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 also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.
General BBC-related comment thread!
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Under 3.) above: ‘augur’.
LITTLEJOHN:
-on yesterday’s BBC ‘Today’ interview by Ms. S.Montague with an anti-Palin hoaxer:
‘Don’t let facts spoil a smear’:
“During the U.S. election, the BBC was especially condescending towards Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
“One of the more ridiculous smears given currency was that Palin wasn’t aware that Africa was a continent, not a country. It fitted perfectly with the perception of Palin as a thick hick.
“Now it turns out that the credit for the allegation has been claimed by a pair of American internet hoaxers, posing as a Republican strategist.
“One of them, Dan Mirvish, was interviewed on the ‘Today’ programme by a clearly disappointed Sarah Montague.
“At one stage, she blurted out that even if it had been made up, it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“We’re still none the wiser, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?”(Richard Littlejohn).
‘Welcome to Britain, land of the rising scum. We’ve cornered the market on welfare layabouts, drug addicts and feral gangs’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085518/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Welcome-Britain-land-rising-scum-.html
Ludicrous BBC dhimmi-speak in this report:
BIN LADEN = “Saudi militant”.
“Bin Laden ‘cut off from al-Qaeda'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7728551.stm
I’ve just stepped off another planet and read this BBC report:
“Al Megrahi: Profile of a bomber”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7728434.stm
The impression given by this BBC ‘Profile’ is :
‘Yes, this convicted Lockerbie bomber (who murdered 270 people) sounds like a nice chap.’
Pleading its apologetic case, the BBC says that he :”does not outwardly fit the modern stereotype of an Arab bomber.” You mean ‘militant’?
An unquestioning BBC report on PM Brown and the British people’s unnamed enemy:
“Isolate extremist groups – Brown”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7728434.stm
Without BBC comment, Brown’s policy towards the unnamed enemy of Islamic jihad, appears to be:
1.)mass immigrationto UK from Muslim countries;
2.)’positive discrimination’ towards such immigrants;
3.) have very brief contact with convicted Islamic jihadists, as in Saudi Arabia;
4.)issue platitudes about Islam being a ‘religion of peace’ and NOT as portrayed here:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
5.)legislate against those who see Islam as a threat;
6.)continue with stealth programme of building Eurabia in EU
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3590
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/10/fjordman-defeat.html
(OFT) OFT issues warning to minicab firms regarding price fixing
Be fun to see how BBC Bristol runs with this one.
Oh dear, BBC disenchantment with Obama about to set in:
“Obama aide apologises to US-Arabs”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7729046.stm
The pips squeak in media land
Nearly 30 local newspapers are closing as the industry faces its biggest financial crisis for a generation.
Their publisher, Trinity Mirror, said that more would go next year as it grappled with a plunge in advertising revenues of 21 per cent between July and October.
Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, which owns the Manchester Evening News, said last week that the newspaper was “fighting for its survival”.
Daily Mail and General Trust is expected to announce the loss of up to 300 jobs. Independent News & Media, owner of The Independent and the Belfast Telegraph, also plans redundancies.
Meanwhile in tax funded comfort
BBC staff have been told that they must “significantly reduce” spending on taxis and entertaining. The difficulty of selling Television Centre in White City has contributed to a funding shortfall of £140 million
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article5151385.ece
George R | 14.11.08 – 10:43 am |
“At one stage, she blurted out that even if it had been made up, it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“We’re still none the wiser, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?”(Richard Littlejohn).
So it’s fake, but accurate. Once again the BBC news mindset is revealed.
Your license fee hard at work.
BBC sacked presenter Ms. Sam Mason case is on FOX NEWS imminently, live TV, e.g. Sky satellite channel 509
George R | 14.11.08 – 1:01 pm |
The BBC and hysteria.
I actually think his remark is funny, He said: “Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”
Anyone who has ever had to work with, or tried to teach Arabs in their home environments will understand the comment.
And before I get inundated with the usual ‘racist’ hysteria I would like to point out that I spent several years in such a role in the 70s.
The worst were the Saudis. I had 24 Saudi Warrant Officers (all connected to the Saudi royal family) all of whom were 3 or 4 years older than I was, all of whom had spent years in training schools in Britain, the US, Italy and in Saudi. I was supposed to finish off their training. Did they undersatnd the subject matter. Did they hell. It was first day at school again.
It’s Friday, it’s five o’clock (and a bit), and it’s a cracker, Jack!”
