Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
“IMHO you’re by far the most lucid and knowledgeable poster here on AGW.”
Not the most good looking then…? 😎
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7172765.stm
“Drug mix-up’ theory for TV death
The actress found dead in her home in London may have taken the wrong medication, her fiance’s mother says.”
Funny how the BBC use a mother’s claim (who has an obvious interest in muddying the waters) as the basis for an article on the front page yet when presented with FACTS by the British Army or Americans about topics such as number of Taliban killed, they always believe the insurgents never the military……
If it turns out (despite initial reporting by the media) that cocaine or other Class A/B drugs were NOT involved then fine but given the initial reports I find this article both wrong in the way it tries to muddy the waters and it is an opinion not news.
The BBC will doubtless hide any corrections on the England- Farming- Entertainment- Surrey subpages…as they normally do.
“Arthur
IMHO you’re by far the most lucid and knowledgeable poster here on AGW.
Please don’t give up.”
Here Here!
Where Where?
Who Who?
*sits back and waits for barn owl gags…*
Dunno if anyone saw this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=506200&in_page_id=1773
Jools’ fools: Viewers’ fury at ‘live’ New Year’s Eve show made on December 20.
Seems to me that it is particularly inappropriate to prerecord a celebrity-packed New Year’s Eve celebration and countdown to the New Year 11 days before the fact.
The BBC apologist who defended the show had quite a revealing thing to say:
“Jools’ Annual Hootenanny is an idealised New Year’s Eve party with a line-up that would surely be impossible to deliver on December 31.”
Maybe the BBC should be content with guests who are prepared to see the New Year in in the scintillating company of BBC people. May not be as glamorous but at least it would be authentic.
Authentic? What am I thinking. This is the BBC.
“Where Where?
Allan@Oslo | 05.01.08 – 4:49 pm | #
Behind you!
Television is all about illusion,nodding head interview,crowd scenes,weather forcasters waving their hands at empty screens,”experts” picked because the look the part,scenes and dialogue until they are right – welcome to the sausage factory.
Dear Auther Dent,
Give up posting on the MMCC/AGW swindle?
Your posts on the subject always informative,lucid and entertaining and much better that the equivalent postings by the BBC crowd, even the resident BBC science reporter falters and gets tripped up by your evidence(no offence David)!
Cold hard facts and logic in large quantities is what we need to counter the huge amounts of BBC propaganda that we are spoon fed each day.
This blog would be all the poorer without your contributions.
Dear David,
You seem to be a very intelligent person, so why do you persist in following the AGW/MMCC theory with such blind loyalty?
With your education you should be able to see through the spin and lies and faulty science with ease?
I heard a rumour that David Attenborough was ordered to talk up/spin the AGW disaster scenario by the BBC ‘headshed’ or he wouldnt get the money for his new documentary series, any truth in this?
After seeing what happened to David Bellamy when he voiced doubts about the MMCC theory I can see why he might want to tow the line!
The expose of the fakery of Jools hootenanny was made some years ago – so the Mail is just re-running an old story. Faking the countdown to the New Year is a particularly ludicrous example of the genre, but just think of all those fake Christmas (and other) dinners served up by Jamie, Nigella et al – there must be an army of people out there who’ve pretended to be eating their Christmas grub for the cameras. When it comes to telly fakery is the name of the game.
Peter | Homepage | 05.01.08 – 6:45 pm, Oscar | 05.01.08 – 6:57 pm,
Yeah, I suppose it’s naive to expect authenticity from the box.
Yeah but we could at least have TRUTH or the WHOLE story on rather more occasions than we do sometimes!
The CO of 1 SCOTS sent a newsletter out which had the following about his problems with the media:
“At this briefing I noticed that most of the journalists seemed to have made up their minds on a story of a defeated British Army deserting the people of Basrah, leaving the place to be run by the militia and policed by corrupt security forces. They pushed and pushed for me to say that I was concerned that, without the situational awareness gained from joint patrolling, the Iraqi Army would be bound to engage in inappropriate and occasionally atrocious behaviour. This is simply not the case and I told them so. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the professional or moral integrity of the Iraqi Army units and formations with which we have been working. Indeed I have every reason to trust them.
