BBC Question Time on 9/11

Here is the BBC Question Time about 9/11 (aired September 13, 2001) :

You may have heard mention of it or seen it at the time. It is … interesting. The BBC director general at the time said of it :

 he “would like to apologise to the viewers who were offended by it”.

He added that it was an inappropriate programme to broadcast live just two days after the suicide attacks on America, and should have been recorded and edited.
…
The BBC’s Media Correspondent, Nick Higham, said there was a recognition in the corporation that the audience could have been more representative of wider opinion.

Besides the shouting and jeering from the audience, there are a few points I’d like to highlight. Note the number of people (including the panelists) who attribute their own hobbyhorse as the cause of 9/11. Also, note some curious rhetorical techniques on display.

At about 21:29 (in the first clip), a guy says American & British aircraft flying over the skies of Iraq and Yugoslavia have done so in defense of Kurds, Iraqi Shia and muslims in Kosovo and is promptly jeered and shouted down. The counter arguments seems to be “You have no idea!”,  the idea that the only acceptable way to frame it is as killing muslims and that asserting things repeatedly makes it true.

At about 21:25 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says to applause “I have been stunned by the way Americans are so shocked at how many people really truly detest them around the world.”

Speaking for myself, I don’t care if someone detests Americans. Oh, imagine the burden it must be to forever be wondering who a majority of Namibians consider to be their Super-Best-Friend-Forever. Treating global politics like high school cliques really doesn’t seem like the best way to determine policies.

Below the fold is parts 2 & 3 of the video and a transcript.

#ProTip for Following the GOP Primaries

I find the GOP debates & endless caucus coverage marginally more bearable if I turn down the volume and use the Benny Hill theme song as a soundtrack instead. Here’s a 10-hour loop (!) which might come in handy as Super Tuesday looms…

N.B. Works equally well as an accompaniment to Australian Parliamentary Question Time coverage.

So which one?

Which Republican presidential nominee?

Having just spent an hour or so watching the New Hampshire GOP Republican debate, having gleaned various tidbits over the internet since a while back, I can honestly say I don’t know.

Yet.

In comments at that link, Ron Paul’s supporters come across as a tad too fervent, as does Paul himself. He just comes across as a bit whiney. Quick to complain about a problem but a bit wishy washy with any solutions.

Romney arguably won, but he comes off as Obama-lite+religion. He’s big government but I will say he’s tending to own his opponents. He does look presidential and has the establishment’s backing… not necessarily a good thing when up against Obama who REALLY has the Establishment’s backing and REALLY (at least) talks presidential (except here where he sounds about as formidable as Julia Gillard).

Romney won Iowa – at least according to the AP and WaPo

 

If you get your news from any American paper that subscribes to the Associated Press feed (such as the Washington Post), you might be thinking right about now that the Team Elephant presidential primaries have resolved into a two-man race: “front runner” Mitt “Presidential Hair” Romney, and Rick “Bomb the shit out of Iran!” Santorum.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won most of the delegates in the Iowa Republican caucuses, edging former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Romney won a projected 13 delegates and Santorum won 12. Texas Rep. Ron Paul was shut out.

Wow, it doesn’t get any clearer than that. It looks like Dr. Paul and the remaining warm bodies still running are shit outta luck.

Just one problem: it’s a complete lie.

The fact is, Romney and Santorum TIED Ron Paul with seven delegates each. Newt Gingrich and Governor Perry Gardacil are still alive with two delegates each.

So why do you suppose that the AP and WaPo are reporting factual untruth? I mean, aside from the fact that Big Media (the BM for short) generally tends to side with Big Government politicians?

I’ll leave that to you to decide. My opinion is that it is part of an intentional push to eliminate the “anti-Romney” candidates who actually stand a chance of beating “The Hair”. “The Warhead” doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this or any other election, so he’s safe (from the perspective of the Elephant elites) to leave in the race.

The BM doesn’t just report on the presidential races. It influences them as well. On purpose.

