Obama Picks El-Erian to Lead Global Development Council

Wonder why Katty Kay picks a column by Obama man El-Erian to talk about the effects of Sequestration on US  foreign policy….

@KattyKayBBC via Twitter

El Erian on the sequester’s negative impact on American foreign policy, among other things http://t.co/NWXgzieBn1 via @FortuneMagazine

She could have chosen this revealing report on Obama’s foreign policy effectiveness…

Barack Obama a ‘dithering, controlling, risk-averse’ US president

Barack Obama is a “dithering” president whose controlling tendencies and extreme risk-averse attitude to foreign policy has damaged US interests in the Middle East, according to a new book by a senior former State Department adviser.

But she didn’t….which is why we get to read a piece praising Obama…‘The answers lie more in the political than economic domain……urgently anchored by a medium-term growth and job vision, such as the one the President has proposed to Congress.’ and condemning the Republicans blaming them for the political impasse.

Mardell also seems to have given the story about Obama a miss.  Can’t imagine him being so slow off the mark with a similar tale about Bush.

After 800 years Ludlow Castle is collapsing in parts….why? (Today 08:37)

Climate change is the answer…especially in the last two years…last year, we are told, was the second wettest on record.

Only it wasn’t……1872 is the wettest followed by 1768.  The wettest decade was 1871-1880.

Never mind that though.
John Humphrys raised a half hearted objection  to that claim stating that ‘We’ve had lots of different weather through all those centuries so why now?

The expert went (Rather too keenly) straight into the climate change explanation…..

‘Colin Richards, head of conservation and archaeology for Shropshire, said: “It’s amazing that they have stood for 800 years and the climate change that has affected them over the last couple of years has wreaked so much damage.”
Mr Richards told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is evidence of repair over the centuries right from the thirteenth century right through, but last year was the second wettest year on record.’

Humphrys quietly accepted that as the answer.

That is the problem with the BBC’s attitude towards climate change….its ready acceptance that it is happening and that it is man made….and is therefore primed to accept any old story that comes along with climate change as the ‘bad guy’.

Does it matter if someone claims it is climate change that is collapsing walls in Ludlow?  It does…because it falsely adds to the mythology of climate change and extreme events caused by it….and adds to the impression that the world itself is collapsing around us due to climate change….as Humphrys refers to…even houses are built on clay and the home owner notices when it dries out…taking the story from some distant castle to your living room…making it personal……all adding to the ‘urgency’ with which we must therefore tackle the causes of climate change…man’s emission of CO2!

If Humphrys had wanted to he could have checked back and seen that ‘climate change’ may not be the one and only cause…or even a cause at all:

Historic walls are hit by tremor: Parts of a Shropshire town’s historic town walls were damaged during last month’s tremor. (2008)

In February part of the Castle Square Car Park closest to the wall was fenced off to reduce the risk of traffic loading affecting the wall’s stability. (2010)

Climate change and natural deterioration have been blamed for recent collapses of the walls. (2005)

John Williams from Shropshire Council said the repairs could take up to four months.
He said not a lot was known about the history of the wall and what is causing it to lean.
(2010)

Part of Shropshire Council’s Historic Environment team, Mr Richards said much of the damage dated back to Ludlow’s expansion in the 18th Century, when soil was piled up against the ancient walls. (2012)

Several major phases of work at Ludlow Castle have been carried out in recent years; the most dramatic of which was the rebuilding of part of the outer curtain wall following its collapse in the winter of 1991.

So it could be climate change…or it could just be ‘weather’ and natural erosion …or traffic …or earth tremors…or interference from other building projects in the past…or just the natural deterioration of an 800 year old building…or even …they just don’t know the cause!

All too easy to accept the explanantion that conveniently supports your own beliefs…..You have to wonder if the researcher for such a story asks any contributor if there is a climate change angle…and if so can he emphasise it…..Harrabin and Co must surely have a memo out briefing all programme makers to highlight climate.

Is the BBC trying to make any talk about gay issues socially unacceptable….as it has with immigration?

Talk about immigration and you are labelled a racist.  That silenced debate for decades….and allowed Labour unopposed to swamp Britain with immigrants.

Talk critically of homosexuality and you’re probably gay yourself….and you don’t want people thinking that do you?   So you won’t discuss it.

