The BBC reports: Splendid use of licence tax money again, with news that Nick Robinson is fronting a scaremongering programme dedicated to showing us how we're all doomed. Returning the country to 2006 spending levels, as the Government is only doing, risks taking us back to a time when libraries were forced to open and the dead were left buried. Or not, it seems.... This was drawn to my attention. It's "Have I Got News for you" presented by Chris Addison. BBC R4 "Thought For The Day." (Holocaust Memorial Day 2011) The artist formerly known as Richard Harries is now Lord Harries of Pentrgarth, Gresham Professor of Divinity. I’m sure he’s well meaning. He looks nice in his outfit. Far be it from me to express ingratitude, on behalf of myself and others, for his kindly thoughts about the Jews that perished at the hands of Hitler. Mentioning that the demonisation of Jews was wholly undeserved was much appreciated, as was his sensitive reminder that it led to murder and betrayal, even by former friends colleagues and neighbours. Then he went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid, like....... “so, don’t demonise the Muslims.” Antisemitism is a very light sleeper, indeed. On R4 now. Face the Facts. Islamophobia. I apologise for again posting about Richard Black, but he increasingly personifies all that is wrong with the BBC's climate reporting. Last year, he went against form and posted this item, showing that research - for once, not based on models but actual observations - had illustrated that the Gulf Stream showed no signs of slowing down. This was a big poke in the eye for the alarmists who have repeatedly predicted that the switch-off would trigger ice-melt doom. Their fears were sensationally portrayed in the nonsense catastrophe movie The Day After Tomorrow as well as in the many spoutings of Mr Al Gore. Today, though, Mr Black seems to have forgotten about all that, and like a faithful puppy, he is reporting with clear, unadulterated admiration the latest exploits of the egomaniac so-called polar explorer Pen Hadow. Here, in his description of Mr Hadow's last polar expedition in 2009, Anthony Watts gives ten very simple reasons why anything this foolhardy would-be Scott does must be taken with a huge dose of cynicism, among them, that he has already made up his mind that he can swim most of the way to the Arctic Circle (yes, swim), and questionable competence (in having to be rescued at huge expense and leaving behind polluting supply oil). In short, the man is a fantasist. Notwithstanding, Mr Black clearly believes that his new mission is important, and he repeats with odd disregard of his own writing, Mr Hadow's fears that the Gulf Stream is in danger of switching off, as well - of course - as the usual scaremongering about the Arctic ice is melting "faster than the computer models predict". In the real world, Arctic ice is low, but as real world observers have pointed out, there are clear natural reasons for it. And what Mr Black never mentions is that this is more than compensated for by the fact that Antarctic Sea ice is heading the opposite way, underlining that there is no danger of world indundation anytime soon. What is even more sinister about this sensationlist, highly selective reporting is his pay-off line. In his latest so-called news report, he concludes, without a blush: Anyone catch Paul Kenny, General Secretary of the GMB union, ranting on Today this morning? You could tell that Jim Naughtie was in full agreement with Kenny's anti capitalist bile and it seems to me that the State Broadcaster floats very close to almost WILLING the public sector unions to strike. What say you? The Coalition must surely see that the BBC wants to see strikes, it wants to see a rerun of the fun and games that socialists tried on with Thatcher. In short, it wants to see the government fall. Doesn't that make it a tad ..erm...insurrectionist? I must be honest and say that I can rarely stomach listening to the truly appalling trash "From Our Own Correspondent" but a B-BBC reader managed to courageously listen in and this is what he has to say on this programme... What a result! BBC World Service to lose 600 jobs. As Margaret Thatcher once said, Rejoice. As has been expressed to me today; Having read as much about the PalPapers as I can stomach, the only thing I can be sure of is that instead of trying to opine sagely over the authenticity or the significance of the revelations, I should merely be asking why did the BBC pick up and run with the most unlikely conclusion. We know all about the Guardian’s pathological hatred of Israel. We’ve seen that Israel-bashing enthuses readers. There was a time when slapping a picture of Princess Diana on the cover would boost the circulation of any flagging old rag. In a similar way the Guardian exploits Israel-related topics as a fail-safe remedy for dwindling sales and advertising. They needn’t even stick with purely anti Israel material, because their well trained readership will soon fill the below