Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
A Happy New Year to all our readers and commenters. It may take a while for posting to get up to speed – but here’s a new open thread before the old one bursts a seam.
Monday evening on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN news show “The Situation Room” a caption has “Obama” instead of “Osama”.
Finally, news of this reached the hugely funded BBC at Thursday, 4 January 2007, 00:16 GMT:
AntiCitizen One:
Nom de guerre:
I reproduce below a famous extract from “Labor’s Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais”. Forgive me if this has been posted on B-BBC previously:
One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying: “There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
“The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
It hits the spot for me.
pounce (part 2) 03.01.07 – 9:44 pm
Not for the first time you are resorting to a highly dishonest form of argument which consists of spewing out reams of blatantly obvious and uncontested facts – and then pretending that either I or the BBC have disagreed with them.
Now, please confine yourself to defending the two statements with which I actually did take issue:
1. Your bizarre claim that US support for Ethiopia prior to July 1977 consisted of one arms deal and not any closer form of relations.
&
2. That the US played ‘no part’ – military, diplomatic, overt or covert – in the ensuing conflict but was rather wholly indifferent to Soviet expansionism in Africa.
Now that you have, at last, read the material showing how the US used proxies, maybe you’d care to revise your view.
Also, I think that you’ll find if you research it fully that the world is not, in fact, flat.
And Madrid, not Santander, is the real capital of Spain.
Frank
If you were a more frequent visitor, you’d know that the BBC doesn’t employ me to do any advocacy for it on this blog or elsewhere. Most people in the BBC are contemptuously dismissive of this blog. A mistake, I think – because error should be corrected.
I suspect that one of the reasons the BBC regard this place as a collection of mere green-ink nutters is the obsession commenters here have with the BBC News Website.
The BBC employs around 25,000 people, but only 130 or so work on the News Website. The vast majority are involved in an activity called broadcasting which hardly ever gets a mention here.
“It’s a mess”
“It’s the biggest foreign policy disaster in 50 years”
No, it wasn’t the EU that Naughtie was talking about, but of course Iraq.
Yet again Naughtie was trying to get a politician (this time David Cameron)to admit that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Yet again he was denied the pleasure. But why is it that all who supported the ousting of Saddam are subjected to this sort of lead-in before being questioned, yet those who opposed the invasion are never subjected to any “scene setting” lead in, let alone tough questions?
This is a serious question that the BBC never answers, partly because they would never admit that this happens, let alone that it is a problem.
…..pounce…
is your tank a T 62?
In the interview (Today at around 8.30), Naughtie continued to show his balanced approach with numerous sniping and sneering comments with regard to Conservatives – for example Naughtie referred to those who are concerned with immigration and the EU as the “wild fringe of the party”.
It is disgraceful that Naughtie is allowed to be,in effect, a cheerleader for Gordon Brown, and using the licence fee to do so. There can be no doubt that Naughtie is a Brownite.
Interstingly, Cameron got the last laugh (listen to the last few seconds of the interview where Naughtie gets the year of Margaret Thatcher’s step down wrong – by 3 years).
Jr
’ Now, please confine yourself to defending the two statements with which I actually did take issue:’
This is a bit rich coming from an undisputed master of obfuscation. You cherry pick your battles whilst studiously ignoring the ‘no-hopers’.
’ Most people in the BBC are contemptuously dismissive of this blog.’
Of course they are dear boy, of course they are. What else would you expect from such an arrogant, self-congratulatory organisation. One has to ask the question, if most people in the BBC are contemptuously dismissive of this blog, then they must have viewed it? It would go some way to explaining why the bbc is so hell-bent on attempting to sow the seeds of legislative enforcement on internet activity.
Required reading for all, if they can get a copy of the Evening Standard (Tuesday 2nd Jan), is Andrew Gilligan’s article ‘The BBC is right to ask for more cash’. This overweening fool states that the BBC is the most successful public institution in Britain. Well it’s certainly done its best to denigrate and smear every other institution in this country. He concludes, “To safeguard Britain’s place [in the modern world] we need to invest not in future nuclear missiles, but in future Ricky Gervaises and John Simsons.” This would be the same Gilligan who was rumoured [remainder deleted – see my later comment for reasons – NS] Good grief, spare me please.
