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.
The BBC reporting on the decision to build a new generation of nuclear power plants, but a little slanted towards the views of environmental lobbyists / libdems and other assorted losers in my opinion:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7179579.stm
“Environmental campaigners are also concerned that a concentration on nuclear power will deflect attention and funding from development of renewable energy and “carbon capture” projects.”
Are these people real or what? Future energy production will not come about by naively switching off fossil fuel, installing lots of windmills and hoping for the best.
“The Liberal Democrats reject its use because of the risk of accidents and what they describe as “the long-term legacy of waste”.
By “accidents” I take it they are referring to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Three Mile Island was caused by poor operator training and design flaws, most of the radioactivity being contained at the site. Chernobyl by numerous inherent design flaws, poor operator training and a disregard for safety by the Russian Authorities. The phasing out of older reactor designs means that a repetition of accidents like these are unlikely.
Nuclear Plants in Sweden, France, Canada and Finland prove that it is possible for the generation of electricity through nuclear power and its waste disposal to be extremely safe.
C’mon Beeb, a bit more science and putting things into context would be appreciated.
Bit back to the old days with this blog with 500 plus comments….
Anyway, over on Fawkes’ site, news of overstaffing for the primaries by BBC staff.
http://www.order-order.com/2008/01/bbc-invade-america-taxpayers-only.html
The BBC, its continued hatred of America and half a story.
Polish PM cautious on US missiles
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is to hold talks with Czech leaders in Prague shortly on a controversial US missile defence project. On Wednesday, Mr Tusk said Poland would only agree to provide a base for US interceptor missiles if this increased the security of Poles. Poland’s new government is much more cautious than its predecessor on the issue, a BBC correspondent says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7180547.stm
So according to the BBC, the Poles are having second thoughts about basing that ABM screen in their backyard. Here is what the Polish Prime Minister actually said;
“Adopting an increasingly assertive tone before meetings in Washington next week, Poland’s new center-right government has warned that it would not accept a controversial U.S. antiballistic missile shield until the United States agreed to bolster Polish air defenses. The request is a departure from the previous nationalist-conservative government led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, which had all but agreed to deploy 10 interceptors on Polish territory without setting firm conditions over the security and financing of having them in the country. Bogdan Klich, the Polish defense minister, said he would ask Washington to modernize Poland’s air-defense capabilities with short- and medium-range systems, such as the Patriot. If necessary, he said, he would also ask the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S.-led military alliance, for a guarantee that it would come to Poland’s assistance if it came under attack.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/09/europe/shield.php
Even the Russian media (not exactly in favour of the Missile screen) gives a clearer picture than that of the BBC.
“Poland’s leadership is expected to demand that the United States help Poland to strengthen its short- and medium-range air defenses in exchange for an increased threat of a potential terrorist missile attack against the country.”
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080110/95986046.html
Once again the BBC defends its ideological masters in Tehran from the Great Satan.
The BBC, its continued hatred of America and half a story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7180685.stm
Just an article about a US attack on Al Qaeda in Iraq, or is it.
The second half of it covers the deaths in Iraq since the invasion.
WHO says 151,000, well it actually says 104,000 to 223,000 which is an enormous spread.
The ‘independant’ Iraq Body Count puts it as eighty something thousand.
Not good to be sure but in line I think with expectation of the body count from that awful conflict.
Most of the deaths are by violence by Iraqis on Iraqis, the BBC sees fit not to report that leaving the impression for some that these are the deaths caused by coalition forces related as it is to the US attack higher in the same story.
What’s more this is nothing like the 650,000 presumably by now 1 million the BBC was claiming.
Everyone has seen through that obvious falsehod, but rather than retract it the BBC simply quietly publishes other figures with considerably less fanfare than the original erroneous ones.
Its not one off its continual.
I would have difficulty believing any BBC ‘fact’ about Iraq ever again.
Once again we have an impartial BBC discussion on Today between a scientist with an catastrophist agenda and a green fantasist. Mind you, this discussion came after a contribution from a very muted Roger Harrabin: even he couldn’t contradict the necessity for nuclear investment.
