally Posted by Damien

It's becoming more and more obvious that the book was simply not considered good enough for the awards and the company behind it forwarded it to someone with a axe to grind and both decided to use the 'muslims ban xxx' formula to get attention and stir up anti-muslim feeling, andthe papers and public are more than happy to help

The early reports suggested this book has already won some other awards, so I'm not sure you have any basis for saying the book was 'not good enough' ... unless you've read some commentary on it somewhere?

I think what has happened here is exactly what Littlejohn said happened, in his own unique way: a bunch of well-meaning idiots taking offence on someone else's behalf, without bothering to check whether said someone really would be offended.

It is genuinely unfair that the book was banned from being entered in the competition on that basis, just as it's now unfair that these well-meaning idiots, by the Law of Unintended Consequences, have simply handed more ammunition to those who despise the very people they set out to protect.

---------- Post added at 19:40 ---------- Previous post was at 19:39 ----------

Originally Posted by BBKing

<snippage>

Like I said, London isn't England, it's almost a separate country now. Lot bigger and richer than Scotland too, eh?<snippage>

What do you expect, when the Scots are running the place?

[BBKing]

While I think the original intent from Merlin John and Shoo-fly was to use a headline-grabbing PC gone mad story, I don't think they were actively bigoted, merely cynical and opportunistic and seemingly couldn't care less about the consequences. Our charming press supplied the bigotry, as usual, from their ample stocks.

Merlin John's site changed the headline on the story yesterday, by the way, it's a lot less inflammatory now.

have simply handed more ammunition to those who despise the very people they set out to protect.

Hmm. Not sure I buy this, as we've seen they fire it off whether or not they have any ammunition at all. If you'd said 'if you wanted to promote racial harmony and community relations the first thing you should do is actively combat the veiled racism and unveiled bigotry in the tabloid press' then I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. The fact that the only people doing this are Private Eye, me and some other bloggers (Obsolete and Five Chinese Crackers in particular) is the true scandal, since obviously we have a lot less power and money. This is probably behind the shocking rise in people willing to admit they're racially biased in this week's British social attitudes survey - if homosexuality rather than immigrants and Muslims were the current target this would presumably be reversed.

It is genuinely unfair that the book was banned from being entered in the competition on that basis

Except it wasn't solely on that basis, what's unclear is what weight was attached to it. The comments picked out by Merlin John, presumably supplied by Shoo-fly from the feedback sent to them, were presumably part of comments from some 70 judges, we have no way of knowing without access to the feedback what proportion of them are idiots or what weight the panel applied to each criticism or even what praise they offered. The basis of this story is cherry picked by one of the protagonists, which is hardly a recipe for a balanced view.

[It also wasn't banned from the competition but excluded from the final shortlist, which is a lot less inflammatory. Other books were excluded from the list on technicalities - nothing's been 'banned']

One other point that's germane to this is where the idea that pigs offend Asians or anything offends anyone comes from, which is of course the tabloid press puffing fictitious 'PC gone mad' rubbish*. Hence the story that the only people who actually do try and change 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' or whatever (which the Telegraph pulled out again, despite being long debunked) were some nursery teachers who'd read it in the Mail.

* Think about it - where else would they get it from, since there's we've established that there's no PC brigade? Even the Muslim Council of Britain, who are only really representative of themselves and are fairly extreme don't think this is an issue.

[alferret]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Laughable. Not amusing. It's not amusing that he gets paid a million pounds a year for this drivel.
SNIP!

One mans muck is anothers brass
Maybe I dont look deep enough that why I find many, many things amusing

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Robinsons. IMO this was where it all started going downhill. People even got arrested for showing dolls in vehicles

and by christ some of em are worth some dollar http://spiritofsport.co.uk/web/produ...archFor=&PT_ID=

My mate collects them, he has loads.

It is genuinely unfair that the book was banned from being entered in the competition on that basis, just as it's now unfair that these well-meaning idiots, by the Law of Unintended Consequences, have simply handed more ammunition to those who despise the very people they set out to protect.

I thought it was not banned from the contest but just not entered into the short list? Although you are right in that every incident like his simply furthers the causes of anti-islamic groups

[BBKing]

One mans muck is anothers brass

More muck from Littlejohn, this time about the Bus Goth incident referred to earlier in this thread, oddly enough:

My Geordie mate, Black Mike, would take one look at her in her absurd "Goth" outfit and remark: "Gi' us a stick and I'll kill it."

Nice choice of mates there, Richard. Let us all be aware of this - the kind of people who will use the BECTA shortlist row as an excuse for bigotry and racism will similar use *anything* that deviates from their narrow norm to push their agenda, which could be you, your neighbours, your sexuality, your family, your religion, anything. This is not only anti-British (in the sense that harmless deviance and weirdness is a national tradition), it's sowing the seeds of Fascism.

However, I'm confident that we'll carry on getting 'PC brigade' rubbish on here as we always have. If anyone knows a better way of stopping it than reasoned argument, feel free to try. I might borrow Black Mike's stick and see if that's any better.

Originally Posted by BBKing

Laughable. Not amusing. It's not amusing that he gets paid a million pounds a year for this drivel.

Private Eye this week serialises extracts from Nick Davies' forthcoming book on the press 'Flat Earth News' in which he interviews an ex-policeman and an ex-Mail journalist who told him that the Mail routinely hands over money to bent coppers and civil servants for information from the PNC and benefits databases. That's patriotic stuff, eh? Upholding British standards, and all that.

This extract is far more shocking, well, shocking if you didnt expect it from the Mail

http://www.newstatesman.com/200801240030