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- Zephir Nov 18, 02:49
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Love the comments below this in Youtube: “Islamophobia is another word for risk assessment.” “Police be upon them” “The religion… - vlad Nov 18, 01:23
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Hey all you bigots, don’t forget that November is ISLAMOPHOBIA AWARENESS MONTH. Created in 2012 by the Muslim Council of… - Sluff Nov 17, 23:41
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Went to a classical music concert this evening (Sunday). 50 -55 players in the orchestra and every one of them… - Eddy Booth Nov 17, 23:28
Start the Week 18th November 2024
Last week: “Biden promises ‘peaceful transfer of power’ [img]https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/11/13/18/92032617-14078695-image-a-37_1731521658269.jpg[/img] Today: “Biden allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with missiles’ [img]https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/800/cpsprodpb/3c09/live/a76053b0-a51c-11ef-8901-a18a6eb097bd.png.webp[/img] - non-licence payer Nov 17, 22:58
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Re TTK’s COP 29 comment, the man has no political or economic radar. He is bereft of anything which will… - non-licence payer Nov 17, 22:52
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That anyone in Japan picks this up is pretty shaming indictment of the UK. I note that the article uses… - tomo Nov 17, 22:52
Start the Week 18th November 2024
yes, worrying …. smacks of the worst kind of “let’s try and drop the new guy in it” antics. - non-licence payer Nov 17, 22:46
Weekend 16th November 2024
MM notwithstanding it would have been inconvenient for the normal suspects to have had this problem break cover at the… - tomo Nov 17, 22:39
Start the Week 18th November 2024
He’s going to be carted off / sectioned? https://x.com/SteveSheasby/status/1857710798992289995 Meanwhile, the roboquote machine is doing the heavy lifting https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1858101836005183765 Over…
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agw anti-American anti-conservative anti-Israel anti Israel. pro Palestinian Antisemitism BBC - sickeningly biased at all times. BBC agenda BBC bias bbc bias and balance. bbc bias by omission BBC censorship BBC Question Time BBC selectivity bias Biased BBC climate change dhimmis general thread immigration Islam israel Mark Mardell obama obama bias Obamalove open thread pro-labour pro-palestinian pro EU pro Hamas pro Islam pro Labour bias pro Obama PRO OBAMA AT ALL COSTS. pro Obama BBC agenda question time question time live Richard Black save gordon. USA politics US economy US News US politics US presidential elections
RE:CeannP & Have I Got News for You.
Yup – all of the set-piece sleaze stories covered realted to Tory MP's. Ian Hislop had a little nibble at James Purnell, but forgot to mention his party affiliation. Strange that, since all the Tory MP's were labelled as such.
Also no mention of the two Labour peers selling influence; for a topical news quiz that is supposed to love poking fun at politicans, this seems a strange omission.
http://dizzythinks.net/2009/05/bbc-impartiality.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/05/21/the_10_punches_dick_cheney_landed_on_barack_obamas_jaw
Something you will NEVER see on Al Beeb 🙂
Mailman
Anyone catch Mark Easton, BBC’s home editor, on the 10 o’clock news? He was talking about the implications of the Baby P case and his mobile phone went off in his pocket. He apologised whilst fumbling to switch it off, but it mercifully rang off after only a few seconds.
The BBC News website helpfully informs us that the perpetrators of the alleged gang-rape in Liverpool were all white. They must have been thinking what the rest of us were thinking.
When the BBC do a report you always have to examine it for what they ‘forget’ to include, its quite easy with the latest one about French investors and their new wheeze of buying milk cows and then renting them back to French farmers.
Its all so rosy and “enviromentally friendly” methane? Naaaah not important! Hmmmmm, now whats missing from Kirbys report?
Aaaah haaa! I wonder why the BBC forget to include the reason why this investment scheme is thought to be so lucrative?
Ooooh yes, the reason is of course because of the EU CAP subsidies, the French milk the CAP like they milk their subsidised cows, need some steady free cash? come right this way sir, as long as you are French of course.
So the upshot is that the UK taxslave shells out yet again to support French farmers(quelle surprise)while our own farmers go to the wall.
