It’s midweek, and time for another Open Thread.
What’s infuriating you today?
OPEN THREAD
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- StewGreen Nov 24, 12:43
Weekend 23rd November 2024
Police swarmed Westminster Bridge after a man was stabbed in front of tourists, just meters from the UK Parliament. The… - MarkyMark Nov 24, 12:37
Weekend 23rd November 2024
Woman went to India to treat depression but was drugged, raped and beheaded Richard Hartley-Parkinson Published May 4, 2018 7:01am… - StewGreen Nov 24, 12:36
Weekend 23rd November 2024
That Stark Naked Barrister tweet is from a big thread where he lists 16 draconian #TwoTierKeir police intimidation-arrests against #FreeSpeech… - atlas_shrugged Nov 24, 12:33
Weekend 23rd November 2024
India has developed a new form of treatment for depression. This method is 100% effective for stopping depression and there… - Fedup2 Nov 24, 12:24
Weekend 23rd November 2024
634 000 signatures .. please get the country to sign it … - atlas_shrugged Nov 24, 12:23
Weekend 23rd November 2024
Police ‘incident’ on Westminster Bridge. Not terrorism of course just the normal knife fight taking place in Londonistan. https://metro.co.uk/2024/11/24/man-fighting-life-stabbing-westminster-bridge-22053218/ - Lazy Cat Nov 24, 12:13
Weekend 23rd November 2024
Somebody with no conscience. Now what do we call that? - Lunchtime Loather Nov 24, 12:11
Weekend 23rd November 2024
She needs to discover shagging, but as that usually involves somebody else that could be a problem. - Lazy Cat Nov 24, 12:06
Weekend 23rd November 2024
‘Trillions not billions’. Quite the commitment. Trillions. I bet the BBC aren’t against the idea too. It’ll involve these trust… - MarkyMark Nov 24, 12:01
Weekend 23rd November 2024
“Since becoming Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak seems to have spent most of his time hob-nobbing with his WEF globalist chums…
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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
This sounds like an offshoot of INBBC’s ‘College of Journalism’ on Islam:
Michigan State University’s School of Journalism publishes manual for journalists to help them whitewash Islamic jihad
“Biased Vocabulary”
http://biasedbbc.tv/2010/09/biased-vocabulary.html
http://biasedbbc.tv/2010/10/paedo-government.html
why this subject has been ignored is worrying itself. 3 comments? makes one wonder just who is reading
and another thing………why are we constantly being shown empty seats at the commonwealth games? If people can’t be arsed going to see it when they are in the country why should we be spending on idiots to present the crap. Same old same old
And how many Beeboids are in India staying in 5-star hotels ?
Well let’s hope it’s the first one to have a 5-star breakout of cholera.
Who wants to travel all the way to Dehli anyway? Its a grim polluted dirty hellhole one step up from the black hole of Calcutta, even the Indians give the place a bloody wide berth!
The air is putrid and the malaria and mozzies and snakes and bad water, not to mention the food. They dont call it Dehli belly for nothing. The place is hard to get to and bloody expensive for even modest clean accomodation that offers food/water that will not sicken you for days.
What muppets thought that having the games in a smelly slum surrounded by swamp land would be a great idea? There are nice parts of India up in the hills to the north for example but FFS Dehli?
Dazzler,
Your first post. I hadn’t actually got round to reading the post about paedos.
But, the BBC view on any subject depends on who is involved. So it is OK for Labour MPs to fiddle their expenses, but not Tories. It is OK for muslims to treat women badly, but not anyone else. The list is endles. So I would imagine the same would apply to Paedophilia.
Because Beeboids operate in a totally unprincipled , moral vacuum, unconstrained and immune to criticism, it means they can do what they want.
That’s why we must get rid of them.
Why is the life sentence for the Times Square wannabe mass murderer still the top US story? And when is the BBC going to talk about the fact that he said on his own video that he was inspired to murder ever since 9/11, instead of covering that up by whining about Iraq and Afghanistan?
And why does the BBC keep making excuses for the President’s failure to close Guantanamo “with a flick of a pen”? Why not admit it was an empty promise made out of pure political vapor and naivité and was never going to happen as easily as the BBC led you all to believe? Or at least get on a critic of the President to discuss it.
If the BBC can’t find any, I can direct them to a few:
Dems turn on Obama over Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo
So why are Democrats less enthusiastic? And why has “the progressive donor base,” as Democratic consultant Jim Jordans reports, “stopped writing checks”?
I don’t think it’s just because the economy remains sour or that President Obama failed to jam a public option in the health care bill.
I find a more convincing explanation in an offhand phrase in a subordinate clause in a brief article by Adam Serwer of the Center for American Progress on the Washington Post’s opinion pages. “There’s no question,” Serwer writes, defying anyone to disagree, “that Obama has completely reversed on his promises to roll back Bush-era national security policies.”
For it is not economics but foreign policy that has motivated the left half of the Democratic Party over the last decade.
David, the BBC ignores the truth, no civilian trial can succeed. George Bush knew this. None of these prisoners were read their Miranda rights at the time of capture (after all American soldiers are not empowered to do so anyway in Afghanistan which is why they have to drag along the Afghan Police) so any third rate defence lawyer will get the case thrown out, which is why GWB had to go down the military trials.
Everyone knows this and knows Barry was spouting total bollocks when he claimed he’s put them through civil trials, yet the BBC like the rest of the lamestream media allowed Barry to peddle this lie right through his election and into his Presidency.
That’s because the BBC and most US media were not concerned with facts during the election, just getting the Obamamessiah elected.
On the plus side, there are tentative signs that some Beeboids are beginning to realise Obama is a useless prat. Even Kevin Connolly, last week, at least referred to Obama’s “difficulties”. Not Obama’s fault of course, but it is a start.
I am surprised the BBC haven’t blamed Maggie yet !
The political left, with the tacit support from BBC-NUJ, campaign for open-door policy on immigration to Britain from Zimbabwe, etc.
“X Factor contestant Gamu faces removal from UK”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11482391
The only political line to be heard on e.g. BBC Radio 5 today is that the Zimbabweans must be allowed to stay in Britain.
The tacit political campaign which BBC-NUJ is running on this amounts to:
1.) all Zimbabweans are ‘under threat’, so Britain should take in all Zimbabweans who want to come here;
2.) immigrants, including Zimbabwean immigrants and their supporters, should decide immigration policy for the British people.