I was asked whether we could patrol in Basrah and I explained that, as an armoured battlegroup, we had the military capability to do any task required of us, anywhere, but that we worked to an operational plan and respected the wishes of the local senior Iraqi joint commander, who is currently keen to ensure that the Iraqi Army patrol alone in the city. This observation was twisted by one well known television news journalist when she said to the Iraqi Army battalion commander (through my interpreter):
‘The British are blaming you because they’re not allowed to patrol in Basrah. How do you feel about that?’
Now given that Kate Silverton is swanning around on her website etc saying she was in Basra at the time – can anyone confirm that it was indeed she who came out with that piece of rubbish? Just like to have it confirmed before we take it up officially…..
Another one of those “On This Day” articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/5/newsid_4071000/4071661.stm
This one is about Operation Moses, whereby Israel airlifted several thousand Jewish Ethiopian refugees from Sudan, where they had fled. The story has a generally down-beat tone and, although there’s plenty of criticism, there’s no suggestion that this might have been a good thing.
The report is designed to give readers the impression that the Israeli government lured thousands of Ethiopians to die in the Sudanese desert in order to boost Israel’s population, and that the Ethiopian immigrants were treated like dogs once they arrived in Israel, and were used only as cannon fodder infantrymen for the Israeli army.
The “in context” section opens by noting that thousands of Ethiopians had died on their way to Sudan; it implies but does not openly state that this was because of Operation Moses. Was it? The report does not say.
This bit was particularly odd:
“… public opinion in Israel on the government’s motives for launching Operation Moses are mixed.
Some believe its reasons are humanitarian, but others think the refugees from Ethiopia are simply the latest immigrants to settle in Israel and raise the numbers now living there.”
That last bit is oddly passive. The article ends with the heartwarming news that “Jewish people from Ethiopia who live in Israel claim the publicity surrounding the operation has endangered the safety of refugees in Sudan”.
Dear John Reith
Just one question…
If the BBC is so fantastic, where is the Balen Report?
Cheers.
From BBC News Homepage
Tories target incapacity cash
The party says its plans to require claimants to prove they cannot work will mean 200,000 lose the benefit.
(also headlined as “Tories plan incapacity cash curb”) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/7173453.stm
………and in the article we get
Incapacity benefit is claimed by 2.64m people at an estimated annual cost of £12.5bn.
However, Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain accused the Tories of copying the government’s ideas.
He said: “They are plagiarising plans already announced by us before Christmas and seeking to present them as their own.
So, if the Tories are just copying a NuLab idea shouldn`t the headline read…….
“Labour Target Incapacity Cash, Tories Agree”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7173453.stm
@David G: here’s the abstract of the paper I was talking about before…
“International Journal of Climatology
David H. Douglass 1 *, John R. Christy 2, Benjamin D. Pearson 1, S. Fred Singer 3 4
1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
2 Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
3 Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
4 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
email: David H. Douglass (douglass@pas.rochester.edu)
*Correspondence to David H. Douglass, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
Keywords
climate trend • troposphere • observations
Abstract
We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 Climate of the 20th Century model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.
David Douglass summarises:
The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/117857349/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0”
Not covered at all by the Beeb – but surely of interest, given that the AGW panic is pretty much all computer model based?
“However, Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain accused the Tories of copying the government’s ideas.
He said: “They are plagiarising plans already announced by us before Christmas and seeking to present them as their own.”
Perhaps that is why the BBC didn’t say anything about the various things such as inheritance tax that NuLabour pinched off the Tories…..
“Not covered at all by the Beeb – but surely of interest, given that the AGW panic is pretty much all computer model based?”
It is utterly negligent of the BBC not to report on the pros and cons of GW/CC.
The EU is racing off on this Children’s Crusade to reduce carbon emissions.Vast projects are being undertaken,wind farms,the introduction of CFL bulbs,without any real examination of the cost and implications.
Is it beyond the BBC to actually earn its position as the British broadcasting corporation?
The Asian Bishop of Rochester has said that there are no-go areas being developed by Muslims
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HXRAOZSFTUANPQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/01/06/nislam106.xml
Wonder if this will be reported on the BBC?