Or that might seem to be the latest ‘trick’ in the progressive BBC’s book….bang on about the place of gays in society and you’re merely hiding your own latent homosexuality.

An irony that isn’t it?…the BBC using the apparent ‘stigma’ of gayness to stop people talking about the issues around the subject.  The BBC recognising that being gay isn’t looked upon as ‘normal’ in much of society and using the embarrassment of being labelled gay to silence anyone who talks of the issues…..presumably God and his followers are all gay then if we believe the various religions which tell us homosexuality is a sin?

The Today programme brought on Stonewall’s Ben Summerskill (08:47) to talk about this:

‘Cardinal O’Brien has been accused by many of hypocrisy in his stance against gay marriage. Dr Mike Davidson, from the Core Issues Trust and Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive of Stonewall discuss whether there is evidence of a connection between homophobia and suppressed same-sex desire.’

His opponent, Dr Mike Davidson…was announced as someone who thought gayness could be ‘cured’…so immediately he was placed in the realm of ‘loony’….and therefore not worth listening to or taking seriously….why not have someone less controversial to speak against Summerskill?

The whole premise of the programme was wrong anyway…..O’Brien was articulating the Church’s views, not necessarily his own on homosexuality, therefore it was not his own ‘homophobia’ that he was expressing…so he could be gay, should he want to be, without being called a hypocrit.

Sanctimonious, hypocritical, ridiculously unwilling to admit his own organisation’s failings, the holier than thou Humphrys launched an assault on the Catholic Church this morning on the Today programme.

He claimed the Church was the ‘moral arbiter of the World‘…I thought the BBC had long ago usurped that position and appointed itself the judge and executioner of world affairs.

Humphrys states that the Church’s Message cannot be delivered if the Church is not seen to have absolute moral authority…..and where is the BBC’s ‘moral authority’  to deliver its own message whilst it demonises UKIP, or the Tories or climate change sceptics or any other ‘non-believer’ in the BBC world view?

Humphrys suggested that ‘in a decent organisation the sinners would be exposed and thrown out’ by that organisation….The Church probably did so but Newsnight decided not to report it.

Humphrys said that God wasn’t to blame here..it was the Church hierarchy, the structure itself, they are ‘The Guilty Men’…..Isn’t it somewhat distasteful for Humphrys to hijack that deeply meaningful phrase when it was coined precisely to implicate the same type of people who now inhabit the BBC?

Humphrys said something fundamental must change in the Church…again the same can be said for the BBC….the promotion of its own political and social attitudes must be stopped…the only way to do that is a radical restructuring of the BBC.

If not then perhaps this might be the solution:

Humphrys made one very powerful suggestion….that any other organisation, if it were a lay organisation, would be shut down if it operated in  such a cavalier fashion as to its responsibilities.

Not so far.

Another week comes along and so does the first new OPEN thread for you to detail the bias!

The Sunday Times (paywalled) reports that:

‘The BBC has used license fee money to buy the silence of about 20 former staff who left claiming to have been the victims of bullying or sexual harassment.’

‘The 20 people forced to sign the gags, called compromise agreements, are barred even from revealing they have signed such a deal.’

‘On the morning of Valentine’s Day, John Humphrys, the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, spoke in tones of anger and disbelief about the scandal of NHS Trusts that gagged their own managers to prevent them speaking out about their concerns for patient safety.

Two female former BBC journalists listened with mounting fury.

One said: “I was shouting at the radio.  Why don’t they investigate what the BBC is doing?”

“These women feel the BBC is supposed to be a transparent organisation which demanded accountability when it reports on other people’s activities and should apply the same standard to itself.”‘

Indeed…only recently we heard a journalist on Today complaining that Lloyds Bank didn’t want to be interviewed…..the journalist piously commenting that it was 39% publicly owned…and therefore should turn up to answer questions.

The BBC is 100% owned by the Public…..and yet again and again refuses to account for its actions or reveal information that would put it in  bad light…going so far as to spend, as we know, £300,000 hiding the Balen Report which investigated claims that some of the BBC’s journalism could be seen as promoting or fomenting anti-Semitism in society.

What is the BBC hiding? The cupboard must be jam packed with skeletons by now.

