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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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Glad to see you’re still with us, JBH.
I had started to worry.
A US radio talk show broadcasts a parody song about black Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
A US radio talk show broadcasts rape fantasies about black Republican Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.
As far as the BBC is concerned only one of the above stories needs to be reported. Guess which one.
Reported by the BBC –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6642029.stm
Not reported by the BBC –
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/latest-shock-jock-outburst/
JBH
Nice to read you are back. I was starting to think you may have had a sudden unexpected heart attack or desided for no good reason to slit your wrists.
Still, your no real threat to them, they have the media in their pockets enough to handle whatever you say, and wherever you may say it.
And there was you sitting there with one of the most important stories in modern British political history and no body wanted or cared to know about it anywhere in Britain.
We are currently undergoing an election for Prime Minister in true Stalinist style with only one candidate. And nobody seems to have even cared to noticed that either.
Entertaining as it was to see John Sweeney having a hissy fit in public (who was filming him? What was the context?), Al Dumbdown has the real scoop here.
[audio src="http://www.nuhip.com/070510_fivelive.mp3" /]
Jane Garvey’s admission that the BBC supported Labour in the 1997 General Election should be dynamite and more widely known.
We now know straight from the horse’s mouth that all Andrew Marr’s (and his sidekick John Reith’s) protestations of BBC diversity and impartiality come direct to us from the bull’s backside.
And by the way, I’m still in recovery after Reith’s assertion that the BBC treats Margaret Thatcher as a British hero.
I didn’t notice the Tories calling for an election when John Major came to power
**************************************
…said Gordon Brown. No but you called for an election though, didn’t you.
The edifice of shit squirts out another vile stream of effluent.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6321&&&edition=1&ttl=20070512000114
Ask Colonel Qadaffi.
“Muammar Gaddafi came to power in a bloodless coup in 1969. He is an Arab nationalist and was a driving force behind the formation of the Afican Union.” (sic)
5th Columnist.
G Cooper, Gary Powell,
Thanks for your kind thoughts. I’ve always said that this blog is akin to a family and it disturbs me that we kinfolk can’t have a handle on our brethren when they disappear.
No, I’ve not gone away. I won’t be posting for a while but when I come back expect me back with a bang.
Gary Powell:
P.S. You say “I’m no real threat to them.” Them, presumably, being the BBC.
Hmm. Well, you might be right. But then you could be wrong. The funny thing is, in Britain, as well you know, we have something called the rule of law. And, as one of the most powerful institutions in the land, the BBC’s responsibility to adhere to the rule of law • that is, the Royal Charter and Agreement under which the BBC levies a tax on every UK dwelling with a TV set • is paramount.
But as anyone who has examined our work will agree, it actually constitutes an amazing un-get-outable case study which proves like nothing else can that the BBC has flagrantly disavowed its solemn legal obligations under its Charter, Agreement, and broadcasting code books to report a major political controversy impartially, and, additionally, to report a major story of public interest.
Indeed, our work proves in one fell swoop that the BBC is everything that the goodly contributors to this blog allege it to be: – institutionally leftist and institutionally dishonest.
Watch this space. And that means you too, John Reith.
Yes but how can we make the transition from trolling the internets to getting the BBC abolished?
There’s a moral to this story. But penguins aren’t people so they can’t be racist.
Confused penguin strays 5,000km
A Magellanic penguin whose natural habitat is the cool climes of southern Chile has strayed thousands of miles from his home, arriving in Peru.
…
Scientists say they fear that the solitary Magellanic penguin may not be accepted by some of the area’s 4,000 Humboldt penguins.
Biologist David Orosco told AFP news agency that the native birds may even try to reject the penguin.
“Conditions in the park are not the ones it is used to. They usually seek out their own species, and it could suffer discrimination,” Mr Orosco said.
The penguin, found by a fisherman, managed the epic journey suffering only a small wound on its wing.
Mr Orosco said he was trying to contact colleagues in the penguin’s home country.
“It would be better for it to go to Chile,” he said.
“it could suffer discrimination”
I noticed that as well and it made me smile.
“But penguins aren’t people so they can’t be racist.”
Careful now, didn’t you, a Spaniard, marry a Jew? (I think you wrote that somewhere on this blog)
I should add, using the word ‘discrimination’ in a totally animal world sense is perhaps indicative of the sheer degree that PC speech has changed our language.
But treating people like animals would be.. Racism. On the other hand why shouldn’t a group decide who can and can’t live on its territory? As opposed to the this pan-human ‘lets all hold hands and sing songs underneath a rainbow’ tribal morality.