We had this with a contestant on Big Brother, also from Zimbabwe, who went on the programme in breach of her work permit entry to the UK for work and subsequently took an immigration appeal in the full glare of publicity, successfully arguing that Big Brother notoriety would make it dangerous to return.
Ah, just watched on BBC Breakfast Views Gordon Banks MP (guess which party) is feeling the poor girl’s pain, as is Aunty.
I have some sympathy on an individual basis, but policy by celebrity is a rocky road.
Plus, as with cuts, pensions, etc, no challenge to Mr. Banks on how this situation came about in the first place, or how one favours those you see as helping your cause at the expense of those who don’t matter.
George R,
What ? Even including white Zimbabweans ? Surely not !
It’s immigration policy being determined by reality TV.
Honestly, for the child benefit policy strategy itself, but mainly the woeful performance yesterday in trying to defend it, David ‘fair, fair’s fair…it’s fair.. Did I mention fairness?’ Cameron deserves to be sliced and diced by all media. So long as it is to the same level as the previous bozos were subjected to, he says, quaintly.
With this in mind, I caught the risible R2 Jeremy Vine show today, with the inevitable twofer set-up, on the subject of ‘fairness’.
Some mild spoken Irish guy from a think-tank, and a screeching harpie who could not keep her gob shut, doubtless from some quango that pays her a fortune to spout cobblers and shout down any dissent around their ‘we take money from you as we give more money of yours to them’ ‘sector’.
In this case, fairness was around folk on minimum wage paying tax to keep rabbit-breeding single muvvas in the style they need to be accustomed to in Kensington 3 storey villas in case they had to call a cab to look for a job at the centre two streets down.
This woman, and her arguments, were so grotesque as to be bonkers to any rational mind, but Mr. Vine breezily indulged each and every one, plus her incessant butting in over the other bloke.
The bettter part was the subsequent phone-in, where a bunch of folk got past the screeners (er… why do folk need to have their story pre-vetted?) and left Jezza gabbling to try and ‘defend’ the indefensible as he had been just moments before.
Helen B… you have a true follower in Jeremy; bestow yet more pensions upon him asap!
Huw Edwards on News 24 just interviewed some Liebour hack who claimed that only 17% of women are in favour of cuts. Where does he get those stats from? Edwards of course didn’t challenge him (as a poll in the Sun today showed massive support for the child benefit cut and the Tories well ahead in the polls) on this statement, in fact Edwards was quite keen to play up ‘cuts’ and ‘splits’ again.
Ah… cuts.
I am just wondering if there has been some pow-wow chez Aunty to divide all the possible cuts up, along with whingeing ‘victims’, to dole out and drip feed across all programmes, blogs, etc on a daily basis, ad nauseam?
Yes, they do need to be discussed for impact and fairness, but this is a succession of single-issue numpties saying ‘woe is me, I should be spared’, with the clowns t’other side of the mic incapable of, or more likely restrained from at least coming back with ‘OK, money brains, if not you, where do you suggest the money comes from to maintain your breeding progamme, drug habit, LGA trips to assess manhole covers in Bali, etc’.
Plan BBC – This is not just a media organisation, it’s an agenda ladled on with a trowel media organisation
Would anyone like to guess how the BBC would cover this if Labour had won the election ?
PS, sorry, I have just realised that was a stupid question.
Why does the BBC spin the lie that all the cuts coming are going to be unpopular? Not with me thy’re not. Bring em on I say, the more the better.
Spinning lies is what the BBC are all about, if they didnt lie and cheat and deceive they would have nothing to report.
The ever decreasing circle of madness, it started in small ways and the BBC became addicted to lies, they need their lies like a crack addict needs the next fix. Without the lies their world does not make sense, their beliefs start to crumble into dust so they prop up their dreams with lies.
As Emily Maitlis said yesterday, “Every cut is painful, every cut has a victim”.
And as all Beeboids keep saying, government handouts are an essential human right. People pay taxes because they expect to get benefits. I heard that at least three times this morning.
Don’t ask them who pays what and who gets what, because that will just confuse the narrative.
On the 6PM news they had some supposed ‘neutral twat’ from Liverpool University whining on about Tory cuts and Thatcher, only in the world of the BBC would this tool be thought of as neutral.
If it were my decision, I would start cutting with the Universities.
“Every cut is painful”, but not for the BBC.
Good point.
The Tories recent proposal to cut benefits to those paying over £44k is in fact very popular (83% approval rating I think).
I don’t really hear them saying anything about that!
Bloomin’ odd commentary that goes with this clip – I think it’s our old chum Orla Gueueueuerin. Anyway, her definition of ‘explodes right behind him’ sure ain’t the same as mine!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11484225
He was never in danger as soon as the flames got a bit higher he legged it (yet the cameraman presumably stayed put). Odd.
The timing was odd. The tanker had already exploded when Ayub Tareen legged it. I’d guess about three seconds after.
I hate to proclaim conspiracy when stupidity is a perfectly adequate explanation. Orla Guerin simply added her comment without checking with the correspondent about the actual sequence.
Is this a news feature or an advertisement? The mood-setting music and tone of Michael Maher’s voice over leans toward the former.
While I can appreciate the feel-good value of reporting on this lovely program which helps the poorest children, where do actual journalists draw the line between reporting and advocacy? The BBC blurred that line long ago.
How interesting that the BBC seem to be ‘tired’ of the Tories banging on about how it was Liebour that put us in this mess.
Yet the same BBC seem happy to allow Barry Obama (after nearly two years in power) to continue ot peddle the line that the mess that is the economy is all the fault of Bush.
Double standards? Of course.
Like I said before, that’s the best way for the Tories to give the BBC a bloody nose. Contrary to Laura K’s and Sopel’s dire predictions about how Cameron’s speech would fail, he barely said “Red Ed” once, and actually talked about the ubiquity of Kinnock. Laura K was clearly not impressed by the long list of Labour fails he read out. Awwww.
It is not, as far as I am aware, for a BBC employee to be ‘impressed’ (or, taking a comment above, to ‘tire’ of things).
It is for them to report them. Then the viewer/listener/reader can decide whether to be impressed or tire of things.
However, if the BBC leaves things to the public, the narrative may not advance ‘correctly’.
I am sick and tired of the BBC.
