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Did anyone else see Janet Street-Porter's "expose" on documentary king Michael Moore earlier this week on Sky? I thought this was the biggest load of old tosh on that channel since the "lovely" Julie Burchill stuck up for Britain's chavs months back.

The whole show was a blatant excuse to ridicule & put-down Michael Moore as many times as JSP could in an hour. She insinuated that Moore was a hypocrite; saying that he claims to have fought for "the little people" all his career but now he's a multi-millionaire celebrity he doesn't want to deal with people with problems unless it's in front of a camera.

Janet kept getting in sly digs about Moore's appearance & weight throughout the show, which was not only totally irrelevent, but let's face it, Ms. Street-Porter is well-known as a 50-something lady who tries to dress like she's in her early 20's, & has a face like the back end of a Blackpool tram (or an Amsterdam one!). People who live in glass houses, my love...

Despite all her digs about Michael Moore's fame going to his head, I found it ironic & laughable to say the least that when the Michigan DJ introduced JSP as "one of the most famous people in Britain", she just sat there smirking & didn't correct him. She'll be lucky if half the viewers who tuned into 'Michael Moore & Me' knew who she was before they watched the doc.

Also, Janet's pathetic attempts to track down Michael for an interview just irritated me more than anything. Notice how she showed up at his country home & got all annoyed because she was shouting for him & noone appeared. But the daft mare only stood at the gate to the drive-way (which WAS open), so why the heck didn't she walk all the way to his front door, esp. knowing a vehicle was parked further down the drive?

As for my opinions on MM, perhaps some of what JSP was trying to say about him was true, & that possibly he has made one or two mistakes & offended some people in his career. But the man made my favourite doc of all time 'Bowling For Columbine' , which helped certain supermarket chains in America to stop selling gun ammo, he turned up to the pomposity-fest that is the Academy Awards in a cap & scruffy t-shirt, & he is against the evil dictator George W. Bush, so he's alright in my book! Long live Mr. Moore is what I say, & I'm looking forward to 'Fahrenheit 9-11 & A Half' when it comes out.

Janet Street-Porter should stick to what she's good at. Unfortunately I don't know what the hell that is.

Michael Moore is everything wrong with liberals... just like Bush is everything wrong with the other side of the fence. His so called documentaries are not truly documentaries and hardly unbiased. Shrug. To each his own.

Stygian23 wrote:Michael Moore is everything wrong with liberals... just like Bush is everything wrong with the other side of the fence. His so called documentaries are not truly documentaries and hardly unbiased. Shrug. To each his own.

I don't think Moore would ever say that his documentaries are meant to be unbiased. But he has done a lot of good in his work & people just seem to forget about that.

Besides, my original point was how utterly cretinous the JSP/Sky doc was, regardless of what you think about MM himself.

True, but your opinion of how cretinous they were would be tainted by your view of Moore would it not? Personally, I don't find it so cretinous, especially after the tactics Moore uses in his own films.

I'm not getting into a "Michael Moore: Great Or Not?" debate here, I've seen enough of them of different forums over the years & they're tedious, quite frankly.

All I'll say on the matter is that Moore has done much good for others, & Street-Porter is an old baggage. Oh yeah, & the Sky documentary was BEYOND cretinous.

Wasn't planning on arguing anything. I was just pointing out that our own biases would effect how we felt about Sky's tactics. We also have very different cultural biases for our opinions on MM. Europeans tend to be anti-gun (though I don't understand why, as it was gun ownership that gave Germany's subjugated nations an ability to actively rebel against Hitler), while Americans (though this is changing) tend to be more gun rights oriented. I am a strong supporter of gun rights. It isn't guns that are the problem, but the intent of the owners. Kids wouldn't be able to use their parent's weapons if their parents exercised proper handling of the weapons and put trigger locks on the guns. Making guns illegal won't stop criminals from getting them... let me just leave you with the words of one of history's illuminaries:

Thomas Jefferson wrote:Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

BTW, JSB,is that your ride in that avatar? What type of vehicle is that?

Guns should just be banned full-stop. I don't give a damn about any country's history regarding them, I'd just like there to be no more guns, regardless of whether parents set the trigger-locks or not.

The car in my avatar is the Lotus 7, as seen driven by Patrick McGoohan in 'The Prisoner'. I think the only place (in the UK, anyway) that still sells replica vehicles is Caterham Cars...

I completely fail to understand the American obsession with guns. Tens of thousands of Americans are shot and killed by other Americans every year, a level matched elsewhere in the world only in active warzones. In the US you are 300 times more likely to be murdered than in Britain. I, for one, would not feel safer with a gun in my car if all the other drivers around me were also armed and any one of them might be a psychopath or just having a bad day.

I didn’t see the Sky documentary but I’m sure Michael Moore is less than perfect. Nevertheless, he makes many good points that are rarely expressed in modern America. If somebody more angelic stood up and said the sort of stuff that he says then he would become irrelevant. In the meantime, I’m glad he’s around.