Self-inflicted wound

And here I was worried that the media, the Team Elephant establishment, and the other GOP candidates were going to take down Ron Paul. It appears he’s pretty good at it himself.

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Ron Paul is taking “no comment” to a whole new level.

The Republican presidential candidate walked out on a CNN interview Wednesday following a heated discussion over racist newsletters that were sent out in his name more than two decades ago.

The usually mild-mannered, Texas congressman – who’s leading in some Iowa polls – became irked when network reporter Gloria Borger pressed Paul about the newsletters.

Paul said he was sick of being “pestered” by reporters about the issue.

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*face palm*

He can’t seriously believe that he can withstand allegations of racism and bigotry by running away, can he? I admire the guy, to be sure, but even I have issues with the way he handled this.

*sigh* I guess I’d better get used to the term “President Romney” in 2013.

And it begins…

The pattern has been played out over and over. A potential Team Elephant presidential candidate starts to rise in the polls. A bulls-eye is affixed to that candidate. A combination of Republican elites, their allies in the punditocracy, and Big Media (the BM for short), which simply can’t help itself when an opportunity to dump on a Republican presents itself, begin hammering on any and all perceived defects of said candidate. Next thing you know, the new frontrunner is cast on the scrap heap, either to quit (like Herman Cain) or to flounder haplessly trying to regain momentum (like Michele Bachmann and Governor Perry Gardasil).

Now that Newt Gingrich is dropping faster than shares in Freddie Mac, Ron Paul has surged into a virtual tie and perhaps even the lead in Iowa.

That’s bad.

“Vulture, WTF? I though you were a Paul guy.” I am. Which is why I’m dreading what awaits. A decent and honorable man is about to be dragged through the slime, called everything but a child of God, and accused of all sorts of thought crimes ranging from racism to anti-Americanism.

Think I’m kidding. The threats have already started from the faux conservative media.

The establishment Elephants will NOT tolerate any attempt by the American people to choose a candidate other than Mitt Romney (and his presidential hair). They don’t care who they wreck in the process.

And we wonder why we have the caliber of candidates we have. Only the bravest, the most foolish, or the most power-mad need apply. Decent people need not apply.

The fix is in

During the 2008 presidential election cycle, I wrote over 60 posts — including extensive analysis of the primaries and conventions — at my personal blog, The Vulture Lurks (recommended by 4 out of 5 curmudgeons). So far this election cycle I’ve written a handful of minor posts. Why the drop-off? That’s easy. This isn’t an election we’re witnessing. It’s a coronation, at least on the Team Elephant side of the ledger.

Why would I call it a coronation? How could I call it a coronation when there is no clear front-runner and the first primary hasn’t even occurred yet? Follow along as I read the tea leaves.

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Conservative media: Fox News (“fair” and “balanced”) is in the tank for Romney. Big time. Some of Fox’s so-called analysts are so far up Romney’s butt that they taste his lunch mere seconds after he does.

Fox has proclaimed Romney winner of nearly all of the debates. Yet after one of the debates, Michele Bachmann surged into the lead in the polls. After another, it was Herman Cain. After yet another, it was Newt Gingrich. You should be getting the idea by now. No matter Romney’s showing, he’s the winner.

Every time Fox gets on the subject of the “Primary front runners”, Romney’s name is first on their lips. No matter where he is in the latest polling, first, second, even FOURTH, he is always “a front runner”. Meanwhile, if he is first or second, NO ONE beyond second place gets a mention. Hell, when he was in fourth place in an Iowa poll recently, the candidate ahead of him, Ron Paul, was omitted from mention in the front runners discussion. But not Mitt.

Talk radio isn’t quite as blatant; in fact, many talk show hosts are reluctant to be seen as endorsing anyone, such is the general distaste for Romney among the listening public. But almost without fail, all talk show hosts assert that no matter who the Republican nominee is, no matter how much they might deviate from conservative principles, we HAVE TO vote for them – ANYONE but Obama. Never mind that a vote for Romney is a vote for “Obama-lite”. You gotta do it!