How long did Labour government blame everything on 18 years of evil Tories and remind us of 17% interest rates, more on which soon…
And yet the BBC still happy to blame Thatcher !
Martin won’t be surprised, but Polly Toynbee has just been on the News Channel again (in her usual 7.30 spot).
I saw it Craig, she’s never off the BBC.
They keep a spare Pollydroid in the Newsnight broom cupboard
Is Mr. Maguire otherwise engaged?
I think she would be better employed putting the kettle on.
PS Assuming she knows how to do that.
Oh, dear.
‘Jihadwatch’
France warns citizens: Jihad attack in Britain “highly likely”
[Extract]:
“Of course, French authorities didn’t say ‘jihad attack,’ but it is clear that that’s what they meant. Oddly enough, they just don’t seem to be as concerned about Christian extremists as they are about Islamic jihadists. Moral equivalence is fine as a rhetorical trick on rigged chat shows, but it doesn’t fly when it comes to evaluating genuine threats.”
INBBC report, complete with INBBC censored vocabulary:
“Terror attack in UK ‘highly likely’, warns France”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11486783
“Landale’s View: What David Cameron meant”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11489208
Have you ever read such rubbish in your life? I know what Landale and the patronising BBC can do with their “view”.
I guess Landale is auditioning for a job as joke-writer for HIGNFY? Did we see anything similar for Miliband Minor’s speech?
Yes we did and it was also rubbish. Does this bloke take us all for idiots?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11431339
That’s not the same thing at all. When he gets to actual policies, Landale plays it totally straight, without sarcastic hyperbole. He doesn’t compare any of Miliband Minor’s policies to the tooth fairy.
Er…. don’t know which is more worrying.
That politicians’ speeches are deemed so poorly constructed that no one has a clue what they are on about (probably true)
The BBC presumes to ‘interpret them for the masses, in ways only they can with ‘events’.
That is some of the most childish patronising rubbish even by Beeboid standards.
Red Ed’s speech was rubbish, but did Landale write a similar piece ?
I’ve just read it.
What a grotesque piece of patronising clap trap! I don’t remember him doing that for a Labour speech.
Mr Hunt – take note and do something!
JHT posted the link to Landale’s attempt at Miliband Minor’s speech a couple comments above. The sarcasm vanishes when Landale is paraphrasing Labour policies, in marked contrast to what he did for Cameron’s speech. Even though the jokey openings are similar in tone.
Actually David, to be honest afer reading the Cameron piece, I only read the first part of Landales “view” on Milliband. After the first few paragraphs I felt nauseous.
“The most gripping election in a generation, and what does the BBC do? Infantilise it by giving it a backing track and forcing its presenters to behave like children’s entertainers.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100033020/why-does-the-patronising-bbc-insist-on-presenting-election-coverage-in-the-style-of-a-childrens-programme/
If I want news I do not go to the BBC.
Olly,
Well said. Jeremy Hunt, don’t bank on him. I have seen more dead fish with stronger backbones.
An Obama moment of misfortune which BBC-NUJ will want to publicise as it did for Republican Presidents?:
“Not a good time for the Obama presidency to fall apart: Presidential seal tumbles from lectern during speech”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1318095/Barack-Obama-laughs-seal-mishap-tumbles-lectern-speech.html#ixzz11bpb5eO3
Credit where due: the BBC put up the video this morning.
This is a first for them, I think. But they probably saw it as evidence of how cool He is under pressure. It’s NOT an omen, damn your racist souls!
But will they repeat it every day on the news for the next 10 years as they would if it was Bush ?
Franny Splattergate “Armstrong’s parents are both in the environment game…..
Her father, Peter, is co-founder of the OneWorld Network and director for the OneWorld International Foundation, although their site shows no activities since 2008. He is described as a former BBC radio and TV producer and a policy advisor to governments and international bodies on the use of information and communications technology for global sustainable development.”
who would have thought?
“Jamie Glover, the child-actor who plays the part of Philip and gets blown up, has similarly few qualms: “I was very happy to get blown up to save the world.”
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
“The would-be suicide bomber foiled by Israeli soldiers at an army checkpoint was depicted yesterday as an impressionable 16-year-old who claimed in detention that he had been mocked at school for being an “ugly dwarf” and wanted to reach paradise to “meet the 72 virgins there”.
A sad but complex picture of a playful if under-achieving adolescent increasingly drawn to militant factions began to emerge yesterday as his shocked family tried to absorb the fact that Husam Abduh had been recruited to kill himself and soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus. ”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/child-bomber-wanted-to-meet-72-virgins-in-paradise-after-being-mocked-at-school-567653.html
I bet many can see the similarities – people like Black probably can’t.
JHT,
Good point. The lefty greenies would probably be quite happy for children to become suicide bombers in their cause. They have a lot in common with muslim extremists, although I doubt if they are very green except when it comes to the colour of Islam.
In the BBC’s coverage of the setback in Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s trial, there’s one important item from Judge Kaplan’s ruling that the BBC has censored:
Judge Kaplan added that Mr. Ghailani’s status as an “ ‘enemy combatant’ probably would permit his detention as something akin to a prisoner of war until hostilities between the United States and Al Qaeda and the Taliban end, even if he were found not guilty.”
In other words, we’ve been right all along about holding these people without trial, just like POWs are held until the war ends.
The BBC is going to hate this if someone ever tells them about it.
Remeber how the BBC refused to tell you about the President’s poor management of the oil spill and all the problems with the clean-up effort, and how He colluded with BP to block media access to key areas so the public wouldn’t find out what was going on?
Well, the BBC is going to look pretty foolish if they suddenly report this latest development:
Panel: Gov’t thwarted worst-case scenario on spill
The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been.
That finding comes from a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in history.
In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well.
There must be 15 Beeboids in the US covering various issues, and they flew in a few more just for the oil spill coverage when the story was peaking in July. Yet none of them ever managed to tell you about any problems with the clean-up effort, or that the government was blocking media access, even though their own friends at other outlets were complaining.
So how are they going to spin this, I wonder:
Spill Panel Faults Obama Effort
The Obama administration’s response to the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was affected by “a sense of over optimism” about the disaster that “may have affected the scale and speed with which national resources were brought to bear,” the staff of a special commission investigating the disaster found.
In four papers issued Wednesday by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, commission investigators fault the administration for making inaccurate public statements about a report on the fate of oil spilled by a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.