the line comments with vitriolic regurgitations of the in-house philosophy gleaned from the wisdoms of Seaumas Milne. But the BBC? They’ve got their charter obligations. They think, probably correctly, that the majority of their audience will be bored by the nitty gritty of the peace process. Few will bother to read Robin Shepherd, Melanie Phillips, Barry Rubin, Noah Pollak, Emanuele Ottolnghi, Stephen Pollard or the blogs of Elder of Ziyon and CiFWatch, so they will swallow the face value version - the perversion; that the Palestinians were offering everything for peace, and the Israelis nothing. The theories on the authenticity and significance of the leaks are many and varied. Some feel that they are so out of kilter with the known positions of all parties that they must surely be fabrications, some suspect that the translations somehow transposed the Israeli and Palestinian statements, attributing Israel’s concessions to Erekat, on behalf of the Palestinians. Elder of Ziyon has shown that an unlikely statement allegedly made by Tzipi Livni was lifted completely out of context and given a whole new meaning.But everyone agrees that the negotiations in question touched on settlements, land swaps, compensation, and borders as well as security and the 'right of return.’ The material I’ve read tells me loud and clear that the BBC's and the Guardian’s spin is outrageously misguided. One thing is sure. Making the settlement freeze a prerequisite for talks was a huge blunder by President Obama. He forced himself into a corner, backtracking on what had already been all but agreed, which made him, and his fans at the BBC/ Guardian ‘more Palestinian than the Palestinians.’ But the most important thing about all this is that, as Elder says, whatever Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat said or did not say in their role as 'partners for peace', they cannot sell anything less than everything-under-the-sun to their people. Like Nick Clegg making undeliverable promises to his voters, then being unexpectedly elevated to a position of accountability, the PA have promised the earth to people who now won’t accept anything less. And the verdict is that the leaks have harmed the peace process, given false ammunition to opponents of the only democracy in the Middle East, and boosted the left’s suicidal support of the Islamist upsurge throughout the whole world. The Pakistan floods of August last year were devastating. And like carrion crow picking a carcass, the warmists were all over them within days. Hillary Clinton was among the first to provide the link, and true to lapdog religious-zealotry form, the BBC was also quickly in on the act. Here, science "reporter" Howard Falcon-Lang assembled a catalogue of alarmist evidence to tell us (as the main message of the piece): Further to Robin's post about Richard Black's "nothing much to see here, move along now" article about the Climategate inquiries - I was amused to see that the BBC chose to highlight the significance of CRU data on climate models with a ludicrous alarmist image which appears to show bubbling oceans of lava. I wonder what goes on in Richard Black's brain, though doing so is not easy. On the one hand, you have this, a report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation - set up by a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a raft of eminent UK citizens - stating that an investigation needs to be carried out into problems in the ways that the various investigations into Climategate were carried out. The conclusions could not be clearer; there are many unanswered questions. The press release is prominently available on the internet, most notably on the high profile sceptical site WUWT - hence not easy to miss. On the other, published in the early hours of this morning by Mr Black, are claims by a parliamentary committee (packed with avowed warmists) that it's time to completely forget the alleged problems in the Climategate investigations - irrespective of any doubts - and move on. They state: The BBC has figured out their Narrative on these leaked documents from the Israel/Palestinian peace process. Naturally, Israel gets the worst of it. But there is a moment of glaring hypocrisy. Jerusalem's troubled geography Right from the start, we see the direction it's headed. 
New White House Press Secretary
>> THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2011
The US vice president's communications director Jay Carney has been named as the next White House press secretary, to replace Robert Gibbs.
With unusual modesty the BBC doesn't report that Jay Carney is married to ABC correspondent Claire Shipman, co-author of a blog and book with BBC US correspondent Katty Kay. How many negative stories have you seen or heard about Joe Biden on the BBC while Carney has been his director of communications for the past two years? Not many, I bet. Just sayin', is all. [Update 10.30pm: Mention of Shipman now added to BBC report, Kay link not so much]As A Dog Returneth To His Vomit...
