150 Responses to OPEN THREAD…

  1. RGH says:

    Bit of fun.

    Why Czechs rejected Euro pact
    By Rob Cameron

    “Thousands of centre-right voters have already deserted the Civic Democrats in favour of their coalition allies, Mr Schwarzenberg’s mildly pro-European TOP09.”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16814821

    Mr Schwarzenberg

    “Mr”

    Everyone, just everyone in the Czech Republic and surrounding countries, knows a bit more about “Mr” Schwarzenberg.

    An excellent politician.

    His stature is enhanced by this:

    “In December 2010, Schwarzenberg, along with the foreign ministers of five other Central and Eastern European EU countries, called upon the European Commission to make “the approval, denial or belittling of communist crimes” an EU-wide criminal offence. Prince Schwarzenberg said that the denial of the crimes of communism is analogous to denying the crimes of Nazism, which in many EU countries is a criminal offense, arguing that “there is a fundamental concern here that totalitarian systems be measured by the same standard.”

    Did you notice?

    Prince Schwarzenberg

    The BBC is guilty of a bit of “lese majeste” here.

    The BBC’s “Mr Schwarzenberg” is, in fact,:

    His Serene Highness The Prince of Schwarzenberg, Count of Sulz, Princely Landgrave in Klettgau, and Duke of Krumlov

    But, to the BBC he is not ‘Prince’ Schwarzenberg, but “Mr”.

    He is Karel to his friends.

    A lot of Central Europeans know that.

    BBC. “Duty to inform”.

    As, I said, a bit of fun.

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    • deegee says:

      He’s in Israel at the moment for the Herziliya Conference. For the record the programme calls him the Hon. Karel Schwarzenberg, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic .

      BTW you should all be glued to your computers for the Herzliya Conference You missed King Abdallah of Jordan but Papendreou, Fmr. PM of Greece is still to come.

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  2. cjhartnett says:

    And in this spirit of being Prince or pleb, can I sugeest that we still refer to Sir Fred Goodwin?
    He was given it by Brown in 2004-supported by Alex Salmond…and I`ve decided that it took them longer to remove Mugabes gong.
    This is not the Kremlin watchers parade and Sir Fredercik is not to be airbrushed out of recent Beeb history.  Goodwins gong should be hung round Labour/SNP necks  until they wince.

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  3. Reed says:

    Great article here…

    What kind of people have we become?
    Churchill would be dismayed by modern Britain’s capitulation to jackboot egalitarians, says Jeff Randall.

    Seven decades later, one wonders how the great man would view the kind of people the British have become. What has happened to the freedoms and independence for which he urged us to fight? It’s hard to imagine our wartime chieftain being anything other than dismayed by the erosion of sovereignty, capitulation to the “equalities industry” and enslavement by debt. We have lost control of domestic borders, ceded legal primacy to Europe and allowed the Storm Troopers of political correctness to stamp their corrosive version of right and wrong on British law.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/9048427/What-kind-of-people-have-we-become.html

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  4. cjhartnett says:

    Hard to square Jeff Randalls obvious gifts as shown here, with his gentle probing of the likes of Darling and Rehn.
    He knows far more than most of them-and has made his views clear in print….yet he`s courteous and fair.
    Maybe we should send him a cassette( he`s of that vintage?) of how the BBC behave…one small step to redress the Liberal lying bias of the BBC/Channel 4 etc, if he were to develop some teeth to rip the likes of Balls to shreds!

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  5. ki gotohell says:

    How about that official BiasBBC facebook group? It is a brilliant way to spread awareness with the ‘like’ button showing it on all friends pages.
    Do it!

    cheers.

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  6. ki gotohell says:

    Make one I mean!

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  7. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Completely off-topic, non BBC related, personal business question, but I can’t think of a better place to ask: Does anyone here know if streaming sites like Livestream or Ustream are watchable in Africa, or even in Europe? Or are there alternatives?

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  8. Martin says:

    Randall has been the only one to put the boot into Brown and co for knighting Fred the shred.

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  9. Span Ows says:

    “Cameron’s veto-macho: Tory backbenchers decide it was a flash in the pan. But why did Sopel butt in just when it got interesting?  
     
