UN Bias Hurts The World

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Postby Deepsmeg » Fri Jun 17, 2005 6:34 pm

I'm being too cynical and parnoid that I'm not noticing favours made by other people.
I need to work on that.

Thank you Curiosity for saving me the hassle of taking up a contrary position when you're so willing to do it for me.
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Postby einstein » Fri Jun 17, 2005 11:35 pm

Right - wow... i shouldn't have come to this party late... in fact, i probably shouldn't have come at all because I am forced to respond. 5 pages and as far as I can see the point has been largely missed, although it has been picked up on in the last few posts.

Curiosity, I would agree with you if the department that the gentleman in question is the head of had simply ignored the rest of the world and focused merely upon the Israel/Palestine, however, that is not the case. As SBM has stated there are numerous statements made my his department regarding Burundi and his department clearly do not commit all (or even the majority) of their resources to the Palestinian territories.

You say you are criticising the man, not the department. Sadly you misunderstand how an organisation like the UN works. The UN is like most governmental bodies: they have figure heads who hold office. The Special Raporteur is simply a figure head of a department, to criticise his work without truly understanding that he is responsible for the work of many is an error. As in most governmental bodies the figure head is left to deal with the issues that are politically visible and current. Now, I am not saying that this is correct, but it is how politics works. The Raporteur's staff do much of the ACTUAL work: so fear not, countries like Burundi will not be suffering substantively as a result of the apparent, and remember it is only apparent as you are judging a man solely by published statements, lack of attention of the figure head. Further, as he is accountable for anything issued by his department and anything so issued is deemed to be under his authority, he may not feel the need to personally make comment on the record.

The ridiculous thing about your argument is this: you would be placated if he issued statements regarding Burundi et al and you don't seem to care about the actual work of the department. You do not ask: "okay so the guy talks a lot about Palestine, but is he and his department still actually doing its job for the rest of the world?" Published statements are not necessarily indicative of involvement and commitment to certain areas of the world.

The argument you, and this NGO you quote, make would be reduced to nothing if the statements which had been made by subordinates (under his authority) had simply been drafted by subordinates but issued by him. Surely you see that critiquing who issues a communiqué is not an effective way of monitoring the actual work of a international body? This gentleman could entirely shelf your criticism by signing the documents himself? Doesn't that tell you that there is something wrong with what YOU are concentrating upon?

In this world, where there really is problems regarding the supply of food (as well as other things obviously), to concentrate upon what a person says as opposed to what a person leads a team of people to do (and as the department is a Raporteur ultimately to say) is utterly ridiculous and contemptible.

As I have drawn issue with the very premise of your argument the other points as to the UN mandate I shall largely ignore, except to say this: the UN has no mandate to deal with purely national matters. That does not mean to say however that it cannot comment on such matters. However, as the UN as a whole has power to intervene in international situations, such as that involving Israel and Palestine, it is obvious and indeed to be expected that a UNO is more likely to comment upon a food crisis (maybe too strong a word) which has international aspects as opposed to those which other UNOs are largely powerless to help in – i.e. solely national problems. Wouldn’t it seem largely pointless to concentrate more of its time upon something which it, and its sister UNOs, are powerless to change to the detriment of something it can change?

I actually have lots more to say, and could question/challenge some of your other claims Curiosity, however as I expect that you will have quite alot to say about what i've said so far i'll leave you with that to be getting on with...
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Postby Curiosity » Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:38 am

Maybe I should make it clear this is not only UNWatch.

Let's see what the US Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council had to say about the importance of Jean Ziegler:
"Mr. Ziegler, actions have consequences, and your actions can cause people to die."

Well, it seems the US Government doesn't think Mr. Ziegler is much irrelevant to his job.

I still think einstein has fundamentally missed what a "Special Rapporteur" does, this is a big chunk of his mandate:

"b. To establish cooperation with Governments, intergovernmental organizations, in particular the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations on the promotion and effective implementation of the right to food, and to make appropriate recommendations on the realization thereof, taking into consideration the work already done in this field throughout the United Nations system;"

Now, if HE is the man who is supposed to be organising widespread cooperation and co-ordination, why is he spending such a ridiculous amount of HIS time on one tiny, less-than-serious case out of the whole world he is meant to be dealing with? (Yes, the whole world, have you checked how his mandate doesn't have anything about him ignoring nation-specific problems?) Surely he should be making releases about organising co-operation to solve food problems, not making dozens of press releases about how bad Israel is?