Thanks to the BBC we never get to know the full story, vive la France and pay up you mug ros beufs!
Former BBC Science Correspondent criticises their science reporting:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/22/bbc_whitehouse_climate/
…which leads to the source…
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Whitehouse2009.htm
The thrust? The Beeb telling him he was wrong for not reporting Mad Cow disease as a doomsday event, and for its over-attachment to climate change.
Two paragraphs extracted:
“Reporting the consensus about climate change (and we all know about the debate about what is a consensus in the IPCC era) is not synonymous with good science reporting. The BBC is at an important point. It has been narrow minded about climate change for many years and they have become at the very least a cliché and at worst lampooned as being predictable and biased by a public that doesn’t believe them anymore.
Times are changing. New data is emerging, the world refuses to warm in the past decade, the sun becomes quiet, and scientists are beginning to study themselves investigating how entrenched positions become established and whether consensus is a realistic concept. History and science will always correct things in the end. It has done so with vCJD and it is not impossible that the judgement of history and science on current environmental reporting will be the same.”
The lead story on the BBC website this morning is the “shocking” revelation about Nick Grifin and an invite to the palace, complete with “sinister photo #1” taking up a large proportion of the page.
Tucked away at the bottom of the England page is this little story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/8063768.stm
Now maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t the fact that a citizen is trying to take the Home Secretary to court over allegations of fraud a slighty more important story than whether or not the leader of the BNP (a perfectly legitimate party) goes to a garden party at Buck House?
Apparently not to our “unbiased” broadcaster. I also see there is no link to the BNP, only to the GLA.
Was watching the history channel last night when a show on the sun came on. It was the first time I had ever seen the solar minimum thingy being raised (ie complete lack of sun spots and cooling) and drew a comparison to the little ice age as being the last time so little sun spot activity was seen.
That wasnt the problem…what was the real concern is that scientists expect the next sun spot peak to start in 2012!
Yes you can see it now, sun spot activity peaks, temperatures go up, Al Beeb w8nks on about man made global warming!
You join the dots, cause Al Beeb’s got all the pens and aint helping!
Mailman
BBC biased according to one of its own .
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Whitehouse2009.htm
SOMALIA, and (for BBC) its Islamic jihadist immigrants in Britain:
BBC report (‘Africa’ web pages):
“Fierce battle in Somalia.”
-and, all from ‘THE TIMES’ (23 May):
1.) “British and American fighters respond to jihad call in Somalia”
[Extract]:
“Senior security officials in the region say that the foreign fighters are behind the recent success of the extremists. More than 290 fighters from Britain, the US, Canada, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia entered Mogadishu in the past two weeks.
“An intelligence report seen by ‘The Times’, which is due to be presented to the US Congress next week, states: ‘An estimated ten foreigners have taken the lead to command both Somali and foreign fighters in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia.’
“’I have no doubt that some of the foreign fighters are British as well as North American and Scandinavian,’ said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top Somali diplomat for the United Nations. One Western diplomat with experience in Somalia said: ‘These foreigners are the ones with al-Qaeda links. I would be surprised if Britons were not the leading foreign members of al-Shabaab’.”
2.)”Whitechapel youths recruited for jihad in Somalia”
[Extract]:
“In a rundown flat in Whitechapel, East London, the Somali chewed qat as he pondered the issue of radicals within the community. Throwing his arms in the air he declared: ‘Its true, everyone knows.’
“But as for the people co-ordinating? ‘No one knows.'”
3.)”Somali Britons with jihad training pose terrorist risk”
[Extract]:
“A growing number of young Somali Britons who have received ‘global jihad’ training in Somalia pose a terrorist risk to the United Kingdom.
“With al-Qaeda (AQ) in effect ousted from Iraq and constantly attcked by American Predator air attacks in Pakistan, the AQ franchise in East Africa, and notably Somalia, has become a greater focus of attention for the international counter-terrorist agencies.
“’Somalia has some of the characteristics of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 — a country of ungoverned space which AQ can exploit,’ a senior Whitehall official said.
