The journalist, who, like a hypnotised chicken, was transfixed by the ‘canned boredom’ / cynically choreographed snuff theatre of Big Brother, and purported to detect therein the rumblings of the Zeitgeist, has popped up again with his case against Noam Chomsky. The charge, which I have alluded to in another post, is that Chomsky has belatedly started referring to Iraqi opinion having previously shown no interest in it. Now although this is false, in a way that requires not hours of patient labour in the British Library but a few nanoseconds with Google, there is a more elementary point:
The question he doesn’t even see fit to broach is: since when has reliable and detailed information on Iraqi public opinion been available? A curious omission that, since it’s a question that might potentially have rendered his charges meaningless and saved him the trouble of missing some quality TV. Anyway, I’ve emailed him with the query and will let you know when/ if he responds. [update; 14th/ 8. No reply - he's either ignorant, wrong or, very possibly, both].