I think einstein also will not credit just how important a 'Special Rapporteur' is. People are not going to meet with his staff, he is the one who needs to be out there informing the world, the UN and arranging co-operation to fight hunger. But instead of him informing the world and UN, he informs them that Israel is being bad, repeatedly.

It's entirely fatuous to go "well his department seems to have it covered", because it is HIM that is visible and public and HIS statements which provide attention, and HIM that works on getting co-operation and informing the world. Which has more of an effect, a little release from his office, or him standing up in front of the UN and saying it? Which gets more attention and recognition, which is his main role?

Also, you are STILL fixated on this mandate BULLSHIT.
"UNOs are largely powerless to help in – i.e. solely national problems."

In the name of all that is holy, READ HIS MANDATE! He's supposed to be organising help to starving countries and you idiots are sitting around going the UN doesn't have the mandate to do what it's told him to do and what it already does. Idiots. None of you have a fucking clue about the UN mandate, you seemt to interpret it however the fuck you want, even if the UN's actual actions don't fit your skewed interpretations. The UN deploys peacekeepers in single countries to deal with national problems (see: Haiti). It organises food supplies to individual countries (even if this is being neglectfully co-ordinated). It's either incredible arrogance or incredible ignoring-of-the-facts and ignorance. Or lying. You're sitting there with your fingers in your ears singing 'the UN doesn't deal with that' over and over, ignoring the fact that the UN is doing the precise thing you are saying it doesn't do at the precise moment you're saying it doesn't do it. It's gotten so endemic, it's silly.
Even when experts who have spent their entire careers involved in international politics and the UN contradict you on the UN mandate, you still forge on claiming that you are the arbiters and experts and obviously everyone else is biased and wrong. This is breathtaking arrogance which makes a horrible combination with the ignorance you have on the issue. I'm sorry, who of you spent their life in international politics and involved with the UN? Sorry, none of you?

Secondly, I'd like to refer back to sbm thinking that his liberal "sourcewatch.org" is absolutely infallible. Unfortunately, it has to deal with its own biases. (Come on, by its own admission it aims to "produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests." It's really just another liberal group in itself, with its own liberal biases targeting the traditional liberal enemies. It's certainly not above serious questioning. They and sbm has made it seem like UN Watch only sticks up for Israel and Jews... not quite true...

UN Watch has used its position as a a Consultative NGO to the UN to become involved in the fight for: international action in Darfur (not many Jews there), Religious freedom in China (not so many Jews there...) and women's rights in Iran and Sudan (not so many Jews in either of those places!)

Checking their site (something sbm seems to have forgotten), lets have a look at how much they focus on Israel and Jews:

Their 3 most recent public speeches/statements deal with: Sudan, Burma and Zimbabwe. Then they have one on HR in general. Then the next 3 deal with Russia, Sudan and Lebanon. THEN they have one on anti-Israel bias and how it affects work on HR. Then they have one about Jean Ziegler. Then they have one about Malaysia...

Wow, just Jews and Israel, right?

Of their last TWENTY-EIGHT public statements and speeches... all of ONE deals with anti-Israel bias (there are about 3 on Jean Ziegler too). Considering that the HR Commision itself at its latest session passed half its condemnatory, country-specific resolutions on Israel, UN Watch actually focuses on Israel less than the HR Commission!

So, why has sbm portrayed this group as something it isn't? MAYBE, someone needs to watch sourcewatch.org...

Can I suggest sourcewatchwatch.org as a good name?
(They'd be the people watching the people who watch the people who watch the UN... it's like something out of Dr.Seuss)

And lets see just how biased and crap KOFI ANNAN thinks UN Watch is:
"I deeply appreciate the valuable work performed by UN Watch... I can promise I will pay close attention to your observations and views in the years ahead."

Well...
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 2:17 am

Curiosity wrote:Maybe I should make it clear this is not only UNWatch.

