54 Responses to OPEN THREAD

  1. Invicta 1066 says:
    January 2, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    ‘’The landlord arrested over the murder of Joanna Yeates in Bristol has been released on police bail last night. Chris Jefferies, 65, was released after two days of questioning by detectives‘.

    Compare and contrast the media coverage of this event with that of the two persons arrested over the murder of a man in Peckham.
    I have been uneasy about the way the BBC (and other media) have reported the Jefferies arrest. Pictures, interviews with all and sundry, many being very negative not to say prejudiced are not conducive to factual reporting, which before anyone is tried and found guilty, is surely the proper way for the BBC to conduct it’s coverage…what chance of a fair trial?
    I know that parts of the press have also been at it, but we should expect better standards from the BBC.
    On the other hand, two men are arrested over the murder of a young man in a tower block in Peckham and the BBC merely give us that information. No names no photographs no derogatory comments about the men in police custody.
    On my local BBC regional news you can guarantee that serious crimes will be reported sans names if they are foreign sounding. I wonder why?!

       1 likes

    • Millie Tant says:
      January 2, 2011 at 2:54 pm

      Because the Beeboid Corporation doesn’t have a consistent standard of reporting. Instead it has one for certain “special cases” and another for whatever and whoever is not a special case. It routinely censors information about those in the first category. It must have a low view of them to feel that knowledge about them must be hidden.

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    • 1327 says:
      January 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm

      In fairness to the Beeb the other TV news outlets are at this as well. The pattern seems to be to read out any old cr*p the papers have just made up about about Mr Jefferies. However I would expect the Beeb to have principles and not engage in this.

      Incidentally it now seems to be  common practice when the Police are under media pressure that someone anyone has to be arrested while at the same time a lot of info that can only have come from official sources is leaked.

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  2. HighTory says:
    January 2, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    Seem my post on how awful the BBC’s “rural affairs” programmes are: http://hightory.com/2011/01/02/bbc-rural-britain/

    They’re more about showing the élite circles that BBC execs move in how quaint the countryside is, rather than showing the realiities of rural life.

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  3. John Horne Tooke says:
    January 2, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    “Mr Schwarzenegger, 63, leaves with an approval rating of just 22 per cent and a tripled $28 billion budget deficit.”  
     
    It couldn’t be anything to do with his obsesion with “Global Warming” could it?  
     
    “Yet it is thought Mr Schwarzenegger is keen to press on with efforts to reduce global warming, possibly taking on a role as an independent statesman akin to that of Al Gore, the former US vice-president.”  
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8236072/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-leaves-public-office-but-will-he-be-back.html  
     
    Like all people who have become unelectable they seize power some other way without the need to be endorsed by voters.

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  4. Pounce says:
    January 2, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    The propaganda arm of the Iranian government reports on how nasty the west are:  
     Iran stoning woman Ashtiani ‘to sue German journalists’  
    An Iranian woman convicted of adultery and helping her lover murder her husband has said she plans to sue two German journalists arrested after interviewing her son.Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani told a news conference the reporters had “embarrassed her”, without elaborating….In his first public meeting with journalists, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh called for the Iranian authorities to spare Ashtiani, saying that his family had lost their father, and did not want to lose their mother too. Her sentence of death by stoning after being convicted of adultery in 2006 was commuted last July. But reports emerged in September that Iranian courts were instead considering hanging her for her husband’s murder.   
    Mr Ghaderzadeh said he believed she was guilty of the murder charge.  
    “I have a complaint about the two Germans who have embarrassed me,” Ms Ashtiani told reporters in Tabriz. “Why did they come here? Why did they come here and pose as journalists? I have told Sajjad… to sue the ones who have disgraced me and the country,” she said.  
    She also told reporters that she was not tortured while in prison, saying: “These are all rumours”.Whatever interview I have given so far, I have given voluntarily. No one has forced me. I have spoken on my own accord,” she said  
     
     When was the last time you saw a report from the bBC where the person who is guilty admits to doing the crime. A crime I should add which will see this person getting her neck stretched. Something the bBC is very against, well it is when its the US doing the stretching but when good old Iran does it, then its Turkeys voting for Christmas time. I’m just surprised the bBC hasn’t got Amnesty Internationaldefending Iran here.
     