Does the BBC think that we are a one party state – well if you look at this you would think so.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm
al-dumbdown | 11.05.07 – 7:15 pm | #
Superb!
Of course, that the BBC is heavily biased towards Labour is well known to all who comment here, including Reith (Look at Kirsty “Villagate” Wark, Jim “If we win the election” Naughtie).
Now Jane Garvey and her Freudian slip!
Can someone tell me where that clip of John Sweeney losing it (so completely) came from?
It’s quite terrifying, but I would love to know the context of it.
From al-dumbledown’s clip of Jane Garvey reminiscing about Labour’s election victory in 1997.
Jane Garvey: I do remember I walked back in – we were broadcasting then from Broadcasting House in the centre of London, all very upmarket in those days – and the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. [Hearty laugh from Peter Allen] I’ll always remember that. Er… not that the BBC were celebrating in any way, shape or form…
Peter Allen: No not all…
Jane Garvey: …and actually I think it’s fair to say that in the intervening years… er… the BBC, if it ever was in love with Labour has probably fallen out of love with Labour, or learnt to fall back in, or basically just learnt to be in the middle somewhere which is how it should be. Um, but there was always the suggestion that the BBC was full of pinkos who couldn’t wait for Labour to get back into power. That may have been the case – who knows – but as I say there have been a few problems along the way over the last ten years. Wish I hadn’t started this now.
I bet ‘John Reith’ wishes you hadn’t either. Heh!
( “a few problems along the way over the last ten years.” Not left-wing enough? Iraq War?)
al-dumbdown, not al-dumbledown. Apologies.
Re John Sweeney clip. He’s been making a Panorama film about Scientologists, and they’ve been filming him filming them. Looks like they really got under his skin.
Another great clip of Sweeney has just gone up on YouTube:
“AS A BBC REPORTER I WILL SAY THAT MY ORGANISATION IS AT TIMES HIDEOUSLY HI — HIDEBOUND WITH STUPID BUREAUCRACY. THERE ARE PEOPLE THERE WHO CLAIM SALARIES WHO FRANKLY ARE MORONS.”
(It’s in upper case because I copy and pasted the quote, not because he was shouting again.)
Careful now, didn’t you, a Spaniard, marry a Jew? (I think you wrote that somewhere on this blog)
Ultraviolets | 12.05.07 – 2:00 am
Almost.
I’m a British born Jew who married a Spanish señorita – the now Señora Biodegradable 😆
But back to the penguin story, yes when penguins “discriminate” it’s seen as perfectly natural, to the point where a biologist can say, without fear of recrimination, that the “foreign” penguin would be happier if it went back to where it came from.
Suggest that Muslim women who want to wear body sacks would be happier if they went to live in Saudi Arabia or Iran and expect to be prosecuted for a “race hate” crime.
Sometimes I wish I were a penguin…
Good to see the transcript of the Jane Garvey clip. Fascinating stuff.
This has to be the single most honest, transparent and revealing moment in the BBC’s recent history. It’s fascinating listening to her admit the bias, retract the admission once she’d realised what she’d just said, admit it again out of a natural desire to be honest, try a bit of spin to patch it up and then give that up once she realised that the damage was done and spin could not repair it.
This is the BBC inadvertently taking a look at itself, being surprised at what it sees, trying to cover it up and then realising that there is no way to cover it up.
Jane Garvey is worthy of a prominent place on the Biased BBC sidebar.
al-dumbdown, not al-dumbledown. Apologies.
Anonanon | 12.05.07 – 10:59 am
al-dumbledown has a nice ring to it. Could be the name of a shop selling duvets in Saudi Arabia.
Blair Departs
“Under John Major, the previous Prime Minister, the government simply fell apart. It has done so again under Blair. Culture, education, health, transport, are at abysmal levels. Crime is such that there is no more room in prisons for the convicted. Through legal and illegal immigration the country has lost control of its borders.
Agriculture is shattered. Blair allowed the mass slaughter of livestock, and banned fox hunting, a nasty measure of class war. He tinkered disastrously with the constitution, abolishing the House of Lords, devolving power to Brussels, to Scotland and to Wales.
In Northern Ireland, at the expense of the moderates he has installed in power the rival Catholic and Protestant men of violence, which is disgusting in itself but also an invitation to Islamist terrorists.
He packed committees and appointments with his cronies, some of whom have been arrested for their financial dealings. “I’m a pretty straight kind of guy,” Blair once crowed, but the sleaze comes perilously close.