Columnists of various stripes have wandered hither and yon regarding Romney. But two powerhouse conservative pundits have lined up foursquare behind him: Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer. Both of these two alleged conservatives have shelved principle and gone with “electable” as be-all/end-all for their candidate. Never mind that it was said of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that he was unelectable. This is different.

Bang the war drums: Every candidate still in the race, with the exception of Ron Paul, is obsessed with proving their warrior bona fides. “I would go to war with Iran NOW!”, one after another will thunder. The audience (God help us!) eats that shit up. It would appear that so-called conservatives have bought into the propaganda that never-ending pre-emptive war is “defense”. Again, God help us!

One is left in amazement that a candidate can spew vitriol with regards to all of the wasteful spending in Washington, and yet opine that the military, estimated to hit around $1.4 TRILLION in spending in 2012, needs to be beefed up. We’re drowning in debt, but without war-without-end and the trillions of dollars it requires, we’re going to be overrun by cave-dwelling terrorists, and conquered.

The military-industrial complex lives and thrives.

The Team Elephant elite: They’ve made it clear for over a year – Romney is their guy. I suppose they’d settle for Gingrich in a pinch (much as they settled for McCommie last cycle, when Rudy Giuliani was their preference). But they’re adamant. It WILL be Romney or an equally conviction-free statist. Period.

Do you really think the attacks on Governor Perry Gardacil, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann happened because Big Media (the BM for short) hates “real” conservatives and wanted to destroy them? Those attacks were friendly fire. Those attacks were orchestrated. Don’t be surprised if Newt succumbs to something similar to what happened to Cain between now and mid-January.

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“Okay, Vulture. You believe there’s a coronation afoot. What do you say we do about it, smart guy?”

What CAN we do? Truthfully, we in the West have gone so far down the slippery slope to ruin that I don’t think it matters any more who we elect.We might crash and burn and start to recover sooner with one candidate over another.

But crash and burn we shall.

Warmenists dine out on plastic turkey

…an incident in Australia earlier this month when university researchers were rushed to a secure location after receiving death threats.

D’ya want a turkey roll with that, Mistah Meeja?

Labor and Green comment-bombing on the rise? You’re not imagining it. And yet…

The Greens had “Shock & Awe”…

The Greens have launched another strike against the media, calling for volunteers for a rapid-response team to target “shock jock” and “hate campaigns” through talkback and letters to editors.

The call to action echoes Bob Brown’s attack on the “hate press” last week and Twitter jibes at individual journalists from his director of media, Marion Rae.

“The Australian Greens are looking to build a national network of individuals who want to take up the challenge of responding to the misinformation and hate campaigns being waged by radio shock jocks and other sections of the community and media,” says the party in an email.

The party calls the task “critical work”.

Labor has the “Wall of Noise” …

LABOR faithful are being urged to flood airwaves, news websites and letters to the editor sections with a “wall of noise” as part of a propaganda campaign against the Liberal-National Government.

The Sunday Times has obtained emails from Labor state secretary Simon Mead urging party members and supporters to become a “noisemaker” and join the “wall of noise team”.

“We need to be making phone calls to radio stations, posting items on news websites and writing letters to all our newspapers,” Mr Mead told Labor supporters and members in the email sent last month.

He said in another email: “By getting your voice heard you help change the media story from one supporting the government to one that says they are out of touch with the public.”

And yet despite all their smears, their sneers, their jamming and spamming, their outright deceit… their poll numbers say what?

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Unexpectedly, the mainstream media did not expect Obama to end up making such a hash of the American economy…

Aurelius at Pundit Press fingers the MSM for apparently being in a constant state of shock that the completely expected is happening, and that Obama-nomics simply isn’t delivering.

“Whenever poor business, house, or job news comes out, they are quick to throw on the word ‘unexpectedly,’ pretending that the economy is actually doing great, but this one time it hiccuped.”

Unexpectedly.

via iowntheworld.com

Agreed, Jill Singer: the nonsense has to stop

Jill Singer supports a carbon (dioxide!) tax. Unfortunately, she shows a complete ignorance of the real science behind the politics.