“For Britain, the evidence of spreading AQ training camps in Somalia is particularly alarming because of the large Somali community in the UK. About 70,000 live in London, 10,000 in the borough of Tower Hamlets. “
ARE YOU AWAKE, BRITISH MPS?:
-‘End all Somali immigration; deport all Islamic jihadists and their supporters’.
I started a thread criticising Rachel Shabi, who was interviewed on Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed (May 13 and 17) by Laurie Taylor for her politically-driven drivel alleging institutionalised discrimination against Israel’s eastern or Mizrahi Jews. The thread, on the BBC’s joint forum with the Open University,attracted a further comment from Fred supporting my view. Well, what do you know, acouple of days ago – hey presto – the thread disappeared!
http://www.open2.net/forum/showthread.php?p=40948#post40948
I wonder why?
Craig 7:51
Using “anonymous” is like wearing the Burqa. I like that one !
Too True 11:20
I take your point that posting under “anonymous” allows us to judge each post on its merits. On the other hand, a name means that we can put the post in context with previous posts.
Imagine what the site would be like if everyone posted as “Anonymous” !
Uwinsom Ulosesom 1:25
Great name , much better than anonymous.
Congrats on your expose of the bias on BBC HYS, a few more like that and they don’t have a leg to stand on !!
Blatant pro-Labour bias.
The top sleaze story in the Telegraph is “taxpayer funds home for friend of minister Paul Goggins”. Yet the BBC have inverted today’s Telegraph revelations, they believe that the top story is “Tory MP claims £5,000 for gates”.
Now not only do the BBC lead with the Tory MP, and devote 80% of this article to analysing his particular claims, they relegate the Paul Goggins story – a Minister of the Crown – to the bottom of the page and devote just 28 words to it. Out of interest, I double checked the on-line editions of all the major UK newspapers and the BBC are the only news outlet who have prioritized these competing but related stories in this way.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5369152/MPs-expenses-taxpayer-funds-home-for-friend-of-minister-Paul-Goggins.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8064794.stm
Incidentally the BBC seems to have also missed the lead story in the Times, altogether: “Brown faces Cabinet split on future of Hazel Blears”. I wonder why this story doesn’t appeal.
Anonymous said…
BBC biased according to one of its own .
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Whitehouse2009.htm
8:39 AM, May 23, 2009..
..I’ll make your link linkable and then click on it..
..Here it is..
..Just had a look. Excellent. In one short e-mail this David Whitehouse has pinpointed the BBC’s unscientific obsession with scaremongering and its frowning upon BBC staff who don’t fall into line.
I especially liked this bit:
But the attitude towards science still remains at the BBC and has been evident in its evangelical, inconsistent climate change reporting and its narrow, shallow and sparse reporting on other scientific issues...
..David Gregory, the BBC science reporter who used to debate people here, might be interested in this assessment from an ex-BBC science reporter.
On the other hand, he might not. Though he politely stuck to his global warming guns while enduring much mockery and insult from some people here, he eventually showed some irritation when strong evidence against his stance was continually presented and then dropped out of the debate.
It is vital that the comments archive be recovered so that episodes like this one in the history of this fine blog are not lost to posterity.
Grant said…
Imagine what the site would be like if everyone posted as “Anonymous” !.
.That’s true too. It would be bland and incomprehensible. Instead of people referring to one another as “anonymous” they would have to use “anonymous at 9:56 AM, May 23.” Soon the meaningless “anonymous” would be dropped and people would just refer to one another as date and time. Conversation could go something like this:
“I agree with you, 10:50 am, May 21st.”
“You agree with that idiot?”
“Who’s calling me an idiot?”
“I was, 9:27 pm, May 20th, 10:23 pm, May 20th, 11:36 pm, May 20th, 9:20 am, May 21st and 11:22 am, May 21st.”
“You’re the one who wrote all those ridiculous comments? No wonder you don’t know the difference between idiocy and sense. This is 10:34 am, May 22nd, 11:16 am, May…..”.
.Alternatively, they could just link to one another’s comments, but that would be a bit of a mission on this site with links currently not automatic on Blogger.
Yes, an all-anonymous comments section would be a real drag. Makes me think of Orwell’s 1984.
