Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Oooh feel the wondrous presence of the great oracle that is CNN (apparently known to it's employees as Chicken Noodle News).
Be awe-struck as the sage solemnly decrees that "The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth". Um...are you sure about that? What about that Mariannas Trench thing (if somewhere deeper hasn't yet been found)? Or did you mean on the land? (which given that it's a sea...ok maybe the coast of the Dead Sea is the lowest part of the land surface [being the regions of the solid predominantly ferro-silicate crust which are exposed to the gaseous mixture called air within this language, as opposed to the areas submerged beneath liquids and some solids derived from aqueous solutions] of the planet [known by it's English speaking human inhabitants as] Earth).
Look, it was there own stupid fault for poor editing. Speaking of which: King Herrod made his winter home on Masada, and the towns of Soddom and Gommera once stood before being destroyed by God's wrath. I don't know what or where Masada is so I'm not going to be pedantic about that now, but the second section of the sentence makes no sense. It asserts that S + G once stood, before being destroyed (well they'd have to, otherwise what's to destroy?). What's this got to do with the Dead Sea? It doesn't say where they once stood, or are believed to have stood. There's no connection with the story, other than X was in the bible, Y was also in the Bible. I think there's quite a lot in the bible though.
And what about the other texts that deal with the Dead Sea, surely the Koran makes at least one passing reference? This mean they've decided to try and out-Fox Fox News?
If this is the quality of American reporting from the Middle East, is it any wonder that the world's currently as it is?
But then these are the people who also (in the section labelled World News) have the headline Poll: Bush unpopular in Britain. Really? You do surprise me. We are talking George Walker (that's with an L not an N) Bush here aren't we? Not that annoying band from Sheperd's Bush, or those people who make electronics?
And isn't his tour going to be fun? Yep just shut bits of London with no notice, I'm sure that'll make people like you. Oh and can you make sure there aren't going to be any of those pesky protests he might see (try using your special anti-terrorism laws [aka "you've got dreadlocks, you're nicked"]), we wouldn't want reality seeping in now would we? It's so unseemly.
Sorry, I really shouldn't pick on such an easy target.
Anyhoo, think I'd better stop (for now).
PS. MS Word thinks "aren't we?" should read "isn't we?". Go figure.
Be awe-struck as the sage solemnly decrees that "The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth". Um...are you sure about that? What about that Mariannas Trench thing (if somewhere deeper hasn't yet been found)? Or did you mean on the land? (which given that it's a sea...ok maybe the coast of the Dead Sea is the lowest part of the land surface [being the regions of the solid predominantly ferro-silicate crust which are exposed to the gaseous mixture called air within this language, as opposed to the areas submerged beneath liquids and some solids derived from aqueous solutions] of the planet [known by it's English speaking human inhabitants as] Earth).
Look, it was there own stupid fault for poor editing. Speaking of which: King Herrod made his winter home on Masada, and the towns of Soddom and Gommera once stood before being destroyed by God's wrath. I don't know what or where Masada is so I'm not going to be pedantic about that now, but the second section of the sentence makes no sense. It asserts that S + G once stood, before being destroyed (well they'd have to, otherwise what's to destroy?). What's this got to do with the Dead Sea? It doesn't say where they once stood, or are believed to have stood. There's no connection with the story, other than X was in the bible, Y was also in the Bible. I think there's quite a lot in the bible though.
And what about the other texts that deal with the Dead Sea, surely the Koran makes at least one passing reference? This mean they've decided to try and out-Fox Fox News?
If this is the quality of American reporting from the Middle East, is it any wonder that the world's currently as it is?
But then these are the people who also (in the section labelled World News) have the headline Poll: Bush unpopular in Britain. Really? You do surprise me. We are talking George Walker (that's with an L not an N) Bush here aren't we? Not that annoying band from Sheperd's Bush, or those people who make electronics?
And isn't his tour going to be fun? Yep just shut bits of London with no notice, I'm sure that'll make people like you. Oh and can you make sure there aren't going to be any of those pesky protests he might see (try using your special anti-terrorism laws [aka "you've got dreadlocks, you're nicked"]), we wouldn't want reality seeping in now would we? It's so unseemly.
Sorry, I really shouldn't pick on such an easy target.
Anyhoo, think I'd better stop (for now).
PS. MS Word thinks "aren't we?" should read "isn't we?". Go figure.
