Monthly Archives: February 2011

Being Partial

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Attacking Israel with malice aforethought is one of this country’s favourite pastimes. From grave political misrepresentation emanating from MPs and broadcasters, to gossip and urban myth perpetuated by press, television, journalists and chatterati.

For example, a misdiagnosis of the PaliLeaks revelations is firmly embedded in public consciousness.

Despite being filtered through sources with infamously anti-Israel agendas – the Guardian and Al-Jazeera – the consensus is that the Palestinian negotiators were weak, cravenly offering everything to the swaggering intransigent Israelis.
This interpretation sabotages the PA, the peace process and damages Israel’s image even further, if that is conceivable. Without taking the trouble to ask themselves cui bono, who benefits, they adopt this theory and stick with it. Go Figga.

Swallowing this interpretation has a prerequisite., which boils down to believing that Israel is simply wrong. Wrong to defend itself, wrong to be Jewish and wrong to be in Muslim Lands.

Imagine, if you will, that Israel’s deputy foreign minister was a nice chap. Imagine that he applauded what the Egyptian people have been striving for. Imagine, as if your imagination was huge and boundless, that this man was Danny Ayalon, and you saw that he was good, and fair, and personable, and without a nasty foreign accent. Then suspend your disbelief, and with a gigantic effort imagine that John Humphrys didn’t interrupt this, this, this…silver-tongued trickster. This is getting too much.
Snap! You’re back in the room.

Here comes Jeremy Bowen. He couldn’t believe it either. “Of course you’re getting a partial view” he spluttered, because he hadn’t got a leg to stand on.

Imagine! Jeremy Bowen accusing someone of having a partial view!
Laugh?
No, not really. Jeremy Bowen simply believes Israel is wrong. Wrong to defend itself, wrong to be Jewish and wrong to exist.

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MICHAEL BUERK AGAIN

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From Michael Buerk’s intro to the Moral Maze this week (via Bishop Hill):

“not long ago, to question multiculturalism… risked being branded racist and pushed into the loathesome corner with paedophiles and climate change deniers”

Is Buerk really comparing climate change “deniers” with paedophiles, or is this observation from Saul Jacka in the comments at Bishop Hill closer to the mark?

With respect, isn’t Michael Buerk something of a controversialist?
In other words, isn’t he quite capable of implying what he doesn’t mean to have a dig at some of his bien-pensant BBC colleagues?
On past form, he is certainly capable of taking such a line

UPDATE: Cranmer:

Michael Buerk is not himself equating anthropogenic climate change deniers and those who question the doctrine and policy of state multiculturalism with paedophiles: he is lampooning those of his BBC colleagues who do so habitually.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

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Reviewing a day’s output (6.00am-10.00pm) of the BBC News Channel might perhaps give another perspective on the endemic problem of BBC bias. In the comments field below you will find a detailed run-through of the channel’s coverage of one particular story on Monday of this week and how that compares to their treatment of a seemingly similar story on the following day. Then a number of other stories featured as part of Monday’s rolling news coverage will be examined more briefly. Does it all add up to a damning indictment?

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Unhappy Snaps

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A little bit more on the BBC promoting an exhibition of photographs by the German propagandist photographer with the chilling rictus grin and the “who, me?” shrug.
I first heard it advertised on Radio 4’s night-time World Service programme on the arts, “The Strand.” I mentioned it in my previous post, and several commenters mentioned it again on yesterday’s Open Thread.
See what Robin Shepherd has written, watch the video, and weep.

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Twisted BBC Priorities: Cuba Edition

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In the month of January, there were 268 arbitrary arrests and detentions of peaceful opponents of the Castro Regime in Cuba.

At least 268 arbitrary haltings of pacific opponents happened during the past month of January, revealed a report disclosed in Havana by the Cuban Commission of Human rights and Reconciliación Nacional (CCDHRN).

All the prisoners were released after some hours or of several days, but four of them were committed in prisons of high security, delaying their judicial hearing; another four have faced the same situation from December of 2010.
(translation mine)

But wait – there’s more:

The report emphasizes that the CDHRN was able to document in January at least 62 incidents that constituted abuses of human rights on the part of repressive agents of the government.

The document also emphasizes that “the political repression was particularly intense in the city of Santa Clara where at least 61 arrests happened, from only the 26 to the 28 of January, some of them with plenty of violence on the part of the police agents”.

The BBC simply isn’t interested. So what do they see fit to report?

Cuba welcomes new internet cable link with Venezuela

Cuba has welcomed the arrival of an undersea fibre-optic cable linking it to Venezuela as a blow to the US economic embargo.

The cable will transform communications in Cuba, which has among the slowest internet speeds in the world.

Apparently it’s all funded by the BBC’s darling, Hugo Chavez. Celebrate!

Human rights? Who cares about a few cracked skulls and detentions when a few well-connected (sorry) Cuban elites will be able to make cheaper international phone calls? Don’t be such a bore, eh?