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    • John Horne Tooke says:
      January 2, 2011 at 10:02 pm

      So nothing there about the disproportionate use of he death penalty for committing adultery.  There is usually something in most “reports” about demonstrations or petitions about such acts? 
       
      And what about a  statement from Clive Stafford Smith? The doyer “Human Rights ” lawyer for suspected terrorists.

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  5. Tom says:
    January 2, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Mark Wallace is collecting evidence for the poisonous game of meeja cluedoh! that’s surronding the Bristol murder 

    http://www.crashbangwallace.com/2010/12/31/posh-loner-who-liked-poetry-but-not-sport-obviously-did-it-say-media/

       0 likes

    • John Horne Tooke says:
      January 2, 2011 at 10:42 pm

      Thanks for the link Tom – some of the comments are wonderful.

      “The bit that got me was the BBC headline that nailed him as a teacher at an exclusive fee-paying school. What a crime. Hang the bastard!”

      “Daily Mail: “has an obsession with Christina Rossetti, a 19th-century poet who often wrote about death.”

      She also wrote In The Bleak Midwinter, but that don’t make him Santa Claus.”

      😀

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      • Tom says:
        January 2, 2011 at 11:14 pm

        You’re welcome – the odious and idiotic pronouncements should really attract a bloody good thumping when the judges drag themselves back to work on Tuesday.

        I suppose the holiday cover “B” teams are on shift over New Year / Xmas, trying to “big up” stuff.

        eeh used big words guv, don’t trust him… 

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    • tinks says:
      January 2, 2011 at 11:19 pm

      Interesting blog. With these high profile, media engorged cases there is always a bigger cry for a quick result, thus mistakes are made… and the wrong people sometimes go down.

       

      Nobody knows about Mr. J’s culpability bit the chap is innocent until ‘proven’ guilty. The media as ever go after the man… well he is a bit odd, and different. Eccentricity used to be quite a quaint British trait… now it is the sign of festering murderous intent, paedophilia or even thinking the BBC is ever so biased.

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  6. Martin says:
    January 2, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    In reply to JHT’s comments on Arnie above I note that the BBC twat on the news was bigging up Arnie’s obsession with climate change despite the economy of California being a basket case.

    Here’s a thought greenie politics = failing economy.

       0 likes

    • tinks says:
      January 2, 2011 at 11:31 pm

      The worrying thing here is that the current government are somehow under the impression that the green economy will somehow save the country.

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        • Guest Who says:
          January 3, 2011 at 9:01 am

          It would be … useful.. if the market rate talents at the BBC tore themselves away from the fax machine, and instead of retyping press releases from their mates actually went out (and not by 5*, 1st class invite to endless jolly conferences) did some, of, I don’t know, journalism.

          The likes of Miliband and now Huhne (plus Cameron) need to be held to account for an addiction to global posturing and box ticking on the advice of honours addicts instead of competent scientists and yes-men engineers.

          All supported in their country-crippling delusions by a complicit MSM, with pom-pom cheerleader in chief at the BBC, with ‘reporting/editotrial/analysis/corresponding being carried out by the Black/Harrabin/Shuckman Horsemen of the Apocalypse triumverate, based mostly on their English or Media studies degrees spent with their PPE 1-hr a week Labour mates in the student uni.

          Not the best market rate or GOAT recipes for country-saving, IMHO.

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      • Martin says:
        January 3, 2011 at 12:36 am

        More chance of the one eyed mong admitting he f**ked up the economy.

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  7. Craig says:
    January 3, 2011 at 8:31 am

    Another BBC obsession.

    Though they rarely look back these days on the large number of terrorist outrages inside and outside Northern Ireland during the decades of the Troubles, they can’t stop looking back (again and again) to the events of just one day.

    Yesterday’s Broadcasting House, guest-hosted by Kevin Connolly, looked back a year: “One of the biggest news stories from 2010, of course, was the publication of the Saville Inquiry into the shootings on Bloody Sunday in the city of Derry.

    “So what happened to the many, many people touched by those events when they receded once again from the headlines?” asked Connolly.
    “..Kathleen Keville, a young American civil rights worker who was in the city of Derry on that day. She’s a lawyer in Seattle these days. So I caught up with her there to ask if getting involved in the Saville Inquiry had opened the ghosts of the past?”

