David Vance intends to tell the BBC a thing or two, to their faces:
‘I believe the License Fee should be scrapped forthwith and ALL subsidy to the BBC ended. The BBC must stand, or fall, on it’s own two financial feet. As far as I am concerned state broadcasting is anachronistic and totalitarian – time to end it.’
A merry thread ensued.
OK guys – more on the BBCs anti-science line.
First up – where are the programmes about science ? Nowhere.
Next two examples.
Exhibit 1: scientists can now, for some people, in narrowly-defined circumstances, predict the future. How does the BBC report this – “Some people now unable to get insurance”.
(Clue – it was genetic testing of propensity to disease – the BBC chose to find some down side to this welcome development)
Exhibit 2: recently on you&yours. They were tut-tutting about how the new generation of mobile phones were useless for blind people.
Well there are only two ways forward with that:
a) Go ahead with the new phones and blind people can use older models, or
b) Ban the new phones. As well as this, ban other things that are inaccessible to the blind. Like scenery, TV, pretty people, colours, art, ….
I think the cause of this anti-science is that the BBC staffers are arts types. They have no knowledge of science, and just want to giggle if there are science issues on the news.
Innumerate, illiterate, ignorant are the three “I”s of BBC recruiting – they nevertheless oil themselves with generous salaries and perks rather than invest in programming and product.
If TV started out with the educated trying to spread a little knowledge; it has now fallen victim to the ignorant boasting of how well paid they are for propagating prolekult
Jack -> giggle. thats the word i was looking for.
Ever wonder why the Discovery channel has been so successful? if the BBC was adhering to its charter, there wouldnt be a Discovery channel.
The mere existance of Discovery, prooves that BBC science output is just a load of “giggles” and that we get seriously poor value for our license fee.
rick -> you make a good point. when you think of the sheer power of TV, wouldnt it be wonderful if the original ideals of TV were put into practice. I’m not saying show science down peoples throats all the time.
but we’ve reached a situation now where theres BUGGER ALL science on the BBC.
if anyone is old enough, they might remember Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” – and that wasnt a BBC production. it was made in 1979, and it hasnt been bettered since.
my own pet love – astronomy – is barely hanging on with the “sky at night”.
Scott at The daily Ablution unearthed this nugget:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/aviation/006.htm
case in point about BBC bad science – the program this week about Venus Express
Yes, much of the coverage I saw was majoring on linking Venus to the future of the Earth, unless the BBC manages to save it by turning us green.
BBC salaries……..
http://media.guardian.co.uk/ site…1753303,00.html
Rick | 13.04.06 – 8:42 pm |
you mean your prime minister’s salary is on the public record as a matter of course but other, unaccountable, feeders at the public trough deem theirs to be private?
BBC salaries……..
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1753303,00.html
Rick | 13.04.06 – 8:42 pm | #
Couldn’t find this story on the beeb website. Are you sure it’s true?
John Reith
John old lad, Your nice, shapely list will, I hope, also indicate the number of relevant news items which failed to mention the stated aim of the destruction of Israel by Hamas as a proportion of the times when that aim was mentioned. A simple list of inclusions may serve your purpose but would be meaningless if we both seek to quantify BBC bias or lack of it.
boblog,
John Reith has been threatening to present his Hamas list for a week now.
And he not only has access to Google and other search engines, but he’s worked for the BBC and has friends who still work there.
So you would think it wouldn’t take more than an hour or two for Reith to compile his list.
He is typical of the unaccountable BBC.
Hmmm, yes I think I can see the difficulties faced by the evasive Reith. Problem is, on finding the occasional mention of Hamas’ intention to destroy Israel,
http://newssearch01.thdo.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4652510.stm
He’s going to stumble across some extraordinary anti-Israel bias from the very BBC he is so eager to defend, in this case from Jremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor:
The founding charter of Hamas declares that the whole of Palestine is Islamic land – that includes the territory that now comprises Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
It commits Hamas to the destruction of the Jewish state. That commitment was not mentioned in the Hamas manifesto for the elections but it will stay.
Dropping it is not conceivable under current conditions.[My emphasis]
It would be fascinating to learn what Bowen means by that statement and what conditions he regards as suitable for Hamas to drop its intention to destroy Israel.
