Mark Mardell Defends The President On Bin Laden Ad

The media has been freaking out for about 24 hours about the President’s new ad featuring Bill Clinton suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have made the call to kill Osama bin Laden, and Mark Mardell rushes to His defense. I’m not even going to bother linking to criticisms in the mainstream media, because you know Mardell wouldn’t be roused to action if it wasn’t a major problem.

Should Obama politicise Bin Laden’s death?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: It’s not His fault if someone else thinks this boastful ad politicizes the killing. And He’s The Man, you know.

President Barack Obama is being accused by opponents of making political capital out of the killing of Osama Bin Laden a year ago.

That’s not surprising – he is indeed making a big deal out of it.

The question is whether doing so is distasteful and whether his campaign is politicising something that should be above politics.

Mardell knows this is a problem. He knows this is “unseemly”.  He knows that using a targeted assassination of someone in cold blood, without due process of law, as a campaign slogan is not the kind of Hope & Change we were sold in 2008. Even Arianna Huffington is calling Him out on it. So what does the US President do? He blames His opponents for it being a problem, and makes sure to remind you of His prowess.

It is just as inevitable that opponents will portray that as unseemly immodesty.

The crudeness of the presidential pitch may put some off, but any row that is created only serves to highlight that Bin Laden was indeed killed on Mr Obama’s watch, on his orders.

Even when it comes to acting like the very kind of warmongering cowboy Mardell loathes with all his being, he still must defend Him to the bitter end. Nothing is His fault, you see.

But please, the BBC asks you to continue to look to him for your understanding of US issues.

 

BLACKWASHING…

The Telegraph gives us a report on wind farms altering the climate…..not just locally but potentially regionally…Biased BBC’s Alan reports….

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html
Wind farms can cause climate change, finds new study. Wind farms can cause climate change, according to new research, that shows for the first time the new technology is already pushing up temperatures. This could have long term effects on wildlife living in the immediate areas of larger wind farms. It could also affect regional weather patterns as warmer areas affect the formation of cloud and even wind speeds.
 
Richard Black also reports the same story…however he uses language designed to reduce the impression that anything significant is going on……
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17871300

Blackwash 1:
‘Recognising that this could wrongly be interpreted as suggesting the local temperature will continue to rise….’
You don’t want to ‘wrongly’ interpret anything do you? …however the caveat was that this was only wrong if no more turbines were built…but  ‘Nature’ tells us….’The wind industry in the United States has experienced a remarkably rapid expansion of capacity in recent years and this fast growth is expected to continue in the future.’….so expect more warming.

Blackwash 2:
‘…the scale of the effect they saw is equivalent to a warming of about 0.72C per decade.’
Black manages to miss out the word ‘significant’ in relation to warming as used in the original Nature magazine report…..’Our results show a significant warming trend of up to 0.72°C per decade.’

Blackwash 3:
‘Dr Zhou and his colleagues believe the turbine blades are simply stirring up the air…’
Nice use of the word ‘simply’….only a fool would think anything different!

Blackwash 4:
They suggest that turbines in other places might not produce the same value of ground temperature change.
Wind farms can affect weather in their immediate locality, raising night-time temperatures on the ground.
They used satellite data to show that land around newly constructed wind farms warmed more than next-door areas.
That’s three times he’s made sure we are told this is purely and ‘simply’ a very small, local occurrence….however Nature says this…’These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.’

Only subtle changes but they alter the whole narrative from possibly meaningful conclusions about how wind farms may affect climate to Black’s preferred ‘nothing to see here’ approach.

Black and Co like to tell us that minute, trace elements of CO2 in the atmosphere, 95%+ naturally occurring, have enormous climate changing properties….but are quick to minimise any possible detrimental effects of their grand solutions to this apparent CO2 problem.

Black, I always imagine as Hitler at the end of the war closeted in his bunker ordering around his imaginary armies to defeat the Russian hordes based on information from his generals who tell him what he wants to hear.

What they don’t seem to have told him is the below via ‘Bishop Hill’….
Green groups funded by big wind
The Mail on Sunday (not online) carries the news that several prominent Scottish environmental groups are sponsored by wind farm companies.

Environment group WWF Scotland admitted that it had received more than £22,500 in the past year from one of the UK’s biggest energy firms, Scottish and Southern Energy.

It has apparently also been revealed that Friends of the Earth Scotland are supported by Scottish Power Renewables, while the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland is also in the pay of big wind.
Amusing therefore to see this report issued jointly by the three organisations saying that fears over the reliability of wind power are overdone. Money talks, I guess.’
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/4/29/green-groups-funded-by-big-wind.html

Funny how he hasn’t mentioned it yet….but is normally very quick to attempt to accuse ‘sceptic’ groups of taking funding from interested bodies.