Now jr may I refer you back to this:
Sorry should have checked the previous thread before Alan@Aberdeen beat me to a response, however exactly which part of her quote does her no credit, then we can pick the bones out of the rest of it.
On the other issue, do you have a verifiable public source for the SB interview that you could refer me to or is it non-attributable?
Before I try to beat you over the head with this it would be handy to see this first hand.
TPO | 03.01.07 – 6:21 pm | #
Edited By Siteowner
quoting John Reith:
“The BBC employs around 25,000 people, but only 130 or so work on the News Website. The vast majority are involved in an activity called broadcasting which hardly ever gets a mention here.
John Reith | 04.01.07 – 8:27 am |”
This really takes the biscuit. You accuse Pounce of not being a frequent visitor to this blog, then you come up with a statement that shows your institutional duplicity: broadcasting hardly ever gets a mention on this blog? That’s the biggest lie of the many you spout on a daily basis. There is constant comment on this blog on programmes such as ‘Today’, ‘Newsweek’, ‘Panorama’, not to mention the main news bulletins (Jezza Bowen’s highly-biased reports above all). These are all instances of broadcasting by any definition and no amount of JR’s weaselling will get you out of this one.
Only a devious and manipulative individual such as yourself could claim that broadcasting ‘hardly ever’ figures in this blog.
Truly, your statement oozes BBC-bias in such a blatant way as to make Pounce’s dissecting job almost redundant.
To paraphrase Jeff Randall, it’s so visceral with you BBC guys, that you are not even aware of your blinkered attitude to facts. You’re so blind to your opinions, that you mistake your opinions for facts. Precisely like in this case.
pedant:
Nice post but JR suggested “Frank” was not a regular visitor. Prepare yourself for a sneering response.
BBC Fall For Fake Bath Photo.
BBC using underhand methods to lobby MPs for increase in funding.
http://the-daily-pundit.blogspot.com/2007/01/bbc-fall-for-fake-bath-photo.html
Pundit
No doubt the BBC would claim that it depicts “a wider truth”, but how are you sure the photo is faked?
TPO,
Kindly do not post potentially libellous rumours here. We do volunteer to get sued on your behalf.
Natalie
Point taken, but I was quoting from a newspaper columnist from post Hutton. I will endeavour to find it.
Sorry the above was me.
If you were a more frequent visitor, you’d know that the BBC doesn’t employ me to do any advocacy for it on this blog or elsewhere. Most people in the BBC are contemptuously dismissive of this blog. A mistake, I think – because error should be corrected.
I suspect that one of the reasons the BBC regard this place as a collection of mere green-ink nutters is the obsession commenters here have with the BBC News Website.
The BBC employs around 25,000 people, but only 130 or so work on the News Website. The vast majority are involved in an activity called broadcasting which hardly ever gets a mention here.
John Reith | 04.01.07 – 8:27 am
You’ve really put your foot in it deeply this time, old chap. Prepare to be Fisked some more. (You’ve already had a taste of it from others on this thread.)
Mr John Reith wrote;
You are clouding the issue with your usual flood of irrelevant detail and non sequiturs.
Am I? Mr Reith in my original post to you I asked you to look at just who the US president was. If you had taken the time to do so you would have noticed that it was in fact President Jimmy Carter. Who started off his tenure with a policy of Human rights and not American might. That policy of his (well he is a democrat) saw the US disengage from opposing the Russian Bear and instead broker for peace. Instead as we all saw. The Russians (as did the world) perceived this peaceful policy as a right in which to push their agenda that little further. So we saw the Soviet push for friendly countries in Africa. We saw the Russians invade Afghanistan, we saw the Russians deploy the SS20 missiles in Europe. (Maybe the Ladies of Greenham common can tell you what happened next)
The fact remains Mr Reith the US president (known for his Human rights stance) weakened the impression of American might so much that until 2003 nobody presumed the US had the balls to fight on the ground. Some legacy I’m sure you’ll agree. My point. President Carter is a Dove and he ensured that the US stayed out of Africa. Now you can take as much a righteous stance as you wish on this subject. The fact remains I have no BBC political agenda to protect.
On another note for somebody who tried to take me to task on the differences of a Hellfire Missile you sure don’t know what a T62 looks like.
As that tank isn’t one.
Old topic but I`ll put it in.
The Now Show, best bits of 2006.
The usual sneer,sneer, we`re so funny,sneer,we`re so clever, sneer, sneer.