A pack of 20 dogs were encouraged to foul a residential street for a TV programme about the potential impact of council cuts. Film producers brought the pets - complete with their owners - onto the cul-de-sac and filmed them walking a circuit for at least 30 minutes. The programme, called The Street That Cut Everything, charts how residents would manage if council services - including street cleaning - were withdrawn. A road in Fulwood in Preston, Lancashire, was chosen for the filming of the prime time BBC series, which will be presented by the Corporation's political editor Nick Robinson. One dog owner at the filming confirmed that her pets were there to foul the street. It is understood the exercise was aimed at highlighting what would happen if council staff stopped cleaning the streets.
The article focuses on the dog-fouling aspect of the story whilst missing the bigger picture...why are we paying for this sort of partisan broadcast? Instead, how about a programme about how Britain would cope without the BBC? [Apologies if anyone has highlighted this in the Comments already, I'll edit this to hat-tip if you have]HAVE I GOT BIAS FOR YOU!
On showing a picture of the 2 George Bushs, father and son, together on a golf cart, Addison asks 'Where's a Yemeni printer cartridge when you need one?'.Ian Hislop's reaction is surprise that Addison should be suggesting double murder. Not sure why he showed surprise as the BBC has been happy in the past for it's employees to suggest shooting BNP members in the back of the head or shooting Jewish settlers.
Just being "edgy", right?Question Time LiveBlog 27th January 2011
Tonight Question Time comes from Cambridge; represented in the House of Commons by LibDem Julian Huppert who is Treasurer of the Parliamentary CND group. Cambridge is without a single Conservative on the local council. On the panel tonight we have Edwina Currie, Chris Huhne MP, Chuka Umunna MP, Kate Hopkins (no, me neither) and Will Self. The LiveBlog will also cover the surreal This Week, with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo. Your friendly moderators David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be keeping order here from 10:30pm. The New Jew
BBC NEWS - BROUGHT TO YOU BY CATLIN
The £1m project is directed by explorer Pen Hadow and sponsored by the Catlin insurance group.
That will be the same Catlin group that a minute's research confirms is among the world cheerleaders for climate change alarmism. In my book, they are using their so-called sponsorship of Mr Hadow to further their apparent goals of fannning warming fears so that they might attract more business. How does that square with the BBC's Charter, Mr Black?INCITING STRIKES?
>> WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2011
OPEN THREAD
These open threads are red hot so time for a new World Service Memorial thread, enjoy...!FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT...
The typical anti-capitalist spiel from the BBC's Own Correspondent (Alastair Leithead) for Radio 4. Quietly insinuating that Communism is a superior system to Capitalism (try telling that to the former Eastern Bloc) but what I found most intriguing was the intro part of the article written in bold (and I quote):
"As the communist country of Vietnam increasingly embraces the ways of capitalism, the gap between rich and poor is rapidly expanding."
This is purposefully worded by the BBC to insinuate that if the gap between the rich and poor increases then something must be horrifically wrong and that because previously the gap between rich and poor was small (namely due to the fact that everyone was unbelievably poor) then the government must be setting a good example those evil Tories should follow. You really couldn't make this up!
REJOICE!
The BBC World Service is nothing but the propaganda arm of the left wing anti-British, anti-American, anti-business and Anti Christian pro Islam, Unionised BBC.The BBC World Service deliberately sabotages the interests of working people in the UK in almost every broadcast. It should be shut down immediately, not merely curtailed.
Suicidal Tactic
GOTCHA!
Professor Rajiv Sinha, from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, who has had first hand experience of Asian river floods, takes a more strident position. "What all the climate models predict is that the distribution of monsoon rains will become more uneven in the future," he told BBC News....Total rainfall stays the same, but it comes in shorter more intense bursts."