9:56 AM, May 23, 2009,
I agree with you, anonymous. The Telegraph has a list longer than your arm of all the MPs it investigated. Not all of them are guilty of misusing the system: there is a sprinkling of guiltless ones included in the list, but they are far fewer than the guilty:
MPs’ expenses
The BBC would never expose corruption in this manner – unless of course it was limited to the Tories and the BNP. Then they would be shouting it from the rooftops.
Good points from Anonymous at 9.56 am.
BBC News 24 at 10.00 is playing the same game.
In the headlines, the presenter (big Maxine) said “Well, the revelations continue with allegations that the MILLIONAIRE TORY MP, Jonathan Djanogly, claimed £5,000 for gates and £13,000 for gardening”. Only Mr Djanogly. There was no mention in the headlines of the serving Labour minister, Mr Goggins.
Next came Ian Watson’s report. This was topped and tailed by Conservative Andrew MacKay’s bad night-out, and led its list of “further revelations” with “Conservative MP” Bernard Jenkin, only then moving on to “the Northern Ireland minister Paul Goggins”. Nowhere did the word “Labour” appear.
Next came Maxine’s interview with young Ross Hawkins, who described Djanogly’s expense claims as “maybe the most eyecatching” and the MP as “quite a wealthy man”. (I bet Goggins isn‘t short of a bob or two either).
So, focus on the “wealthy” Tories and downplay the Labour examples.
And yes, Caroline Flint’s questioning of Gordon Brown’s inconsistency in his treatment of Hazel Blears (as compared to fellow dodgers Hoon and Purnell) was ignored.
Save Gordon!
Astonishing ant-Semitic rant on From Our Own Correspondent. Apparently the Madoff scandal was all the work of a vulgar greedy Jewish cabal who really got what they deserved……except that a lot of the Jewish investors gave money to charity and now they have no money to give. That was portrayed as nasty Jews taking the money away and absolutely no thanks for the millions they gave before they lost their savings.
It was the sort of vile biased effort that would expected for Gorbels. Absolutely disgusting!
The whole piece was sprinkled with the word Jewish (and you could hear the contempt in the correspondent’s voice) in the way that the world Muslim is not whenever our Jihadist friends promote barbarity and mass slaughter in the name of their religion.
Nothing on BBC yet about the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood spent £2,575 staying in ‘riot of gold, marble and silk’ hotel with girlfriend with his nose in the trough.
Will they actually report it? The biased reporting we seem to be getting is that they much prefer to have conservative MPs in their cross-hairs! Isn’t Mahmood one of the ethnically chosen ones regularly appearing on QT? What’s the betting that we even get some of his constituents(or even sympathetic knowing nods from BBC journalists)legitimising such expenses!
Mahmood denies any wrongdoing. He said of the hotel: ‘It was close to the Tube station and it was easy to get to Parliament.’
‘How many hotels there are in London where you can get £175 rate and which are close to the Tube?’
I had a look at the website article and listened to the podcast at the same time.
While the BBC’s James Coomarasamy mentions “Jewish” (again) at the folowing point, it’s been edited out of the article:
This research into the causes of Parkinson’s disease was being partly funded by another wealthy couple, Jeffrey and Barbara Picower, their Picower Foundation was the hardest hit by the Madoff scandal losing nearly $1bn..
.Was this the BBC being careful about too much emphasis on “Jewish” on the website whereas they felt they could get away with it in a soon-to-be-forgotten radio broadcast?
Probably.
Here’s where Coomarasamy gets close to anti-Semitic territory, though he does it through the opinions of someone else:
‘Irresponsible’ greedI met Jose Lambiet, society columnist with the Palm Beach Post.
He says there is an element of one-upmanship to the charitable work of the rich and famous, whose endeavours were being bankrolled by Madoff.
Their huge returns may have gone towards positive ends he says but they were still the product of greed..
.(Guy’s never heard of Robin Hood.)
Here’s where Coomarasamy really throws his pretence of objectivity to the winds:
As you drive along the the lanes surrounding the Palm Beach Country Club, the place where Madoff persuaded members of this tight-knit Jewish community to invest their millions with him, you pass a succession of what appear to be green, leafy battlements, 30 feet high in places, the flat top foliage offers towering, natural protection to the people in the barely-glimpsed houses behind.