Let's see what the US Representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council had to say about the importance of Jean Ziegler:
"Mr. Ziegler, actions have consequences, and your actions can cause people to die."


That is in regard to Mr. Ziegler's reservations about distributing genetically modified foods. The statement is rather silly as it is not linked to any real threat, but instead about an ideological disagreement.


Now, if HE is the man who is supposed to be organizing widespread cooperation and co-ordination, why is he spending such a ridiculous amount of HIS time on one tiny, less-than-serious case out of the whole world he is meant to be dealing with?


There is no proof he is spending any more time on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than he is on anything else. You cannot say that since he has personally made more statements about it that he is spending more time on it. Obviously given that he has only made a handful of statements in the several years he has been at his post he spends the vast majority of his time doing other things.


(Yes, the whole world, have you checked how his mandate doesn't have anything about him ignoring nation-specific problems?)


He works at the UN, whose mandate is limited, despite what you want to believe.


Surely he should be making releases about organizing co-operation to solve food problems, not making dozens of press releases about how bad Israel is?


Or maybe he is actually taking actions to help solve food problems and organizing international cooperation (the word is not hyphenated by the way). . . Most international cooperation is not done through press statements, but rather phone calls and other personal correspondences.


I think einstein also will not credit just how important a 'Special Rapporteur' is. People are not going to meet with his staff, he is the one who needs to be out there informing the world, the UN and arranging co-operation to fight hunger. But instead of him informing the world and UN, he informs them that Israel is being bad, repeatedly.


He is really not that important. Kofi Annan isn't even that important so this guy several levels down isn't a whole lot more than a pretty (or not so pretty) face unfortunately. I mean he can play an important role, but he has very little power and almost no resources to work with.

It's entirely fatuous to go "well his department seems to have it covered", because it is HIM that is visible and public and HIS statements which provide attention, and HIM that works on getting co-operation and informing the world.


Give me a break. You didn't even know this guy existed before you saw this article. How many people in the world have ever seen one of these statements? These people reach a very, very limited audience. You are acting like his statements are read on CNN and the BBC every night. His job is not to make statements but to get things done. You don't feed people by making statements about how hungry they are. You feed people by working with nations to actually get food to them. These statements are for very specific consumption, they are not a major part of his job.


Also, you are STILL fixated on this mandate BULLSHIT.
"UNOs are largely powerless to help in – i.e. solely national problems."


You still obviously have no clue what the UN is. Maybe it is you who should figure your shit out. We actually read the UN Charter and look at what the UN says it powers and mission are. You apparently think the UN lies about this.


Secondly, I'd like to refer back to sbm thinking that his liberal "sourcewatch.org" is absolutely infallible. Unfortunately, it has to deal with its own biases. (Come on, by its own admission it aims to "produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests."


Yes, that is what it says its mission is. . . That mission is not biased in any way. They include liberal, conservative and moderate organizations. For instance they have a huge article (or rather series of articles) on the liberal MoveOn.org. Just because they have an article on UN-Watch does not make them biased. . .

It's really just another liberal group in itself, with its own liberal biases targeting the traditional liberal enemies. It's certainly not above serious questioning. They and sbm has made it seem like UN Watch only sticks up for Israel and Jews... not quite true...


Apparently you didn't read the article. . .


Checking their site (something sbm seems to have forgotten), lets have a look at how much they focus on Israel and Jews:


I have actually looked through the whole site multiple times. . . But I find it interesting you are willing to look at their site, but when we ask you to look at the Special Rapporteur on the right to food website, you say it is irrelevant. The hypocrisy here is simply amazing. It is also interesting to see that you accept that UN-Watch can focus a great deal of its time on Israel yet feel it can still adequately address all these other issues you list, yet you don't feel the Special Rapporteur can do the same. Seem like a rather stiff double standard you have here.


And lets see just how biased and crap KOFI ANNAN thinks UN Watch is:
"I deeply appreciate the valuable work performed by UN Watch... I can promise I will pay close attention to your observations and views in the years ahead."

Well...