THE “debate” over a carbon tax in Australia has become high farce.

Indeed it has. The Left seem to think that taxing the bejesus out of a trace gas will somehow save a planet that doesn’t need saving. Jill and her ilk fail to realise CO2 is only a minor greenhouse gas at that. It makes up only 0.04% of our atmosphere. Most of it is natural. The sceptical side has man-made CO2 at 3% or about 0.001% of our atmosphere. The alarmist side puts man-made CO2 at ten times higher. But so what? That means man-made CO2 would occupy 0.01% of our atmosphere.

There’s no way Man’s small contribution to a minor greenhouse trace gas – yet an essential gas, most of it naturally occurring – can be the main driver of climate. That hypothesis is, to use Jill’s words, a “high farce”.

Read more of this post

Acknowledging the obvious (sort of)

Sometimes something is so apparent that even Big Media (the BM for short) has to acknowledge it. Okay, so in this case it’s ex-BM. But it still stands as acknowledged.

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Several veteran and prize-winning journalists who covered presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush say that the current crop of White House correspondents are too timid and deferential and have played a role in killing the impact of presidential news conferences.

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Unfortunately, what DIDN’T get acknowledged is the lapdog deference the press corp has for Il Duce.  I guess you can’t have everything…

The BM’istas try to create the illusion that the deference shown Il Duce was also extended to King George the Dim.

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“If you watch an Obama news conference, and watched a Bush news conference previous to that, where correspondents sit in their seats with their hands folded on their laps, [it’s] as if they are in the room with a monarch and they have to wait to be recognized by the president,” says Sid Davis, the former NBC Washington bureau chief who covered nine presidents. “It looks like they are watching a funeral service at [Washington funeral firm] Joseph Gawler’s and it shouldn’t be that way.”

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Nothing could be further from the truth. Bush was treated with a hostility previously reserved for Richard Nixon by the BM during his 8 hapless years in office.

I have no love for George Bush. But let’s tell a straight story, shall we? The deference issue is specific to Obama. Period.

It remains to be seen if the White House press corps’ behavior will change [/sarcasm].

The truth is, the only thing that will make the White House press corps return to a position of asking tough questions and being confrontational is a change of president.

Confirmed: The Bolt Report

Bolt Derangement Syndrome sufferers, start your engines… whiiiiine!

Ten has confirmed it will launch a new Sunday morning program, The Bolt Report, hosted by Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt on 8 May.

The Bolt Report will air at 10am, before Meet the Press, Ten’s existing political program which will move to 10.30am.

I hope Andrew Bolt remembers to thank his biggest fans, including Jeremy Sear.  Heh.

UPDATE:  Twitterati react

UPDATE 2:  A boycott?  Really? So much for the Left’s much-vaunted “tolerance”.  Anyway – you want to bet these people will be some of the show’s most avid (read: obsessed) viewers?

UPDATE 3:  I blame Sarah Palin’s Climate of Hate™ – “I have $30,000 in the bank if anyone out there is a professional assassin and can kill Andrew Bolt“

UPDATE 4:  Panic stations! “[W]e are heading into worrying times for the network and the state of news in this country … are diverse opinions welcome at Ten anymore? … are Sunday mornings now the home of Coalition talking points and fringe climate change deniers?”  Oh, this is going to be fun.   Remember your popcorn!

“No Carbon Tax” Rally — Some Twitter Highlights

"Alene Composta was unavailable for comment"

…but there is more “No Carbon Tax” Rally Twitter-snark below the fold, for your reading enjoyment!

Hey Lefties – Got Yer #NewTone Right Here!

From the tolerant open-minded Left who keep lecturing us on the importance of striving for a more civil tone:

UPDATE: To preempt any complaints that I shouldn’t be giving these bile-spewing haters any more oxygen, for the most part I agree.  But in this case, this particular tweet was just the last straw.  Coming up with the most demeaning insult against Miranda Devine seems to be the new sport on Twitter, and there comes a point when these people need exposing.

Whodunnit?

Remember, vote early and vote often.