Sir David and Ms Lucas agreed that global warming/climate change is a looming catastrophe. Also, if I heard correctly they agreed (apparently) that up to 60% of electricity generated is lost in transmission (the figure is nearer 7%). Sir David declined the opportunity to rubbish the ecolunatic wind-farm proposals by the government (oh I forgot he’s the chief government scientific adviser: to quote David Gregory (BBC) “no agenda there then”).
Although Sir David and Ms Lucas were on different sides of this particular discussion, the “real” debate that (a) substantial nuclear investment (ie the French way of which Sir David appeared to approve not because it gives France security of supply but because of its “low carbon footprint” aaaggghhh!!) should have commenced years ago, (2) for the UK, alternatives to nuclear, coal and, to an extent, hydro are marginal at best (3) security of UK energy supply has been endangered by government funk and indecision (including last century’s Conservative adminstrations) which result from a mixture of incompetence and fear of not being seen as sufficiently green and anti-nuclear (unless it’s Iran, of course). Don’t expect that “debate” on the BBC soon.
You what? The IHT article is a bit more specific and informative but essentially says exactly the same thing so HTF is the BBC one ‘anti American’?????
You what? The Iraqi death blurb actually quotes the Iraq Body Count figures as well as a reasonably robust looking new survey?????
Umbongo | 10.01.08 – 12:15 pm |
of which Sir David appeared to approve not because it gives France security of supply
Baring in mind France has no supply of nuclear fuel, and niether does Britain, this statement cannot be correct. Both countries need to buy it in from places like Canada and Australia. It’s a securer source than Putin and his criminal friends to be sure but just imagine: Britain at the mercy of the Aussies – perish the thought!
This page suggests that the World supply is limited to 70 years (at current usage) so someone, somewhere needs to come up with a better solution than nuclear if fossil fuel is on it’s way out by unpopular demand.
Even coal will eventually run out so what do we burn then, rubbish? ‘Re-newable’ (sic) energy is the future, I believe, it’s just not efficient enough to be the present.
good piece on eu.ref……..
But this does to an extent explain why the BBC is so deferential to the EU and so quick and constant in relaying its propaganda in the most favourable of terms. It is not the British government that decides on its longer-term future but the Eurocrats in Brussels, so the BBC is merely acknowledging where the real power lies, keeping in with its true masters.
No wonder it shines blue lights from its windows. The only surprise is that it does not hang the ring of stars from its flagpoles.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/01/true-masters-of-broadcasting.html
(1) Nuclear Plants in Sweden, France, Canada and Finland prove that it is possible for the generation of electricity through nuclear power and its waste disposal to be extremely safe.
….
Andy | 10.01.08 – 11:31 am | #
And, for over 50 years, since 1956, Bitain’s own experience too (and if anyone wants to mention Windscale, that was not a power station, it was a pile for producing weapons plutonium and had little in common with any power plant).
(2) The Fat Contractor:
Umbongo | 10.01.08 – 12:15 pm |
of which Sir David appeared to approve not because it gives France security of supply
Baring in mind France has no supply of nuclear fuel, and niether does Britain, this statement cannot be correct. Both countries need to buy it in from places like Canada and Australia. It’s a securer source than Putin and his criminal friends to be sure but just imagine: Britain at the mercy of the Aussies – perish the thought!
This page suggests that the World supply is limited to 70 years
My comment on this is a touch off topic – but may be relevant to what looks likely to be a growing thread.
The UK has a lot of fuel and potential fuel in its inventory. Pu can be used to fuel thermal reactors. If, instead/as well it were used to fuel a couple of fast reactors we could start to convert some of our massive inventory of depleted uranium into Pu for either fast or thermal reactors.
The relevance to the BBC’s current approach to the debate – which on R4 is essentially from the anti nuclear position that the Beeb has taken for decade – is that as far as I have heard there has been no discussion on serious BBC news/current affairs or science programmes of the long term nuclear options: many pro nuclear enthusiasts have only ever seemed to have thought of fission as an interim and messy solution until we get usable fusion power.