Heh, yes a politician's pandering. . . What was he going to say? Kofi Annan has said all sorts of things, many of which I would imagine you would take exception to. For instance he had told Israeli representatives, "You must end the illegal occupation." As well as made numerous statements condemning various Israeli actions, including Jenin (which seems to not have been the big deal he made it out to be). It is also funny how many times I've seen this quote used by UN-Watch (it must be one of their only positive endorsements).
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Postby doormat » Sun Jun 19, 2005 11:41 am

No, stews. If Kofi had said "You're a bunch of single-issue fanatics desperatly trying to influence the UN under a guise of monitoring it," he would have been demonstrating a bias against israel. Anyone who does anything the Israel govenment don't like, or doesn't like anything the Isreali govenment does is demonstrating a bias against israel. So far the've resisted the urge to compare it to the holocaust or declare that everyone in the UN is antisemitic, which is a step in the right direction I suppose.

This whole debate is a joke. These days, when a news story starts with "Jewish/Isreali groups have described X as biased/antisemitic" I tend not to be too worried. Just about everything and everyone seems to be. :roll:
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Postby Curiosity » Sun Jun 19, 2005 12:44 pm

doormat: That's what the world says. And then Le Monde, the biggest newspaper in France (a supposedly civilised Western nation) is found GUILTY in a French Court of "'RACIST DEFAMATION' AGAINST ISRAEL AND THE JEWS".
Wow, the biggest newspaper in France can be found guilty of that, but anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic feeling doesn't exist...right?
You want to know why that story got virtually no coverage here?
I've looked at the article (well, a translation, my French is poor) and it's virtually indistinguishable from the bile that the Guardian and others spew.

It's funny when anti-Israel people claim anti-Israel bias doesn't exist, because they are the ones who not only don't notice it, but also propagate it. All I have to do is remember just how INCREDIBLY IGNORANT you were about modern Israeli history and the whole root of the current problems. Then I can comfortably dismiss your idiotic views without any qualms.

But pretend it doesn't exist. That's what they did all over Europe in the 1930's. They pretended it wasn't there. It worked well, I thought.

Stews: I notice you skipped the whole part about how the UN contradicts what you say about it through its very own actions. You skipped that bit, because you're wrong.

Curiosity wrote:In the name of all that is holy, READ HIS MANDATE! He's supposed to be organising help to starving countries and you idiots are sitting around going the UN doesn't have the mandate to do what it's told him to do and what it already does. Idiots. None of you have a fucking clue about the UN mandate, you seemt to interpret it however the fuck you want, even if the UN's actual actions don't fit your skewed interpretations. The UN deploys peacekeepers in single countries to deal with national problems (see: Haiti). It organises food supplies to individual countries (even if this is being neglectfully co-ordinated). It's either incredible arrogance or incredible ignoring-of-the-facts and ignorance. Or lying. You're sitting there with your fingers in your ears singing 'the UN doesn't deal with that' over and over, ignoring the fact that the UN is doing the precise thing you are saying it doesn't do at the precise moment you're saying it doesn't do it. It's gotten so endemic, it's silly.
Even when experts who have spent their entire careers involved in international politics and the UN contradict you on the UN mandate, you still forge on claiming that you are the arbiters and experts and obviously everyone else is biased and wrong. This is breathtaking arrogance which makes a horrible combination with the ignorance you have on the issue. I'm sorry, who of you spent their life in international politics and involved with the UN? Sorry, none of you?


And you never responded, except with:

sbm wrote:You still obviously have no clue what the UN is. Maybe it is you who should figure your shit out. We actually read the UN Charter and look at what the UN says it powers and mission are. You apparently think the UN lies about this.



Funny... I showed how you talk bollocks about the UN, how actual UN actions contradict your claims about it, how experts who have spent their career working in international politics disagree with you. And that was your response, essentially, "I'm right, I'm right, You're wrong, You're wrong". Maybe, it's you who have no clue what the UN is. You have an odd, fixed idea which I think is your way of justifying in your mind the unfathomably extreme amount of time it spends on a little situation. Even though the US CONGRESS (who do kind of know a bit about the UN) accuses the UN of victimising Israel and tells it to stop, sbm carries on going, claiming it isn't anti-Israel because it can only deal with that!

You (plural) read the UN Charter? Really? The whole thing? At 19 Chapters and 111 Articles? With who knows how many sub-clauses?

