Hey, could be. It's not like Western Europe has a long history or anything.

Okay, that's just hilarious. And it's used consistently throughout, so it's not like it was just a quick, careless mistake in the intro.

I hope someone is saving that page as-is.

Yeah I was thinking of doing just that, taz, next time someone wants to come up with the "Fox News is no worse than anyone else!" line.

they must do it on purpose. i always hope we have a mole in their midst.

the world's gone retarded again, like they never heard of the weathermen or terrorists before, eeejits

It's kind of like whatever the opposite of political correctness is.

as in
bullshit?
let's get congress or the daily show to budget in copies of "on bullshit" to them
it's a skinny book with big typeface
like a children's book for washington

oy, it's too late, i'm lighting a cigarette
irk me some more

not new. unfortunately, this has been tried previously when describing Palestinian bombers. I think it came into vogue about 2 years ago.

fuck fashion
see how they dress?

not new. unfortunately, this has been tried previously when describing Palestinian bombers. I think it came into vogue about 2 years ago.

I had heard that, but this is just such of a fantastic example of why it's a stupid thing to do. In this case, they have actually produced a completely inaccurate, nonsensical report just so they could throw this phrase around. In order to further their political agenda, they have deliberately misreported the news. One assumes that news reports are meant to be read literally. If you read this literally, you would get the impression that this is the first time a murder has been committed in Western Europe. In order to understand the actual news they're trying to report, you have to also understand Fox's political agenda and past use of this phrase. If you didn't already understand that, you wouldn't understand the news item. It goes beyond bad journalism, into the realm of anti-journalism.

Would kamikaze flights in WWII have ever been described as "homicide attacks"? The public would have wondered what the fuck the newsreel was on about if they had. It's completely illogical.

Pushing an agenda and attempting to shape opinion are complaints commonly levelled at Fox News. This is the most blatant example I've ever seen of those causes destroying the actual news reporting in the process.

Ah. So it's on purpose, then? I thought it was just an incredibly stupid mistake. So they really are saying that there have been no bombs that have killed anybody, ever in Western Europe, including or excluding the bomber. Wow.

On preview, what you said, JimBob. Wow.

It's pretty freaky, but I used to live two streets away from where one of the bombers lived. 1 minutes walk away Max.

they must do it on purpose. i always hope we have a mole in their midst.

No no no no no. And Ann Coulter is not pulling some kind of Andy Kaufman prank either.

I blame the liberal media

I emailed them.

"I'd like to correct a factual error in this story. These were not "the first homicide attacks in Western Europe". Homicide attacks are attacks which involve homicide. That's why they're called "homicide attacks". We have had them before in Western Europe. A lot of them.

I would hope this was a typo, but the term is used throughout the article. If it was deliberate, it betrays the incredible stupidity and/or malevolence of your staff, and a desire to be anything but fair and balanced on even the most basic of factual points."

I SHALL CHANGE THEIR POLICY FOREVAR. Actually, the last time I emailed NewsCorp, I told them to correct the title of their homepage from saying "News Corpoaration", which it had done for months. They did so, but didn't reply.

Okay, I've already commented here, but it really does take my breath away that such moronity could be embraced in aid of force-feeding a bit of hopelessly mangled linguistic propaganda.

As if the term "suicide bomber" somehow makes us all go, "Huh? Suicide bombing? Kewl! These guys rock!".

Freaks.

P_G, I'm sure you'll get a card at Christmas. It will say "Joayeux Noael".

maybe because giving your life for a cause is often seen as brave so they want to downplay that part of the act? *shrugs* stupid, whatever the reason.

I do get that, but what simplistic mind automatically equates "brave" with "good", or "right"? It might take some bravery for me to jump from the top of a 20-story building, but how does that make it not a suicide? How could it be interpreted as an admirable thing?

Unless of course I left note saying that FOX News drove me to it. Then that would rock.

I seem to recall the 9/11 victims being referred to over and over in the media as "heroes" -- and I'm not just talking about the fallen emergency response crews.

And wasn't the second thread on MeCha have a title that referred to the London bombers as "cowards"?

This kind of watering down of the language, to mean whatever we want it to mean, is not new. There are a lot of those simple minds out there, taz. Hell, most brands of nationalism emphasize that the enemy (or even economic competitor) must be inferior, if not in one way, then in all ways. And editing out the bomber in a suicide attack is the last stage of rendering the person not human at all.

I blame the liberal media -- matteo

Yeah! Those lily livered, atheist, commie loving bastards! (I was going to insert some McCarthy quote here...but my keyboard tried to crawl off my desk when I tried to copy said quote...)

This news story is absurd. I remember when they tried to do this with the Palestine bombers too. Honestly, it's like they believe their own 1984 style rhetoric and think they can pass doublespeak off as "truth". Doubleplus ungood, indeed.

I recommend Collateral Language: A User's Guide to America's New War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Speyk

"On February 5, 1831, a gale caused his boat to drift into the quay at the port of Antwerp. Belgians stormed the boat and demanded Van Speyk take the Dutch flag down. Rather than doing so, he fired a pistol (some versions say he threw a lit cigar — few firsthand witness accounts survive) into a barrel of gunpowder while saying "Dan liever de lucht in" (which translates very freely as, "I'd sooner blow myself up"). The total number of casualties he caused remains unknown: possibly tens of people."