Awesome priorities, BBC.

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MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD "LARGELY SECULAR"

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Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper today told the House Intelligence Committee that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular“. I don’t think even the Brotherhood’s cheerleaders at the BBC have gone so far as to say anything that stupid. It’s causing waves in the American media and blogosphere, and yet the BBC’s account of proceedings fails to mention it.

UPDATE FEB 11. The administration has “clarified” Clapper’s remarks. Nothing from the BBC.

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Question Time LiveBlog 10th February 2011

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Tonight Question Time comes from Bristol, birthplace of failed singer Nik Kershaw, failed comedian Lee Evans and failed lesbian Julie Burchill. It was also the destination of the final Concorde flight.

On the panel tonight we have the dripping wet Francis Maude MP, senile old fool Menzies Campbell MP, expenses fiddler and porno merchant Jacqui Smith, the always-wrong Mehdi Hasan and the only concession to reality on the panel Douglas Murray.

For those playing the Buzzword Bingo we’ll be using the Don’t Pick Up The Soap Rules on a day that you’ll struggle to learn from the BBC that newly convicted fraudster Jim Devine was a Labour MP. Similar points for mention of Chaytor, Illsley, Moran or any of the corrupt Muslim peers when played in conjunction with a Named Party joker card. Votes for prisoners is not in play as it’s too obvious. This week we’re offering a tour around Broadcasting House for any mention of the better than expected manufacturing figures and it’s an instant Bingo win for the first person to call LibDem Council Leaders Rebellion. The usual Thatcher and Ashcroft wildcards are in play, but with a Meryl Streep linked bonus ball.

The LiveBlog will also cover the surreal This Week, with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be moderating the abuse here from 10:30pm, so we look forward to seeing you!

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MICHAEL BUERK ON TELEVISION

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Former BBC newsreader Michael Buerk, quoted in the Telegraph:

“If you’ve been hired because you are young and pretty, because you are mincingly camp, because you’ve ticked a particular ethnic box and then you are no longer young and pretty or the fashions have moved on and you suddenly don’t have a job – get over it. It’s showbusiness… The problem is that at the other extreme of the argument. The idea of putting people on television – which is a non-job, that is terribly well paid, where you don’t have to think too much, or work too hard – and giving people those jobs purely on the ground that we need another six Asians, or we need another six lesbians, or we need another six pensioners, is to my mind almost worse.”

He makes the comments in a programme about ageism in television presented by former BBC Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly for ITV Tonight which, as the name suggests, is on ITV tonight.

As Guest Who puts it in the open thread, it’s time for offence-taking luvvies to “flounce up your engines” again. Which bit do you think the twitterati will get most angry about? The references to well paid non-jobs? The phrase “mincingly camp”? The bit about lesbians, or Asians, or pensioners? Should be fun. [Gets popcorn]

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TODAY’S SERMON…

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The Holy Grail of the warmists is to find proof that the Antarctic ice is going to melt. Most of the world’s ice covers the continent, and yet temperatures remain stubbornly locked at levels that suggest that any change will take millennia rather than the decades that are the currency of alarmists. The latest round in the gut-busting efforts by the warmists to concoct evidence that supports their views is chronicled here in Ryan O’Donnell’s forensic taking apart of the Eric Steig’s contention that the Antarctic penninsula is warming at unprecedented levels; this illustrates that global warming supporters will go to any absurd lengths to twist the evidence about temperatures in this part of the world.

The BBC has also entered the fray as part of its renewed front of climate zealotry that I think has been opened up over the past couple of weeks. Richard Black is in overdrive, Roger Harrabin is sharpening his pencil in Oslo with Fiona Fox. The website is currently crammed full of alarmist nonsense, with multiple new entries daily. There’s so much that it is impossible to keep track. But this entry stands out as utter garbage. The theory we are introduced to in this travesty of reporting is that the Antarctic was ultra-warm in the past because of the “extreme greenhouse effect” and a swing is happening again. Our guide to this la-la land is Mr Howard Falcoln-Lang, who pontificates triumphantly:

However, the geological record provides irrefutable evidence that dramatic climate fluctuations have occurred throughout our planet’s history. Indeed, over the past 50 years, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by an alarming 2.8C, faster than any other part of the world. So, if this warming were to continue unabated, could an emerald Antarctica be reborn?

Of course, Antarctica has been warm in the past, and may be so again. And indeed, it supported lush life forms, as Mr Falcon-Lang testifies, so what’s the problem? But to suggest that such warming may happen imminently and catastrophically – as is clearly the intention here – is tommyrot. It ignores that Mr O’Donnell has provided in the past few days utterly convincing evidence that the warming statistics for the Antarctic peninsula has been rigged. Mr Falcon-Lang ignores too, that all the evidence points to that the Antarctic ice mass is pretty much constant, rather than receding. This is a BBC man preaching an alarmist sermon and nothing else counts.

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