And despite the BBC’s enjoyment at digging up scandal, there has also been little discussion on the series of decisions under both Labour and Conservative governments in previous decades which mean that when we do start to design and build nuclear stations again we will have to ask the French or the US or even the Germans to do it for us!
It’s unfortunate that I dislke enormously the pudgy, self-satisfied smirk of G Broon, Commisar in charge of national collapse – the look of a man who finally got what he most wanted after ten years of helping oversee the increasing burdens of taxation in this country.
Anyway, mostly the only time I see him is in the Beeb’s many pro-NuLab stories (those glowing reports on increased tractor production and the immediate dismantling of anyone else’s ideas before, er, they get to use them themselves) and I am struck by how wonderfully Stalinesque these images are.
In every one he is the man of leadership, shrewd, caring, steel jawed with a clear vision, gazing into the distance and the bright future of more taxation… I mean, a better nation.
Does the beeb only use these, or are they allowed to publish others that perhaps might show him worried, unsure, or even a mere mortal?
Or is the beeb so much an arm of the government now that they can only take those supplied by Downing Street?
Honest Reporting’s analysis of the BBC’s 2007 coverage of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict has just been published and I have covered this story at
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2008/01/bbc-biased-coverage-on-israeli.html
along with some analysis and comment on related matters.
You will not be surprised to learn that the BBC have been found to have been biased towards the Palestinian cause in their reporting of the conflict.
What MattLondon said.
TFC
“This page [on Wikipedia] suggests that the World supply is limited to 70 years (at current usage)”
Not that Wikipedia is the source of unalloyed fact but your cited authority indicates that that there are . . 80 years of “known” reserves, 300 years of “undiscovered” reserves and 1500 years of total ore resources. I’ll go with that in preference to a massive (and expensive and ineffectual) wind farm in the Channel (or anywhere else for that matter).
Umbongo | 10.01.08 – 2:40 pm |
300 years of “undiscovered” reserves
Is that a known unknown or an unknown unknown? 😉
‘Unknown’ sources (i.e undiscovered ones) can be discounted as they are, well, unknown. Until they are discovered they can’t be used. What if it takes 100 years to find them?
The 1500 years worth of ‘unconventional’ resourses are even more costly than wind farms and, IMO, uglier, dirtier and no doubt only marginally less safe. If they can work out how to get reasonable amounts of power from thorium then, yes, game on.
As for fusion, dream on. Can you imagine the reaction of China, and therefore the reaction of the eco-Nazis, should someone create a sun in a laboratory? Now if you are talking cold fusion …
What we require is a cheap, plentiful and secure source for whatever fuel is used. Oh, that and the Holy Grail.
Seriously though, my problem with BBC’s approach is that it is hopelessly anti-nuclear and unscientific – how many times has that charge been laid on this blog I wonder? This is no doubt because it’s staff still remember fondly the days when, as students, they were members of CND. There is no grown up discussion about energy resources and the crisis that inevitably looms on the end of oil stocks. All we get is childish political grandstanding, eco-fascism and a startling lack of understanding about the issues.
But that’s the BBC – it’s what they do.
As to wind turbines they are expensive – far more than nuclear, gas or coal but they are not ineffectual. Sure they only produce, on average, around one quarter to one half of their rated output but they do produce power.
As I said in my first post they are tommorrow’s solution not today’s. And just to be clewar they are not 100% of the solution just a minor part of the whole.
I’d baulk too at farms – how about every new build has a solar panel and a small turbine by law. It would solve some of our energy requirements … 🙂
Umbongo
Until the green lobby/BBC can give me an engineering (not political) solution to the problem of how wind farms would cope with peak electricity demands, eg when the UK switches kettles on halfway through Coronation Street, it’s atoms for energy for me.