    It had. She’s been having nightmares!! Her voice fraught with emotion, she told him about them – a recurring nightmare about British soldiers piling up bodies in a doctor’s office.

    BH, to be fair, is building up a series of reports on ‘Derry’. In November, we heard how a North African immigrant is choosing to stay in the city after his kebab shop was damaged in a recent Real IRA blast (not aimed at him). Then in December we heard an ‘amusing’ tale from a retired IRA man about how the IRA had got the better of the British Army by stealing some of their uniforms. So, that’s a North African immigrant, an IRA man and an anti-British civil rights activist so far… Hopefully, we’ll hear something soon from people who suffered at the hands of Provisional IRA punishment beatings, from relatives of victims of Provisional IRA terrorism, from a retired officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, from a British soldier who served in Northern Ireland in the ’70s and ’80s…Will we?
         
    (The count across those three reports stands as 6 uses by the BH presenters of the word ‘Derry’ and only two uses of the word ‘Londonderry’.)

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  8. Guest Who says:
    January 3, 2011 at 8:46 am

    I have to say that SKY has mentioned it as well, but very much top of the tree chez Aunty is…

    VAT rise will hit families, warns Miliband
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12106168

    … which seems to be based on a Labour press release of what latest bleeding obvious tripe this lightweight chancer ‘will say’.

    ‘Mr Miliband will claim it will cost the average family £7.50 a week.

    He will say the rise, considered but rejected by Labour, will hit “living standards, small businesses and jobs”.’


    I guess when it comes to news, ‘where there is a will, there is a way to engage in blatant propaganda in the guise of ‘news’ sharing’.

    Meanwhile, guessing on the much adored by Beeboid ‘views’ front (when in the mood), any challenge to Mr. Ed on his personal and and party’s role in creating this fiscal mess won’t be part of the narrative.

    If predictably unique.

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  9. hippiepooter says:
    January 3, 2011 at 9:39 am

    Listening to 5Live at work.  Nothing to complain about.  They mention a Coalition policy, quote the Labour attack then end with the Government defence.  All as it should be and so often has not been the case, especially Radio 4.

    One thing I would note though, commenting on the multi-talents of Australia’s first Muslim cricketer, they mentioned he had a pilot’s license as if it was something to be impressed about!

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    • Martin says:
      January 3, 2011 at 11:41 am

      A Muslim with a pilot’s licence, why does that make me break out in a cold sweat?

         0 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 3, 2011 at 12:10 pm

      Blimey, are Aunty and SKY sharing the same press releases today as cost-saving measures until the A- teams get back from the slopes?

      Exactly the same peroxide-addled blonde drivel filler over on their channel earlier.

      I emailed in to ask if they’d been told he had an odd interest in high-rise architecture too.

      No reply as yet.

         1 likes

  10. Techno Mystic says:
    January 3, 2011 at 10:26 am

    BBC headline: Free schools ‘not wanted’ say teachers.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12099245

    Yet free schools advocate Toby Young at the Daily Telegraph says exactly the opposite about the same survey:

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100070272/the-nut-starts-the-year-as-it-means-to-continue-spreading-lies-and-misinformation-about-free-schools/

       1 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      January 3, 2011 at 12:23 pm

      Again from SKY’s broadcast, but he is doing the rounds of the studios and they all seem to be pooling subs today, so I had to laugh at this not-at-all partial comment by the teaching union thug du jour:

      ‘Our survey agrees with us’

       

      Hell’s bells… that means it must be, like, totally valid!

       

      The UK’s ‘news’ orgs seem to have given up any pretence of assessing utter partisan horsesh*t from pressure groups for context  before rushing out to print/broadcast.

         1 likes

      • hippiepooter says:
        January 3, 2011 at 12:34 pm

        Well, they dont want this bug-eyed fanatics turning nasty on them, do they?  Fearless British journalism, makes ya proud!