They once spent their days counting their Madoff-made money. Now they are licking their Madoff-inflicted wounds..
.That’s pure anti-Semitism from this BBC “journalist.” There’s no doubt about that.
Website articleThose keen on the English language will notice flaws in the article.
PodcastDunno how long the Saturday FOOC will be available for downloading.
Oops, I meant to refer that last comment back to nrg at 11:56 AM, May 23, 2009
‘Dateline: London’ was more balanced than usual this week, though after last week’s ‘save-our-MPs’ pitch by Steve Richards of the Independent, this week’s Brit on the panel was Guardianista Isabel Hilton (a snooty leftist), who blamed Thatcher for the expenses crisis.
Between her and host Gavin Esler, I lost count of the numbers of references to “duck-ponds” and “moats” (and the only MP mentioned by name was Conservative Mr. Steen).
This co-incides with a trend we have been tracking in the Beeb’s telling of the expenses story (after their initial confusion).
The other panelists, for the record, were rabid Europhile and hater of the Anglo-Saxon model, Mark Roche of the centre-left ‘Le Monde’, Henry Chu of the now-centrist ‘Los Angeles Times’ and Sarju Kaul from India’s ‘Asian Age’. Anyone from the Right need not apply.
The last segement of ‘Dateline: London’ discussed Sri Lanka, and featured blanket condemnation of the Sri Lankan government.
Winning the war is not enough and ‘Truth and reconciliation commissions’ (as in South Africa) are needed, according to Ms Hilton and Mr Esler.
Why did they not invite a Sri Lankan-government supporting guest (maybe from Sri Lanka!) onto the programme? That might have been interesting.
Intriguingly the Indian lady was by some way the most nuanced (although still heavilly critical of the Sri Lankan government). The others answered like typical bleeding-heart, “war is stupid and people are stupid”, knee-jerk, Beeb-attuned liberals.
Oscar Miller,
Spot on, and BBC News 24 is continuing to keep it as a Tory expenses story.
The headlines at 2.00 and 3.00 contain “Ashamed & humiliated, Tory MP Sir Peter Viggers (I don’t fancy writing a limerick about him!) says he regrets claiming expenses to pay for a floating island for his duck pond”. Why include this item in the headlines? Why not Labour minister Goggins? It’s “duck islands” and “moats” all the way with the Beeb at the moment. Who does this help?
Soon after comes work-experience boy Ross Hawkins’s report. This starts with Mr Punch-faced Tory Andrew MacKay before moving on to Archbish Rowan Williams. As illustration of “humiliated” MPs, whose pictures does it show? Conservative Douglas Hogg (of “moat” fame) of course, followed by anti-Brown Labourite Hazel Blears. Then we get oily Steve Richards of the ’Independent’ sucking up to his masters, the Political Class, as ever, calling for us to stop being beastly to members of parliament. A brief mention of the heroic whistleblower, Mr Wick, (whose motives are slyly impugned) leads to young Hawkins’s mention of Jonathan Djanogly, “the Huntingdon Conservative”. No mention at all of Labour’s Goggins.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but the details prove the bias.
Here’s the Beeb’s agenda as I see it: Try to move the story on, keep saying that the expenses crisis effects all the major parties (as it does) but concentrate – at all costs – on examples from only one of those parties: those pesky license-fee threatening Tories.
Save Gordon!
Sorry to have contributed all four of the last postings on this thread. It's cloudy up north & I'm staying put indoors.
From this week’s News Quiz on R4.
Sandy Toksvig: Barack Obama has announced new plans to make American cars more fuel efficient in a bid to cut pollution and lower dependence on oil imports. Obama hailed the deal as a historic agreement to help break America’s dependence on oil. His use of the word “historic” annoyed George Bush as in eight years as president he had never used a three-syllable word. [Pavlovian laughter from idiot News Quiz audience]
Someone got paid to write that, someone got paid to choose it for broadcast, and Toksvig got paid to read it out.
