The BBC lost no time in pimping the foiling of the Yemeni Underwear bomber plot.

The US has foiled a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate an upgraded version of the failed 2009 “underwear bomb”, US officials say.

Quotes followed from Sec of Defence Leon Panetta and Sec of State Hilarry Clinton

“These terrorists keep trying. They keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people,”

Full marks to all those involved in the uncovering of this AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) terrorist attempt to blow up a plane. The US media really went to town on the story with wall to wall coverage in what became a clearly orchestrated valediction of President Obama’s record in the war on terror – and remember, it’s Presidential election year.

First the celebration of the anniversary of OBL’s termination, now this….”tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism”
As the UK arm of Obama’s re-election campaign naturally the BBC went deepthroat on the story. Except, as the days went by, it became clearer that this was much more of a Saudi/UK operation than a CIA coup.

The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport

The Saudi’s recruited him for their own security service and almost certainly kept the UK’s MI6 in the loop. However the Obama administration’s boastful publicity has probably made AQAP more aware of the threat from double agents. Experienced US intelligence operatives were certainly not impressed

Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. “MI6 should be as angry as hell………………………..this is really tragic,” Scheur said.
He added: “Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing.”

Sorry, Mr Scheur, you obviously haven’t grasped the fact that the item at the top of the agenda was not the need to protect an existing network – it was to create a useful 2/3 day “shining moment” to maintain Obama’s re-election campaign. Kudos to the the left wing UK Guardian for posting this – to date nothing on these lines has appeared in the BBC website; indeed I wonder how much of it has been picked up by the msm in America. One thing is certain, however, if this had happened under President Bush the Beeb would have been in full Bush derangement mode.

Meanwhile, as Obama, Clinton and Panetta bask before the adulation of the media elite, British, American and Saudi agents must be bashing their heads against office walls in frustration…

….and doubtless, somewhere in Yemen, men and women are screaming in agony as they are tortured by AQAP “specialists” tracking down moles. But, as they and their families die, bleeding and broken, they must find comfort that they died for a higher cause – a nice spread of Obama boosting coverage in the New York Times and, naturally, the BBC…

More evidence of the official media spinning the Zimmerman/Martin shooting incident in Florida before any proper evidence has appeared,

Blogger William A Jacobson at Legal Insurrection (who also doubles up as a law professor) does simple fact check that US media (and the UK Daily Mail) failed to do on the “Armed American White Supremacists Patrolling Sanford, Florida” story…and finds out that it is an unfounded rumour (aka a “lie”)

Mind you he used a very unusual method..he rang the local police. Maybe those highly trained, highly paid “journalists” could learn a thing or two from that….

Witnesses testified that Tyson told them he saw two “crackers” — his phrase for white people — walking through the neighborhood and that he intended to rob them. The tourists said they didn’t have any money and begged Tyson to let them go home. The men also told Tyson that they were lost.
“Since you ain’t got no money, then I have something for your ass,” Tyson recounted to a witness, then added that he shot the men several times.

Yes the two British tourists James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had been drinking when they came across Shawn Tyson. Yes, they were lost…and yes they should have been savvier about dangerous areas. But would everyone from those projects have acted like Shawn Tyson? I hope not.

Watch this clip of two of their friends making statements outside the court. The awkwardness of their delivery serves only to enhance the extent of their contempt for Shawn Tyson.

The Washington Post says the trial and verdict have been big news here in the UK, probably not so much in the USA. But the father of one of the victims still thought it was worth writing a letter to President Obama.

Joe Hallett, a friend of James Kouzaris and James Cooper has spoken of his “dissatisfaction” at the lack of messages of support or condolence from the US government or President Obama.

He said Mr Kouzaris’ father has written to President Obama on three separate occasions and has yet to receive the courtesy of a reply.

Surprisingly there was no response to any of the three letters, even from some lowly member of the White House staff.

But then it is clearly not within the President’s paygrade to comment upon specific crimes…….