The rest of your responses swing from downright lies:

sbm wrote:It is also interesting to see that you accept that UN-Watch can focus a great deal of its time on Israel


That was after I point out ONE out of TWENTY-EIGHT of their last statements/speeches was on Israel. I never accepted anything of the sort.

To completely baseless assumptions:

sbm wrote:It is also funny how many times I've seen this quote used by UN-Watch (it must be one of their only positive endorsements).


To hiding admissions inside your own statements:

sbm wrote:I mean he can play an important role, (emphasis mine) but he has very little power and almost no resources to work with.


To your usual trick of making your outlook sound like fact:

sbm wrote:You feed people by working with nations to actually get food to them. These statements are for very specific consumption, they are not a major part of his job.


sbm wrote: But I find it interesting you are willing to look at their site, but when we ask you to look at the Special Rapporteur on the right to food website, you say it is irrelevant. The hypocrisy here is simply amazing.


Hmm... So, you accuse UN Watch of being focused on Israel and talking about it more than other things, and I show that it's something they talk about only a tiny amount of the time. I accuse JEAN ZIEGLER of being focused on Israel and you show that the website of HIS DEPARTMENT focuses and talks about other things, because the fact that he focuses and speaks a ridiculous amount on Israel, is indisputable.
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:28 pm

Sorry, I messed up in my last post. I did not mean for it to be addressed to you. I just wanted to comment on some of the things you said. The same will go for this post.

Curiosity wrote:In the name of all that is holy, READ HIS MANDATE! He's supposed to be organising help to starving countries and you idiots are sitting around going the UN doesn't have the mandate to do what it's told him to do and what it already does. Idiots.


Yes, that is his mandate. However that does not give him power to interfere in purely national matters. He cannot overthrow a government because its people are starving. Since this mandate is given to him by the UN, it is limited in the same way the UN's mandate is limited. I actually think you are the only one who doesn't understand this very simple thing, so won't bother going any further.


None of you have a fucking clue about the UN mandate, you seemt to interpret it however the fuck you want, even if the UN's actual actions don't fit your skewed interpretations. The UN deploys peacekeepers in single countries to deal with national problems (see: Haiti).


The UN can act within single nations at the request of that nation. In Haiti they were asked to help keep peace by President Aristide. That was the only way they were able to intervene in that conflict.


It organises food supplies to individual countries (even if this is being neglectfully co-ordinated). It's either incredible arrogance or incredible ignoring-of-the-facts and ignorance. Or lying. You're sitting there with your fingers in your ears singing 'the UN doesn't deal with that' over and over, ignoring the fact that the UN is doing the precise thing you are saying it doesn't do at the precise moment you're saying it doesn't do it. It's gotten so endemic, it's silly.


Again always at the request of the nations in question. . . However many of most serious food problems are in nations where the regime refuses to let the UN do much of anything (see North Korea). So again the UN has no mandate to act on national matters without permission of the state itself (with certain human rights issues a possible exception).

Even when experts who have spent their entire careers involved in international politics and the UN contradict you on the UN mandate, you still forge on claiming that you are the arbiters and experts and obviously everyone else is biased and wrong.


You have yet to cite any of these "expert’s" statements about the UN mandate. And there are a lot of "experts" who are motivated more by political bias than any intellectual drive. Just look at the recent case in the US with Terri Schiavo. A lot of doctors (many doctors turned politicians) made totally erroneous claims about her medical condition, simply for political gain.


Yet again it seems you have fallen flat on your face. No one here is taking you seriously and well you ignorance and now simple stupidity are making you a laughing stock. Personally I am glad you have fallen so far. It means I have to spend much less time correcting you, as the errors in your arguments are now generally abundantly clear to anyone who reads them. :)

*since you like spelling corrections: it’s “organizes” and “coordinate” (not that I think it matters much)
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Postby Deepsmeg » Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:54 pm

No, it's organises.
With an S, not a zed.
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 5:06 pm

Only if you are a crazy Brit who can't speak proper English. ;)

But "organize" is actually the more correct form (from the Latin, "organizare").
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Postby Curiosity » Sun Jun 19, 2005 6:34 pm

You are the most arrogant, manipulative shit I have ever met.