Watch out for the Horizon programme on death with Michael Portillo. Although on BBC 5 live he said he wanted to avoid the usual left wing liberal attitude of the BBC on capital punishment in the preamble it would appear that ONLY the death penalty in America is being discussed as part of the show.
I did email to ask why the method of killing so loved by Muslims (beheading) didn’t seem to be mentioned but needless to say the BBC didn’t bother to mention it.
I still expect a typical anti American programme by the BBC.
I think realistically we’ve got very little choice but to turn to nuclear.
I’ve read previously though that the private sector would be unwilling to build any new plants without some form of government subsidy.
I am slighty worried about the lack of information regarding the rather important issue of waste (and we’ve still got a load stacked above ground in cumbria). As I remember the white paper said that with regards to the management and disposal of radioactive waste and spent fuel, in the event that no party is able to fulfil these obligations, it is the government which bears ultimate responsibility. Anyone got any further details on this?
Anyway, apologies for going off topic
Old question, still relevant:
How long does it take one wind turbine to produce enough power to make a new wind-turbine?
If I can get a serious answer to this I may well believe the future is windy. Without it the pro-turbine bunch are just creating so much hot air.
Mr Reith
The Balen Report?
Cheers
I did email to ask why the method of killing so loved by Muslims (beheading) didn’t seem to be mentioned but needless to say the BBC didn’t bother to mention it.
Think they’ll mention abortion either?
Fat Contractor
You misunderstand how geology works. Just because they are undiscovered doesn’t mean that there isn’t a good notion that they are there, and where they are. It probably just means that with current resources and price of ore they haven’t been tied down to specific deposits, but a general area.
TFC
This is totally OT so I hope the adminstrators will indulge me. Concerning “undiscovered” resources: I spent more years than I care to admit in the US oil & gas business (both in financing and exploration). Much of the value – for financing purposes – of oil reserves was in “undiscovered” resources. We lent real money against such assets and, to my recollection, never failed to get our money back because the “undiscovered” assets (as certified by our in-house engineers) didn’t exist. The main causes of financing failure were incompetence by borrower/investee, drop in product price and outright fraud – never that the assets weren’t there.
When you’re talking to real people dealing with real problems (eg oil/gas and mining engineers and geologists) “undiscovered” resources are unknown knowns (in other words “we’re pretty sure it’s there but we don’t know exactly how much”). In my experience the extent of such assets was always underestimated.
the portillo thing is on judicial killing. do any muslim states behead as a means of carrying out capital punishment?
Cockney:
From the website devoted to Capital Punishment http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/behead.html
“Saudi Arabia uses public beheading as the punishment for murder, rape, drug trafficking, sodomy, armed robbery, apostasy and certain other offences. 2007 has been the record year for executions with 153 men and three women executed. The condemned of both sexes are given tranquillisers and then taken by police van to a public square or a car park after midday prayers. Their eyes are covered and they are blindfolded. The police clear the square of traffic and a sheet of blue plastic sheet about 16 feet square is laid out on the ground.
Dressed in their own clothes, barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind their back, the prisoner is led by a police officer to the centre of the sheet where they are made to kneel facing Mecca. An Interior Ministry official reads out the prisoner’s name and crime to the crowd.
Saudi Arabia uses a traditional Arab scimitar which is 1000-1100 mm long. The executioner is handed the sword by a policeman and raises the gleaming scimitar, often swinging it two or three times in the air to warm up his arm muscles, before approaching the prisoner from behind and jabbing him in the back with the tip of the blade, causing the person to raise their head. (see photo) Then with a single swing of the sword the prisoner is decapitated.
Normally it takes just one swing of the sword to sever the head, often sending it flying some two or three feet. Paramedics bring the head to a doctor, who uses a gloved hand to stop the fountain of blood spurting from the neck. The doctor sews the head back on, and the body is wrapped in the blue plastic sheet and taken away in an ambulance. Burial takes place in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
Beheadings of women did not start until the early 1990’s, previously they were shot. Forty three women have been publicly beheaded up to the end of 2007.