Generic Radio 4 Comedian gives you the same rubbish but doesn’t cost the licence fee payer a single penny.
(Cloudy here too, Craig)
NRG & TT(TOB)
On the FooC page it says:
“Correspondents have always enjoyed writing for FooC, as they call it, because after a busy day in the field covering a big news story, it can often be cathartic for the correspondent to sit down, compose his or her thoughts, and start writing.”
Does this absolve them from complying with normal BBC impartiality obligations? It would be interesting find out.
Just got back from Tescos; (is this calledTwittering?) as I picked up a bag of potatoes, a pleasant looking woman did the same. We both spotted the country of origin on the bag. “Israel!” she said to her husband as she put them back, like a hot potato, on the shelf. I imagine she thought that would assuage some media-induced guilt and make her feel proud that she was helping the poor Palestinians.
I wondered whether I ought to have said something, and if so, what. I bought another bag of the potatoes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk (22 May):
“Ex-BBC science man slams corp: ‘Evangelical, shallow and sparse'”
[Extracts]:
“The BBC’s environmental coverage has come under fire from a former science correspondent. Award-winning author and journalist David Whitehouse says the corporation risks public ridicule – or worse – with what he calls ‘an evangelical, inconsistent climate change reporting and its narrow, shallow and sparse reporting on other scientific issues.'”
[…]
“‘Reporting the consensus about climate change…is not synonymous with good science reporting. The BBC is at an important point. It has been narrow minded about climate change for many years and they have become at the very least a cliché and at worst lampooned as being predictable and biased by a public that doesn’t believe them anymore’,” he writes.
“Whitehouse is a former astronomer (published academic papers listed here) who became a BBC science correspondent and Science Editor at BBC Online.
“The threshold for introducing a climate change angle into an unrelated story can be pretty low – have a look at this example involving a fossilized giant snake. While activists have discovered that getting a story changed can be relatively easy – it just needs a little bullying by email.
“More than two years ago we criticized how the BBC’s TV science flagship Horizon had abandoned explaining science in preference to fantasy. Many of you agreed.”
I wondered whether I ought to have said somethingYou ought. A couple of years ago I overheard two student types in a supermarket announcing their disgust that some veg or fruit product was from Israel. I butted in and asked them, with faux outrage, where the Israeli produce was. They eagerly pointed it out to me, whereupon I grabbed a load (can’t remember what it was) and put it in my trolley. “Thanks!” I announced. “Always good gear from Israel.” And then, as I walked away, “I just hope no fucking Palestinians picked it.” Stunned silence followed by “Fascist twat!” followed by my extended middle finger as I carried on down the aisle.
The troughing of our politicians has been know by all media and accepted as unworthy of real mentioning to us all until some clear cut evidence was offered. We all know it was touted around to everyone, and that the motives for the touters and buyers don’t make them pure.
It could have been anybody who finally released this story in a drip drip fashion, no doubt if the Guardian bought it, they may have chosen to release the Tory names first. But then again even to them that may have gone against the grain of common sense about what is clearly the common perception of the the dying Labour party today..
But still the BBC stupidly tries to make capital about the nature of the messenger, the retired SAS officer and the Barclay Brothers, whilst missing the real possible consequences. I sense a ground shift.
I will personally vote UKIP for the first time for a laugh, and I am sure that some other minority parties will pick up votes
We may see the best un-spun poll about what our country thinks at the next election – I assure you it will annoy the BBC and they will read it all wrong 🙂
I notice that the BBC keeps going on about ‘journalists wanting to move on’
Er.. no BBC LEFT WING journalists like Steve Richard, Sir michael Shite and 5 bellies Toynbee want to move the sotry on simply because McTwat is getting a kicking in the polls.
If the Tories were really squirming over this the BBC wouldn’t want to move the story on at all.
Stuart, I'm going UKIP too for a laugh.
The Beeb can fume over the BNP & hope they get seats and so divert attention away from Gordon & Co's coming humiliation, but a huge UKIP voice will really p..s the Beeboids off (& their friends in the Political Class). That's the last party they would want us to vote for.
Infuriate the Beeb, vote UKIP.