Then one of their comedians with a guitar has his turn,and in the course of his sneering mentioned that he had Polish workers doing up his house who asked if they could WORK ON THE BANK HOLIDAY.
Well here we have BBC and their favoured groups,one of which is migrant labour,which now takes precedence over indigineous labour (or old labour,aspirational labour,non revolutionary labour,the Sun reading labour,the disapointing to us BBC labour ).
Its very handy to them that migrant labour will work cheaply for their lifestyle choices,and it doesn`t occur to them that a British bank holiday may mean nothing to a newcomer here, who may only wish to earn as much in as shorter time as possible and go home.
If they think its wrong for the British workforce to have bank holidays perhaps the BBC and its Guardian freinds will campaign to have them abolished.They could start by not showing special programmes “for bank holiday….”
“Evil and deluded American Fundamentalist Christians blamed for savage stabbing death of Muslim. Uproar in the Middle East as Tony Blair also cited as culpable. Dead man loved his garden and family nearly as much as Saint Saddam.”
Tricky one for the bbc.
Muslim and Jews join gay-laws protest
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=426308&in_page_id=1770
JR
Most people in the BBC are contemptuously dismissive of this blog
What makes you think you are in a position to know what attitude ‘most people in the BBC’ have towards this website – assuming they know about it – unless perhaps you have an insiders view?
….the BBC regard this place as a collection of mere green-ink nutters
Can you provide the source for this BBC position. If not, can you clarify, are you relaying the official view of the BBC or is this merely your own opinion – perhaps again based on personal observations?
the BBC doesn’t employ me to do any advocacy for it on this blog or elsewhere
Finally, then what do they employ you for?
JBH
Can we all play ‘name that tank’ or would you prefer to wait for a BBC researcher to come up the answer?
Does anyone know if I am correct in my understanding that BBC outsources many functions including collection of the licence fee and its telephone complaints service?
Tricky one for the bbc.
Muslim and Jews join gay-laws protest
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ pages…in_page_id=1770
TPO | 04.01.07 – 1:31 pm | #
Not really, Polly Toynbee managed to blame 9/11 on The failure of the United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol, this one should be a doddle.
I`m guessing its Dick Cheyneys fault.
Anonymous
I think Capita do a lot for the BBC. It’s horrifying the number of people the BBC employ and they still outsource large chunks of work.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=411688&in_page_id=1770
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2239095.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/02_february/16/hr.shtml
pounce:
M60 Patton?
It looks very similar to a Sheridan as well….damm you. I even cruised the Bovington website trying to spot it but the only one I could find showing it had a tourist in front. At one stage thought it was a Chinese one!
I once fired an 84mm Carl Gustav at a T62….my ears still whince at the memory…and the live round bounced off the damm thing anyway!
I hate it when I’m sure I know the answer but my brain refuses to release it….
.
London Mayor, Ken Livingstone in secret visit to terrorists’ families on Cuban trip
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=426408&in_page_id=1770
.
view_from_england 04.01.07 – 1:35 pm:
“JBH
Can we all play ‘name that tank’ or would you prefer to wait for a BBC researcher to come up the answer?”
Sorry, tanks are not really my forte. Cars and HGVs of the sixties and seventies I’m pretty good at. (As a schoolboy I used to win bets with classmates by donning a blindfold and naming the various makes and models through their engine, transmission and exhaust noises, as they drove up the hill alongside school. British Rail used to use lots of Ford Thames Traders with a particular sound and I used to astonish everyone by pretending to visualise the name B-R-I-T-S-H R-A-I-L as they drove past. Can’t do it with modern cars though – apart from souped up Subaru Imprezas – they’re all too quiet.)
(Anytime now JR will accuse me of deception)
Re: the tank. Now that I think about it, it looks american, but I just can’t place it. I used to know these things when I was a nipper… sad really, what goes.
I can’t think any but a very few would be able to tell what it was these days anyway (Is it some sort of mobile scaffolding holder?), considering how bad our education system is now.
Tanks?
Don’t ask me, ex sapper here (like pounce)
FIRING NOW!
Blimey, hope Tim’s okay.
BBC criticised for child parenting reality TV series
LONDON – The BBC has been heavily criticised by child protection charity Kidscape for its latest reality TV series ‘The Baby Borrowers’, which puts five teenage couples in charge of the welfare of young children.