RIDDLE OF THE SANDS…

The BBC’s Razia Iqbal visits Katar, the official cultural village of Doha, and talks to members of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, many of whom have been imported from Europe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01gng58
The BBC’s reverse cultural imperialism is slapped down in this programme about the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

Razia Iqbal has been in the country two days but she has made up her mind about the evils of ‘Westernisation’ being imposed upon Qatar. She meets some young, educated Qataris and suggests ‘importing’ Western culture such as orchestras will dilute what it is to be Qatari……they tell her ‘no, we have opportunities now beyond our wildest dreams in education and business and in daily life.’

Iqbal gives up on them and asks the Emir of Qatar’s daughter, Sheikha Mayassa Al-Thani, if she is just buying a culture. Mayassa replies that Iqbal should back up her questions with some facts.

Iqbal again suggests that Qatar is importing Western values and there is a danger of diluting Qatari culture….and she has concerns about the future ‘informed by the potential for problems created by importing another culture….and does Qatar not need Democracy?’

Mayassa stamps on her hard saying ‘you are too negative, you are looking for problems, you are scared of change…..and isn’t it odd that you oppose the importing of culture but suggest the import of western political systems like democracy?’

Yes, odd all right. Clearly the Qataris should all be living in tents, herding camels or whatever their ancestral lives used to be before oil was discovered…by Western Imperial cultures.

Curious how the BBC thinks it is terrible for Qatari culture to be ‘polluted’ and diluted by Western culture…and indeed Iqbal admits to concerns about the problems of such change…. but in Britain we are force fed multiculturalism and are duty bound to celebrate diversity.

The BBC land in Qatar for two days and are horrified that the locals are celebrating Coca Cola, cars and consumerism.  I’m not sure but I think any Qatari would rather have a Coca Cola salesman riding into town than a miserable preacher  carrying a BBC microphone.

THE OUT OF CONTROL TALIBAN

Listening to Today is like tuning in to extra-terrestial communications – it’s hard to understand what it is you are listening to. I’m sure you will all have heard of the brutal murder of British aid worker Khalil Dale, decapitated by the Taliban in Pakistan. This morning, John Humphrys prime time item  8.10am was about “whether the Taliban were out of control”. Huh? The Taliban have never been “in control”. They slaughter opportunistically, show no regard for the sanctity of human life, murder OUR soldiers with enthusiasm, and Humprys ponders if they are now “out of control”? This, of course, is linked to the BBC support for the idea put forward by Obama and those wise old coves in the F.O. that it is vital that we talk to the Taliban about how we can bring them into the Afghanistan Government. Appeasers then act surprised when the crocodile they seek to feed turns around and bites them. I contend that the BBC believes it is right to engage with the Taliban and so it is genuinely surprised when these dark ages primitives do what they have always done – murder with impunity. The BBC shows little interest in exploring or even discussing the savagery that drives the Taliban –  perhaps the proximity to Islam is discomforting for the BBC comrades.

Life In These United States – No. 2

Here’s a new edition of my little coverage of US issues. My thanks to all those who listened to the first one, and for the kind words about it. I hope people find this one interesting as well. Apologies for this one being a litter longer, clocking in at a bit over 16 minutes. Just too many details to include. Links to everything I talk about are listed below, so everyone can decide for themselves.

Life In These United States No. 2

Audio hosted on EyeTube.

SOURCES:

BBC report on AZ law receiving “sympathetic hearing”

10th Amendment

Commerce Clause

Necessary and Proper Clause

Jonny Dymond: the Republicans’ Hispanic Problem

My “Immigration Games” post, including links to Franz Strasser’s reports

Poll showing 45% of Hispanic voters want the Court to uphold AZ law

Hispanic support for Obama dropping

Florida as Hispanic swing state

Republican National Hispanic Assembly

Mitt Romney and Florida

Obama campaign website naming and shaming Romney donors

More on Obama campaign trying to intimidate Romney donors

Corzine still Obama bundler

Media noticing Obama campaign trips on official business

Voter Fraud in Florida

More on Voter Fraud in Florida

Florida voting law

Registering to vote

Absentee ballots are now 25%

ACORN activist convicted of voter fraud in Wisconsin

 

BBC Censorship: Trayvon Martin Edition

(UPDATE: See end of post) I didn’t even want to get into the Trayvon Martin George Zimmerman story, but the latest BBC report on the story, about a judge declining a request to raise his bail, is still misleading you on what happened. They’re still telling you that Zimmerman wasn’t charged immediately because of Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law. That was the initial story that was going around, but way too much information has come out since then so that it’s no longer the issue, and hasn’t been for some time. Yet the BBC is still stuck on that. The BBC has been publishing updates on Zimmerman’s situation, yet they’ve left out a huge amount of information, keeping you all not only uninformed, but left with a false impression of the story.

