Monthly Archives: July 2010

Topical typicality

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Douglas Carswell writes of the BBC’s divergent approach in covering public issues such as bullfighting in Catalonia and illegal immigration in Arizona. This is the reason I don’t watch the BBC: you know what the story will be from the barest description of it; I prefer to garner details from sources more varied and less predictable. Douglas attempts neutrality:


I’ve little interest in the politics of either Catalonia or Arizona, and even less in bull fighting. But I do wish our state broadcaster would report objectively, rather than on the basis of whether they happen to approve.

This the BBC cannot and will not do; the partisan interest they have (with its pan-national socialistic imperative) is what drives them to cover these stories and propels them all over the globe. Oh, that and license-payers’ money.

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MEXICAN WAVE – PART 2

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I posted a couple of days ago about the ludicrous and slavish BBC reporting of a paper which suggested that the US would be swamped by Mexican immigrants forced out by global warming. The internet has done the job (that the BBC does not do) of providing balance. This article shows that, according to GISS, Mexico is not warming; and second, the statistical basis of the claimed correlation between crop yields and movement of people is utter nonsense. What are BBC journalists being paid for?

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CBBC HORRIBLE BIAS

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A B-BBC reader observes..,

“For the mostinsidious kind of BBC brainwashing-stroke-propaganda, you should take a closelook at a few episodes of Horrible Histories on CBBC. This ‘humorous’programme, aimed, naturally, at children, is rife with politically correctreinterpretations of history. 

Two days ago we were treated to a sequence demonstrating medicine in the MiddleAges. The black Arabian doctor invariably dispensed natural, workable herbalremedies, along with profound wisdom, while the white European doctor waspresented as a complete barbarian, hacking off limbs for no apparent reason. Incase we missed the message, we were then literally told, as fact, that Europeanmedicine was backward compared to the enlightened Arabian version.

Earlier today, we had a presentation about the British Empire . Need I even gointo detail? The sequence ended with Queen Victoria singing a song about’British Things’, only to be corrected by a courtier who informed her thateverything she assumed was British – such as tea, and cotton (?), etc – was infact stolen (their word!) from poor downtrodden overseas countries.

This series is shown daily, I believe, and repeated endlessly. The drip, drip,drip of daily, anti-British propaganda is shameful and sickening.” 

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BBC Silent on Wikileaks Fingering of the Coalitions Covert Afghan Helpers

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BBC World Service on Wikileaks: “Are you glad this information is public?” (No bets being taken on how the BBC would answer that question – almost all the reporting has been solemn but with that classic BBC edge of implicit approval. The Beeb loves leaks unless, of course, they are about their top level salaries, bonuses and expenses…)

The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel have published more than 92,000 secret military files from the website Wikileaks detailing the war in Afghanistan. The news has got you divided.

mmmm….no need to read the comments, almost all from Dave and Deirdre Spart.

But so far haven’t noticed much about this aspect of the leaks from the lovable Swede, Julian Assange, in the BBC.

Hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks’ publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals, The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

Expect Taliban revenge attacks on many individuals soon. Moreover how many Afghans would now be willing to work covertly with coalition forces now they realise that Mr Assange will always be willing to finger them?

Never mind, although many individuals and their families will die as a result of this (quickly if they are lucky, more slowly if the Taliban stick to their preferred modes) the chattering classes in NW1 who the BBC exists to serve will rest easy. As the Coalition weakens in its resolve (the main aim of the BBC over Iraq and Afghanistan for these last few years) an exodus of pro Coalition Afghans will provide a nice source of cheap labour for the chattering class’s servant pool

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What We Voted For?

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Some say Cameron’s infatuation with Turkey is pure political expediency. Others say ‘I told you so’.
Some say his comment about The Real Islam shows naivety, and others think that these remarks are also part of a convoluted political expediency, some kind of strategical move in a long term end game which is in the national interest. Or in other words, he doesn’t really mean it.
But why did he have to make those remarks about Gaza? They have unleashed yet more virulently antisemitic comments from those who were only waiting for the go-ahead. So the gloves are off.

People who support Israel are horrified.

What is the BBC’s role in this? The BBC news webpage is dumbed down to such a degree that it’s difficult to tell. These days they talk to us as though we are a primary school class. Remedial.

The BBC has played its part through years of selective and biased reporting, and now we’re beginning to reap what they have sewn. Harvest time.