Very little doubt there, and of course - as usual - Mr Falcon-Lang provides no alternative opinion from experts with different views, other than a brief nod to that deforestation of the Indus and poor management of levees may also have played a (minor) role. The inference is clear. The billions of pounds of damage and torrent of human suffering was exactly in line with the great-god climate models. And the people of Pakistan had better get used to it. The start of the Apocalypse. Spool forward. A peer-reviewed paper to be presented to the American Meteorological Society (currently meeting in Seattle) says: Last summer’s disastrous Pakistan floods that killed more than 2,000 people and left more than 20 million injured or homeless were caused by a rogue weather system that wandered hundreds of miles farther west than is normal for such systems, new research shows.
And, as Anthony Watts points out, the word "climate", let alone "climate change" is not even mentioned in the findings of the paper. It was a highly unusual weather event in an area prone to unstable cyclonic rainfall. Full stop, capital letter. I will await with bated breath for the BBC's corrected take on this. And wait...."The unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"
>> TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011
PRETENDING...
"While we have some reservations about the reviews which UEA commissioned, the key point is that they have made a number of constructive recommendations. "In our view it is time to make the changes and improvements recommended, and with greater openness and transparency move on."
Now my first reaction to this sweeping statement - as a former newspaper and BBC journalist - was unease. When committees, however eminent or expert their members may be, want to move on in such a simplistic way, in effect to magic away any issues, I smell a huge rat. My instinct is to feel pressured, and uneasy that things are not what they seem. It makes me want to dig deeper to get at the truth. Words like "cover up" spring uneasily to mind. But not our Richard. In fact, he's demoted the concerns of GWPF and Andrew Montford, who have spent much careful time and effort explaining precisely why there are doubts, to the very end of his piece, and given their considerable evidence so little space that the whole thing looks like no more than a tacked-on genuflection. The GWPF release is well-crafted, and elements of it could easily have been lifted into Richard's copy, just like he so easily and so often takes the words of climate change zealots. My conclusion is that Peter Sissons is correct in his latest installment of concerns about standards at the BBC. The disease in the BBC mindset is truly profound. It goes so deep that they are delusional. They willfully downplay doubts to the extent that they give them no credence, despite their common sense ubiquity, the quality of the evidence involved and persistence of the sceptics against the might of the billions-of-dollars, highly corrupt climate change industry. What's even worse is that Mr Black backs the establishment (for that is what AGW now is) against those who advocate spirited, upstart concern.OPEN THREAD
>> MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2011
Time for a new Open Thread, folks. BBC loving have a go at Sky's Richard Keyes & Andy Gray (some private conservations are OK, it appears, it just depends WHO). They have the Jihad at Moscow Airport and so much more to spin...the floor is yours....BBC Hypocrisy: Context Edition
The release of thousands of leaked documents apparently showing Palestinian willingness to compromise over Israeli settlements once again highlights Jerusalem's troubled geography - and damages the credibility of both sides, writes the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.
Both sides look bad? I suppose that's why so many Palestinians have been complaining that Fatah is undermining their hopes and dreams, because the documents are equally damaging to Israel's credibility? Color me skeptical. But first, we get the usual BBC agenda-driven historical moment in a vacuum. As a main topic of the leaked documents concerns East Jerusalem, it's only right that the BBC sets the scene. We're told that Israel "captured" East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, but are provided zero context (remember that word for later) as to why they were in a position to do so. All we're told is: "For the Palestinians and many in the Arab world this was a disaster."Yes, it's Arabist Gospel that Israel was an unprovoked aggressor in that war, but the BBC needs to be dealing in facts, not fiction. Israel's move into East Jerusalem is presented in a vacuum, and the reader is left to assume whatever they like. Of course, in 1967, there was no such thing as Palestinians, outside of Arafat's little activist group. The people of East Jerusalem were Jordanians then. So the BBC creates a little alternate history. The propaganda is so deeply entrenched in their minds - and, most likely, in BBC editorial policy on the subject - that they write it as fact. But after being educated by the BBC, the average BBC audience member must find it very distasteful to learn that many Israelis viewed this "disaster" as a "miracle". I think we can see the Narrative taking shape.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Posts