Young American conservative blogger Tina Korbe at Hot Air is shocked

U.K. schools to kids: No best friends for you!

One speculative quote, no evidence but still a neat hook for a slow news day. I actually like Tina’s more personal style but when she edges towards this going to hell in a handcart schtick all it does is bring out the endoftheworld brigade who always lurk around the edges at Hot Air and fantasise about “socialist” policies and/or Britain becoming a province of the new caliphate.

FYI I have five delightful granchildren who are all in different UK schools and a permanent strand of their conversation is about friendships including the making and the breaking of the same.

Almost all parents and teachers get involved in the fall out when best friendships go sour. I would bet that most of us then advise the child to maintain a wider circle of friends to alleviate the extent of the heartache when these relationships drift apart – which is, I suspect, the reasoning behind the original quotation.

There is no official policy in this matter, no UK government diktat and it was a tad misleading to imply such in the headline and in the opening paragraph….”apparently, they’re a thing”

As in the USA we in the UK have enough official fruitloopery to befuddle our brains without having to invent them so, Tina, do use a little shoeleather to tease out the background before waving flags like these.

Unless, of course, one UK school has decided to import an idea from…….the good old US of A……

BTW…this is an expansion of a comment I made on Tina’s article at Hot Air

Good news – Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey is making a four part television drama about the Titanic. It will not be able to match the magnificent special effects of James Cameron’s Hollywood blockbuster but he does hope to avoid Camerons simplistic and hackneyed symbolism of the ship as a microcosm of the class struggle where plucky but poor steerage passengers were left to drown while the rich seized all the lifeboats.

He points out that third class women and children were rescued ahead of first class men, that all the evidence appears to indicate a fairly orderly evacuation and that, above all, there is no guarantee that a similar accident happening today would be handled more effectively.

Indeed he believes that our modern assumption that previous generations were less adept at organising a bold and efficient response to the unexpected merely demonstrates a baseless arrogance and a shallow understanding of the past. We have convinced ourselves that the contemporary tendency to “emote” and sustain the continuous mantra of “caring and sharing” somehow endows us with a higher purpose in life.

The mistake is to imagine the sort of Channel 4 thing that everything was ghastly until 1968 and Woodstock and then it all took a tremendous turn for the better. That’s essentially bogus. Every period has some things to offer that worked well and others that were unjust and wrong and repressive.

Whoops – take care, Julian…in some quarters going public with the view that maybe previous generations made a better fist of things than team 21st century might well be characterised as a “Hate Crime”….

The March of the Zombies (aka the Republican Party’s Presidential Primaries campaign) suddenly caught fire with this interesting duel between Newt Gingrich and Juan Williams

It is fascinating to watch because Williams clearly played the race card and Gingrich trumped it with the personal responsibility card. He gave a masterclass in detoxifying a liberal left attack point with a rebuttal using cold hard facts delivered in a calm, logical manner.

The audience loved it – not just because the race card was and will always be the key weapon in the Democrats defence of Obama but it is always good for the soul to see an establishment media figure cut down to size.

Even better – it irritated Chris Matthews and Dave Weigel

Straws in the wind? The inevitability of Mitt Romney dented? Who knows – but it earned Newt some kudos from the “totally irrelevant” Frum disdained Sarah Palin and Robert Stacy McCain seemed to put his Rick Santorum lovefest (whoops, nearly said Herman Cain…) briefly on the back burner while he blamed feminism for the Italian cruise ship disaster…..

Allahpundit at Hot Air, ever eager to use the governor to gain traffic, described Palin’s remarks as an endorsement. It wasn’t, of course as can be seen from the clip. But then, of course he could never really get a handle on Palin’s praise of Newt and the impact it might have on Tea Partiers because it would need major surgery and a decade of therapy to unscramble the little neural glitch he has about both Palin and the Tea Party in his brain.

Rick Santelli for President? The man who played a major part in sparking off the Tea Party movement?

Santelli is a financial journalist who previously was a trader at the Chicago Mercantile exchange.

But he’s not a politician.