Peter Hain,isn’t he wanted for something im Africa?
Woodentop: Ahhh, interesting bunch of authors. No agenda there then.
Cassandra: Can I tell you what I say to the Badger Fans, MMR/Autism Parents and the Mobile Phone Cancer Cluster “Victims” too… I report science. That’s all I do. No agenda. I’m not told what to say. I just go by peer reviewed papers and we go from there. I enjoy Arthur’s posts and I appreciate him calling a halt for now. I’m sure we’ll come back to this but for now, well we all know where we stand.
As for Jools Holland… erm wasn’t it three years ago that NY was a minute late cause someone failed to start the programme on time? We’ve all be sent on a course to explore notions of truth in broadcasting… do we want some sort of dogme approach to tv and radio? And as Charlie Brooker said, these are accusations being laid by THE BRITISH TABLOIDS ?!
David G: “Woodentop: Ahhh, interesting bunch of authors. No agenda there then.”
Nice one from a scientist.
“The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone’s origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.
The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question.[1] Genetic accounts of an issue may be true, and they may help illuminate the reasons why the issue has assumed its present form, but they are irrelevant to its merits.”
A bit like the BBC’s current coverage of AGW: if you’re presenting research from the “in crowd” however rubbish, that’s fine. If you’re a part of the dark side – cheerio!
More bias against the Tories:
6:00am and 6:30am BBC Breakfast News headlines on the story of the Conservative plans to cut back on Disability claims. The story is simply read out by the presenter. Immediately the Labour putdowns are read out (as previously mentioned by a few messages above this). Then a mouthpiece from “Mind” is allowed to speak up, questioning the Tory plan.
[Rule 1 – if there is a chance it’s popular Tory, anti Labour news, ensure that the Labour views are always heard, and drag out any opposition that can be found early in the morning to reinforce the anti Tory stance].
Second headline is about Gordon Brown hinting at new nuclear power station building plans. As this is pro Labour news, there are no automatic put downs from the Tories (or other opposition parties) and there are no mouthpieces allowed to voice their opposition either. Funny, but normally the BBC can quickly find mouthpieces from various green & conservation parties at any hour of the day.
[Rule 2 – if it’s popular Labour news, make sure the Labour plans go completely unquestioned, make sure nobody else can be found to voice opposition].
Arthur Dent
Thank you for answering my questions. There seems to be the inspector Cluso law of unintended consequences here; in an attempts to clean up their act and reduce the amount of industrial smoke they did not realise that clearer and less dimmed skies would let more solar heat in.
Funny, but normally the BBC can quickly find mouthpieces from various green & conservation parties at any hour of the day.
It doesn’t take much effort to go down the corridor a few doors, or at worst, pop down to the canteen. Finding ants is easy in an ant colony.
Fascinating 15-minute history of Israel vs Islamic terror, told by someone who’s been in the country since before ’67:
http://www.deprogramprogram.com/index.cfm
Click on Today’s free Excerpt at bottom left.
Would also be instructive listening for BBC hacks trained in the Palestinian “narrative” on this conflict.
Peter Hain,isn’t he wanted for something im Africa?
Anonymous | 06.01.08 – 1:22 am
He was an activist against the Apartheid Government.
dave t | 05.01.08 – 9:21 pm
Dunno if you watched this Panorama programme titled Basra – The Legacy, presented by Jane Corbin:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=i&q=Panorama&go.x=36&go.y=10
From the title, you can already tell which way she is going to spin it. And spin it she certainly did. Though there’s a good deal of coverage of Shia militia atrocities, especially against women, the spin leaves people with the impression that though the Shia obviously think getting rid of Saddam was a good thing, they blame the British for the current murderous chaos.
Funny, Corbin does’t explore the idea of what would have happened if the coalition had simply toppled Saddam and then left. I guess that would be thoughtcrime in the BBC’s book.
On BBC website- update of Thursday 3 Jan.- on the side bar there is a video of Gaza residents ‘fleeing from Israeli gunfire’.
Later in the video there is a scene of ‘Israeli troops’ coming under attack in Nablus(from the BBC reporter,Aleem Maqbool), and retaliating with rubber bullets. The vehicle has ‘mishtarah’ in Hebrew letters on the side.