That was a party political broadcast on behalf of…the screw-the-Beeb party.
Martin,
Richards is a disgrace. The Beeb can’t get enough of him, yet all he says is “move along, nothing to see here”.
From the letter by former BBC science correspondent David Whitehouse referenced by a number of people in the comments above:
The BBC is at an important point. It has been narrow minded about climate change for many years and they have become at the very least a cliché and at worst lampooned as being predictable and biased by a public that doesn’t believe them anymore.
Right on cue comes this BBC article about the decline in the number of the biggest trees in Yosemite National Park. Call me cynical but I think Matt Walker, the editor of the BBC’s Earth News (just how many eco-related BBC websites are there?) has chanced upon a press release in which the key words “climate change” appear. The scientists behind the research obviously recognised the benefits of that particular phrase when deciding how to garner media coverage (and, therefore, funding). I can almost hear them now: “Put something about climate change in – some idiot douche at the BBC is bound to pick it up.”
Walker’s article is replete with the usual bullshit-alarm qualifiers which always surround supposed links to climate change: “appears to be” “we certainly think” “could accelerate”. He says that the scientists have found that there are fewer of the biggest trees in Yosemite today than there were in the 1930s. The article states that “[h]igher temperatures decrease the amount of water available to the trees.” Were temperatures in Yosemite National Park lower in the 1930s than they are now? The article doesn’t say, and unfortunately I couldn’t find any online records.
What I did find, though, was a study (pdf) into the relationship between climate and tree ring growth in the Yosemite area which states: “On the whole, temperature–growth relationships were weaker than those between precipitation and growth.” So according to this study precipitation, not temperature, is the main factor. And unlike the temperature record, I have found precipitation figures to compare.
The average annual precipitation at Yosemite National Park HQ from 1971-2000 was 37.73mm. The BBC article tells us that the first survey of tree growth was conducted in the mid 1930s. Here are the annual precipitation figures from 1925-1935, the decade preceding the survey when the density of large trees was greater than it is today: 1925 = 30.40mm, 1926 = 36.17, 1927 = 38.21, 1928 = 27.12, 1929 = 25.25. 1930 = 27.99, 1931 = 26.93, 1932 = 25.39, 1933 = 29.20, 1934 = 26.93, 1935 = 36.77. In only one year (1928) was the annual precipitation greater than the 1971- 2000 30-year average, and in most years it was substantially less.
Now compare the precipitation from 1995 – 2006 (the most recent annual figures available on the linked website) : 1995 = 54.09mm, 1996 = 62.71, 1997 = 30.67, 1998 = 56.38, 1999 = 29.06, 2000 = 37.47, 2001 = 39.07, 2002 = 36.30, 2003 = 30.98, 2004 = 27.21, 2005 = 41.23, 2006 = 43.09. In 6 out of the 12 years the annual precipitation exceeded the 1971-2001 average. So there’s been far more precipitation in recent years and yet there are fewer big trees? How can it be?
Something else I chanced upon could give a clue. This is from the abstract of a 2001 study into “Root disease and canopy gaps in developed areas of Yosemite Valley, California” :
Large trees with root decay have fallen in the valley causing human fatalities and property damage… Hazardous trees in canopy gaps have been felled by the park service since the 1970s.
So they’ve been cutting down big trees since the 1970s to stop them falling on visitors. I wonder if that might be significant.
Now, I’m sure there are many holes in my layman’s thesis, based as it is upon a bit of googling this evening. However, I’m willing to bet I’ve spent far longer looking into the claims made in Matt Walker’s article than he did.
sue 3:50 PM, May 23, 2009m,
I responded to you at 8:56 pm yesterday. Hope you saw it.
Yes, FOOC is the place where BBC “journalists” let their hair down and let us know what they really feel. And no, it doesn’t excuse the bias. I listen to it on the World Service sometimes. That’s when I can stand it, since it’s now introduced by Alan Johnston, who’s sounding almost drugged these days with that awful, dreary monotone of his more monotonous than usual. (Can you tell I don’t like him?)
Re my post above – precipitation should be in inches, not mm !