Most executions take place in the three major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dahran. Saudi executioners take great pride in their work and the post tends to be handed down from one generation to the next.”
You might also want to take a look at this article
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39130
and maybe also Wikipedia’s entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia#Corporal_and_capital_punishment.3B_right_to_representation
“Saudi Arabia also engages in capital punishment, including public executions by beheading and stoning. While some are also executed in private by firing squad, many executions are popular public attractions. Beheading is the punishment for murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers, according to strict interpretation of Islamic law. In 2005, there were 191 executions, in 2006 there were 38 and as of July 2007 there were already 102 including 3 women. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights has said that numbers of executions are rising because crime rates are rising, that prisoners are treated humanely, and that the beheadings deter crime, saying, “”Allah, our creator, knows best what’s good for his people…Should we just think of and preserve the rights of the murderer and not think of the rights of others?”
The BBC, how it hates America and defends Iran.
US releases Iran stand-off video
The US military has released video and audio recordings of Iranian boats that it says threatened to blow up US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The jerky footage, shot from one of the three US ships, shows several small boats approaching at high speed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/world/video/143000/bb/143544_16x9_bb.asx?ad=1&ct=50
Taken from;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7177946.stm
Now contrast the quality of the BBC video with this one;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/01/08/VI2008010803540.html
Now lets go to the current Iranian video doing the rounds on the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news/world/video/143000/bb/143944_16x9_bb.asx?ad=1&ct=50
Notice how that US film clip has become all colourful. Could one of the BBC clones please explain why the initial BBC version is not only of a much lower quality but it appears they intentionally downgraded that video in which to make the Yanks look over concerned. But it gets better at the end of the report Paul Adams has this to say;
(1.20) “The US version shows the Iranian boats coming close and it includes the apparent threat but without pictures “I am coming to you” and the BBC film clip goes dark as if to promote the image that the yanks have blanked the film out.
Which is strange as all the other film clips of that scene show it doesn’t blanked out .
And even the BBC reports on its video site that ,that threat is actually a radio recording and not a video clip.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7559/image1tq0.jpg
And how does the BBC end that report;
“Iran has called the pentagon version unusual and illogical.”
Well the impression you get from that crafty BBC editing it would seem so.
The BBC, how it hates America and defends Iran.
“I did email to ask why the method of killing so loved by Muslims (beheading) didn’t seem to be mentioned but needless to say the BBC didn’t bother to mention it.”
Should have added China and the way they allegedly harvest the organs of the so called executed as well. Indeed there is a claim or two that some people should never have been executed but the local officials wanted their organs to make some money. Which makes it state murder. Will the BBC comment on this as well?
*cuckoo*
*chirping crickets*
Notasheep: Thank you for that reply to Cockney (probably a BBC droid)
Iran uses hanging for homosexuality (that is a state execution) and any Islamic Country that practices Sharia will probably have the death penalty on their books.
I’m just fed up of the BBC always attacking the USA for the death penalty. It’s down to individual states and I think about 36 out of 50 states have the death penalty although most take years to execute anyone (unlike Saudi Arabia)
This is of course the wonderful Sharia law the BBC has been promoting, just like “arranged” marriages. Of course some people “hee” keep telling me(and removing any posts, so I guess this won’t last long) an arranged marriage and a forced marriage are not the same. Unless you force your daughter into one of course!
The recent case of the girl who’se inquest is going on at the moment should be a reminder to us that Islamic customs like forced/arranged marriages and Sharia law have NO place in our Country and the tossers at the BBC that try to present these ideas in a “liberal” light should be sacked from their jobs.
Cockney:
You what? The Iraqi death blurb actually quotes the Iraq Body Count figures as well as a reasonably robust looking new survey?????
