OSLO

OSLO

>> SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2011

First things first. All decent people will be horrified at what has happened in Oslo last evening. The atrocious terrorist act is beyond words and the loss of so many lives devastating. And now I turn to the BBC coverage. Within hours of the breaking news the BBC was very quick to repeat comment that the culprit was a "tall blonde man" perspective, followed this morning by "fundamental Christian" and "far-right." The words "Timothy McVeigh" also have been repeated on every news loop. Now, I don't think there is anything WRONG per se with providing us with this information so promptly but I contrast this with those OTHER acts of terrorism where the culprits were Islamists and the BBC were extremely reluctant to provide us with similar backgrounds preferring to use euphemisms. As someone who professes a Christian faith, I also vehemently dispute BBC use of "fundamentalist Christian" to describe the killer. There is a commandment all Christians are instructed to follow - "Thou shalt not kill". Anyone carrying out this sort of savagery is a lunatic in flagrant denial of Christian values. Of course the BBC hates Christians, it loathes anything vaguely "right-wing" and so in a sense it is feeding of this atrocity and advancing its own hateful meme. Thoughts?

GLOATING BLACK

The Steve Jones report, excellently analysed here by James Delingpole, is nothing more than a licence from the eco-loons who run the BBC to allow its reporters to continue their torrent of climate change lies. What's happened is an immediate ratcheting up of the invective, and the unrestrained use of warmist so-called "consensus" to back it up. Here, for example, as a taster of what's in store, Richard Black invokes lefty "comedian" Bill Maher (a natural favourite of the corporation)as part of the evidence to show that the nasty, ignorant US population are idiots for being doubtful about climate change, that the current heatwaves in the US are the result of out of control "feedback loops" in escalating warming, and the Arctic ice is melting. Where have I heard that before...? Oh, yes, here. And then as a platform for the main political point - to argue that US use of coal for energy must stop and be replaced by those nice, clean, windfarms. AS usual, he ignores, cocks a snook at, doesn't give a fig about, balancing information such as this, which shows that such heatwaves are not unprecedented or unusual in America, and that deaths from cold weather far outweigh those from heat. It's a textbook example of what - as I said in my previous posting on the Jones travesty - has been going on at the corporation for years, so what Mr Black is doing here is effectively gloating - and warning that much, much more is in store. For that reason, I don't see the point in continuing to analyse the output of the BBC. If people think the Corporation is biased, and garner evidence for it, the so-called trustees hire an "expert" who agrees with their worldview and sanction him to pour bile and vitriol on opponents. Then, fingers in ears and in unison, they chant: "We're right, your are wrong...na,na,na,na, na". The BBC is now our very own version of the Pravda of old - no more, no less.

OPEN THREAD...

>> FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011

Time for a new one of these to take you across the weekend. Enjoy.

BBC Censorship: Did The President Violate Federal Law With His Fundraiser Appeal?

On Monday's open thread (Pg. 9, comment @ 10:09:20pm GMT), I mentioned that there was a question about whether or not the Presidentviolated federal law by filming a political campaign ad in the White House.

The Republican National Committee on Monday asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the president's reelection fundraising broke federal law. In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus cited a fundraising video President Obama appears in that seems to have been taped in the White House. Federal law makes it a crime for the president to solicit political contributions in a place of official government business.

Having now done a little research on this, I've found a few details. Firstly, there are apparently some parts of the White House which are off-limits for fundraising and campaigning activity, while other areas, mostly the residential parts, are okay to do these things. As a few defenders of the President in the media have pointed out, previous Presidents (Reagan and Bush! Boo!) have done it before from kosher areas. Naturally, that's the first line of defense as well. So the question is, was this appeal filmed in a restricted area or not? Video and photo evidence below the fold.

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