Oh, and The Prisoner was cool too. It still works some 30 years or so after it was made. I’ll have half-a-dozen of the other please…

That is the same kind of reasoning that made cannabis illegal. Everything in this world has the possibility of being dangerous. Proper education prevents that. And those people that are going to use a gun ina crime will do so if guns are illegal or not. Most of those gun deaths are gang related, using automatic weapons (which are totally illegal and normal citizens cannot get). The number of accidental shootings is much much lower. Less than deaths by alcohol a year, or car accidents. In order for someone to get a gun they have to go through a background check, have their gun registered, and get permits (for handguns). Criminals don't do this. They don't have to they get their guns from the same place they get their drugs (another illegal thing). To suddenly tell a few million people they can no longer go hunting (which some people still rely on for food), or to the range to shoot with their friends and family, just because some people (who have evil intents already) cannot be trusted with weapons is ridiculous. For one, as I said the criminals can still get the guns. For another, why should I be told I can't own or use a gun because less than 10% of the populace might use it to harm someone? That is how they keep cannabis illegal too, btw. They latch on to one aspect and then blow it out of proportion. Converting 50% of the population into criminals because 10% might become addicts (and they aren't addicted physically, just mentally because of their personality types), or claiming that it is dangerous to the health of children so it should be illegal (nevermind coffee can stunt kid's growth, or that kids start binge drinking at like 16 in the states), or that if you smoke and drive you could cause an accident (yet again you can still drink...). The answer isn't abolition or prohibition, we have proven that doesn't work in so many different ways already. The answer is proper education and registration of guns. But again. Cultural bias, personal bias. To each his own.

Ben Franklin wrote:They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Lemming wrote:
I didn’t see the Sky documentary but I’m sure Michael Moore is less than perfect. Nevertheless, he makes many good points that are rarely expressed in modern America. If somebody more angelic stood up and said the sort of stuff that he says then he would become irrelevant. In the meantime, I’m glad he’s around.

Oh, and The Prisoner was cool too. It still works some 30 years or so after it was made. I’ll have half-a-dozen of the other please…

Nice one, Lemming. Finally, someone who has said something fair & sensible about Michael Moore.

You heard about the probable Sky/Granada remake of 'The Prisoner', Lemming? If you haven't, click on this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainmen ... 447216.stm

By the way Stygian, I may be in a minority here, but I'm glad cannabis has remained illegal. Imagine the taxes on it if it wasn't, & let's be honest: most of us don't have to buy "streetcrap" off the local gangster anymore, if you have the internet & a few good contacts, there are plenty of legit suppliers of good-quality green out there, where you can buy safely & without fear of the law.

Though I have heard that getting weed sent into the States is bloody difficult nowadays (depending on what state you're living in, of course), so I don't blame you for believing that it should be legalised over there...

It's pretty much legal in Amsterdam and the taxes don't break anyone's back. In fact, the weed in amsterdam is like 50% to 60% cheaper than the same quality weed here in America. Besides, I would rather pay a tax then have to get arrested if I am caught with the stuff, risk losing my job if I get drug tested, or losing my house if I decided to grow. I dunno... that's just me.

Here's another American that's going to chime in. Stygian, I agree with everything you said, except registration of guns. That's what the Brady gang wants to do. First, registration, then confiscation. Any state in American that is a right to carry state has less violent crime then those states that don't. Just look at the District of Columbia, they have the strictest guns laws, but also the highest crime rate. Why? Because they can't protect themselves from the thugs that have guns. I was brought up on guns, so were my kids. We respect what a gun can do and don't take it lightly. One last point. How come Countries that outlaw guns, (UK, Australian) to name a few, all of a sudden crime goes UP, not down. Go figure! AzLaker

JSB I have usually liked all your post on here but this time you blew it with the statement about it remaining illegal and the statement that most don't have to buy street crap if you know of so many SAFE and RELIABLE places to get high quality cannabis on line then please share with all the suffering and dying world wide who do not know and I guess the ones with no internet access are just plain out of luck.
It must be nice to live such a privileged life and have no clue that others suffer needlessly and have to live in the real world.
If people on here have not learned from my other posts I am one of the biggest believers of legalizing cannabis really for everyone but especially for the SICK, SUFFERING, and DYING I have witnessed it to much and am not so naive that I can not do the math world wide and we are talking tens of millions every day all NEEDLESSLY because people just do not care enough to do anything about it.
Maybe I am sounding harsh but I am in this number and though I am in a state that allows cannabis my mother is on the other side of the country and was just diagnosed a few days ago with the worst type of cancer that a female can get and in her state cannabis is totally illegal and she will not even allow me to send her any for the suffering that will be coming soon enough because of the fear of losing her house and spending the remainder of her days in a prison hospital ward so yes I am upset and pissed off because it IS EVERYONE ON THIS PLANETS ATTITUDE THAT ALLOWS THIS CRAP TO GO ON.

Remember that the next time you (and everyone else who reads this) are sitting there having a real good time firing it up that others at that same moment somewhere are in pain and suffering and that YOUR TAXES and YOUR SILENCE are supporting every bit of this atrocity.

KEEP TREATING IT LIKE A GAME PEOPLE YOU COULD BE NEXT !

Sorry to hear about your Mom. Our thoughts are with you. Is it possible to bring your Mom to Alaska and stay with you? Your right, millions are dying and thrown into jail everyday, just for a plant. AzLaker

thank you AzLaker.


she is going to stay in NC her home is not very far from Duke University and the Cancer Center there and that place will give her a better chance of survival than what she would have up here they do have some of the best doctors even if there laws are so damn backwards.