    I wonder if I was the only person, watching Cameron wriggle and squirm this afternoon in the Commons about what he ‘achieved’ at the EU session yesterday, to spot how – the second a backbench MP mentioned “the German attempt to establish an EU commissioner in Athens” – the BBCNews anchor Jon Sopel abruptly cut short the live broadcast and began to blather about something else.”

    From:

    http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/camerons-veto-macho-tory-backbenchers-decide-it-was-a-flash-in-the-pan/

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  10. Span Ows says:

    “Of course, while Obama may still send thrills up East Coast liberal news anchors’ legs, I doubt his speeches impress the unemployed masses out West of the Potomac.”

    Who could he mean? šŸ˜€

    That quote a long way down this review of Mark Steyn’s new book:

    http://dartreview.com/arts-culture/2012/1/25/get-ready-for-armageddon.html

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  11. George R says:

    Islamic Republic of PAKISTAN government: enemy of the West.

    Will INBBC now start to treat Pakistan government as the enemy it is?

    “Pakistan is helping Afghan Taliban, says Nato report”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16821218

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  12. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Facebook users beware:

    ACLU criticizes Facebook “election sentiment’ tool

    Citing three concerns, Christopher Calabrese of the ACLU’s Legislative Office, argues that Facebook should justify the use of users private communications for analysis.

    Facebook revealed earlier this month that every post and comment by a U.S. user containing information about presidential candidates will now be fed through a sentiment analysis tool. According to the announcement, Facebook shares that information exclusively with Politico.

    Calabrese notes that, “many users may not want to be part of any ‘sentiment analysis’ or poll, and might “feel hesitant” to share their opinion regarding any candidate. Also a concern to the ACLU, Facebook failed to reveal “any mention of user consent anywhere” in their announcement of the project.

    Finally, the ACLU mentioned that Facebook may one day share this information with political campaigns, who would use it to target advertising, manipulate voter data, or shape political messaging.

    Politico is a Left-leaning site filled with ex-JournoListas. 97% of political donations from Facebook employees went to Democrats. Then there was this little love-fest between Zuckerberg and the President.

    Do the math. Watch what you post on Facebook. Our freedom continues to be taken away by the Left.

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  13. Martin says:

    Radio 5’s economic pygmy (Andy Verity) was having a go as the boss of Amazon.co.uk today about corporation tax and why Amazon (based in Luxenbourg) doesn’t pay it in the UK (probably at a guess Andy the reason is in the location of the head office but hey you’re the economic genius). So instead of asking about new investments in the UK, 2 brain cells Verity just wasted the interview shouting at the Amazon boss for ‘dodging tax’.

    Fine, so Verity will you be asking the boss of the Guardian why they are based in the UK and dodge taxes?

    I think we know the answer to that.

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    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      Verity – proof positive of the maxim that if you were any good they wouldn’t have dumped you on Radio 5 Lite

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  14. Martin says:

    No game show Nikki today, instead we’ve got some halfwit called Chis Warburton. He makes Nikki Campbell look like Norman Tebbit. He just interviewed Liam Byrne (he of the we spent all the money fame) who was allowed to attack the government welfare reform plans with NO cross examination. Byrne was allowed to state a lie that thousands of people will be made homeless if housing benefit is capped at 26K. Even the dim witted Burden had to speak up as I swear Warburton was performing a sex act on Byne, he certainly didn’t cross him even once.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      ‘Byrne was allowed to state a lie ‘

      Does rather make one wonder what well-informed market rate talent interviewers are there for then.

      Why don’t they just leave the mike on and pop  out for a fag, leaving teh Sahdow Cabinet to it?

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  15. As I See It says:

    Dame Nicky is lying low today – perhaps she has taken fright with all the talk of Labour favourites being stripped of their honours.

    Labour/Liam Byrne of course have a very sound policy on the benefits cap: Yes they are in favour – just so long as there are enough checks and balances with regional variations so that benefit levels would never in fact have a cap.

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  16. Martin says:

    The Radio 5 phone in is a hoot, we’ve had Thatcher blamed, the Tories and the Republicans (and Sarah Palin) and the it all started in America.

    Anyone like to take a wild guess which name hasn’t come up?

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  17. Martin says:

    Rachel Burden just stated that the banking collapse started long before Gordon Brown and was in fact the fault of Margaret Thatcher!!!

    How can the BBC get away with this. OUR banks failed because of bad lending models that the FSA failed to regulate, these banks didn’t fail under a Tory government but a Labour one, why is that so hard to work out?

