GREEN RACISM

GREEN RACISM

>> TUESDAY, APRIL 05, 2011

Today, we have a corking example of the brazen articulation of the BBC green creed through one of their self-appointed "experts" and prophets. Step forward the totally self-regarding (see here) wildlife programme presenter Chris Packham who is telling us solemnly from his corporation eyrie that we must stop breeding, tax those who do not, buy local food, and Generally See The Error of Our Ways. Packham, in fact, is an interesting specimen of the BBC greenie zealot breed. This is how he describes himself on his website:

A precocious young scientist, swat and nerd in training he studied Kestrels, Shrews and Badgers in his teens and undergraduate days at the Zoology department of Southampton University. He also embraced Punk Rock and played in a band and the DIY ethos and determination to never take ‘no’ for an answer are forcefully retained. Post graduation and a cancelled PhD, (the Badgers were getting a bit much), he began taking still photographs and trained as a wildlife film cameraman.

Well slap my thighs. And with those impeccable credentials in green activism, he's now taken on a new role at the head of the BBC green crusade. His main beef is that we are breeding too fast, and that leads this "cancelled PhD" expert to a call for sweeping new taxes to encourage those who, exactly as under Chinese state fascism, restrict themselves to one child. His message in morals and life management is coupled with an equally solemn intonation that we must buy and cook ourselves local food (and presumably therefore forget the Africans who rely on food exports to avoid starvation). It's clear that in Mr Packham's books, those who don't are plebeian oiks who don't know what is good for them. Mr Packham's message - passed from on high via the official BBC mouthpiece, the Radio Times - is liberally larded with the usual offical greenie-line claptrap. he says:

‘There’s no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we’re not addressing the one single factor that’s putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other – namely the ever-increasing size of the world’s population.’

I note, however, that Mr Packham's homily on the evils of mankind and its nasty proclivity to breed, does not mention a BBC unmentionable word - immigration. Actually, Britain's headlong hurtling towards a population of 70m+ is being caused almost entirely by largely uncontrolled immigration, a tide that the government is powerless to stop because of their worship of the EU. And beautifully crafted as it may seem (in BBC green propaganda terms), on close inspection, I think Mr Packham's message may actually be strangely off-message. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think there is a blatant racist slant in what he saying. Those who are breeding most in the UK are the so-called ethnic population. So his sermon is thus aimed directly and disproportionately at the said ethnic minorities. I thought that doing that was the biggest sin in the BBC right-on/Human Right manual. It's probably OK in this case, though, because the need for greenie propaganda, however clumsily formed, out-trumps everything else. Update: I see my post has attracted comment from a pro-Malthus acolyte. I deliberately did not analyse that part of the Packham message here, because I am so tired of it, but I will leave it to the very capable Willis Eschenbach to do so. Malthusian pessimism is bunk that is at at the heart - as well as a prime driver - of the greenie greed.

TAKING THE RISE

>> MONDAY, APRIL 04, 2011

I'm not a scientist, but I do often smell a rat in BBC science stories, and here we go with another corporation special, this time a major glacier scare.

Melting mountain glaciers are making sea levels rise faster now than at any time in the last 350 years, according to new research.

For years they have been telling us that the snows of Kilimanjaro are about to disappear because of AGW (they aren't); and now the greenie BBC zealots are pushing another obscure research-grant paper - one that claims we are going to drown because of massive glacial melt. This time, according to the doomfest headlines, the glaciers of South America are melting 20 or 30 or even a 100 times faster than was previously thought. The cause (implied not stated), as usual, is nasty humans and those vile "emissions" that started with the industrial revolution. Smelling that rat about the alleged rising sea levels, I dug around a little. Steve Goddard here provides a series of facts that - surprise, surprise - the BBC report does not mention. Like sea levels have been rising since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago at a more or less constant rate. That there's been no change in the rate of increase (c.2cms a decade) since 1880. And finally, in the last 30 years - when those nasty CO2/farty cow emissions have been at their highest - the rate has remained stubbornly constant. Mr Goddard concludes:

Sea level is rising, and the abuse of this information is one of the most flagrantly clueless mantras of the alarmist community. Even if we returned to a green utopian age, sea level would continue to rise at about the same rate – just as has done since the last glacial maximum.