Cockney | 10.01.08 – 12:20 pm | #
———————————
However, the BBC fail to mention that the latest study includes Iraqi Police and military deaths which number in many thousands, perhaps 10s of thousands; brave men and women who died defending their country from al Qaeda and other outside terrorists. The BBC also fail to point out that many (a majority?) of these deaths were committed by Iraqis themselves. The reason for the omissions is to implant the idea that these were all civilians and all were killed by US troops
Iraqi Body Count is compiled by an anti-war leftist organisation that uses a discredited methodology. Oliver Kamm skewwered this organisation, linked to the infamous Oxford Research Group, more than four years ago:
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2003/09/pilger_truth_an.html
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2003/09/more_truth_and_.html
Why are the BBC linking to figures that are known to be pure fiction?
Umbongo | 10.01.08 – 5:09 pm |
Thanks for the explanation. Do you know how much of the 300 years supply is known unknowns rather than simply undiscovered?
There is also the cost of mining to take into account. ISTR that the NUM were always banging on about there being 300 years worth of coal left in Britain. They were right there is, maybe even more, but it is, currently, too expensive to mine.
random | 10.01.08 – 5:06 pm |
You misunderstand how geology works.
Not entirely. Just because it is predicted doesn’t make it a fact. I believe I am right, and Umbongo will no doubt correct me if I’m wrong, that oil deposits are not always found where they are predicted to be. Just because it looks like there is gold in them thar hills don’t mean there there is. Hence the question about known and unknown unknowns. IYSWIM.
Thanks for the info thou’ guys. It’s more than you get from the flamin’ BBC.
Martin I wonder if the BBC will report this story about capital punishment in Iran;
“Iran’s supreme court has confirmed that two youths, found guilty of rape will receive 100 lashes each before being cast off a cliff – an ancient Islamic punishment – local media reported. The reports named the youths as Tayeb and Yazdan.”
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1756615459
Take note of the photo in that article.
pounce | 10.01.08 – 7:04 pm | & others
Perhaps they expect ‘white’ countries to behave better than non-white ones? Could that be why they only ever report Islamic barbarity dispationately?
Perhaps they think the US should be setting an example to our coloured cousins?
Perhaps they are just patronising racists after all.
moonbat nibbler,
“Why are the BBC linking to figures that are known to be pure fiction?”
That’s easy to answer. Instead of saying openly “We hate the US and Bush, the moron!”, they do so by selectively publishing every peace of news or pseudo-news to create the same sentiment in their viewers.
Your question should be why are they such cowards and can’t voice their opinion openly, like grown ups.
“Will the BBC comment on this as well?”
Look, journalism dishonestly mixes fact and analysis as a matter of course. Journalists write to support a certain world view – not to report the facts – and that a claim can be empirically coroborated is at best a bonus, and if it can’t be proved then it will just be ignored.
All journalists are the Eichmann’s of the day.
This is something the BBC do that annoys me time and time again. Whenever Cameron does or says anything at all, they run to some Labour MP to get a quote, however minor the activity may well be. See, for example, Cameron making a speech today, with that Smith woman getting a pretty equal share in the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7182065.stm
Similarly, simply by visiting Salford, that talentless dwarf Blears gets to spout rubbish about how the Tories apparently ruined Salford in the 80s:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7180553.stm
Not that having Labour MPs and Labour councils for nigh on a hundred years has any relevance to somewhere being so deprived for so long. Absolutely not…
“Beheadings of women did not start until the early 1990’s, previously they were shot.”
Nice to see female equality is making great strides in Saudi Arabia.
Re. Horizon – How to Kill a Human Being:
The Radio Times synopsis states: “As the American Supreme Court examines whether the lethal injection is causing pain,Michael Portillo examines the various techniques used in carrying out the death penalty AROUND THE WORLD…”.
It includes a look at hanging, which as far as I know isn’t a method generally used in the States.
US executions are a lot easier to cover on TV than Chinese/Saudi ones from a practical sense.
Michael Portillo is a former Conservative MP.
Why does coverage of capital punishment in the US automatically indicate a bias against it? why not a bias in favour of it? Unless you yourself think capital punishment is wrong and that actually covering it will influence people’s opinions against it.
The programme hasn’t been broadcast yet.