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    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      Rachel Burden just stated that the banking collapse started long before Gordon Brown and was in fact the fault of Margaret Thatcher!!!

      *******************************

      Ah yes, the hoary old, ‘blame henry ford every time a car crashes’ argument.

      Yes, FATCHA !!!!! deregulated the banks.

      No, she was not in power when Northern Rock decided it would be a good idea to lend out seven quid for every one pound they had on deposit.  Captain Insensible was in power.

      Is that so very hard for the pretrendy left to get their thick heads round.

      Rachel, luv, stick to talking about ‘my husband’, and, ‘my children’.

      You’re on safer ground there.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      the fault of Margaret Thatcher’

      Has she tweeted yet?

      They are always good value.

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  18. George R says:

    INBBC knows they are ISLAMIC JIHADISTS, but calls them ‘men’.  
     
    These ‘men’ are all Muslims from East London, Cardiff and Stoke, who want to and planned to kill British people.  
     
    These Islamic jihadists are inspired by Al Qaeda, and in turn by the tenets of Islam.  
     
    “Four” [Muslim] “men admit London Stock Exchange bomb plot.”  
     
     
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16833032

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  19. deegee says:

    When is someone a West Bank pair, an Israeli-Arab couple or a Palestinian? Israeli-Arab couple charged with imprisoning daughter

    The couple in question lived in Qalqiliya and the mother still does. Qalqiliya is in the Palestinian Authority and under PA jurisdiction. Surely the BBC journalist should asked why Palestinians handed the father to Israel instead of bringing him to trial locally?

    Would anyone like to speculate on the illustrative photographs of the smiling head-coverless adult for the ‘West Bank’ pair and the head-scarfed child(?) in the ‘Israeli-Arab’ main article? Random graphic choice? Is she a child (good photograph if true) or just looks childlike?

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      • Teddy Bear says:

        The good thing about the BBC having Israel in the headline, despeite having nothing to do with them, is it empowers them to give these details, which if it was only a story about Palestinians would never appear:-

        She said her father had threatened to rape her until she became pregnant if she tried to escape, and that he would then have used the pregnancy to accuse her of shaming the family and justify killing her. He regularly beat her with electric cables and sticks, and poured cold water on her when she asked for her mother, she added.

        The Muslim interpretation of ‘Honour’. 

        I’ve kept a copy of the webpage just in case this element ‘disappears’ from the story line.

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  20. Martin says:

    Yet again Radio 5 distort the news and only tell us that 9 ‘men’ were convicted of terrorism, not one mention of the word Muslim. yet again.

    Nick Robinson and the rest of the BBC think Red Ed had another great day.

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  21. Teddy Bear says:

    A case of BBC ‘Having their cake and eating it too’.
    It’s well chronicled here about the BBC blame for all the countries evils on the bankers, which inspires the B-lame B-ankers C-onspiracy epithet for much of their reporting. This of course runs concurrently with the anti-Tory bias, making it B-lame B-ankers and C-onservatives.

    So what happens when the Tory’s do something AGAINST the bankers?

    I just caught a few minutes of the Today programme on R4 today to hear the drift of the BBC portraying the fact of the former head of RBS, Fred Goodwin, being stripped of his knighhood as an ‘overreaction and negative move by Cameron, done only to vainly appeal to public opinion for the mess the country is in’ – or words to that effect. They even had Jackie Stewart, a friend of Goodwin, to jerk tears from listeners over this act. I read later that Stewart had also been on the BBC last night with a similar theme, so they knew exactly what they were going to get with him.

    Sure enough when I read the BBC article on the subject the headline tells exactly the tack that the BBC are following with this story

    Fred Goodwin knighthood ‘hysteria’ criticised
    I mean they could have highlighted the jubilation that many BBC brainwashed listeners would have felt following YEARS of demonisation that the BBC have instilled in them about it. Not to mention the host of personalities who live to promote any line the BBC wants to follow to pursue their own celebrity status. But the BBC having already achieved a victory on the issue, can use it to attack the Conservatives again.

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  22. As I See It says:

    Huw Edwards, BBC 10 o’clock News, is keen to tell me that four British men from London and Cardiff wanted to carry out acts of terrorism. What could that have been in aid of…?

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