And guess what. The Special Rapporteur and UN are requested to work in a lot of those countries I named! :o

So most of the shit you produced in your last post is fucking irrelevant, you gormless turd.

Your whole point about them needing permission is irrelevant, because they have that permission!

So, let's recap, because I notice some backtracking here!
From saying that the UN "can't do things in national situation", you've now backtracked to "wait, they can, with permission". A clear change in view. Now when told they have that permission, I wonder what you will do...


You make unsubstantiated claims that I am somehow ignorant, ignoring the fact that you skip about the place doing all the things I detailed in the last post, from lying, to exaggerating to asserting and all the while claiming to be superior. You aren't.

You are biased and arrogant and think your views are the only way forward and cannot take being told they are wrong at any point. You use outirght lies, baseless assumptions, false assertions and a whole variety of other tactics to manipulate the argument. I know why you said dislike MUN, BECAUSE YOUR BULLSHIT WOULD NEVER STAND UP in a face to face situation.

You see yourself as having to protect the UN at all costs, but have not a shred of loyalty to your own country and government. You are a pathetic excuse for an "American".

sbm wrote:Yes, that is his mandate. However that does not give him power to interfere in purely national matters.


And later you acknowledge he can "interfere" with permission! Permission he HAS from many nations!
So WHAT THE FUCK is your point?!

You are such an unbelievable, arrogant, ignorant, shit. It's phenomenal. You want experts, but you have already derided them as being 'biased' before I even produce them! So what the fuck good would producing them do?

According to you, everyone who does not share your views is 'biased', 'ignorant' and a whole variety of other things. Do you see yourself as some sort of omniscient, unbiased being with no-point-of-view?

Because, you DO have a point of view. You are a typical liberal. You hate the US government, you love the UN, you pretend you like Israel then call its actions "illegal" and "immoral", thinking that your acknowledgement of it's right to exist is "support", you hate the Iraq war. You are packed full of your own biases and agendas, ones shared by many Europeans. Unfortunately, that is the make-up of much of this forum, which is why you think you come out on top. WOW! You convinced an audience who mostly share your views, presumptions and biases that those views, preumptions and biases were right! Good job! If this played out in a conservative American forum with people who shared my views, you would be a laughing-stock and renounced as the biased liberal you are. It's all a matter of location.

And I have not corrected your spelling in this topic, except to correct 'incindiary' and only because I wanted to use the word. Even then I did not think your spelling warranted a whole new paragraph, even though I've noted a fair few mistakes other than that. I've stayed quiet... And then you have the gall to call me out on "co-operate" and "organise". Wow! A word which doesn't have a hyphen and a word which I spelt correctly according to English standards. There is no level of "more correct" in spelling, it's either right or wrong. If checked in any English (as in England, as in ENGLish) dictionary, I spelt "organise" correctly. You spell words incorrectly as a matter of course, and cannot even defend them as being the "American" spelling, because they are wrong in both places (like 'incindiary').

And just to knock you off your high and mighty 'I'm never wrong' horse, let me go back to a thread a while ago in which you claimed "Under 1 million abortions have taken place in the world."

I refuted this with statistics that showed 42 MILLION have taken place in the US alone.

You wriggled out of that one, somehow. Being proved utterly wrong didn't stop you squirming out, because you will never ever be proven wrong in your eyes. I think you said you were only talking about surgical abortions.

Well, guess what, there are 1.35 MILLION SURGICAL ABORTIONS EACH YEAR IN THE US. (There are also over 9 million chemical abortions, but you seemed to want to leave those out.)

That puts a bit of a damper on your "less than a million in the world, ever" claim, does it not?

Yes that's right, there are more proper SURGICAL abortions EACH YEAR in THE USA, than you claimed there were IN THE WORLD, EVER.


Wriggle out of that one, squirmy.

Will he be a man and admit he's not always right and doesn't always check his facts? How will sbm squirm out of this one? Stay tuned, for the next edition of...
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:35 pm

I actually used the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is English. . .

Making a statement about something and acting on something are two totally seperate things. The major falacy here is that Curiosity is equating making statements and acting. If you actually look at what the UN is doing as opposed to what this guy is saying you will find there is in fact no basis for the claim of a bias in this case. Yes, this one guy has made a few more statements about Israel than he as about anything else, but he has made very few statements overall. Obviously these statements are not a hugely important part of his job.