           1 likes

    • Craig says:
      January 3, 2011 at 12:52 pm

      Maybe all news orgs should hold off until they can either publish or link to the full survey, which they should request the pressure group to publish immediately (if they haven’t already done so). That way we can all see the questions asked (and not asked) and all the answers. As it is they’re letting the pressure group concerned spin its own interpretation – as well as spinning interpretations of their own. Then when the full survey becomes widely accessible (say, when You Gov put it up on their website) and it doesn’t quite match up with what the pressure group was claiming it said, the news orgs have moved on and the true nature of the survey is buried. The pressure group wins.

      I’ve searched the NUT site, and they haven’t published the survey there yet. Nor is it on the You Gov website. Has it been published in full anywhere?

         1 likes

      • Millie Tant says:
        January 3, 2011 at 2:06 pm

        I’ve seen the Beeboid Corporation follow exactly the same practice. I remember an attitudes survey among children which the meddling Beeboids in yoof or children’s programmes department commissioned and reported on the TV and website but nowhere could you see what the actual questions were and how the survey questionnaire was structured. Most unsatisfactory. Why should this information be kept secret by the publicly funded Beeboid Corporation?

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    • dave s says:
      January 3, 2011 at 8:43 pm

      I must admit to some surprise that the Coalition is actually proposing the Free schools as I had little hope that it would really try to reverse the statist mindset of the ruling elites.
      The NUT and the BBC are under no illusions just what a successful number of these schools mean. The beginning of the end of state indoctrination of our children- that is for us peasants unable to afford private education- and a chance to educate our children as we see fit not as the state decrees or the useless NUT wants.
      The teaching unions are only really interested in their members and their favoured position. The BBC/Guardian axis is fearful where such freedoms may lead. We might start wanting to run our country for ourselves not in accordance with their fantasies.
      Make no mistake these schools are important and the libleft knows this so we can expect the usual subtle and not so subtle news management by the usual suspects.

         1 likes

  11. George R says:
    January 3, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    INBBs 2011 New Year’s resolution: increase Islamic propaganda,

    e.g.:-

    “Five Guys Named Mohammed”

    Radio 4,  every weekday tthis week, 5 programmes, at 3:45 pm.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x3sx8

       1 likes

    • John Anderson says:
      January 3, 2011 at 1:06 pm

      Did anyone hear that Mona Siddiqui Thought for the Day over Christmas – she was wittering on about how many times the Virgin Mary is mentioned in the Koran.

      Bloody sickening how low the BBC will stoop.

      Maybe one day she will tell us how many times the Jews are mentioned in the Koran.  And the context.

      Luckily I had some alcohol handy.

         1 likes

      • John Horne Tooke says:
        January 3, 2011 at 10:42 pm

        Is she not also mentioned a few time in the Gospels? – A bit more relevant to Christmas I would say.

           1 likes

  12. Martin says:
    January 3, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Radio 5 has been a real hoot this morning, the endless NUT cheerleading (I notice not once did any beeboid actually ask how this survey was carried out), rather like when the BBC reports on Guardian surveys.

    Anyway since when did public opinion count at the BBC? Hanging, getting out of the EU?

       1 likes

  13. Martin says:
    January 3, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    Just seen Justine Greening on News 24 doing what I suggested the other day, she ignored camp male beeboids questions and talked over him and said what she wanted to say rather than camp boys Liebour sponsored questions.

    Well done.

       1 likes

    • Millie Tant says:
      January 3, 2011 at 6:04 pm

      David Cameron is very good at that. He tolerates hostility and interruption equably but then just resumes and goes on smoothly to say what he was going to say anyway. I remember Paxman smiling wryly and remarking admiringly how good he was.

         1 likes

  14. Millie Tant says:
    January 3, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    So poor old Nigel, of Lower Loxley Hall has been dispatched to a horrible end via the roof. AN Wilson tells us why:

    “…Nigel, who 25 years ago started out as the silly-ass upper-class twit who had a job on the local ice-cream float and had a crush on Lizzie Archer, rose to become the closest Ambridge has to a lord of the manor.
    In the actual British Isles, there are toffs galore in all country spots.
    But in Ambridge, where they do things according to the charmingly mild leftism of the BBC, the English countryside is mainly inhabited by a classless mishmash of Hindus, urban gays, and green or liberal-minded young people.
    I suspect that in allowing Nigel Pargetter to be the victim of the 60th anniversary cliff-hanger, the story editor has succumbed to the political temptation to wipe the upper classes off the map.
    Just as Edward Stourton, the only Today programme presenter with aristocratic lineage was sacked, perhaps it was always going to be Nigel who fell off the roof. Vive la Revolution! ”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343673/Archers-editor-lets-slip-outcome-radio-soaps-accident-fans-moan-cliffhanger.html#ixzz19zxvakD6 