 

Background…

Channel 7’s Mark Riley Reacts Badly To Accusation That He Still Beats His Wife

Or, as Colonel Robert Neville says, “What’s good for the goose is good for the slander.”

No, really.

Yes, some TEA Party members are black

So who are the real racists?

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president.

“I’ve been told I hate myself. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom. I’ve been told I’m a spook at the door,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

“Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks,” he said.

Johnson and other black conservatives say they were drawn to the tea party movement because of what they consider its commonsense fiscal values of controlled spending, less taxes and smaller government. The fact that they’re black—or that most tea partyers are white—should have nothing to do with it, they say.

Not taking any bets though that the Left will stop their lies and slander.

What’s good to see however, is that there’s a good chance more black Americans could run for office on the GOP ticket. And they won’t be pulling any racial crap, either, because any decent Right-winger worth his salt goes on policies, not any kind of childish racism nonsense.

And let’s face it it, how could Obama have possibly been a post-racial president when 96% of blacks voted for him?

*cross-posted at bing’s cubby house

MoveOn.disorg: “Bush Deficits BAD! Obama Deficits HOPE! CHANGE!”

Just how fucking retarded are the fucktards over at MoveOn.disorganization? Welp, back in 2004 they made up an ad to “speak dipshitese to power” and protest W’s $1 trillion debt. It was supposed to air during the Superbowl, but it was rejected. Thanks to the modern miracle that is YouTube, though, it lives on.

The obvious question is, how will MoveOn.shitforbrains react to Obama’s much larger deficits?

“After building a true budget baseline, the sobering result shows ten-year deficits of $13 trillion. The annual budget deficit never falls below $1 trillion. By 2019, the debt is projected at $22 trillion, or 98 percent of GDP.”

If they haven’t already made the ad up, well, then they are scum-sucking, maggot-out-of-hell, lying hypocrites… but we knew that already, didn’t we?

Thanks to DF over at The Corner for this gem.

Hi-fucking-larious.

US Citizen? Sign the petition against cap n’ trade

If you’re a man-made global warming sceptic, or if you think the science perhaps isn’t settled, or if you are worried about a potential communist world government, or if you are worried about giant non-sovereign world taxes being imposed on all of us, or if you think the governments of this world already have too much power, or even if you’re not convinced yet either way, and don’t want a road paved that there’s no turning back on in just two short weeks, then sign this petition.

SIGN HERE

People literally right now are speaking at Copenhagen presenting the other side to this man-made CO2-driven man-made climate change/global warming argument. They will also be speaking tomorrow. Time is of the essence.

UPDATE

This post differs from the original. It came from watching the latest Monckton videos (the end of Part 4 of which part 1 was posted by 1.6 below), about a GLOBAL problem – but unfortunately only US citizens can sign that petition. Hence, first update removed, replaced with this.

Google vs Rupert

Google CEO tells Rupert, don’t blame us. Maybe the gubnit can help poor Rupey.

Government to “help” newspapers?

The US Free Trade Commission – yes, a wing of governemnt –  is thinking of stepping in to “help” out media companies, namely online newspapers which are having trouble turning a buck, namely ’cause most people don’t bother clicking on the ads. Still, reading the article, it may not be as bad as perhaps first reactions tell you it is – may. It seems a lot of it could be easing off on taxes, anti-trust leislation, and cross-media ownership. And that’s pretty good at first glance.

Of course the dinosaur of the industry, Rupert Murdoch,  thinks online newspapers will die unless people are made to pay.  He reckons readers should cough up the cash because, wait for it, “Good journalism is an expensive commodity.”

Why yes, Rupert, yes it is. And that’s why your papers should remain free. Apart from a few standout journalists here and there, most newspapers, and not just his, are riddled with propaganda, puff pieces, lazy investigative work, and stuff many non-journalists can do quite easily. Take bloggers for example.

Is Rupert jealous? Frustrated? That in many instances, the blogosphere has shown up the MSM? Either way, if all news outlets made us pay, it would spell the end of – or at best a very damaging blow to – blogging.  He realises bloggers feed off the media – for free – quite often, but doesn’t he also realise the media feeds of the blogosphere – for free -, too?