This will surprise no one here, but will come as quite a shock to those relying on the BBC for their information. All to protect the leader of a foreign country, at your expense.
If the Beeboids know about it , they will just ignore it.
May I commend again Bupendra P’s insightful satire on the BBC editorial PCs control buttons in the last thread?
Sometimes humour can be too close to truth.
Just watching BBC Breakfast Views Daily ‘attack on public sector pensions’ (others are not deemingly worth mentioning as much, if at all), which I think is accessed on a BBC hack screen by hitting ‘return’.
‘Paula, a teacher who has worked hard all her life, is braced for… ‘
She is, apparently, ‘angry’ that, having prepared for years for her retirement (mostly in the time off she has enjoyed?), the taxpayer funded holiday she was set to enjoy is under threat.
No question to her as to which private sector employee she feels should work until they drop to keep her in cruises.
Oo, there’s a surprise.
They now have ‘professional’ ‘guests’ on.
With the fragrant Susanna taking instructions via the earpiece to say ‘And don’t forget…’ with endless ways for them to get ‘angry’, they duly obliged.
Again, no actual challenge as to how the money fairy pays for their ‘deferred pay’ ‘rights’ over those grubby scum that actually fund them.
The News Channel is continuing the agenda in opposition to Hutton’s statement. Now it’s an “attack on public sector workers” in Northern Ireland. It’s a disaster, “the straw that broke the camel’s back” with public sector workers. At least they had on some guy (not from the Tories) who said the current system is unsustainable ( 🙂 ) and suggests better ways to fairly compensate workers without screwing up public finances.
The BBC script isn’t prepared for that, so the Beeboid counters with, “How do we compare with European companies?”
Um, who cares? Which European country does anyone here want to emulate? Apart from Germany, of course. But the Germans changed their hiring rules to aid small businesses – which the unions hated – and have a much better vocational training infrastructure. The BBC doesn’t want to talk about that. Hey, look over there: Sweden!
Then it’s off to a school back in England where I guess some union mouthpiece just dropped off a few pamphlets to hand to out to children, and the female Beeboid asks him if it’s right that “all public sector workers keep working until they’re 65”. All of them, yeah, that’s what Hutton meant. Oooh, it’s a relentless attack on pooblic sector workers. Oooh, possible indoostrial action. It’s all tediously predictable.
Who says public sector workers are treated differently, BBC? You are, and the outraged union rep Susanna Streeter is talking to. But when was the last time you worried about what Gordon Brown did to private pensions? Or spent time with a small business which wasn’t a factory in a politically-connected Northern city or similar? I swear, sometimes I think Portillo’s “Great British Railway Journeys” (or something like that) gave a better insight into small businesses in Britain than the actual News Channel ever has.
The BBC is peddling a myth.
“We’re hearing that current theme: too deep and too quick”. Well, yes, because you Beeboids keep trying to push it and get people to say it on air.
I thought teaching was semi-retirement in the first place.
I use the R4 Today news as my yardstick, being 2 hours long there is little excuse that ‘did not have enough time for a full report’. The subject was public sector pensions. One thing that did not get a mention, or even a wisp, was that Labour ducked this HUGE politically sensitive problem.
They stated; that private pensions were reformed about 8 years ago; they mentioned the spiralling billions the problem is heading for; even mentioned that Labour lord Hutton is producing the report for this gov. But not a jot about Labour deliberately ducking this union confrontation problem. This is an example of bias by OMISSION.
Gotcha; at about 8.25 the subject was revisited with a live interview with Hutton and union Brendan Barber. Hutton waffled about reforms done by previous (his) gov. Then Barber; he obviously did not like to talk on the sensitive subject. Claimed that reforms had gone on under the previous gov. Humph (to give fair credit) said ‘But when you confronted Johnson he backed down and wimped out’.
So they did know that Labour did not confront the unions, but it only came out because the union chap tried it on. The interview could have gone in other directions and that aspect not exposed.
Fred,
Any reference to The Moron’s abolishing pension funds ability to reclaim tax credits ?
Not a whisper!
fred,
Surprise, surprise !
Interesting piece at Harmless Sky on moderation at the Guardian’s Comment is Free.
As I’ve said on other threads far too often, I was extremely peeved to be banned for life from Comment is Free, the Guardian’s interactive website, since I think commenting there is one of the most useful things a simple footblogger in the Climate Wars can do.
The Guardian is read by Greens and the pro-green centre-left, so it’s possible to have a real debate, and perhaps influence opinion on the opposing side. Guardian readers are clearly far more numerous than those of any sceptical blog, they are more likely to be believers in global warming than readers of Delingpole or Booker, and they are therefore more in need of enlightenment. I also felt that if Guardian editors realised that a majority of readers did not accept the warmist argument, they might put pressure on the Environment Editors to be more even-handed in their treatment.
………………………………………….
I’ve just conducted an experiment at CiF, and I’m fairly sure I know how the “censorship” works. I can state with certainty (well, let’s say, with IPCC-style 90% confidence) that:
The moderators will not take the initiative in removing comments. They only act if someone presses the “report abuse” button with a justified complaint.
One complaint is enough to get a comment removed.
Since the rules list a large number of types of “abuse”, it is very easy for a determined troll to get an opponent removed by persistently reporting abuse.
Is this how the bBC moderation system works?
David,
The only time I post on the BBC is on Michael Prick’s blog to wind him up.
It doesn’t seem a popular blog with readers and there are few comments, but quite a few hostile to him.
All my comments were posted after moderation, but in 2 cases removed after about 1-2 months after the BBC sending me a standard email. Both the posts removed referred to Prick personally. One was asking him to disclose his salary. Not quite sure how that is defamatory. Can’t remember what the other one was, but it was fairly mild.
What surprised me was the time lag . Anyone any ideas ?
“sent me “
As any BBC thread poster, especially Nick R’s entire body of ‘work’ or some on Richard Black’s will testify, it’s a lot worse.
They play favourites, and are currently enacting a retroactive pogrom of ‘closed’ threads to remove inconvenient posts with no chance of a repost.
It is downright scary.
Dopey woman on BBC breakfast stating “I don’t want a fireman or nurse working past 65”, but presumably those in the private sector with hard manual jobs should work past 70 to fund the public sector?
