09:59 am
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us run arabic tv news service a smash hit
it's time for me do a little fisking. the us started up a new arabic satellite news channel just under three months ago, in order to combat the blatant and disgusting anti-americanism on the established arabic channels broadcast in the middle east. despite the best efforts of the fifth columnists in the west and leaders in the middle east, it is already a resounding success. this is what reuters have to say about it:
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - The controversial U.S. Arabic-language TV channel Alhurra is winning viewers as a news source in the Arab world despite rising anti-American attitudes in the region, according to a U.S.-financed poll released on Thursday.
so "controversial" is it in the "rising[ly] anti-American" "Arab world" that in only three months almost a third of those "rising[ly] anti-American" households watch it. notice they have to get you in the right frame of mind, before they give you any facts...
The telephone survey of 3,588 people aged 15 or older in 13 cities was done by the French research company Ipsos-Stat in early April for the the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent federal agency that oversees all U.S. international nonmilitary broadcasting.
The results showed Alhurra -- in its first two months -- is being watched by an average 29 percent of the satellite-equipped households in seven countries, including a high of 44 percent in Kuwait and a low of 18 percent in Egypt.
isn't that awful? only one fifth of the market after three months. bog, i would be weeping if i were running such an unsuccessful station.
The survey also found that an average 53 percent of the viewers consider the channel programming to be reliable or somewhat reliable. This includes a high of 70 percent reliability felt by Saudis and a low of 37 percent reliability among Syrians.
this is awful! over 50% of those "rising[ly] anti-American" householders in the "Arab world" believe the propaganda put out by the american imperial fascist pigs.
of course this tells you nothing about how reliable they consider the other stations. a 50%+ reliable news-service seems like cloudcuckooland to me, but maybe a miracle has occurred..
"I was very surprised by these numbers," considering all the negative press in the region saying no one is watching Alhurra and the fact that a religious "fatwa" edict was issued against the channel in Saudi Arabia, said Norman Pattiz of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
isn't it awful! even with our concerted efforts to stop anyone from watching imperialist propaganda by the american satans, they still went ahead and watched it. not even with the likes of reuters and other major western news corporations, telling everyone how unpopular and "controversial" it is, could we stop them watching. :-(
"Within the first two months of broadcasting Alhurra has quickly established itself as a player among satellite stations in the Middle East," he told a news conference.
Some 40 percent of people in the Middle East have access to satellite television, Pattiz said.
right, we have to put some facts in, so we decided to get the all out of the way at the beginning - except for preparing you slightly so that you could read those facts 'properly'.. now we can move on to telling you how awful this is and how really it isn't as popular as the facts say.
Many Arab critics have argued that President George W. Bush launched Alhurra, the "Free One," as a propaganda tool to advance a war on Islam.
oh yes, lets roll out "Many Arab critics", that nameless mass of two people, who we just made up, so that we could make the point that this awful station is really "a propaganda tool to advance a war on Islam".
The Americans contend the TV channel is needed to compete for the hearts and minds of Muslims against pan-Arabic stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, which U.S. officials charge often distort U.S. policy and are hostile to it.
those dastardly americans with their "contend"s and "charge"s. we obviously don't believe a word of it, because the americans said. and anyway, anyone looking at the facts can see what they say is true, so it must be lies and plots by the horrible americans. after all, ever good socialist knows that facts are a plot by the americans and the jooooooowwwwws.
Pattiz said the survey numbers for Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya are much higher but still the results for Alhurra are "great indicators."
see, really they aren't doing very well at all because those other stations that have been around for years, being pushed by the governments of the region, are getting "much higher" results - we didn't say how much higher, because that would remind you of facts and numbers and it probably wasn't that 'much' anyway.
i bet you've already forgotten that the american station is getting almost 1/3 of the viewers after three months. you had forgotten, hadn't you?
right i'll stop there: i'm bored.. in fact this article isn't quite as blatantly dishonest as much of what comes out of the great reuters in the sky.
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11:14 am
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kerry "unfit to be commander-in-chief"
this does not look good for kerry:
Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.
[...]
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
[...]
"In the military, loyalty between commanders and the troops serving them is a two-way street. We have here a guy (Kerry) that with all of us in the field [in Vietnam] -- actually fighting the North Vietnamese -- came home and then falsely accused all of us of war crimes at a time when the people in uniform couldn't even respond," O'Neill said.
"And he did that knowing that was a lie," he added.
[...]
"There are probably just as many Democrats amongst sailors who sailed swift boats as there are Republicans. What Kerry fails to realize is this has nothing to do with politics -- this has to with Vietnam Veterans who served, who have a beef with John Kerry's service, both during and after the war," Burkett told CNSNews.com.
i wonder, can the democrats still ditch him and try to get someone remotely credible? i really would rather replace bush with someone more likely to take the looming end of cheap oil seriously, someone less likely to pander to christianist fundies, someone less corrupt... but there is no way that kerry is acceptable as a replacement, nor is anyone else who is the slightest bit equivocal about persuing war on international fundamentalism or about promoting liberal democracy acceptable.
[link from instapundit]
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