In short, there's a rather inconvenient but major contradiction that the BBC fails to mention. If these glaciers are melting so damn fast, where is the water going? And if they are melting and there's no sea level rise, what's the problem? Especially as South America has just endured one of its coldest winters in living memory. Answers on a postcard, please.

Tony Robinson 'airbrushed from Yes to AV leaflets'

As not quite seen on the BBC.

Campaigners for the AV voting system have been accused of "airbrushing" white actor Tony Robinson out of leaflets sent to part of the country.

The "Yes to AV" campaign used his picture on literature used in most parts of the UK, but featured another supporter - the black poet Benjamin Zephaniah - in London, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

The "No" campaign said its rival was "ashamed" of the actor's backing.

But the "Yes" campaign called the allegation "a new low".

It said it varied the celebrity backers featured on its leaflets as there were "a number" to accommodate.

Yes to AV's literature urges people to support a switch from first-past-the-post Westminster elections to an alternative vote in the nationwide referendum to be held on 5 May.

Celebrities Joanna Lumley, Eddie Izzard, Colin Firth, Honor Blackman and Stephen Fry appear on both sets of leaflets shown by the Sunday Telegraph.

In locations including Sussex and Cornwall a picture of Mr Robinson, the star of the BBC comedy Blackadder and the Channel 4 archaeology show Time Team, is reportedly included, with the actor quoted demanding an electoral system that "makes everyone's vote count".

But in near-identical leaflets, reportedly sent to London, he is apparently replaced by Mr Zephaniah, the poet and musician.

CAMERA Captures BBC Bias

>> SUNDAY, APRIL 03, 2011

This has already been linked to on the Open Thread, - H/T La Cumparsita - but it deserves further attention. I posted here on this programme “A Walk in the Park” at the time. It was so one-sided that I saw it as a recipe, cooked-up and formulaic. What a contrast with Jane Corbin’s unique Mavi Marmara Panorama, which was more thoroughly researched, not unsympathetic to Israel’s point of view, and, unusually for the BBC, it included some context. CAMERA’s meticulous debunking of both “A Walk in the Park” and the Editorial Standards Committee’s original response to their complaints disposes of potential accusations of using selective criteria to make that comparison. It also underlines very clearly why we are engaged in a constant battle against endemic anti Israel reporting, which frequently breeches BBC editorial guidelines. CAMERA demolishes “A Walk in the Park” on so many counts, and highlights so many breeches of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines that we should insist on being treated to the BBC’s and Jane Corbin’s updated responses. Would she, like Judge Goldstone, say hindsight is a wonderful thing, or would the BBC close ranks and defend the programme in their usual way, namely shrugging off individual accusations with a nitpicking approach that avoids all cognisance of the general impression given. It's as if doing that blinds them from recognising or admitting the overall slanting and bias their programmes exude. I don’t see how they could possibly get away with that for a second time. What they should do is simply to show this video on a forthcoming Panorama. For balance.

Backtrack Goes Without Saying

I don’t know. You go away for a week, and all sorts of things happen behind your back. Sensational things such as Judge Goldstone’s OpEd in the Washington Post. “Sorry, I was a bit wrong!” he said. “Silly me. Wonderful thing, hindsight. We can’t all be perfect, can we?”

“That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.”

No, it doesn’t go without saying. It shouldn’t. It needs to be said.

“I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.”

"Oops! Sorry! Oh well, it’s partly Israel’s fault for not co-operating with us."

“we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants.”

“(So we just believed uncorroborated figures from Hamas.)”

”The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas”

“Oop! Sorry again. Oh well, you live and learn.”

“The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel.”

Skewed against Israel, eh? ‘It takes one to know one’ as the saying goes.

“Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.”

This judge fellow has remarkably high hopes it seems. He must be a jolly little chap, always looking on the bright side.

“...our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing."

Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations.”