During the Lib Dem conference , some left-wing journalist guests on the BBC referred to the LibDems as “that lot “. I didn’t watch full coverage of the Labour conference, but didn’t hear anyone referring to themas “that lot”.
Imagine my surprise when , yesterday, Andrew Neil referred to the Tories as “that lot”.
I think most of us here are agreed that he is the only impartial interviewer on the BBC, but I am alone in thinking he has been drifting to the left in recent weeks ?
Agreed. He has.
I also heard “that lot”. Is it oversensitive to react to those words? No it isn’t; they would never be used to describe Liebour.
He’s definitely following the Beeboid agenda. This week they are gunning for the Conservatives on the Daily Politics.
His first comment yesterday immediately following the PM’s speech referred to David Cameron “trying” to finish on an upbeat note, followed by him “trying” to explain his Big Society idea.
Er…he wasn’t trying; he did finish on an upbeat note and he did explain it.
Later Andrew Neil corrected himself and said that he had finished on an upbeat note; he had succeeded in that.
However, he maintained the Beeboid narrative that he hadn’t succeed in explaining the Big Society idea.
I’d like to see the Beeboid corporation subjecting a Labour speech, for example the Millip Ed speech, to equivalent examination of its success (or not) and meaning. He does tend to talk a lot in cliches, so I expect the Beeboids would “get it”. 😀
David Cameron is going off the well-worn track of Beeboid Labourite thinking and received ideas, so they struggle, poor things.
Today yesterday from 8am managed to have not one single tory spokesperson instead they had the hopelessly misinformed and incompetent Robo being “interviewed” by Naughtie (suprisingly they agreed, in the little time when Naughtie wasnt talking to himself, that the real trouble was to come aftet 20th October) and then Norman Smith who had been talking (yeah sure) to unidentified sources about the split with the lib dems he is promoting (surely Smith is the most biased “reporter” they have – quite a distinction).
In between they “took refuge in literature” (as Webb patronisingly sighed) with an excruciatingly poor dramatisation of a Booker shortlist nominee; and some spod from the Institute of Taxation being encouraged to criticise the goverments taxation proposals.
So 40 minutes without a single pro-government voice whilst ostensibly broadcasting from the tory conference. The contrast with the blanket coverage given to Milibands conference was so remarkable that one can only assume those allegedly controlling the editorial process just dont care.
Or is it too much to hope this is because no conservative will actually talk to them because they know they will be hectored or ambushed (usually by some strident voice from a whothehell? pressure group) or followed up by carefully managed rebuttal from a labour person with a bed at the BBC.
Canon,
You are right , the BBC don’t care because this government has indicated it doesn’t have the guts to deal with the BBC, so the Beeboids can do whatever they like.
Just listening to the BBC outrage at the Tories proposal that families shouldn’t receive more that the average wage in benefits (fairly sensible and fair in my view).
To take just one example (as I’m short of time) on Radio 5 Live this morning they played a short clip of Jeremy Hunt being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on the subject and then had this woman from Save the Children on afterwards. They allowed her to spout a load of utter nonsense about how terrible and evil this policy was and how people on benefits don’t intend on having loads of kids (YES THEY DO!). She also said this would put more kids into poverty which as we all know has become WORSE under Labour exactly because of the benefits culture they created. Naturally none of this was challenged or mentioned by Dame Nicky.
More rank bias from the BBC.
Update on GEERT WILDERS trial, and kangaroo court, for INBBC (which seems to have lost interest)
In Wilders Trial, Free Speech Is Also On Trial
BBC-NUJ’s own ‘brain drain’.
BBC-NUJ converts a letter to ‘the Times’ from 8 UK academics complaining of restricted immigration to Britain into proof of a ‘brain drain’, as mouthed by BBC-NUJ’s Mr. Amroliwala on BBC News 24 TV this morning!
Next, BBC -NUJ will dictate that UK should have even more foreign students (and ‘students’) here because of the presumption that this benefits British people, even though would-be British students are finding iit increasingly difficult to get into higher education in their own country!
Of a very bad bunch, the R2 Jeremy Vine show is one of the worst.
Just back from visiting my Mum in her care home, fully funded by her because she and Dad were dumb enough to work hard and save, so there is a cottage worth more than £23k which meant Siberia for her as far as the authorities were concerned.
As I got in the car, I caught the end of the inevitable sh*t stir over the benefit cuts. Missed the actual bun fight (guests, selected listener vox pops, etc), but was treated to the final summary.
Lower lip trembling, his voice barely audible and catching, he reads out the tragic tale of… a single muvva, with several kids by several dads, who is already struggling, and besides herself as what to do next.
No obvious suggestions as a last thought from Jezza on what she might stop doing for once.
But then he is empathetic and sensitive, though not in an Evan Davies way, who would none the less love to hijack R4 all week on the next selected topic.
Namely the ‘homophobic attack’ on a a kid in the States, who went on to commit suicide, tragically. Which is setting the entire country… that is the USA… ablaze.
Maybe that is true, or maybe David P might offer a view on why a sad tale from a small community around the world seems to excise the BBC here so.
As far as I can tell, it was an awful case of non-contact online hazing by a bozo jock and a prom queen of the former’s roomy (why they put those two together seeming odd). A silly, cruel prank escalated, and as far as I can gather an already emotionally unhinged kid couldn’t take it and committed suicide.
So far, so terrible.
But our Jezza seemed to want to pick up the first pitchfork and storm the perps’ prison for hate crimes… or worse.
Trouble was, for Jezza, his first two guests, from two US gay outfits I’d never heard of but which must be on every BBC staffer’s cubicle for when they go Stateside, were having none of it.
They rightly were cautious on any inflammatory, wild projections of the kind he was trying to make, partly because the authorities had made no judgement yet, but also because it just looked like an inter-teen prank that had gone horribly wrong.
I am guessing few in the BBC saw American Pie when it came out, years ago. Possibly as the actors were not all of one gender.
Kids will always do dumb things, and there will be cruelty as well. But trying to suggest that there was anything to this that does not seem to exist, in turn trying to suggest state interference in areas that is doomed to fail, is the worst kind of minor issue selection and selective victim mentality meddling. Again.
Guest Who, it’s a sad story that people are paying attention to because it’s just the latest tragic example of young men committing suicide simply because they’re homosexual and feel under attack because of it. There’s an at least subconcious awareness of a real problem with teenage suicide due to depression over being homosexual.