I always thought mishtara meant ‘police’not ‘army’. Can someone enlighten me. Were they Israeli troops or Israeli police? I think it makes a difference to the perception of the incident.
Also, the report says that two people killed in an Israeli tank attack were Hamas militants, but three other victims,including the mother and child of the ‘militants’ were civilians.
Tragic.
HYS have a topic called “What will be the hottest gadget in 2008?”
I posted the following:
“How about a gadget that would allow the BBC to block non-payers of the licence fee to be barred from receiving BBC broadcasts?”
There were 5 pages of comments when I posted the above and there are now 24 pages of comments. Alas my comment is still awaiting moderation. Do you think I have broken the house rules? Link to BBC HYS Topic
The BBC have now added the story about Bishop Ali of Rochester and his article on no go areas controlled by Muslims. Funnily enough it has dropped down the rankings and is now bottom of the stories on the sidebar underneath stories that were posted two days ago…wait another five minutes and it will disappear from the front page altogether and doubtless JR will claim as he has done before that there were too many stories which pushed this one off the front page (despite the anti Tory stories somehow managing to stay afloat and at the top…)
BBC – we’re having a giraffe..it’s what we do.
The current news headline on the BBC website::
“Brown warns MPs over pay increase”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7173656.stm
The BBC isn’t simply content with cutting and pasting text from the Number Ten website and passing it off as ‘news’, as it did with Brown’s New Year statements.
No. Now, the Dear Leader has been in for a fireside chat with his mate Andy. Cue lots of trouser-wettingly exciting ‘Gordon says’ stories.
If you are an MP, you may consider MPs’ pay to be the most crucial issue facing the world at the moment, but I dare say you would be in a minority.
Even so, the Great Leader’s view on this matter is entirely his own because MPs’ pay increases are for individual MPs to decide.
Quite why the BBC has decided to make this ‘story’ its headline is beyond me – unless it is another piece of PR puff to show Brown as a man of noble principle.
This is crap.
Stop playing along with the Brown PR machine, BBC. Show some editorial independence and report some proper news.
dave t:
The Asian Bishop of Rochester has said that there are no-go areas being developed by Muslims
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/…6/ nislam106.xml
Wonder if this will be reported on the BBC?
dave t | 06.01.08 – 1:21 am | #
Well you can stop wondering: it was near the top of the national news bulletin at 7.00 am this morning on Radio 4 – and covered in the following Sunday programme – though Bishop Michael didn’t accept the invitation to be interviewed and his “spokesman” said he wasn’t in a position to comment.
I’m inclined to be on the anti-BBC side in many of the issues here (the presentation of the Conservative’s disability benefit policies for example) but I think it’s a hostage to fortune to try these “Wonder if . ” lines.
Ahhh, interesting bunch of authors. No agenda there then.
This comment from David Gregory is an appalling and childish comment from someone who purports to follow scientific principles. It is a classic example of the corruption of science in support of political objectives. How typical of a BBC employee.
The paper referred to be woodentop is published in a respected peer reviewed journal in climatology published by the Royal Meterological Society
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/4735/home/EditorialBoard.html
You may disagree with the paper and it’s conclusions, scientists often do but it is scurrilous to rubbish the paper on the bais of who wrote it. If you still purport to be a scientist Mr Gregory, an apology might be in order.
The BBC still say that Radio 1 DJ Kevin Greening died peacefully in his sleep. Would today’s JR please comment?
David Gregory (BBC):
Woodentop: Ahhh, interesting bunch of authors. No agenda there then.
Oh, really, Dr Gregory! They’re wrong because of who they are/where they come from? Really?
It’s a scientific report in a reputable peer reviewed journal. don’t just dismiss it and write it off because of what you think about the authors (had you actually heard of any of them before – or is it because they’re American?).
The rejection by scientists and governments of scientific results that don’t accord with what has become the “acceptable” science of man-made climate change is one of the most worrying aspects of the present situation. There is an anti-scientific disparaging of and clamping down on work that does not produce results supporting the acceptable mainstream theories.