Israeli withdrawal to the Tel Aviv beachfront?
Just a reminder – the count I posted a few days ago from a search on the BBC website for “Hamas destruction Israel” showed 128 hits, while “Hamas” showed 834 hits.
But if his lengthy screening exercise keeps reith busy and interferes with his posting patent nonsense and lies here, that’s fine by me.
On BBC salaries – the BBC can bid up the price eg of DJs, and this directly hurts competitors. I hope the full list of excessive salaries at the BBC emerges.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has been seeking permanent authority to have oversight of BBC finances using the National Audit Office. This is the way the public has some say over the spending odf every other public body, But the BBC is bitterly resisting this. They want their profligacy to carry on without public scrutiny. As a “special favour” during the Royal Charter they let the NAO look at the costs of their new building – which revealed a huge overspend, huge waste of our money.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030225/debtext/30225-20.htm
Couldn’t find this story on the beeb website. Are you sure it’s true?
gordon-bennett | 14.04.06 – 1:44 am | #
I know it’s April, I know it’s The Guardian; I fear it’s true !
dumbcisco,
I’m not that computer literate and I was just wondering, if “Hamas destruction Israel” showed 128 hits while “Hamas” showed 834 hits, how many of those articles actually mention Hamas’ intention to destroy Israel and how many are just a coincidental jumble of unrelated words?
I would actually be surprised if about one-seventh of the BBC’s articles on Hamas mentioned its charter.
Unless, of course, they indicated that it was praiseworthy.
John Reith
What’s a “Muslkim” exactly?
the BBC was right to wait until it found out whether the guy WAS a Muslkim or not. At the time, the BBC didn’t know.
BBC impartial?
1PM BBC News
Plight of Muslim construction workers in Dubai
Morocco Acrobats perform to arab
music on the south bank
Easter?
BBC Shocker:
Good Friday is actually in the top spot on the “Religion” page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/
Hmmmmm.
Encouraging. It means BBC dhimmitude is not total and complete.
Switching on BBC1 today expecting a church service I was treated to “greater love hath no man” nothing personal but the recounting of a story about village which isolated itself during the plague didn’t seem to strike the right cord.
Sorry, TV off after 4 minutes.
Inverse snobbery at the BBC. Shock Horror, someone who worked in a factory finds planet
“Kevin identified 30 new stars that could have planets – and came up trumps on one of them.
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Kevin’s find is that until 1996 he worked in a factory making Duracell batteries and only went to university because he was made redundant.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/179909.stm
Crikey he hasn’t even worked at the BBC
This is 2002, do you know that if global warming or killer ducks don’t get you this will
Filed under:
Utter rubbish
Last Wednesday, the BBC’s online news site ran this headline: “Space rock ‘on collision course.'” The top of the story read: “An asteroid discovered just weeks ago has become the most threatening object yet detected in space. A preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 is on an impact course with Earth and could strike the planet on 1 February, 2019 — although the uncertainties are large.”
The Americans take a dim view:
NASA Scientists Call British Media’s Asteroid Hype Unethical Rubbish
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 07:00 am ET
29 July 2002
A small asteroid threat hyped to gloom-and-doom proportions by British media last week has left several U.S. scientists frustrated and fuming over what they call misleading and unethical stories that frightened readers unnecessarily
Because of this ‘utter rubbish’ it looks as if NASA is keeping an eye on BBC science reports. Dr david Whitehouse filed this report
US pioneer plans to offer spaceflights By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2956103.stm
This is the tale that ensued, it got nasty:
http://www.nasawatch.com/misc/04.18.03.bbc.html
NASA Watch
BBC Gets the Scaled Composites Story Wrong – Very Wrong.
Editor’s note: David Whitehouse was informed, most explictly and repeatedly, on a previous occassion, that any and all email sent by him to NASA Watch would be subject to publication. I have only issued such a caveat to one journalist: David Whitehouse – and only after he sent me a slew of nasty emails on a previous occassion – including several under a pseudonym. Despite a previous, explicit warning, he has chosen to ignore this notification. It is only under such circumstances that I publish this sort of email. As such, his unsolicited email to me with regard to my comments on his story is presented verbatim, without editorial comment — except to say that if I indeed held the BBC in the contempt Whitehouse seems to think that I do, then I would not have done more than a dozen interviews with virtually every radio and television service the BBC offers after the Columbia accident. Rather, my issue is with his consistently poor reporting.