Bullying somebody into suicide isn’t new, but the homosexual angle makes it different. We had a huge, national ouctry over a “martyr to homosexuality”, Matthew Shepard, some years back. This current story picks up where that one left off. That’s why the gay activists are getting all the air time.
Contrary to what the BBC likes to tell you, the US is a very caring country when it comes to innocent, harmless people being treated cruelly or tragically. The homosexual angle isn’t as important as the cruel nature of the kid’s suicide.
If we were all the nasty homophobes the Beeboids like to suggest, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. And, I suppose, homosexuals with contracts for BBC radio programmes wouldn’t keep moving here.
Thank you. I must therefore grant them that it is ‘a’ story of note in the USA. However, I must say how impressed how measured the dial-a-gob ‘activists’ that Mr. Vine tried to rabble rouse were compared to the calibre we are subjected to here.
Of course, as it had a homosexual sub-text, the gay community is going to get interested. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why a UK chat show host was leading a witch-hunt on some US teen bozos who sadly picked the wrong ‘sensitive kid’ to haze.
I just don’t see the purpose it would serve here, any more than me taking my kids’ to one side years ago and getting them to see how bullying anyone for being ‘different’ is never acceptable.
However, as teens, the odds of me getting them never to do something dumb, dangerous or thoughtless on occasion… is zero.
I merely felt that of all the injustices that abound, this was an odd one to ‘discuss’ on a UK lunchtime chat show. Unless the UK has no teen happy-slapping based on colour, creed, sexuality, etc, or sees disturbed young minds driven to suicide and then milked by interest groups for much more than exists… or can be done.
Homosexual issues will always get a higher priority at the BBC, regardless.
Lower lip trembling, his voice barely audible and catching, he reads out the tragic tale of… a single muvva, with several kids by several dads, who is already struggling, and besides herself as what to do next.
No obvious suggestions as a last thought from Jezza on what she might stop doing for once.
====================
I suppose there is even less chance of him interviewing the dads and questioning them about what they have been doing, might do in future or might stop doing.
To avoid the strawgraspers who troll to scream if they see an opening, I should add that the Dads in question seemed an unlucky bunch, being by her account dead, disabled and, intriguingly by her account… ‘missing’.
Again, her evident means of attracting suitable mates seems to have only resulted in a bunch of sprogs… and hence benefits.
But agree, at least No. 2 might have been worth pursuing, if still in the frame. One presumes his disability, whilst enough to allow some physical activity, would lend itself to a tidy household ‘income’ when added to the pot.
I do believe this was Mr. Hunt’s point, as the blissful couple doing only what comes naturally over and over, and living solely off the proceeds, hardly seems a ‘fair’ imposition on those having only enough kids as they can afford to care for.
That Mr. Hunt is being attacked, hypocritically, by the BBC on this and his party on so much else, is for him to assess.
Maybe the woman needs to be fixed up with Keith Macdonald.
Funny one. 😀
Correction [in brackets] to BBC-NUJ headline on its web ‘Politics’ page:
“Miliband” [who is a high earner and ‘socialist’] “opposes child benefit cut for higher earners.”
Good old Malcolm Small from the Institute for Directors just dispelled one of the myths about pooblic sector pensions the BBC has been peddling. He pointed out that it’s no longer the case that public sector workers earn far less than those in the private sector, and there is no case for them to get specially excessive compensation on the other end because of it.
He also said that workers would keep anything accrued and it would only be future stuff calculated the new way. So any more vox pops the BBC shows you saying that they’re going to have money taken away from them will be bogus propaganda.
He ended by pointing out that people were still free to save on their own as they saw fit. Oops, time to move on, thank you very much.
As posted above the Radio 5 phone in this morning had our sweet Dame Nikki on with some ranting hag from the Child Poverty Action Group, spinning what Jeremy Hunt said. She was bleating on about how unfair it is and that he’s picking on immigrant families.
Really?
Hunt said that people who are living on benefits shouldn’t be breeding, what he didn’t say was any of the following (that the phone-in spun)
1. That people working shouldn’t have large families
2. If you lose your job your kids should be executed (that’s left to the 10:10 scum to do that)
3. That if for unforeseen circumstances your family get larger (like having to care for a sisters child if she were badly ill etc.)
Hunt didn’t mention any of the above, yet these like the mythical 45K a year widows the BBC have suddenly dug up seemed to be the only people on benefits. and the only ones the CPAG hag wanted to talk about.
Dame Nikki really wanted to give Hunt a kicking this morning, I wonder why?
You don’t cure poverty with free handouts, it hasn’t worked in Africa and it hasn’t worked here.
What DOES cure poverty is good honest Government (don’t laugh at the back), hard work, education and a desire to do well for your family and yourself.
As an example I remember watching a programme on the impact of the mobile phone in Africa, where now small farmers are able to sell their produce direct to people by ringing them up and not having to go through middle men who rip them off. The farmers are learnig more and more about ‘markets’ (like knowing when it a good time to sell) using technology like the phone and the internet to maximise their income and business. What they don’t want is some lesbian hag handing out bags of food aid so SHE can beel good about herself the next time she’s rioting in Trafalgar square about the evils of capitalism.
Ask a farmer in Africa, they like capitalism, they just want a slice of it themselves.
Martin,
What you say certainly applies to the little part of W. Africa I know.
With all this discussion about the rights and wrongs of public sector pensions, why hasn’t the BBC mentioned the fact that these same kind of “copper-bottomed” (as Gavin Esler just called them) public sector pensions are bankrupting US cities?
Ah, I see I’ve answered my own question.
See my comment at the bottom.
The Dehli Belly Games
The BBC’s coverage of the Commonwealth games has been so PC, one would think that they were covering the “Special” Olympics. Now, there is an outbreak of amoebic dysentery among English and Australian swimmers. Mr PC Beeboid correspondant claimed that “doctors don’t know if the atheletes brought the infection with them”. Well derrrrrr, the city that hosts the game is named after the disease.
Moves are afoot to place a single portaloo at the finishing line of the 100m dash, expect the world record to be broken.
LOL at Mr Po-faced Beeboid:
“doctors don’t know if the atheletes brought the infection with them”.
================
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
More Beeboid political propaganda on Radio 4 ‘PM’, courtesy the one-sided Mr E Mair for over-stay Zimbabweans (black ones anyway) involved on ‘X-factor’ to remain in Britain.