“Get me! So naïve! Silly old absurd little me.” The BBC of course, so keen to absorb the Goldstone report and flourish it at the merest whiff of pro Israel odour, was unmoved. "Old Goldie must be having a senior moment," they assume.

“Operation Cast Lead was launched in response to repeated rocket attacks on Israeli territory by militants in Gaza. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of civilians, as well as 13 Israelis.”

"We’re sticking with that, thanks all the same. That’s the one we know and love, and nothing’s gonna change our world."

30 YEARS AGO...

Have to say how sickened I feel by the BBC this evening. 30 years ago, I was still at University. On this day, one of my best friend's at Uni received the awful news his brother had been murdered. The IRA booby-trapped his car. He stood no chance. He was a police officer, a young RUC man. The IRA boasted they had killed him. He was 23. Today, other Irish terrorists, most likely know to the IRA leadership (if not actually containing former IRA men) killed a police officer in Omagh. I note the BBC gives Gerry Adams response coverage very high priority in this report. Adams organisation killed my friend's brother. 30 years on - the BBC eulogise him. Nauseating - no wonder I loath them.

BANG BANG

>> SATURDAY, APRIL 02, 2011

BBC Moral Maze presenter and former newsreader Michael Buerk has reviewed Peter Sissons' memoirs - When One Door Closes, in which he attacks the BBC with both barrels - for Standpoint magazine. It's a delicious, grumpy read in which Mr Buerk makes it clear that he concurs that the BBC is stuffed full of right-on, Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, mostly incompetent lefties. My day was made by this par:

Sissons bowls over the other targets like a crusty old farmer shooting rabbits. Autocuties, "Elf ‘n' Safety", the Corporation's now pathological aversion to risk of any kind, its culture of conformity, its vulnerability to political pressure, its uncritical love affair with environmentalism, the callow opinionising of some of its reporters, the flatulent masses of its middle management and, as he sees it, the BBC's complete lack of leadership. Bang, bang, bang.

However, Mr Buerk qualifies this by contending that the Sissons attack on BBC management is not entirely fair. I don't think it went far enough.

EXTRACTING THE MICHAEL

For me, the news that there might be a new and cheap source of fuel off the coasts of Britain is a major cause of celebration. North Sea oil generated billions of pounds in revenues and jacked up living standards for everyone in the land. Roger Harrabin, though, doesn't give a stuff about that; in this piece about new moves to extract gas from the shale offshore from Blackpool, his only concern is to give a puff to an obscure (and no doubt highly delighted) local Green party zealot, who - in true Luddite fashion - tells us that we will all be engulfed with environmental poison if this nasty drilling goes ahead. As usual, there's not a peep from anyone who can inform us about the potential benefits of the exercise, although Roger begrudingly tells us that the government wants the scheme to go ahead. That aside, it's an open goal for Mr Harrabin to bellyache (again) about the perils of nuclear power and to allow his little green Hitler to claim that we are going to hell in a handcart:

Risks to human health; to ground water and drinking water; and to the environment due to the huge amounts of waste this produces and the huge amount of water it consumes. Also I think the impact of drilling rigs on the countryside will be totally unacceptable to the British people. I think this is something we'll live to regret

. That'll be the same Green party that is so relentlessly cheering the erection of thousands of wind turbines. Oh, and the green cause is so popular in the Blakpool area that it did not even contest the seat in 2010. But never mind, the irony is lost on Mr Harrabin - don't let the facts get in the way of another greenie sermon. And compare his approach to Channel 4's Siobhan Kennedy - to her, it's striking gold in Blackpool. h/tip george R.

SAVAGERY EXCUSED...

>> FRIDAY, APRIL 01, 2011

OK, I can't let this pass. How on EARTH does the BBC get away with calling Afghanistanis a "deeply religious and deeply conservative" people when we witness atrocious events like those in Mazar-e-Sharif? The savagery, the dark ages barbarism, are outrageous and yet the BBC are doing everything to suggest that the "deeply religious" savages were virtually obligated to kill and decapitate the poor people involved because of "the burning of a Koran in a US church." Blame Bush?