I’ve no doubt that some of you will find it biased. The ‘examples’ of bias some of you cite never cease to amaze. But if you approach it with that mindset I’m sure you find something to complain about, however irrational.
Joel must be John Reith’s younger brother……
“US executions are a lot easier to cover on TV than Chinese/Saudi ones from a practical sense.” So that’s alright then? Just because the media are free in the US and not China/Saudi then it does not matter that your programmes are unbalanced and biased?
Bet the BBC won’t mention China/Saudi/ Iran etc as much as they do the US, at the same time inserting stupid comment about redneck Christian fundies, George Bushhitler and probably a claim that HaliburtonChenyBushhilter personally push the buttons to execute people…..
WoAD (UK): “Journalists write to support a certain world view – not to report the facts… All journalists are the Eichmann’s of the day.”
That’s rubbish. A large number of journalists are quite apparently driven by the desire to get to the truth of a story and do a fair job of accurately reporting the facts. That’s why the BBC should be taken to task for much of its output.
Alan says:
Your question should be why are they [BBC] such cowards and can’t voice their opinion openly…
Well, if we’re laying down what’s permissible, the better question from my American POV “should be”: Why don’t you all do something about it?
But many of us already know the answer, and you probably do too. It’s wholly un-American to flog a dead horse, which is why so many of us now simply shake our heads and ignore Britain — very easy to do these days.
You can thank the BBC for a lot of that, but you won’t do anything. (And no, don’t ask — that’s your responsibility.)
Melanie just posts on BBC bias
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/
Good link to Honest Reporting.
Any need for Balen report with this lot??
Joel,
“The ‘examples’ of bias some of you cite never cease to amaze. But if you approach it with that mindset I’m sure you find something to complain about, however irrational”
Well, Joel my irrationality has something to do with me being a little boy and my father listening to the BBC World Service in Tito’s communist Yugoslavia (in some countries it was an act that could land you in prison or even killed).
Hearing that voice gave hope to the millions, and constantly kept saying that there is a normal and free world outside of the communist cloud.
That voice would know the difference between Bush and Hitler as it knew the difference between Truman and Stalin, Reagan and Ceauşescu.
Joel, my father, after surviving the Nazis and the Communists, quit listening BBC World Service in 2000 in utter disgust.
Today’s BBC is as idiotic and ideological as the Soviet Communist Party. And, thanks, but no thanks, Che Guevara and Fidel are not my heroes. I’m not a spoiled brat like you, Joel. I know too what kind of freedom people have in Cuba. I know how that works, you obviously don’t.
Part of my “irrationality”, maybe has something to do with the recognizable AGITPROP methods BBC likes these days: mixing news and editorials.
Maybe the most recognizable from the communist media are BBC’s two favorite words: “so-called”.
Back there, in the state media, it was always a “so-called American democracy and so-called freedom”.
What kind of message do you think BBC is giving to Iranian students, basically agreeing with every word their state propaganda spews about the West?
No matter how much you hate Bush, you still can say it openly in the middle of the street or on the air. You can even chant “Death to UK, Death to America”, as BBC’s Islamist friends often do in the UK.
Have you ever spoken to a Baha’i from Iran?
http://info.bahai.org/persecution_iran.html
Will you ever begin to realize how warped your twisted little moral relativistic world really is?
The BBC, how it hates America and defends Iran. (Part Deux)
US doubts over Iran boat ‘threat’
An alleged threat to blow up US warships “may not have come” from Iranian speedboats involved in a recent stand-off, the BBC has learned.
The voice on a Pentagon tape could instead have come from another ship in the area or a transmitter on land, senior US Navy sources told the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7181929.stm
Oh and before anybody quotes this to me;
“The New York Times noted on Wednesday that the US-released audio includes no ambient noise of the kind that might be expected if the broadcast had come from on one of the speedboats.”
Look up throat mike as used by Iranian forces. I mean I used them in the 80s when I was in the Falklands on my Combat Support Boat (CSB) and that is one of the nosiest boats going and here is an advert for throat mikes;
http://www.csonline.net/crawford/Fire_Fox/Fire%20Fox%20Throat%20Mics.htm
Oh and BBC ‘Lieutenant’ isn’t a senior US Navy source.