Funny as normally the Liebour party refused white farmers asylum.
Tom Bradby on ITV just said what the gutless BBC wouldn’t. The pensions deficit has been building for years, in Australia they ran a budget surplus and built the future fund, in the UK we didn’t.
http://www.futurefund.gov.au/
Hmm, now just who was running our economy in the good times? Who was it that inherited a growing strong economy? Well one eyed of course.
funny the BBC haven’t mentioned this, just blame the Tories and the bankers shall we BBC?
The BBC should view this again (and this time not ignore it)
Obama worship X362
Lists of the unquantifiable (best, sexiest, most powerful, etc.) are always open for debate and the BBC can’t be responsible for Forbes magazine ridiculous decision that Michelle Obama is the world’s most powerful woman. Still explain why a quick google found 362 references (all languages) to the story on the BBC site.
In the tradition of BBC ignoring any British aspect of any story that only one UK woman, HM Queen Elizabeth is on the list at No. 41, is ignored.
And if you thought BBC was in a lovefest with her hubby read her BBC profile.
The Tories really are idiots. Why don’t they grow some balls and say “yes if you’re work sky scum we’re gonna kick you up the arse you bone idle twats?”
Lack of jobs? So what about all these East Europeans that are working here? They don’t have a problem finding work. Perhaps the BBC should employ a few more of the long term unemployed? After all what skills do you need to be a beeboid other than being a twat?
Yet again the BBC are out of step on this, most people are with the Tories, well so long as you’re not from Liverpool or Glasgow.
Martin,
I paid a rare visit to my local for a glass of Irn Bru and was served by a lovely Latvian girl. I asked why she was here. She said Latvia is corrupt and hard work is not rewarded. She has two bar jobs here , working 12 hours a day, and is studying to improve her english so she can apply to join the British police.
Now I know uncontolled immigration is destroying the UK, but I would rather have someone like her than the British trash who are also destroying the country.
By the way , she loves Scotland, the people are so friendly 😉
I asked her what she thought about Gordon Brown .
” Who is he ? ” That’s my girl !
“uncontrolled”
Again on Newsnight the BBC lie. £500 a week is not £25,000 a year, it’s nearer to £35,000 if you have a job because that’s £500 a week TAX FREE you BBC mongs!
And yes if you are on benefits you shouldn’t be breeding like rats.
Plus travel expenses to get to work, and food during work hours. Unless one gets a champaign trolly brought round like in the good old days of the BBC.
Yes but the benefits brigage do have to pay taxi fares to get to the supermarket don’t they.
Don’t they get those free?
What a shock, Essler has a nice little ‘chat’ with Peter Hain the terrorist lover about Red Ed’s shadow cabinet (they all look like something off Police 5)
Then we get two hacks to ‘discuss the new appointments’ one from the Guardian and one from the Independent (after all we don’t want any nasty right wing comments now do we BBC?)
Team Ed. And how the BBC loves to talk about equality.
Except when it comes to one degree of separation ‘commentators’.
When I ‘were a lad’, when you were picking teams you got the two best guys out as red and blue captains, and they then worked through the group based on a desire to win, maybe with a few friendships influencing the choice.
Now, it seems, you choose by how things will look and play to the media group that broadcast only to 60+m rather than how you may perform.
And the luvvies, carefully selected to comment as the narrative demands, are just loving it.
Where Mr. Cameron has a ‘boys’ club’, our Ed is going to be all diversity.
Well, with wimmin, including twins!
However… other daft demographics seem to have been quietly dropped for now, as these may not quite suit the narrative at all.
For instance the constituency represented by obvious non-racist… woman (too many already?)… Ms. Abbott.
And it ill be interesting if Evan Davies will resist hijacking his programme, again, to do a Chris Moyles on the affront to the boys that sees Ben Bradshaw out of the loop.
No word on the total lack of ginger representation, at least in skin terms, that dropping Peter Hain represents, but maybe the healthy glow that exudes from the Tory front bench, and near all at Aunty (Emily M. must sleep naked in one in her office, like a reverse vampire), maybe this is felt a no-go area?
Any lesbians in the shadow cabinet ?
Oh the irony. Just watching This Week with fatty Abbott. So let’s get this right, she earns 65K a year as an MP, then she gets probably 2k a week for doing This Week, that will put her well over 100K a year and she sends her kid to private school AND she still thinks it’s right she gets child benefit paid in large part by people on a fraction of her wage who may not have kids or can’t afford to have them.
Well done fatty Abbot, just like a true Champagne Socialist and not once has anyone at the BBC ever tackled her on this.
Martin:
she earns 65K a year as an MP, then she gets probably 2k a week for doing This Week, that will put her well over 100K a year…
+++++++++++++++
That’s not the whole of it. Heck, it’s probably not even the half of it: she earns loads from doing newspaper columns, including in The Evening Standard.
BBC-Greenpeace, still censoring on eco-fascism;
but Delingpole has this, complete with video:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100057873/1010s-no-pressure-exploding-kids-campaign-why-it-was-such-a-success/
His correct conclusion:
“Couldn’t be clearer. Before 10:10, the Eco Fascists had been hiding their light under a bushel. Now everyone knows what they really stand for. “
Mayor Nanny Bloomberg of NYC is going to try to ban the use of food stamps (in reality a benefits card issued by the state with a set monthly balance) from paying for sugary soft drinks. People in my neighborhood are going to absolutely freak out when they get told in Spanish by the cashier why they can’t buy their five 2-liter bottles.
Personally, I’m against legislating behavior. But if the government is going to support these people from cradle to grave, I’m not entirely sure they don’t have a fiscal responsibility not to pay for a lifestyle that will lead to my taxes being drained further to pay for medical care for slobs who stuff themselves sick on my dime.
I hope the BBC doesn’t get wind of this. They’ll do a whole series on the concept, telling you that the government absolutely must pay for all of this because poor people are discriminated against by nasty capitalist supermarkets and this is all they can afford. All while trying to prevent productive citizens from having a large glass of wine at the bar during happy hour (except on that license fee-funded luxury yacht on election nights).
Blimey, I thought we were the Nanny State.
I asked the best minds in the Nanny State and this is what they recommend:
The cashiers could be given a card printed in English advising them to take up tea drinking instead. A free sample tea bag with every bag of groceries. Free membership of the Tea Party optional. That will surely avert any rioting in the aisles.