Gordon Brown: why I am brilliant
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2008/11/14/gordon_brown_why_i_am_brilliant
Nick Robinson’s… um… ‘report’ is ace, too.
The BBC does not demur from this unspecific Brown soundbite:
“Isolate extreme groups – Brown”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7728546.stm
– But a necessary alternative ideological strategy for dealing with the unnamed problem of Islamic jihad, is indicated here by Bill Warner:
“You Only Need To Kill One”
[Extract]:
“And what would an ideological war look like? How about open debate without the usual politically correct, multicultural narrow-mindedness….
“An ideological war would include our schools, particularly state schools, teaching about the Koran and the Sunna. History courses that would include the Tears of Jihad, the killing of 270 million kafirs. Women’s studies that would include Sharia law. Religion courses that would teach the death of Christianity in Turkey, the Middle East and Africa. Military history that would include the great battles of Islam. Courses on slavery that would go beyond the standard-issue West Africa/white man on wooden ships.
“An ideological war would include a media that actually used critical reasoning and connected the dots in the Islamic violence that wracks the world with 12,221 attacks since September 11th in 39 countries.”
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/you-only-need-to-kill-one/
(Earlier comment at: 12:02 pm)
“”And what would an ideological war look like? How about open debate without the usual politically correct, multicultural narrow-mindedness….”
The Danes no longer debate in their Parliament with PC blinkers on. You know what they said? They said Britain has taken PC farther than anybody else and doesn’t seem to have done them much good.
“British people’s unnamed enemy:”
EU.
NATO.
ISLAM.
One story in the papers today was the man who might have infected upto 400 women with AIDS.
As it has not been reported on the BBC I assume the man involved is black and/or an illegal immigrant.
The annual childrens in need just started.
I am sitting here two t-shirt and a pullover to keep warm and Wogan £800 000 a year for a part time job and according to rumour £20 000 a time for children in need is asking me for money.
He can consider the part of my telly tax that pays his slice off the top as my contribution.
I don’t know how the BBC gets away with the News Quiz.
Why don’t they just give up the ghost and farm it out to the SWP, the Fawcett Society and Stonewall?
I don’t know why they assumed that all Radio 4 listeners have lost their powers of reason and critical thinking and become Scandinavia fetishising, economically redistributive, pro gay-rights, Thatcher hating cretins.
BBC? How about Bye BC?
The Today programme this morning (14th Nov) devoted more of its time than usual in propagandising for the Religion of Peace. Anyone adopting a critical view of how Muslim communicate with people of other faiths is used to the constant omissions, half-truths and ambiguities that are a feature of such discourse and ‘Thought for the day’ proved no exception.
(White Wine Liberal, above, who always gives me the impression that he’s hiding something , complained of the beeb being awash with Christianity and mentioned, ‘Thought for the day’ – I can only answer that there is something a lot worse with which it could be awash).
Firstly, the speaker was introduced as Dr Abdal Hakim Murad, Muslim chaplain of Cambridge University. As the chaplain began speaking listeners, hearing his educated, slightly posh, English speaking voice, might be forgiven for thinking: who says Muslims are not integrating? – this man sounds as English as any of us. Listeners would know that Islam is a religion and not a race (despite the fact that Muslims frequently denounce critics of Islam as racists), but the foreign name would tend to dispel any idea that he might be native British.
He began by mentioning that he had recently returned from a three day conference with Catholic clergy at the Vatican about ‘the love of god’ and ‘human dignity’. Apparently the pope had addressed them and commended the Muslim belief in helping the needy and speaking of their belief in the sanctity of life that they shared with Catholics. If this was the only account of the pope‘s address that listeners would hear then they would have missed what the AP reporter saw as one of the most interesting points of Benedict XVI’s speech:
“Pope Benedict XVI has told Muslim clergy and scholars that Christians and Muslims must overcome their misunderstandings. He is also urging freedom of worship for non-Muslims in the Islamic world.”
A Telegraph article, in advance of the meeting, had mentioned that the Pope had wanted the rights of Christians to build churches in Muslim countries to be discussed: he had chosen the broad topics “for Tuesday on “God’s love” and Wednesday on “loving your neighbour,” a theme that touches on two Vatican priorities, human rights and religious freedom. ”
Somehow none of this was conveyed by the chaplain who seemed to give the impression that there had been a love fest in which fellow clerics had swapped pieties.