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    • john says:
      January 4, 2011 at 1:38 am

      The BBC are nothing short of useless when it comes to one of their few success stories.
      The Archers, which performs a mathematical enigma on a graph – a vertical line after it finishes and reveals that Front Row only reaches Mark Lawson’s mum and a few others, which by anybody’s standard is a bit of a tumble from 5 million to a few people after 30 seconds.
      If anybody is in control of R4, which I doubt, Ambridge would long ago have become a socialist paradise and had they passed the idea to the editor whilst being distracted at an AGW conference then you can imagine the only people listening and getting excited would have be a few lefties (that is to say the entire BBC staff).
      But somebody, one of the few still enjoying reality that is, has realised that they have to be rather careful with this ratings cow.
      But as the BBC “don’t do ” ratings, a Tory upper class twit can be sacrificed in a fictional soap opera to appease the BBC sublimely.
      Of course it could have been anyone the scriptwriters chose, but one does feel that “higher-ups” at the BBC would have been outraged should have they been pitched with the idea that Ian and Adam might have contracted HIV.
      That it is pretend hasn’t escaped me, but nor have the 5 million other listeners either.
      So, I give to you the BBC, this wonderful forged licence fee and trust that you will not bugger about with the Archers.
      If you do, it will be one hell of a public hanging and the best money I’ve never spent.

         1 likes

  15. Craig says:
    January 3, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    Last year we used Charles Krauthammer, one of America’s leading right-wing commentators, as an example of how the BBC ignores American right-wingers, however significant, in favour of far less high profile but suitably left-wing journalists. Suddenly last month, two U.S.-based beeboids quoted the previously ignored Mr Krauthammer – Mark Mardell and Paul Woods – just because he’d said “that the president’s 2010 tax deal may mark the beginning of his comeback”. Well, Mardell, who will grasp at any pro-Obama straw, links again to Charles Krauthammer in his latest blog-post. The link takes you to the same article he and Woods quoted last time.

    In the spirit of Mark Mardell, a prediction: Mardell will link to the same article again this year. Another prediction: Unless Mr Krauthammer says something else that might give an Obama groupie a glimmer of hope no other article by him will be linked to by Mardell.

       1 likes

  16. David Preiser (USA) says:
    January 3, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    Sanitation workers in New York City confess about the deliberate sabotage of the clean-up effort during last week’s snow storm.

    “They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important,” said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot. The Union leaders deny the claim, and the arrogant Mayor is investigating the charges even though he does not believe it is true. But a NYC action at the worst possible time is very believable, two of the last three transit strikes happened during the Christmas rush time.  And with each passing day new information is being released pointing toward a Union Slowdown working to paralyze the big apple during the early part of last week.

    The evidence:

    For example, according to Sanitation department records, between 660 and 720 Sanitation workers called in sick for the cleanup of last week’s blizzard, usually that number his half that amount.Quite the coincidence. And per another report by the NY Post a group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors spent Monday night getting plowed when they were supposed to be plowing.

    Resut?  Negligent homicide:


    Queens woman who was having trouble breathing and a baby born in a apartment building lobby reportedly died after emergency crews had difficulty reaching them due to snow-covered streets.

    The 75-year-old woman’s daughter and neighbors called 911 for 20 minutes on Monday, according to the NY Daily News. After finally getting through, they allegedly waited three hours for EMS to arrive at their home in Corona. The woman had died.Meanwhile, a baby born inside a lobby in Crown Heights on Monday to a 22-year-old woman died after a 911 call was made nine hours earlier.

    The BBC reported on the storm last week, including about how Mayor Bloomberg was under attack for his supposed mishandling of the clean-up.  Now that we know it was deliberate sabotage by unions in protest of budget cuts, the BBC is uninterested in correcting the false perception they fed the public about the incident.

