BBC Nuclear Coverage

[DominiConnor]

Had News 24 on the morning of the parliamentary vote on nuclear weapons.
The BBC had an informed speaker.
Annie Lennox.
Yes, really.
Apparently, "we live in a democracy" which she and the BBC interpret as interviewing not very bright celebs about their views. She had some I think, hard to tell she was against nukes, for no reason she could articulate.
Then we had celebrity shopkeeper Anita Roddick, who mumbled some strident, but not very thoughtful remarks.
There are lots of things to say like the truly vast cost, risk of it being built by incompetent British manufacturers causing a horrible accident, or balanced by the threat from Iran, or the increasing number of nuclear states.
But instead we got celebs.
Would we see a celeb for nukes ?
Of course not this is the BBC.

OK, the s/w thing didn't impress.
How about the way I developed a way of electoplating gold onto teflon ?
I also gold plated flies, marigold gloves, and a wellington boot.
Gold cropped up later in my life when I directed the develpoment and deployment of HT Treasury's secure wide area network (GiltSwan) for monitoring the financial markets by poking around inside banks computer systems. It came in on budget to the penny, I had given my personal word on this, and it was so.
I can also crash most kinds of coffee vending machines, but no I can't mend your car unless you want me to change the engine management system to make it go dangerously fast.

Ethnically I'm Irish, which when I was of an age to "choose" which culture to belong to was so awful it never got considered. At one state I did acheive a windup at school convincing most of them that I was a Von Connor, not an O'

Yep, you're Irish then.

Increasingly impressed.

I suppose, not a lable I like appyling to myself even though they've largely cleaned up their act. I think that's the important point, I never think of Irish people as "we", more "them".

My DH is just like you. Born in England. Grew up in England. Says he's English, not Irish! So I tease him.

Ask him about the Kerry babies...
English people, especially Christians flatly refuse to believe that might happen in any civilised country, let alone in "modern" Ireland.

I have no idea what the Kerry babies are. Can you enlighten me?

ooh not the Kerry babies! I was living in the auld sod when that was going on I think! we're talking early 80's is it???

Let's see; a dead baby washed up on the beach....scandal of country where no abortion or contraception allowed-or was it just plain murder...then ANOTHER one turned up....church/sex combination=explosive.

Those were the days.

Such is the number of dead babies found in Ireland, that there are special police units set up to catch and punish the mothers.
The techniques they've used (quite lawfully) would in almost any civilised country come under their rape laws.
No one knows the exact truth of the Kerry babies, because even Irish Catholics have a limit to the inhuman treatment they will support of "fallen women", so the Irish government stopped the police attacking any more women, except if they do it when the press aren't likely to catch on.

We do know that various mothers threw newborn babies off cliffs. We do know that various suspects were sexually assaulted by the police, quite legally.
Various mothers were found by these assaults, but they had severe difficulty matching dead babies to mothers, so rather than try DNA they decided that giving the women a good slapping might work.
Then there were the attempts to find the fathers. This being a Catholic country, the men were rather more politely treated, but under torture some women seem have named men, but this led to the wrong babies.

All countries have bad people. There are criminals in Britain who make the Irish police look like the good guys. The difference is that in Britain, they are criminals not staff carrying out official policy under democratically created laws.

Ironically, the nascent Irish state called these thugs "Garda". Because the word "police" had too much of a British sound to it.

One of the many reasons that I do not like being called Irish.

Thats so sad.

I think the State of Florida has been correct in their policy of "No Questions Asked" you can turn up at a hospital or fire station and hand over a baby and nobody will ask you anything about it. They do this so people won't kill their babies.

If you're having to adopt such a policy so that mothers don't leave babies to die, then you have to ask why you voted for people who stand on a Christian platform in the first place. It's the sort of meaningless token you get when religious loonies get involved in social policy.
In an age of DNA testing, "no questions asked" means very little. Women who are at risk of doing this sort of thing are in a dreadful mental state, often very young.
Thus the Christians would have you believe that if they have some "policy" , everything is sorted, and makes for a fine excuse for them to get these women locked up.
Also it's a "policy", which is hardly a bullet proof defence. American is rife with hysterical religious types, do you think they would disobey their conscience ?

I have never heard of anyone in the States being "locked up" for turning over a baby. It might suprise you to learn that it is not just religious people who make and adopt these policies.

Kerry babies. A baby was found washed up on a beach, and presumed to be the baby of a local 'unmarried mother'. Except the body of her baby was found buried on her family's farm. Faced with two bodies and one woman detectives decided they were both hers, twins by different fathers. As far as I remember this did not stand up in court. the mother of the baby found on the beach has never been identified. This happened shortly after Shergar was kidnapped. As far as I am aware there are neither special flying squad units for either infanticide cases or horsenapping in Ireland. I have lived in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and England and have not noticed any difference in the sad cases of abandoned babies - every so often a live or dead baby is reported in the news.

to steer this conversation away from dc's ethnicity for a moment I'd like to say these things:

1. I agree actually that the bbc (as well as other broadcasters, but it somehow seems worse when it's the bbc) use way too many celebs in serious news items, and also way too many speakers from minority interest groups. I see the flippin CBI chap more than I see any economist or what have you. Groups like ASH, forest, Liberty, fathers for whatever etc get disproportionate coverage too.

1. But let's not just blame the BBC. name 3 pro nuke celebs. any celebs, a list b list or c list.

I agree about the celebs being used as experts. I saw Whoopie Goldburg being interviewed the other day on the War. Surely there are actual experts out there. Why aren't they on? I think networks just want to sensationalize the news and that turns me off.

this whole celebrity thing is a very good point. I agree with rowan 1971's earlier point that we, the general populace, probably deserve this for our apathy and inability to really do anything in the face of so many clear and growing dangers ( for example in the environmental field ). But it has been going this way for years...I mean, I could never understand why Geri Halliwell was appointed some kind of UN goodwill ambassador ( or was it Unicef) back in the 90s. As for Annie Lennox....nice voice but she's always getting on on the act isn't she?

On another note; this may sound bonkers but I actually believe that Iran has the right to nuclear capability. I also agree that Iran poses a massive threat to international 'peace' ( such as it is ) but if The US, Pakistan and Israel have nuclear capability then as far as I'm concerned any expansionist loony deserves it. We have actually created the Iranian threat ourselves in part, by arming Iraq against Iran in the 80s, and also by encouraging Israel to kill as many Palestinians and steal as much of their land as they can. I am sick and tired of hearing deluded right wing nutters like Bush pontificate on who may and may not possess nookyeller (puke) weapons while he bombs the shit out of half the world.

rant over.

It does seem a bit do as I say do not as I do kind of thing doesn't it?