Amazing stuff eh?
Pounce,
Is the vehicle German ?
Catalans grapple with migrant influx
By Marian Hens
BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/6226305.stm
Yet another example of how patriotism and pride in national heritage are reviled by the BBC.
I’m sure that Beeboids with a ‘mainstream opinion’ on education will be horrified to find out that the history of Reconquista is still taught in Spanish/Catalan schools.
3,000,000,000 GBP extorted for 25,000 staff = 120,000 per employee.
Catalans grapple with migrant influx
By Marian Hens
BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents
Nom de guerre | 04.01.07 – 4:16 pm
Two friends of mine have had no problem migrating to Catalunya. They’re invited to boar hunts and the locals love them. They speak Catalan with a broad Glaswegian accent.
http://paintinginthepyrenees.com/history.html
“Not really, Polly Toynbee managed to blame 9/11 on The failure of the United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol, this one should be a doddle.”
SiN, do you have a link to that? Toynbee is to journalism as Margaret Hodge is to child protection.
APL:
Anne Widdecombe: “We did hesitate on the panel to put this one forward because there was already evidence of links from the Countryside Alliance..”
Your starter for 10: Who was one of a small number of Conservative MPs who voted for the ban on hunting?
Scott Burgess has returned to blogging with an excellent fisking of our ‘favourite’ BBC 4 Today programme, Greens and Yoko Ono:
Radio 4 Guest Editor: ‘Belief in, Protection of Elves Key to Curbing Pollution’
TPO
I can’t find the original piece where I saw the remark about the Police interest – but this site lays out the whole tale and includes an e-mail from the man himself – saying merely that the Police had visited but he’d refused to talk to them.
Obviously, given the provenance, I am not vouching for its accuracy.
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/?p=504
New England states account for none of the ten highest in terms of murder, but for 4 of the safest ten.
Law-abiding folk? – Mountain Man
My guess is this would be due to the ‘hideously white’ monoculture of these states. It is well known that diversity breeds conflict. Mind you I’m not saying diversity is bad per se – just that there is a trade off.
Evening all,
It seems that my question to Mr John Reith ref 47 tonnes of metal has caught the attention of many a folk on this board. The reason I posted it was simply to illustrate to the mentioned gentleman that there are some things he hasn’t a Scooby do about. And when you haven’t a clue on a subject then its best to leave well alone.
The Vehicle in question is in fact the MBT (Main Battle Tank ) 70 or Kpz (Kamfpanzer) 70 by the Germans.
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/mbt_70.htm
A collaborative project by both countries it seeked to replace both the M60 (US) and leopard 1(German) using technology alone. However it was dropped when it came out in the wash that each tank would cost $1 million (at the same time an M60 cost the US $220K)
That example can be found at the Military Museum in Koblenz
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrtechnische_Studiensammlung_Koblenz
And why that tank. Because from its ashes the Germans developed the Leopard 2 and the Americans the M1 Abrams. Just as a point everybody bitches about weapons sales by the Americans. Yet nobody ever mentions the Germans. On the Leo 2 alone the Germans have sold to Austria, Chile, Denmark, Greece, Finland , the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Turkey. And in last months Janes Singapore has said it will purchase over 100 Leo 2A4 tanks. The Challi 2 has only been sold to 1 country and the M1 to 3. I wonder why the left never gripe about German arms sales?
Dave T wrote;
“I even cruised the Bovington website”
Funny enough I dropped in last month for a visit. Got in for free as well. Mind you coffee and a sarnie at their caff soon made up for any savings I made.
Here’s one of the pictures I took (spotters only)
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6704/dsc01284gf1.jpg
“I once fired an 84mm Carl Gustav at a T62”
Me too, but I can’t remember what our target was at Lydd and Hythe ranges.
Also fired the Law. Funny I always expected ATMs to go in a straight line like they do in the films. Only problem was my Oscar Charlie was as keen as mustard and so we tabbed back everyday to the transit camp from the ranges. Boy did I hate Hospital hill. (I didn’t sign up for the infantry)
Pounce,
Good job, keep em’honest. But then you know everything is Bush’s and America’s fault.
You have shown very vividly just how liberal bias is so myopic as not to see the truth around the world.
Now, who is furnishing nuclear power to the nutjob in Iran? Oh yes, that would be – Russia, ding!