Yes, Dickens had the measure of artful dodgers like this. With his usual accuracy Anthony Daniels hit upon the perfect phrase – Blair, he said, has “delusions of honesty”
http://pryce-jones.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2UyZGMyOTM1YjYzMDY4NjM3NDlmN2Q5ZTZkZjIwZjQ=
Sorry, didn’t notice that the Sweeney “morons” link was posted earlier by Luana | 11.05.07 – 6:52 pm.
Still, worth a second mention I think.
That very useful attribute called discrimination got really bad press in Apartheid South Africa. Since then, anyone who discriminates is regarded as being the lowest of the low. This despite the fact that the ability to discriminate is what helps you avoid getting run over by a bus when you cross the street.
And whether the BBC likes it or not, penguins and people do tend to stick to their own kind.
Well, I’m truly shocked. I’d fully expected to arrive here and find the pages ringing with praise for last night’s R4 play – ‘What I Heard About Iraq’!
Could it possibly be that BBBC readers might have had some inkling of the play’s leanings and decided that if they heard one more hysterical anti-war diatribe they would ‘do a Dr Kelly’?
Never mind. I’m sure next week’s drama,’Why We Were Right to Topple Saddam’ will redress the balance…
From Pope HYS:
whatever your beliefs in condom use, a reader makes this point about the BBC interviews:
Shame on you, BBC! For the canonisation of Brazil’s first saint you give us the comments of 6 people – ALL of them saying that the Church must permit condom use. First: that has nothing to do with the canonisation of Brazil’s first saint. Second: there are 120,000,000 Catholics in Brazil. Were you REALLY unable to find just 1 who articulated why the Church teaches as she does about condoms? Of course not – because your tacit anti-catholicism chose those 6 – true objectivity was nowhere in sight.
William, Toulouse
GCooper: “Curious, that. I, along with many others, would criticise Bliar primarily for having presided over some of the most disastrous changes ever to befall British society and the British constitution.”
Such as..?
stuck record,damian thompsons blog
has all the dirt on the sweeny video.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=85834&ciid=204055
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/may07/sweeneystrop.htm
Al-dumbdown. Just brilliant!!!!
Could our hosts put that clip and James Naughtie’s ‘When we win the election’ clip on the sidebar for everyone’s quick’n’easy access?
Not a bias issue, but I saw this on News Sniffer and it raised a smile this Saturday Morning…
‘Does metric matter or should imperial rule?
Written by Mr Wideboy, Oxford, United Kingdom on Wed May 09 15:04:39 UTC 2007. 2 recommendations.
“”This country is full of anomalies.”
Why? When did Anomalia joint the EU??
A PRETTY NURSE, United Kingdom
How pretty?
Roger W, London,”
Very – and then there’s the uniform….
A PRETTY NURSE, United Kingdom
Can i have your number?’
Mr Minut wrote;
“Such as..? “
1) Abolishing Grammar schools
2) Changing the house of Lords to benefit the government in power.
3) Signing up fully to the European Human rights law (When everybody else changed the bits they didn’t like)
4) Opening the British borders to every Tom, Dick and Harry
5) Breaking up the UK
6) Rewarding corrupt politicians instead of getting rid of them. (Blunkett, Prescott, etc…)
7) Ruining this country
8) Placating radical Islam rather than hitting them with the rulebook.(I refer to the power that the unelected MCB has with this government)
9) Allowing the BBC to not only to continue to rob us blind, but to allow them to rob us at above the rate of inflation.
Next silly question?
8. Politicising the Police
9. Politicising the Civil Service
10. The increase in taxation
11. Robbing people’s pensions
12. Certificates of Education handed out to children who do not even have a grasp of basic literacy and numeracy.
13 Large increases in prescription charges
13. Higher taxes to pay for a failing Health Service.
14. Britain’s public sector has more than trebled (ie non-productive jobs).
15. The demise of the traditional countryside way of life (e.g. fox hunting)
16. Civil rights which only protect those who would like to see us all dead.
17. Normal cultural events e.g. Christmas and Guy Fawkes night frowned upon by the “authorities”.
18. The humiliation of the Royal Navy.
19. The destruction of any national identity.
20. PC art, television, comedy.
21. A victim culture.
sorry pounce – that list should start with No 10.
That John Sweeney video is great!
I loathe both the BBC and Scientologists so hopefully the upcoming Panorama will damage the credibility of both!
Of course, while Channel 4 brings us the goods with Undercover Mosque, the BBC chases after religions and sects that it probably considers to be hideously white.
How long has this ‘650,000 dead’ in Iraq been doing the rounds? Surely if those who believed this to be true at the date of release then said figure would have increased to something like 1 million.
Do I hear 900,000 dead? Will someone bid one million?