The Stand Your Ground Law, at least in the Florida version, is mostly about defending against an imminent threat. It’s clear from the language that home invasion is a major concern. There is part of it that says a person has no duty to retreat when confronted with physical force, and is allowed to meet force with force, but the main thrust of it seems to be about defending against other situations like breakins and car-jacking, and not a physical altercation. In fact, the law was created in to clear the legal cloud prosecutors said disgusted them after having to charge a man in 2004 who shot and killed someone who had broken into his recreational vehicle.

To further give you the desired impression, the BBC put together four case studies involving Stand Your Ground Law in Florida. Only one of the three involved a physical altercation, where a kid who was bullied brought a knife to school because he was afraid of getting attacked. The others were about a gang shooting, somebody shooting an unarmed man during an argument, and a guy who got into a drunken fight with someone and, after separating himself from the fight, one of them went and got a gun, came back and shot the other in a non-threatening situation. So now you’re supposed the think the law is awful.

But here’s the thing: The so-called Stand Your Ground Law is irrelevant. The statute preceding it in the books is the only one worth talking about. That law is about the “Use of force in defense of person”. It says:

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1)He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

(2)Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.

Which is the next bit about home invasion, etc., which you can read on the same page I’ve linked to above.

Why is it important to bring all this up? Zimmerman was engaged in a physical altercation with Martin. When that happens, it’s down to self defense. There was plenty of physical evidence of that fight, which the BBC has never reported. The only time they’ve acknowledged the notion is in a previous report about Zimmerman’s hearing, when they portrayed it as merely being his claim that there was a fight. But the evidence is real, not just a claim. The mainstream media tried to hide it to keep the racism Narrative going, but reality forced their hand. Since the BBC is unaccountable, they’ve simply kept that false story going without consequence. The evidence was out there, but the mainstream media tried to hide it. So no wonder the BBC News Online producers had no idea at first. But they should and probably do know now.

So here’s what the BBC doesn’t want you to know. It’s all over the news that someone at NBC deliberately edited Zimmerman’s call to the police to make it appear as if he thought Martin was suspicious simply because he was black. Combine that impression with the half-a-story we were all fed at first that the young man was shot in cold blood, rather than during an actual fight, along with that photo the media circulated at first of a smiling, angelic much younger Martin (the photo in that HuffPo link), and many people got the idea that a young black kid was gunned down in the street for no reason other than the color of his skin. We know now that, while Zimmerman did say Martin was wearing a hoodie, there were other signals that made him suspicious. It took several days for the truth to even begin to come out, but by then it was too late. Most people had already formed their opinion by then, including, it seems the BBC.

The gated community he was patrolling had recently been seeing a rash of break-ins by young black men. It was cold and raining, yet there was a young black man wandering around. His actual words to the police – which NBC deliberately edited to create a different impression – were as follows:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

NBC, though, cut out the middle bit to make it sound like Zimmerman said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

The BBC never told you any of this.

NBC has since fired the editor responsible, but hasn’t made a real correction or national apology to their viewers. So many people still probably don’t know what actually happened, and have only that false story to go on. Early on, CNN had on a so-called voice expert to claim that Zimmerman used a racial slur in the call, further inflaming everyone’s racial anger. They’ve since had to quietly walk that back.

Then we have the fact of the physical altercation after one of the confronted the other. Zimmeran says that after following Martin, he turned away only to be challenged by him. That’s his side of the story anyway, and we’ll never know Martin’s. But there’s also the physical evidence of that fight: the injury on the back of Zimmerman’s head, and the other evidence of a fight according to the police report. Unfortunately, when ABC initially showed police CCTV video of Zimmerman being brought into the police station, they deliberately fuzzed it up and obscured his head with a big lower third graphic so you can’t see anything. So when they claimed there was no evidence of a fight, everyone believed it, and again racial anger was exacerbated by a deliberate act of a major broadcaster. After being called on it, ABC released an “enhanced” version (i.e. after removing the doctoring they did) which, lo and behold, showed the gash on the back of Zimmerman’s head. Nothing about that from the BBC, either.