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  17. Will says:
    January 3, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    It seems that our other publically owned broadcaster is as confused as the BBC in thinking that NuLab is still in power. The Channel4 News “snowmail” tells me at 18:13 “Ministers attack VAT rise”, this is revised by a further email at 18:35 with near identical text exept that it clarifies that the attack is actually from the muppet milliband

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  18. George R says:
    January 3, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    INBBC is apparently no longer capable of this quality of political journalism:

    ” Only in Londonistan …”

       by Praveen Swami

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/praveenswami/100070277/only-in-londonistan-the-strange-story-of-gurukanth-desai-and-britains-war-against-jihadist-terror/

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  19. NotaSheep says:
    January 3, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    Is it complusory for every BBC report to ‘remind’ everyone that
    ‘East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory under international law. Israel took over the area in 1967, then annexed it in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain.

    Israel claims the city as its eternal, undivided capital, while Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of any future Palestinian state.

    The international community does not recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and most countries maintain embassies in Tel Aviv.’

    The above is from the news report on the UK Consulate workers’ arrests. Are any news reports on other countries similarly encumbered?

       1 likes

  20. kitty shaw says:
    January 3, 2011 at 9:19 pm

    The bBC’s dumbing down of science stoops to new depths.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11979934

    This is a valid story how exactly?

    Even the article admits the serious inaccuracies and then publishes it anyway.

    Toumai isn’t a hominid, its an ape.

    Toumai has only a fragmentary distorted part of a skull, the only “reason” to call it a hominid is the positioning of the hole in the skull, which given the distortion is to say the least extremely questionable.

    What is more the date of the skull is such it cannot be a hominid, it is too soon.

    The scientific community has known this for a long time, the ‘story’ is bogus.

    But since when have the bBC Science allowed small things like facts get in the way.

    Just stick in a shedful of ‘mays’, ‘possiblys’ and ‘probably nots’, ‘dont knows’ and a truly preposterous ‘psychologically’ (seven million years ago!), then throw in a totally disingenuous artists “impression” and voila.

    When you consider that the bBC was once a leader in science – educational, informative, factual and on topic, to see it reduced to the likes of this I’m lost for words. Shocking!

       1 likes

  21. deegee says:
    January 3, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    Palestinian shot by Israelis at West Bank checkpoint Two things the BBC doesn’t consider important enough to tell you.
    1) The Palestinian Authority refuses to cooperate in a joint investigation of the death,
    2) The IDF claim the whole story is a hoax.
    The IDF shot down an ugly Arab hoax Monday, after it had already been propagated worldwide. The Nana-Channel 10 website reported that  a military investigation found that the woman who supposedly died when she inhaled tear gas at a demonstration Friday was not even present at the that protest. She did not die of tear gas inhalation but of cancer, the IDF found, and had been lying in a hospital bed for ten days before passing away.
    To borrow a line from the story, 
    They seem to realize that even when their lies are discovered, the damage has already been done and the refutation of the story will receive less publicity than the original libel did. Or none, if the international media is the BBC. 

     
     

       1 likes

  22. David Preiser (USA) says:
    January 3, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    Still waiting for the BBC to report that a new, comprehensive study has shown that there are actually – at most – only about half as many plant species on this planet than everyone thought. 

    The Plant List  
     
    This was a major project done as a collaboration between the Royal Botanical Garden and several other big-time organizations, including the New York Botanical Garden, which is not far from where I live.  The people involved certainly aren’t funded by Big Oil or nasty Republicans or anyone else, so there’s no excuse to dismiss this.  
     
    They compared all known species and discovered that about half of them are the same, but had been independently indentified by more than one person. As a result, they ended up as duplicate species on official lists.  Until now.  
     
    Out of the 1,040,426 species everyone thought there were, only 298,900 species turned out to be unique (28.7%) for sure.  Another 25.4% are considered “unresolved” for now, meaning they’re not sure yet.  So, even if all the unresolved species turn out to be actually unique, the conventional wisdom of how diverse the plant life is on this planet just got cut by nearly half.  
     