Sarge
That Whitehouse guy is described as Online Science EDITOR.
He sounds a real piece of work, as well as being inaccurate.
Par for the course at the BBC, I suppose.
Another anti US topic on Dont Have Your Say tonight on the 9/11 film coming out.Tried to get comment published but to no avail again .They even have one idiot on comparing 9/11 to the publishing of the moham cartoons and that gets published if that dont show just how shite they have become i dont know what will. I detest the license fee with a vengeance paying for an unbiased organisation , unbiased my arse
billy best
just dont pay. I’ve not paid for well over a year now.
i didnt at first got done years ago license fuckwit caught me years ago on xmas eve, could see tv through front door (i opened it)had to get license and still got took to court. 100 fine. never paid license for at least 10 years until girlfriend did same thing .i even had them on the phone at about 8 at night asking about it . fck them She is dutch i forgive her , but it makes me sick to the bone paying for the lefty shite propoganda the bbc spew out. I already pay for cable why the fuck should i pay for the shite they put out . I dont have no choice if i caught . FUCK the BBC if really fuckin hate it .
Did i forget to mention I HATE THE GOVERNMENT FUCKIN RUN SOFT SHITE LEFTY HANDWRINGING PC BROADCASTING CORPORATION
billy best | 14.04.06 – 11:37 pm
It’s difficult to know for sure what’s going on with the Hide Your Say team.
If you look at the time above each comment, you’ll notice that they often flush a batch of comments down the toilet. For example, on the Can Iran nuclear problem be settled diplomatically? topic comments come in steadily on Thursday afternoon at an average of about one every two minutes until 14:58 and then there’s nothing until 09:24 on Friday. So if you were unlucky enough to post your comment in the gap, it will have been flushed with the rest of them.
But apart from that, I also battle to get my comments published. Sometimes there’s nothing much happening on a thread and I’ll post a comment which doesn’t make it. So I’ll post it again the next day and it still doesn’t make it. Left wing prejudice? I’m almost 100% certain that it is.
But of course the moderators can just hide behind the excuse that they get too many comments to post them all.
Did i forget to mention I HATE THE GOVERNMENT FUCKIN RUN SOFT SHITE LEFTY HANDWRINGING PC BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Hey, don’t be shy about your feelings re: the Beeb. Just come right out and say it!
Nice little anti American spot from Al Beeb.
“Peace campaigners from Norfolk and Suffolk have held an all-night vigil at a US airbase used by aircraft that bombed Libya 20 years ago.”
So why did the American bomb Libya?
Well Al Beeb has this to say;
“The US claimed at the time it was attacking terrorist-related targets.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/4911950.stm
Thus giving the impression that at the time the Americans believed they were right but since then they have been proved wrong.
Err Al Beeb you left out the little part about how Tripoli was behind numerous terrorist incidents. The straw that broke the camels back was the bombing of this disco as reported by the BBC;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1653848.stm
Strange how they have no problem in reporting that Libya was behind it at the time. But in the report of the peace protest they say it was claimed.
Oh yes. Al Beeb the planes that were flown from RAF Lakenheath were F111s
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/70-2363.jpg
The plane in your picture is an F16 it wasn’t used on the attacks on Libya. Neither is it flown from Lakenheath instead you will find that the F15 and F15E is based there.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/LAKENHEATH.JPG
If you wish to present yourself as a premier news service it kind of helps if you get your facts right.
Pounce on them, pounce!
The BBC license fee: £5 billion, when they need £1/2 a billion, 27,000 staff when they need 800.
The BBC is 90% waste, yet they use the courts as an extortion tool to force us to pay. Truly the courts have been corrupted, to become mere extentions of government power.
The truth the BBC refuses to publish is at eutruth.org.uk
when they need £1/2 a billion
They recieve that much from the Exchequer to compensate for the “free” licence fee for the over 75s.
Cut their spend to £500m & abolish the licence fee.