Ariana Huffington isn’t impressed.

“It’s time for traditional media companies to stop whining.”

Ditto.

PS Rupert, why don’t you charge more for the ads? Just like on TV, nobody really wants to look at them. So why do TV ads cost so much, yet online ads at major newspapers don’t comparitively? And besides, you’re not really short of a buck.

From my Death of Blogging post:

“The publisher of The Wall Street Journal, The Australian and Dow Jones Newswires posted a loss of $US203 million ($241m), or US8 cents a share, for the quarter, compared with earnings of $US1.1 billion, or US43c a share, a year ago.

So financial crisis aside, which screwed everyone, and when News Ltd was still providing a ‘free’ online news service, Rupert made 1.1 BILLION dollars… and yet he still wants to charge us! And when many of us work for free for his blogs!

I smell a rat, a rat so big Left-wing bloggers should be concerned, too.

If Murdoch wants to bury his own ‘newspapers’, fine. Actually… no, because it will bury a Golden Era where the public was no longer restricted to but a few news sources but could freely roam the globe thanks to the WWW and see this perspective up against that perspective in ways past generations could only have dreamed of.

And now Murdoch (if his business model is successful and other outlets follow suit [even though other outlets have FAILED already trying so]) wants to ruin that, which will ruin the blogosphere, and most likely, seriously hurt his business.

Mr Murdoch’s comments came as News Corp reported US$680 million in writedowns and other one-off charges largely related to the company’s social networking site, MySpace.
So get rid of MySpace. Facebook kicks its arse anyway.”

Finally, it’s mainstream

With thanks to you know who… and Dave.

Climategate

How’s this? There’s 10.6 MILION hits on google for Climategate, yet still, at best, only faint whispers in our media. Not a peep of it in the Korean media.

Via Andrew Bolt.

Not Evil Just Wrong

Only five days to go. Pay up. Type QUADRANT into the coupon box to get a 10% discount.

Bob Carter:

In contrast to this small (and still hypothetical) risk of damage from human-caused climate change, there exists a certainty that gross socio-economic damage is already resulting from global warming activism, and is set to get worse.

Merv Bendle:

The accelerating moral panic about alleged global warming and its projected catastrophic effects is a fundamentally religious phenomenon. Despite its pretensions, it is not primarily about science. Rather, it represents the emergence of a new religious movement (an NRM, or what used to be called a ‘cult’). This new form of eco-fundamentalism is characterized by a widely excessive faith in science, a hatred and despair at Humanity, an intolerance of opposition or even skepticism, and a near hysterical form of secular Apocalypticism.

The director, Phelim McAleer:

Spain believed the hype about environmental regulation creating “green jobs” and boosting the economy. Now 18 percent of Spaniards have no jobs. Our own country – Ireland – has the Green Party in government who are pushing for a “carbon tax”. This will increase the price of every good and service on an island that is enduring 13 per cent unemployment. The increased costs will drive out jobs during one of the worst recessions in living memory.

A similar fate awaits Australia if it follows Europe’s lead. Eighty percent of Australia’s energy comes from coal, and the country exported $45 billion worth of it last year. Tens of thousands of jobs in the energy sector are at stake if Parliament adopts ETS to cap carbon dioxide.

Oh, and just in case.

UPDATE

David Flint:

In any event …i t is becoming increasingly evident that support for the fundamentalist global warming agenda is soft. Indeed the BBC now concedes there has not been any evidence of global warming since 1998, notwithstanding the increasing amount of carbon emissions. That’s why the fundamentalists are trying to change the name of their secular religion to climate change.

Once the electorate understands the massive impact on their lives of an ETS, and the fact that it won’t affect global carbon emissions [nor global warming, nor climate change – bing], they will obviously reject it. In 1998, the promise of the GST almost brought down the government. This was a far more benign, almost harmless substitute for other taxes including those ones curiously found invalid by the High Court.