I have no clue what abortions have to do with topic, so don't ask me. . .
Last edited by Stewsburntmonkey on Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby doormat » Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:36 pm

It's been a while stews, but I'm pretty sure it's organum. "Organizare" is modern italian. :lol:

I find Curios pro-numerical accuracy bias discusting. He dedicated the entire second half of that post to numerical accuracy - and totaly ignored all the other forms of accuracy, like gramatical and factual. This is indicative of a larger problem in Curo's entire conduct, and we should establish a dedicated and well-funded body to monitor Curio for this bias in future. What, you think I'm over-reacting? Nonsense. While I'm at it, did that holy beardy guy in that Mel Gibson movie look a little numericaly accurate to you? It's discusting! It shames the world and offends all numericaly inaccurate people. Ban This Filth Now!
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:41 pm

"organizare" is Medieval Latin, but yes it is derived from "organum". However since "organum" doesn't have an 's' or a 'z' in it, it wasn't very helpful for the spelling issue at hand. :)
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Postby Curiosity » Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:48 pm

Stewsburntmonkey wrote:I actually used the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is English. . .


Hmm, the OED does say 'organize'. dictionary.com does describe 'organise' as a British variant, though, so it's still right. In this country, as Deepsmeg attested, most people will use 'organise'.

Stewsburntmonkey wrote: If you actually look at what the UN is doing as opposed to what this guy is saying you will find there is in fact no basis for the claim of a bias in this case.


Except we weren't looking at what the UN was doing, we were looking at Jean Ziegler.

Stewsburntmonkey wrote:Yes, this one guy has made a few more statements about Israel than he as about anything else, but he has made very few statements overall.


He's made over 30 on food problems in the territories...

sbm wrote:I have no clue what abortions have to do with topic, so don't ask me. . .


I was just proving that contrary to what you claim about always checking your facts, you don't, and you can be proven comprehensively wrong. Shame you couldn't be a man and admit it.

Oh and doormat, in complaining about "gramatical [sic]" accuracy, in what seemed like a rather odd tangent, you let your "spelling" accuracy go down the tubes. It's "grammatical" and "disgusting", not "gramatical" and "discusting".
Funnily enough, you make fun of anti-Israel bias like it can't exist. The US Congress says it exists, Kofi Annan himself has said it exists*. But doormat is so confident that it doesn't exist, he thinks he can make fun of it like it's some sort of impossibility.


*Kofi Annan: "One way to write a new chapter would be to rectify an anomaly: Israel's position as the only Member State that is not a member of one of the regional groups, which means it has no chance of being elected to serve on main organs such as the Security Council or the Economic and Social Council. This anomaly should be corrected. We must uphold the principle of equality among all United Nations Member States."
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Postby Stewsburntmonkey » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:08 pm

I am going to point out the title of this topic is "UN Bias Hurts The World". It's not "Jean Ziegler has made more statements about Israel than any other country". Curiosity continues to say that the UN is not the issue, but he himself is the one that made it the issue. He has also failed to provide any evidence that the fact Jean Ziegler has made more statements about Israel than any other nation has in any way hurt the world.


I am not interested in going any further with the abortion thing, as it seems so silly to bring up something that is so old and so irrelevant in this topic. But I just want to make some things clear.

The reason I gave my initial figure was that someone said millions of children have died because of abortions (or something to that effect).

Therefore I limited my abortion figures to those abortions that could be (in my eyes) seen as killing a life. And I didn't not make up those figures, I took them from an academic survey of worldwide abortions.

Technically every egg that is not fertilized is a lost life, so is that an abortion? There is no universal definition of abortion, so the figures vary widely. However Curiosity's figures suggest that more than 70% of pregnancies in the US are terminated in abortions. I think most people will see how exaggerated that figure seems.


As for Le Monde being racist, I would just say it was an opinion piece not written by Le Monde journalists and that the court's ruling was based not on the fact that the article was harshly critical of Israel, but that it equated Israel with the Jewish people as a whole (which there is a specific law in France forbidding).

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