Sue and DB – I had an interesting Waitrose experience a few weeks ago. Trendy woman examining the tomatoes exclaims to trendy boyfriend “Israel”. Oh no I think – here we go. Then in loud voice “good – they produce the best tomatoes”. Partner, sounding bemused “Really?” “Yes – by far the best” as she puts two punnets in her basket.
Re the question raised by sue and followed up on by DB on resisting the boycott of Israeli produce, we all contribute to any battle in our own ways: some are physically or verbally confrontational, some fight more with the mind.
Most people on this site are foot soldiers, in one way or another, against the insanity that is promoted and encouraged by the BBC and is slowly enveloping the West.
Martin 4:58 PM, May 23, 2009
I notice that the BBC keeps going on about ‘journalists wanting to move on’
This is also the same message from the editorial of The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/
“Pursuit of MPs is becoming a witch-hunt
Leading article: The abuse of expenses is serious, but we need a sense of perspective”
DB 4:31PM,
That must have been fun. Now I feel guilty.
But I don’t think my woman would have reacted in the way your students did. She’d be baffled as to why someone wouldn’t do their duty and join the noble boycott. Probably would have just assumed I was one of those deranged psychopaths that loiter and rant. I blame the BBC anyway, more than the woman who believed them.
God knows what I would have done if I’d been in the French supermarket when this happened.
TTTOB,
Yes thanks I did see your 8:56 pm yesterday. Actually I couldn’t bear to listen to that audio you linked to…too depressing. Constantly hearing that stuff makes it seem more jarring than ever instead of getting used to it. Like bee stings that you become more and more allergic to till you die.
As for Alan J – I once told you that the tone of his voice was exactly like Clare Short’s.
But not like on this youtube clip because she’s shouting.
I feel obliged to add that when I said “I just hope no fucking Palestinians picked it” I was aiming for maximum shock value at the time. I am actually quite prepared to eat foodstuffs picked by Palestinians.
Oscar, you get a better class of shopper at Waitrose!
I think I was in Asda. Thank goodness it wasn’t Netto – I wouldn’t have dared mention it.
(Oscar – Asda and Netto are the names of other supermarket chains, in case you’re wondering.)
sue, 7:34 PM, May 23,
Aarrrgghh, just watched her, she really is full of it. Yes, I remember that comment of yours comparing her to Johnston. While they both no doubt have a similarly blind bias against Israel, I find Johnston’s voice far more irritating.
Re Israeli produce, I wonder how many people buy it without realising where it’s from and then bring it back for a refund – and whether the supermarket agrees to refund them.
Customer: “I want to return these items.”
Manager: “What seems to be the problem with them?”
Customer: “They’re from Israel.”
Manager: “?”
Further to 4:30 pm above, and BBC’s deceitful ‘evangelism’ about climate:
Christoper Booker’s latest piece in ‘Sunday Telegraph’:
“Climate Change Act: Now the world faces its biggest ever bill”
Extract:
“Last week the BBC and various newspapers excitably greeted the opening by Alex Salmond of Whitelee, ‘Europe’s largest onshore wind farm’, 140 giant 2.3 megawatt turbines covering 30 square miles of moorland south-east of Glasgow. It was happily reported that these would ‘generate’ 322MW of electricity, ‘enough to power every home in Glasgow’. They won’t, of course, do anything of the kind. Due to the vagaries of the wind, this colossal enterprise will produce only 80MW on average, a quarter of its capacity and barely enough to keep half Glasgow’s lights on.
“It really is time people stopped recycling the thoroughly bogus propaganda claims of the wind industry in this way. Any journalist who still falls for these lies by confusing turbines’ ‘capacity’ with their actual output is either thoroughly stupid or dishonest. The truth is that the 80MW average output of ‘Europe’s largest wind farm’ is only a fraction of that of any conventional power station, at twice the cost. For this derisory amount of power, the hidden subsidy to Whitelee over its 25-year life will, on current figures, be £1 billion, paid by all of us through our electricity bills.
“Truly, our world has gone off its head, and no one seems to notice – not least those wretched MPs who allow all this to happen without having the faintest idea what is going on.” (Christopher Booker.)