“”There is no way to know where this (radioed threat) exactly came from. It could have come from the shore… or another vessel in the area,” Lieutenant John Gay of the US Navy Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23036771-401,00.html
But hey that didn’t stop Frank “Help me I’m a muslim” Gardner prostrating himself yet again for Allah by defending Iran yet again. Oh how you must enjoy berating America for your ideological masters. But hang on Frank Gardner is the security expert for the BBC, why didn’t he ask the salient question of “Where did that signal come from” and why did it arrive at a time when 5 boats were acting the goat. (Don’t worry frank, nobody you knew in Saudi) also just why did the Iranians have a TV crew filming a non descript sailor on a speedboat demanding to know just where a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and a Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate where they were going. And the BBCs security expert has the neck to claim the situation reeks of American murkiness. Murkiness BBC?
The 3 ships were in the straits of Hormus a passage way that is around 40 miles at its widest.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iran_strait_of_hormuz_2004.jpg
Any security expert would know that the Iranians have the banks on their side of the straits bristling with Surface to surface missiles. You know Frank like this Iranian missile. C-802
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1184
Which hit the INS Hanit 10 miles off of the Lebanese coast on the 14th of July 2006.
So the question I have to ask is would the US risk 3 ships which would now be at the bottom of the sea if they had opened up hostilities in that location. (At the most 15 miles from the Iranian coast) Also something the BBC leaves out is the timing, who was on his way over to the Middle-East? As if Bush would start a war against Iran while he was over there. As-if.
The BBC, how it hates America and defends Iran. (Part Deux)
The ‘examples’ of bias some of you cite never cease to amaze.
Joel | Homepage | 10.01.08 – 9:31 pm
Then why be shy, Joel? Share some of these examples with us, so we can see why they cause you amazement.
Don’t really have any, right?
Has anybody got NEWS 24 on?
The idiot (Chris) the news guy is talking about Sir Edmund Hilary every person he has talked to who knew this great man. Be it fellow team members in Australia from the climb or a lady in Wales who knew him. Is asked the question if Hillary really did get to the top of Everest as there are no pictures of him there and it has caused great controversy ever since.
Yup nothing like the BBC to kick the image of a great man down when he has died.
It seems the BBC knows about how the libel laws work when somebody is dead.
Utter,utter disgraceful
pounce | 10.01.08 – 11:42 pm:
The thing is, back in those days photographs were not deemed to be necessary to prove what one claimed. Standards were higher then. A gentleman’s word meant something.
Moreover, the culture of celebrity had not been devised so why would they fuck about taking vanity portraits when up a freezing cold mountain? Especially when a photo could be faked easily from halfway up?
You’re right. The Beeb is a nasty, cynical disgrace.
That’s rubbish. A large number of journalists are quite apparently driven by the desire to get to the truth of a story and do a fair job of accurately reporting the facts. That’s why the BBC should be taken to task for much of its output.
Hugh | 10.01.08 – 10:19 pm |
A journalist is a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.
The whole edifice of the media is based on the journalist (a good example of whom would be Johann Hari) with his immoral desire for power and a writing style that is so corrupt it is necessarily ignored.
Journalism should be banned. Along with music and all other forms of art. They open the mind to the influence of the satanic.
Will you ever begin to realize how warped your twisted little moral relativistic world really is?
Alan | 10.01.08 – 10:55 pm
The BBC is at least run by cowards. The worst of all are self-proclaimed moral universalists such as George W Bush.
God help us!
Now the BBC has controversially said it will “fast-track” young ethnic staff to senior positions, leading to accusations of positive discrimination
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=507454&in_page_id=1770
The Fat Contractor | 10.01.08 – 7:19 pm |
Perhaps they are just patronising racists after all.
You have just summed up the inherent hypocrisy in the particular strain of post-modern relativism which has taken hold of the average Leftoid brain.