The other really sad thing about all this – besides the tragic fact of a young man’s death – is that it seems extremely difficult to get the real facts of this story. Anyone doing a search for the various factors will notice that nearly every search result brings up a lot of partisan sources and precious little from the mainstream media. Try a search for various elements of this story and you’ll see what I mean. So no wonder everyone has a different idea of what happened, and no wonder we’ve now had retaliation violence. Yes, you heard that right. There have been at least one incident of black on white violence where the attacker said it was revenge for Trayvon Martin. Somebody also shot up a Sanford police car near the scene of Martin’s death.

There was supposedly another one, but that one sounds to me like the white guy brought up Martin’s name first and really caused the problem. When you have people like Spike Lee tweeting what he thought was Zimmerman’s home address, Al Sharpton –  who has his own primetime show on MSNBC – trying to incite race riots, and the President Himself expressing sorrow and emphasizing the racial angle, you get angry mobs baying for blood. So many people are convinced now that Martin was shot in cold blood for walking while black that if Zimmerman is actually tried and found innocent, it’s going to be a bad scene. All caused by the media.

Since we now know that nearly all the initial Narrative on this story was false, and all that anger was based largely on false reporting and media bias, you’d think the BBC would do a special report on it, considering how important race and racism in the US is to them. After all, Jonny Dymond’s remit seems to be traipsing around the country looking for racists under the bed (see my latest “Life in These United States” for more about him) and the BBC did that World Have Your Say segment not long after the shooting about how white supremacy was a major problem. Plus, we’ve heard over and over again for the last four years how racist the US is, how racist the Tea Party movement is simply for opposing the governing policies of a black President. So now we have this awful racial divide going on over this issue, which was really caused not by the killing itself, but by mainstream media faking material and stoking the flames of racial hatred. The least the BBC could do, I think, is have another honest discussion about what’s actually happened. It’s hard to think of a valid journalistic reason why they haven’t addressed any of this.

UPDATE: A totally different NBC journalist in Miami has now been fired for making his own false edit of the audio. As if by telepathic instruction, this completely independent act of editing took the same false approach. Now the station is going to add a line manager and extra layers of journalism to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Does that sound familiar?

Keep hiring the same kind of people and give them the same sense of superiority and privilege, and they’ll keep doing the exact same thing no matter how many layers you add.

THE BIG QUESTIONS…

I know I shouldn’t but I DO watch Nicky Campbell’s “The Big Questions”. Do you? It’s a grim programme but bang on all BBC memes. This morning saw Peter Hitchens being howled down because he spoke up in favour of capital punishment, meanwhile Islamophobia was detected in those who object to Halal meat. It’s truly grotesque in the bias.

The BBC Field Producers’ Handbook

This is a serious blog but as a light-hearted interlude, some brilliant bits of the 1956 edition of ‘The BBC Field Producers’ Handbook’ and the chapter called ‘Getting the best from your correspondent

On arrival, you may shake a correspondent’s hand. But never address him by his Christian name. Over-familiarity makes for poor broadcasting

“If your correspondent stumbles or is hesitant on air, offer him some brandy from your ration. This is what it is for. It will aid fluency”.

“Field work may mean an overnight stay. Never use the correspondent’s hotel without his permission. There will be a boarding house nearby”

BBC correspondents are important figures. But sometimes forgetful. Always carry a spare shaving brush for his use. He will thank you for it.

“The Field Engineer will not have benefitted from your education. Use patience, but do not neglect a direct order to get the best from him.”

“On occasion you may be asked to work with a female correspondent. Only those who have completed the Advanced Field Certificate may do so.”

“Other than radio spares the Field Producer ought to carry: binoculars, shoelaces, a chocolate bar, a ball of string and a 10 Franc note”

Do not be afraid if your correspondent wishes to talk to you on a train journey. These topics may help. Literature, The Countryside, Cricket.

“Topics that your correspondent will NOT wish to hear of. Your Health, your Ambitions, your Family, Association Football.”

“In the Home Counties, ask permission before running broadcast cables across homeowners’ property. Elsewhere, this may not be necessary.”

Some of the specifics may have changed over the years but it seems the general attitude of presenters hasn’t…

LOVING IRAN..

Anything to do with Israel always brings out some of the worst bias in the BBC. Have a read of this story concerning how the country’s leadership is supposedly “misleading” the public on the merits of a possible military strike on Iran. Throughout the article, Israel is portrayed as the bully with poor Iran as the victim.  Nehanyahu is a guy that the BBC can barely disguise its contempt for – one reason why I find him a most agreeable chap. I bet Ahmadinejad and the rest of the genocidal Mullahs must give thanks for the BBC every morning.