Sometimes I wish I were a penguin…
Biodegradable | 12.05.07 – 12:04 pm |
sometimes i wish certain people were penguins…
sorry pounce – that list should start with No 10.
Jon | 12.05.07 – 11:24 pm |
um, aren’t they all about number 10?
CHECK THIS VIDEO OUT
And then spam this everywhere:
Noted in U.S. Congressional Record on January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals:
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.”
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
The above is cultural Marxism summed up. It’s all truth dad.
John Sweeney in damage limitation mode:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6650545.stm
When you’ve seen John Sweeney vent on Youtube, strangely not linked to by BBC Online 😆 – so here is the link
how credible does the following sound?
In LA, the moment our hire car left the airport we realised we were being followed by two cars.
In our hotel a weird stranger spent every breakfast listening to us. In all, we count 13 strangers – private investigators? – who were following us. Scientology denied sending PIs after the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6650545.stm
Is it possible to believe the foaming ranter on Youtube is a bit paranoid?
Didn’t the BBC have a less heroic looking picture of Mullah Dadullah, recently deceased Taleban commander than the one they posted on the BBC home page (International version)?
http://thumbsnap.com/v/2fChvX2d.jpg
The one they use is positively Lawrence of Arabia
http://thumbsnap.com/v/Ev6a8OlQ.jpg
Anonymous:
Is it possible to believe the foaming ranter on Youtube is a bit paranoid?
Of course it is. However, it is just as possible that he is not. Just because the threat of militant Islam is mostly ignored or downplayed by the BBC it doesn’t follow that there are no other threats worth investigating.
Ultraviolets | 13.05.07 – 4:41 am,
It’s virtualy an exact description of the BBC.
But I wont be spamming it, because I don’t believe in spamming as a course of action.
And when you think about it, publicising it far and wide could do more harm than good. There are agendas in there that some far lefties may not have thought of yet.
Why present them with an instruction manual?
Should be virtually.
Of course it is. However, it is just as possible that he is not. Just because the threat of militant Islam is mostly ignored or downplayed by the BBC it doesn’t follow that there are no other threats worth investigating.
Yes, but what about the paranoia of Sweeney?
In LA, the moment our hire car left the airport we realised we were being followed by two cars.
So, they leave the car hire depot at one of the world’s busiest airports and they see two cars following them? Only two? At LAX? How did the people following them know they were in town? It all sounds melodramatic to me.
In our hotel a weird stranger spent every breakfast listening to us.
A weird stranger? In LA? Surely not! 😆
What sort of hotel would Mr Sweeney be staying at? If it was a dive in West Hollywood then I’d be amazed if no “weird stranger” was there!
Anonymous:
Even a paranoid has some real enemies.
Henry A. Kissinger or Delmore Schwartz
Mr Sweeny does explain why he was shouting, here …
It was only the thespian in him.
Is this Sweeney guy for real?
“I um, wanted to demonstrate to you that actually my voice is louder than yours. ”
hilarious
From the link posted by Anonymous:
Take “Rosemary”, who is an ordinary mum and lives in England. She had two children and one died. Her surviving daughter was also her best friend. Then her daughter joined Scientology and her mother saw less and less of her.
Almost two years ago she received a “disconnect” – a letter cutting her mother out of her life totally.
Rosemary received no Christmas cards, no birthday cards, no Mother’s Day cards.
Now, replace ‘Scientology’ with ‘islam’, just for a bit of fun. What’s a cult now, BBC?
The BBC, cults and half a story;
“While making our BBC Panorama film “Scientology and Me” I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a “bigot” by star Scientologists, brain-washed – that is how it felt to me – in a mock up of a Nazi-style torture chamber and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers.”
And
“Scientology has two faces – nice and smiley, and sinister and dark. If you do not believe me, go and see their exhibition in Los Angeles, Psychiatry: Industry of Death. You enter through a door that is a mock-up of a torture chamber.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6650545.stm
I know others have broached this story, Yet while not defending Ron Hubbards boys own club. (Its still a bloody cult at the end of the day) I must point out they don’t have a penchant for murdering people in the name of Ron.
Be it a 17 year pregnant girl in Bury
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6650747.stm
Now I wonder what faith she belonged to?
Or a truck bomb in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6651159.stm
Now I know Travolta and Cruise are deemed evil by some but I have yet to see any evidence that links them to belonging to a real sinister cult.
P.S
At least Top Scientologist Tommy “Don’t mention the word cult” Davis allowed John Sweeney to shout back. Under Islam if you do just that you die.
Now there’s a story John Sweeny should be addressing I just for the life in me can’t figure out why the BBC doesn’t cover it?
The BBC, cults and half a story