Surely the only sort of person who can unravel the mess that politicians have created is another politician – and anyway Colin Powell has decreed that nobody who identifies with the Tea Party could possibly win because compromise is the name of the game.

Powell’s sentiment has also been bolstered by the threat of the magisterial David Frum that he will leave the GOP if anyone but Romney or Huntsman is nominated

Still Santelli has one major ace in his hand should he actually make a play for 2012.

UK Guardian left wing AGW guru George Monbiot hates him

the most alarming example of cheap demagoguery you are likely to have seen.

A “reasonable rant” from PolitiJim

Who appointed Erick Erickson as Conservative Electioneering Sheriff?

Or even Anne Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Charles Dickens or The Incredible Shrinking Man for that matter….but then I don’t think Charles Dickens ever let his publishers change the ending of one of his novels…can’t really say about TISM…

First it was the Jamie Radtke thing. By virtue of his admitted betrayal to her campaign on behalf of his employers (i think he wrote he would ‘gladly’ accommodate their request to pull back on his support to her) and the obvious contrary evidence by RS attendees of his portrayal of her – Erickson is quickly loosing credibility.
Now Erick has decided that he decides who should run, and when. If they don’t do it when it is convenient for him – to hell with them. Or her.”At some point, I decided Sarah Palin could not defeat Barack Obama”

It’s not that Jim dislikes Erickson (or Coulter) but he’s beginning to wonder if they are not morphing into something similar to those figures of the GOP elite they have often mocked and derided who think they are “smarter than regular people” (echoes of Orwell’s “Animal Farm”?)

So, for Erick, a reminder…

And this whole idea that Palin HAS TO get in now. That somehow she “owes it” to the GOP movement …………………….. I’d say you owe her much more than she owes you. Did you forget it was PALIN who helped galvanize and garner the conservative movement in 2008? Have you not read the citations of those of us who started with Santelli and were empowered with Palin who….ended up as ‘the tea party?’ When the ‘big government’ republicans and pretenders forced us onto McCain – Palin was a sign of hope. And she also continued the attack during her own withering assault against Obama, no thanks to you.

She has done far more for the conservative movement than RedState or Erick Erickson could possibly think.

…and, just in case his message remains a little unclear. this self declared non Palinista suggests a post it note that should be attached to the keyboard, microphone or teleprompter of every self proclaimed “conservative” pundit/pontificator/consultant/strategist in the USA.

For what Sarah Palin has done, and continues to do, she has a right to do WHATEVER she wants and still receive the thanks from conservatives – nay, AMERICANS – everywhere.

Read the rest here – it’s interesting stuff.

Cross posted at C4P

h/t from my ever nuanced twitter friend Sissy Willis

Bill Nighy, wooden, crinkled and oozing bus pass angst, meets up with earnest young woman (Rachel Weisz, born 1970!). Nighy, as per usual, autocues his lines in a monotone to nobody in particular, is hardly ever out of his overcoat and sacrifices his career and pension to flag up the evil Americans.

You’ve guessed it – “Page Eight” (BBC2 28/08/11) another glossy drama of beautiful people in NW1 (and weekend rural retreats) pumping out a subliminal version of the eternal and unchanging BBC philippic against capitalism, America (pre Obama, of course) and those vicious, conniving Je…whoops….Israelis.

Written by Richard Curtis David Hare, the storyline is as predictable as a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Public School/Oxbridge educated MI5 boss hands Public School/Oxbridge educated MI5 agent (Nighy) a file fingering UK PM as the The Evil One Covering Up US Rendition. Said agent discovers his next door neighbour had a boy friend killed by Israeli soldiers while innocently protecting defenceless Hamas protestors. This has also been covered up by the same UK PM.

Usual ending of any Nighy drama….he forces UK PM to publish the truth about the evil Israelis in return for remaining schtum about rendition. Nighy then heads off into the sunset until the next BBC drama.

Production values – AAA+
Characterisation – pure unadulterated cardboard
Message – BBC Goebbels TV at its most blatant