I, like many other scientists of my acquaintance was once worried about the possibility of man-made global warming. I’m still cautious that it might be happening and think we should be taking precautionary steps. I am, though, aware that in the field where I do have some standing (mainly the complex modelling which underlies almost every element of the current “consensus”) the modelling tools and our technical skills fall far short of what is needed for results in which we can have confidence. The scope for misuse and misinterpretation is massive. The de-bunking of the “Hockey Stick” analysis and the impressive analysis of the analytical faults that led NASA to make a series of major errors in assessing US temperatures over several years (far more significant in my view than JR seems to believe: in the actual errors, in what their occurrence says about the way statistical modelling is used, in the attempts of the “scientists” to cover up their errors – and because the wrong model or wrong use of models allowed headlines about “hottest” temperatures which the right use of the right model would not).
So I’m beginning to find it difficult just to accept what the “consensus” tells me.
I’d hope that an international news operation like the BBC would be more critical of and questioning about what governments and the scientists they fund tell them: the BBC always has been and still is about Nuclear Power! They have, however, just seemed to limb aboard the band waggon and to sneer at those who are choosing to get off, step back and exercise some scientific judgement.
Matt
look at my next post on Rochester….
Well well well……
“The BBC has produced (for internal use only) an analysis of the Cameron Project, unpublished, it has been carefully kept away from the eyes of the License Fee payers. It is a good analysis of the 4 year Team Cameron plan, as originally envisaged and as actually implemented. It covers the anti-Brown strategy, policy development and party modernisation.
You can download a summary of the report here, courtesy of Guido”
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=hand-7864539416817790857&size=8
Al-Beeb helpfully profile the Bishop of Rochester: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7173759.stm
Count the eeeeevil things he has said!!
Dear John Reith
The the Balen Report?
Cheers.
The first of the HYS “House Rules” is interesting. The first one says this:
“We reserve the right to reject messages which:
* Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable”
The last phrase is the telling one. It translates to “basically we can reject anything we damn well want to, including anything we don’t agree with”. Who’d have thunk it, hmmm?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7173453.stm
I suppose it goes without saying that the big highlighted quote is one from Peter Hain being critical of the Conservative policy.
You’d think in an article about a Conservative policy announced by the party leader, he’d have the lead quote. But apparently the box was reserved for some orange second-rater…
Coverage of the US primary elections is interesting. By my timings the BBC allocates about three times as much time to Democrat issues than Republican. It also gives a more positive spin; Republicans are portrayed as arguing among themselves whilst Democrats are ‘discussing real issues’.
But then the Democrats are nearer to the BBC’s approved State Religion.
Thank-you, Chuffer.
The Bishop of Rochester (that howwible, howwible man, Beeboids!) is praised for his courage in speaking out on so-called ‘contentious issues’.
Isn’t it blindingly obvious that he can get away with speaking these truths only because of the colour of his skin?
If a white Churchman talked like this he would be verbally flogged (‘RACIST! ‘HATE-MONGER! BNP!’) by the BBC and its Guardian-reading pals from one end of the country to the other.
‘MattLondon:
David Gregory (BBC):
Woodentop: Ahhh, interesting bunch of authors. No agenda there then.
Oh, really, Dr Gregory! They’re wrong because of who they are/where they come from? Really?’
DG isn’t a scientist, he ais a local TV reporter. See http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/8064125644941190312/?a=28305#379325 and http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/8064125644941190312/?a=28305#379265
He’s a TV reporter with a physics PhD. Be fair.
Anyone seen this??
“well guess what I used computer models in my PhD and I realise you can do anything you want with them too… but enough about me, clearly in your eyes the only people qualified to comment on climate change are the scientists doing the research right now… so which one are you? Name, rank and serial number? Seems only fair, then I can google you as you’ve googled me.
David Gregory (BBC) | 06.01.08 – 2:14 am | #
Yes but he’s only a model scientist.Here’s one I made earlier.
The comments of the Bishop of Rochester have been on two Radio 4 news bulletins I have heard. But the item was introduced by referring to the statements made by those opposing his views!!! This is a standard ploy of the BBC when reporting any statements which do conform to the intolerant bigotted ideology of the Metropolitan Liberal Elite.