    How about it, BBC?  Will the Evangelical Warmists such as Black, Harriban, and Shukman dare tell anyone about this?  Or will the knowledge that species designation in science has been allowed to get out of control make the great unwashed masses suspicious next time the BBC Warmists start whining about biodiversity?  Oh, dear, let’s sweep inconvenient science under the rug, shall we?

       1 likes

  23. Martin says:
    January 3, 2011 at 10:31 pm

    I was quite looking forward to the BBC’ live stargazing programme tonight. But I should have known better, so dumbed down beyond belief. We have Brian Cox who ‘can’ at times be intelligent but Jonathan Ross? Dara whats his name? Liz Bonnin who is quite smart I know but Hawaii?

    I know they had to ensure that they had enough material to fill the show in case the night sky was clouded over but what was the point of the silly sci fi bit?

    They had clear sky so why didn’t they use it and get the guy outside with the telescope to show much more?

    I really hate it when the BBC dumbs down, the Sky at night which was on last night makes no apology for assuming a degree of intelligence from the audience.

       1 likes

    • Millie Tant says:
      January 4, 2011 at 12:27 am

      It’s annoying how they have to have the same old faces and names on everything.  How they do recycle them! Ross, for Gawd’s sake. Dara Whatisname if you mean that comedian bloke, he does have a degree in physics, I believe. At least that’s something but still he’s on it because he is a  TV known face.

         1 likes

  24. john says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:10 am

    Sorry about this – old news and not even on the BBC.

    Just got back from Belfast the other day and got around to putting the video on,  before my programme starts, the end of the news :

    Crispin Blunt arrives at Ford Open Prison with his flunkies and can’t even get in through the front door because it’s locked.
    This must have come as a surprise to him as it seemed to me that was all about what remained of the Jail.

    Mind you, at least we have running water available in York, not like some places I could mention.

       1 likes

  25. Tom says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:29 am

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=sky+at+night

    This is a bit too neat – access to “The Sky at Night” blocked via iPlayer and Jonaffan Woss and the boyish politically AGW compliant Brian Cox substituted.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x7bxj

    Sir Patrick’s opinions on warbal gloming do not I understand concur with the house rules …   

    Coincidence?  nah… couldn’t be could it?

    And well,  Harrabin volunteers a doozy that’s set to run…..
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343863/Met-Office-knew-Decembers-big-freeze-coming-hushed-up.html

       1 likes

  26. Tom says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:45 am

    I should add that links to the BBC “Space” program archive from Sir Patrick’s own site http://www.sirpatrickmoore.com/ are not working but I do not know how long this has been the case.

    I had heard that he’s been know to shout “BUNKUM” at global warmists and ask them to explain Mar’s episodic polar icing….

       1 likes

  27. Guest Who says:
    January 4, 2011 at 8:53 am

    They’re all (Mr. Johnson doing the rounds reading his script on SKY as i write… Ch 4 seemingly quoting ‘Ministers’ in their emails, evidently still hoping Labour remains in power – snowmail_daily@channel4.com : Ministers attack VAT rise) at it of course, as ratings trump journalism every time, and the the public don’t like tax rises no matter what the root cause.

    But so far no one seems too keen on actually getting back to the core of what the reason behind this is.

    The BBC’s  fragile Sian read her script womanfully, giving Mr. Johnson some great lines ‘Just how bad is…’ , but when the modicum of impartiality crept in and he was challenged to come up with how the fiscal hole should get plugged, he was allowed several minutes of distracting waffle followed by a bland statement without any attempt to put his genius solution in context.

    It seems ‘cuts, CUTS.. CUTS…’ was wearing thin, and VAT is the new black… or red.

    Are we cursed never to get any responsible reporting any more from any quarter as vastly paid luvvies schmooze with vastly paid socialist civil servants in faux empathy with the ‘poor’ (those 50″ LCDs don’t come cheap at an extra 2.5% extra), as the few income generators in the the private sector are gouged to keep the latter in benefits and the former in ratings-related pay, perks and pensions.

       1 likes

  28. Will says:
    January 4, 2011 at 9:21 am

    R5 had an early morning report interviewing a guy named Mo who had been counting how many converts to Islam there had been in the UK. He was not asked how many people had sought to leave the faith nor what had happened to them.

       1 likes