The Telegraph article also gave his name as Sheikh Dr Abdal Hakim Murad Winter. It’s obvious why the title Sheikh was omitted in the BBC introduction (shades of Rudolph Valentino) but the omission of the name Winter is a little bit creepy: you don’t expect people who present ‘Thought for the day’ to have aka-type aliases.
Hugh Fitzgerald at Dhimmiwatch website helped clarify the problem when discussing the earlier telegraph article:
“That’s Tim Winter, or was until he converted to Islam, and he still uses “Tim Winter” when he is reviewing in the TLS or otherwise wishing to disguise, or at least not draw attention to, the fact that he’s a convert (revert, New Muslim).”
So we are one minute into thought for the day and the speaker has decided not to mention what his audience would probably have thought the most important thing about the Vatican conference and also the most interesting facts about himself. Actually it must have been half dozen of one or six of the other, not parading himself as a British ‘revert‘: being a guest at the Vatican and at the BBC sounds like a pretty good advert for the benefits of switching (reverting) to the Religion of Peace.
Since this posting has been wordy enough already I won’t go into my dislike of hearing pious enough sounding quotes from a work as ethically compromised as the Koran being used in connection with the sad case of the young girl who had to get court backing for he refusal of a heart transplant. Given the large number of polemics against non-Muslims in the text and its injunction not to be a friend to Jews and Christians, it is doubtful if the quotation calling for Muslims to care for the sick meant they had to give any thought to the infidel sick, anyway: this dual nature of Islamic morality is its most striking characteristic.
As if that wasn’t enough of this obtrusive belief system for one breakfast time there then followed a lengthy discussion with Demos spokesman about how to get more Muslims to join the police force. The security aspects of this have been discussed by a poster above but I’m concerned with increasing the influence of what I consider an alien, illiberal and, ultimately, hostile ethical system and ideology.
The west midlands police recently referred a C4 programme about preachers of hate in UK mosques to the CPS accusing its makers of hate speech; there was a news story of a special constable who told a Christian missionary to stop preaching in a Muslim neighbourhood or he would arrest him; the Met leaked the statistic that Muslim officers were ten times more likely to be guilty of corruption than officers from other communities; the upper echelons of the Met have been thrown into turmoil by senior Muslim officers, promoted on what look suspiciously like positive discrimination grounds, suing the force for racial discrimination in the subjective field of entitlement to promotion; it‘s not at all clear whether a Muslim policemen could be trusted not to find and return to their families, girls running away from arranged marriages. By analogy a girl who married a non-Muslim and was pursued by her family, has said that she was afraid to register with the benefits agency (which has no trouble recruiting adherents of the Religion of Peace, for some obscure reason) because it was clear that her hunters were being given complete access to that service’s database and the ability of her family to find her address had forced he to move numerous times; MI5 has weeded out several al Quaeda operatives applying for posts; the Koran actually recommends the beating of disobedient wives as a last resort.
Needless to say, the Today discussion never even considered the view that the low number of Muslim police officers might well be a blessing, even though the very real problems highlighted by these cases will never be sorted out unless they are acknowledged and discussed openly. It would have been more than a beeboid’s job was worth and, besides, someone who took such an argument seriously would, in the BBC view of the world, practically be their definition of a fascist .
Apogies for my verbosity.
And still the Obamamania rolls on. From the BBC’s hysetrical ‘news’ website: “Barack Obama the epoch-changer”.
It’s beyond parody!
BTW – time for a new general thread, perhaps?
Another thing from Today.
Evan Davis talking to a ‘child care specialist from the university of East Anglia’, oddly named Marion Brandon (not Marlon Brando, but so close) and Evan were stating platitudinous twaddle about social workers, unaware that their awkward and lacklustre discussion could have come alive and perhaps bristled with insight.. if only they had been discussing the BBC’s scandalous bias instead of the obvious failings of the social services.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7728000/7728647.stm
7.51, halfway through.
Evan:
“People monitoring things often overlook dangers […]something in the psyche sometimes persuades yourself that there isn’t a problem – and once you’ve thought there isn’t a problem you stop looking for signs there IS a problem; it’s really deep in the psychology of people regulating or moderating anything I think, isn’t it?”
Marion:
“It is, and there’s a tendency to have a fixed view […] and they don’t look for information that contradicts their thinking, so we need other people to challenge……”
Evan:
“They don’t appraise the evidence in an open minded-way…..”
Marion:
“They don’t appraise …..’
Evan
“……they stick with the views they had in the first place”