The nerve of these lefty creeps. Pray that Murdoch gives the BBC the kicking it deserves.
Rupert Murdoch-owned BSkyB open to abuse of power, says BBC boss
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/08/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-takeover-bbc
Oh, bless.
However, having the brass neck and hypocrisy being taken to task in any substantive way seems unlikely.
The sole uniquely £3.6B uniquely funded broadcast only, Guardian hire dominated national media empire might be beastly to any who see a slight problem here.
Mr. Hunt seems fine facing down breeding colonies of benefit-addicted single mothers and their feral inseminators, but tackling the boys and girls one bumps into in the Ivy is a step too far.
The undoubted abuse-of-power by the BBC doesn’t excuse the documented abuse-of-power by Rupert Murdoch.
Maybe, but it means the BBC have no right to comment on it.
I am a fully on record cautioner of two wrongs not making a right, so any abuses by Mr. Murdoch should be identified, highlighted and responded to in the requisite manner. If nailed, we could all stop buying his papers and watching his progammes tomorrow. And they would wither.
No such check exists for the uniquely funded national views broadcaster.
So the BBC try to make out that Red Ed’s new cabinet is a ‘Rainbow cabinet’ full of right on lesbians, and laydeez.
But as Sky just discussed most of his cabinet is foisted upon him and most of them didn’t want Red Ed as leader.
but in the world of the BBC it’s full on attack the Tories now.
Thank god Richard Littlejohn has picked up on this benefits nonsense.
Miss Marshall, 32, whose children have four different fathers, has never worked a day in her life. She receives £29,000 a year in assorted handouts from the State.
Even though she receives the equivalent of someone earning £39,000 before tax, it makes you wonder how she makes ends meet — let alone managed to save up £4,500 to pay for her breast enlargement.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1318716/Benidorm-boob-jobs-benefits.html
AS I keep pointing out the BBC lie, 25K in benefits is equal to a good wage of around 35K, hardly poor. THE BBC LIE
What would be the results of changing the system to prevent Miss Marshall’s abuse of it? The five ‘innocent’ children are already born and have to be fed and clothed. Miss Marshall presumably has no skills or demonstrably no experience to find and keep a job.
I’m not disputing that the system encourages the work-shy and it need to be changed to discourage abuse but what do you do with those already deep in the system? Debtors Prison, begging on the street, Euthanasia?
Maybe pay them just enough to live on and not so much that they can get breast enlargements.
Well we could stop giving her cash and give her a card that can be used in Tesco’s to buy food and other essentials (but not fags or booze or bingo).
WE can’t do much about those with kids now but if we put a stop to it right now, within 20 years the problem will be solved as all these exiting kids will have come off benefits.
What are we to do about children who live in families where the working parent, father or mother, earns minmum wage of £5 or so an hour, pays tax and lives in a two- or three-bedroom house or flat with three children?
How can we permit such a low wage level, how can we tax such a low earner and how can we allow their children to live without a large house with a bedroom each? Aren’t we punishing the children and condemning them to a life of deprivation?
deegee – Mandatory birth control for those on benefits if they have more than two children would take care of both your concerns and Martin’s. Their right to breed ends when it takes away other people’s rights to their own private property (money, in this case).
The dreaded BBC scare quotes return.
UN worker ‘kidnapped in Darfur‘ Is there any doubt he has been kidnapped so why put it that it was just a quote?
Saudi prince ‘not in gay relationship with victim‘ Most of the article suggests very strongly he was although the four eye-witnesses required by Islam appear to be unavailable for cross examination.
Plane bomb suspect ‘not radicalised at London’s UCL’ The BBC doesn’t mention why anyone might think so.
Typically, BBC-NUJ supports ‘Third World’ Games in Delhi, but not Glasgow Games:
“Blow as BBC pulls plug on 2014 Games deal”
http://sport.scotsman.com/news/Blow-as-BBC-pulls-plug.6571197.jp
Wow, the BBC News Channel is actually allowing a Tory to criticize Alan Johnson’s appointment as Shadow Chancellor. I guess that makes up for the endless stream of Labour and Labour-supporting hacks attacking the Tories all week.
Phillip Hammond was coherent yet again, and the Beeboid had no defense.
Oh, dear. Matt Frei has seriously lost faith in The Obamessiah. He’s grasping at straws now, trying to find something else to blame.
Nobel Peace Prize could mean trouble
Frei suggests that the Nobel Peace Prize has become something of a “poisoned chalice”, as the President has had nothing but problems since He was given the award. So now he’s suggesting the Liu Xiaobo is going to have problems.
Actually I think this is at least as much another case of Frei having to force himself to bang out an uninspired blog post. But there must be a real crisis of faith for him to even admit openly:
Ever since Mr Obama accepted the award, the magic has begun to fizzle and the presidency has started to unravel.
But then we get the classic Matt Frei cluelessness and bias:
Did the Nobel Peace prize turn out to be a poisoned chalice, an example of hubris or just plain old-fashioned witchcraft?
First of all, the President didn’t give Himself the prize: the dopey Norwegians did. He unwisely accepted it, but cheerleaders like Frei convinced Him to. Secondly, the Nobel Committee admitted back when they gave it to Jimmy Carter that they were using the Nobel as a political weapon more than anything else. That makes the prize itself tainted far more than anything that might happen to a recipient’s career afterwards. It didn’t harm Arafat’s career, nor Carter’s. If Frei can’t understand that, if there’s any poison in the chalice, the Nobel Committee put it in themselves, it doesn’t say much for his analytical skills.
I suppose one can say there was a certain amount of hubris involved in the current President accepting the award. But His hubris was constantly re-inforced by people like Matt Frei. Worshippers in the media like Frei are responsible for encouraging Him to keep digging further and further into that hole.
As for Liu Xiaobo, if anything, this is a sign that the Nobel Peace Price might make a return to respectability.
Yes Matty Boy Frei does seem to be losing a bit of his starry-eyed enthusiasm for The One, doesn’t he.
At the same time of course, typically Matty can’t actually go as far as to countenance or suggest any causality between The One’s actions and his dismal presidency — in typical BBC-speak The One’s failure is all attributed to 3 external factors, full of passivity and victimhood.
The One is not to blame, it’s all the fault of the Nobel prize or hubris or just plain old-fashioned witchcraft, according to Matty Boy