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BLACK IS WHITE (AGAIN)

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Richard Black plumbs ever-lower depths in his distortions. Here, in his latest Earth Watch posting, he claims – without an ounce of qualification – that most Americans want climate change measures to be introduced, and that Obama has disappointed them. He’s being disingenuous in the extreme. Pew, as Mr Black should well know, is one of the main polling organisations in the US, and their latest findings on climate change – available with two seconds’ effort on Watt’s Up with That? – found that only 28% of voters thought it was a priority, and it was bottom of 20 topics of urgent concern, behind even the esoterics of trade policy. A recent Gallup poll asked slightly different questions and found that 48% of Americans think that claims about climate change are exaggerated. This was the highest total for this belief in a decade, and it came despite the torrent of climate change scare stories emanating from the pens of doomsayers like Mr Black.

Our friend Richard also claims that the reason Oz PM Kevin Rudd was booted out in April was because voters were unhappy that he had diluted plans to tax CO2 producers. This, even by Mr Black’s standards, is utter tosh. Rudd went because his eco-freak CO2 trading plans had so enraged the opposition and voters that even his lefty Labour colleagues realised the game was up. It takes Herculean efforts to throw away a landslide victory in less than a full term, but Rudd did it. Don’t take my word for it, Richard – have a look at analysis in the Australian. It makes it pretty damn clear that you are talking a load of limey cobblers.

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COMPARE AND CONTRAST…

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Did you catch sneering Humphyrs interview with David Cameron here? Notice how former BBC idol, Saint Vince, is now restored to heroic status by Humphrys because of his musings on the need for “liberal” laws on immigration. Cameron was constantly bated by Humphyrs on this, just as he was constantly derided on the “Senior/Junior Partner” lines. Shortly afterwards there was a fawning interview with Jack Straw in which he was allowed to get away with the wild claim that Labour has not gerrymandered the English constituencies for petty Party advantage without so much as a whimper of comeback from the Today poodles. More and more Today has morphed into the last bastion of the Labour Party. At our expense, of course.

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MEXICAN WAVE…

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Another day, another BBC climate change scare. Maybe I am wasting my time by writing about these items, they are so predictably biased and so blatantly political; but I hope that charting the extent to which the BBC churns out this relentless tide of propaganda is of interest. It’s our money and the fact that the BBC pours shedloads of its resources into this mindless drivel is obscene. Don’t just take my word for it; even ardent greenie academics like Dr Denis Rancourt now think the whole climate change hyopthesis is a mental disease. To the BBC, of course, he’s just another denialist nutter.

Today’s BBC scare is that Mexicans will become so hot because of climate change that almost 7m of them will flee to the US by 2080. It’s made by a team led by a member of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (not biased, of course) and the findings are presented, as usual, without a word of balancing comment from someone with some sanity. Or mention that the US has just gone through its snowiest winter on record, and that South America is currently in the middle of its biggest cold snap in living memory. So maybe those Mexicans will head the other way!

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TURKISH DELIGHT

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The Cameron regime is sounding daily more like the opportunistic propaganda machine of the Blair years. Today, our leader’s uncompromising, right-on message is that Islam is the religion of peace (you poor, deluded fools), and that the Jew-baiting Turks should be welcomed into the EU as quickly as possible. Those who oppose such zeal, says the great leader, are xenophobic bigots. For once, of course, the BBC – that ardent, dutiful supporter of all things to do with ever-closer union – is admiringly uncritical of the Cleggerons. Its fawning description of Mr Cameron’s pro-Turkey homily conveniently omits that the Turks are hell-bent on their anti-Israel mission.

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A BBC VIEW RARELY HEARD ON THE BBC!

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Despite the relentless opposition to the liberation of Iraq, just occasionally the odd sensible comment gets through the propaganda machine..

Frank Gardner, BBCsecurity correspondent tells us what he thought of the 2003 invasion of Iraq…46 mins in.

‘….a massive mistake on many fronts….but having been there we knew what ahorrible regime it was. One of Saddam’s cronies kept a mangle through which hewould feed his enemies feet first. The removal of Saddam and his odious sons removed forever the threat of thatregime ever getting nuclear weapons in the Middle East.This was a regime that invaded Iran invaded Kuwait and butchered the Kurds andyou need to remember that.’

Maybe Frank could spend a little more time updating his colleagues as they seem uniquely ignorant, or uncaring, of this perspective?

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