And who was the American appeaser President at the time the first Ayatollah left the Parisian left bank?
Jimmaaah Cawter, ding!
Everywhere that man goes, dictators, tyrants and thugs kiss him. He is the worst President in our history both domestically and in foreign policy.
I do not know who JR is, but he’s sure full of it.
The BBC and its hatred of the Church in the UK.
Skin bleaching cream couple fined
A couple believed to have earned £1m selling toxic skin lightening creams were ordered by a court to pay nearly £100,000 in fines and costs. Yinka and Michael Oluyemi sold banned bleaching concoctions from their two cosmetics shops in south-east London.
————————————-XXX——————————————————–
The church-going couple, who lived in a £725,000 house in Sydenham, have three children, including one who is studying law.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6232343.stm
Ok help me here. Why is the fact that these people go to church (thus pointing out they are Christians) in the story. When numerous stories on the BBC don’t inform you of the faith of racist murderers in Scotland, Honour Killers in England or of terrorist plumbers in London then why does the BBC have to inform me these people are god fearing people?
The BBC and its hatred of the Church in the UK.
Sharon’s shadow looms over Israel
Last Updated: Thursday, 4 January 2007, 13:35 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6230897.stm
===
Among sundry other flaws, this article gives a glimpse into the BBC Psyche in the last paragraph.
“Israeli law makes it essentially impossible to switch off life support machines but doctors say it is extremely unlikely Ariel Sharon will ever regain consciousness.”
What a twisted interpretation. Would it not be more humane to say:
“Israeli law requires that Mr Sharon be maintained on life support”
vs.
“Israeli law makes it essentially impossible to switch off life support machines”
——
latent hostility indeed.
Micheal wrote;
“You have shown very vividly just how liberal bias is so myopic as not to see the truth around the world.
I find that a lot of the liberal world use the tactic of shouting out crap as loud and often as they can in the hope that;
a) People just give them the stage in frustration
b) They drown out any differences in opinion.
c) By throwing enough mud they hope some sticks.
Only once in my life have I lost my temper and decided to actually speak out against these tofu eating idiots who dream of world peace by removing the very people who protect them.
During the American invasion of Grenada I just happened to be home on leave .That weekend I went down town and the sandal wearing idiots of CND happened to have parked their arses in the local bus station and were asking for signatures to protest at this latest example of American oppression. This long haired goon asked for me to sign the petition, I refused and he called me a fascist. My passing retort was “I’m the wrong colour to be a fascist” and carried on walking. Well the torrent of abuse that came my way was not only loud but unwarranted.(I think the words to the effect “Come back here and say that and I’ll show you what we do to fascists” came out)We walked round the corner where I waited a few minutes and then walked back hoping that Tweedle dee , tweedle dum and tweedle dummer wouldn’t spot me until it was too late. Alas my mate Ian rugby tackled me before I could get near the stall. Idiot features on seeing how close I was did a runner and from the safety of at least 100 feet shouted out how he wasn’t scared of me and that he would give me a good hiding. Yup the liberal backbone really stood out that day. Shame as I’m sure I would have done the world a favour that day.
The BBC and its hatred of the Church in the UK.
pounce | 04.01.07 – 8:44 pm
You nailed it yet again, pounce. It’s incredible how the BBC sneers at Christianity and bows submissively to Islam.
I don’t why the BBC would dare dismiss this site! Fools. The brilliant use of “identify this tank” as a piece of rhetoric shows just how smart this place really is.
Tremble on your knees Bolshovik Broadcasting Craportain! Oh yes!
TREMBLE!
John Reith | 04.01.07 – 6:03 pm |
Have you got a link to the bbc or guardian for that story. I don’t give much credence to anything from extremist websites. If what you say is true then surely the bbc would have done a panorama special about it.
http://www.answers.com/topic/vanguard-news-network
Lep tanks were also sold to Australia were they not and are there not a couple in IRAQ with the Aussies?
Must get my oppo to run along to the Oz compound and see what they have. Mind you it will be in better nick and more effectively armoured than the British stuff.
How come the BBC aren’t screaming for the Government/MoD to be charged with corporate manslaughter given the unnecessary deaths of British soldiers in The Stan and Iraq?
PS I was NEARLY there with the M60, the back of the turret threw me….
Next competition: Pix of Hitler Stalin Castro and Mao. Task: pick the murdering thug out as determined by the BBC…..