Living with Calcutta’s record low temperatures

3 March 2013 Last updated at 00:03  By Rahul Tandon BBC News, Calcutta

‘Dressing for the cold has become a major talking point in Calcutta, where the temperatures are the lowest for a century. One piece of cold-weather gear appears to be de rigueur in this city – the monkey hat.’

Climate advocate Mike Hulme from the CRU, in 1997, edited a book, ‘Climates of the British Isles’ along with Elaine Barrow, also of the CRU…with contributions from many scientists including Phil Jones.

It was dedicated to…

Professor H.H. Lamb, Founder and Director of the Climate Research Unit, 1972-1978.

This is what Prof. Lamb said in 1972:

‘A new ice age is creeping over the Northern hemisphere, and the rest of this century will grow colder, a British expert on climate has claimed.
Prof. Hubert Lamb, director of climate research at the University of East Anglia, had a few comforting thoughts in an interview Sunday:
“The full impact of the new Ice Age will not be upon us for another 10,000 years and even then it will not be as severe as the last great glacial period.
“We are past the best of the interglacial period which happened between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago,” he continued.  “Ever since then we have been on a downhill float regarding temperature.  There maybe a few upward fluctuations from time to time but these are more than offset by the general downward trend..”
Lamb said temperatures had been slowly dipping for the last 20 years.
“We are on a definite downhill course for the next two centuries,” he declared.  “The last 20 years of this century will be progressively colder.  After that the climate may warm up again but only for a short period of decades.”
Lamb said climate  changes come in cycles determined by astronomical and physical factors.  He said one main cause is the amount of radiation received from the sun.
“We know that the behaviour of the sun changes at intervals and these changes have their effect,” he said. “The distance between the earth and the sun also varies through the ages as the earth’s orbit increases or decreases its elliptical path.  The tilting of the earth as it rotates round its own axis also makes the polar ice cap grow, and this effects the air masses around it.”
The last great ice age took place about 60,000 years ago and was the sixth over a period of a bout a million years.  The great ice sheets covered most of the British isles and in America covered what are now new York City, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Kansas City.  The ice was at least 5,000 feet thick.
“I don’t think it will be quite as serious this time,” Lamb said.  “But there will be a lot of glaciers on high ground which do  not exist at present.”’

In 1997  MIke Hulme said this in ‘Climates of the British Isles’:

‘There is a danger that this recent political concern about climate change and its impacts bestows on climate an unwarranted importance as an agent that shapes our lives.

Many studies of the possible impact of future climate change seem, implicitly, to elevate climate to being the major factor that will influence future human activity and welfare.  Little attention is paid to whether or not climate is the main driving factor behind observed changes in such [activities].  Even if recognised explicitly that other factors are involved these are so unpredictable that climate often retains the appearance of being the main controlling factor. [Factors such as Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy for instance]

It only takes a simple thought experiment to realise that other considerations, too, will swamp the effects of climate change on future human and animal welfare…..war, technology, demographics, disease.

To assess the true significance of climate change it must be evaluated against changes that will occur due to other environmental constraints and social constructs.’

I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to the significance of either statement….but both bring into question the BBC’s attitude towards climate change…and whether or not any dissenting voices are to be allowed to question the ‘consensus’ on  what the BBC has decided is its own private media platform.

Mark Mardell continues his unrequited love affair with Obama.

The BBC love Baroness Williams. Shirl the Pearl is a regular feature on their political programmes, and she was on Today this morning just before 9am. The item was about disaffection  within mainstream politics across Europe and the BBC flagged up how this had manifested itself across the EU, from Golden Dawn in Greece to UKIP in the UK. Yeah, I know. And just in case there was any residual doubt about the set up nature of this item, Williams was then allowed to venomously castigate UKIP without counter, dismissing those who support that party as “people wanting to live in the past. ”  

The BBC continues its war against the ‘Tory led Coalition’ with yet more invented crises of ‘NHS privatisation’ or specious connections to disasters in the NHS and government ‘cuts’.

The first example is from R4’s ‘You and Yours’ with Winifred Robinson demanding to know if NHS nurses, sponsored by medical manufacturers, are making unnecessary prescriptions to meet the sponsoring company’s targets making NHS costs shoot up.

Unfortunately either the BBC failed to do its research or its determination to dig some dirt on the Government blinded it to the truth.

You can hear that Robinson is absolutely willing the blame to be put onto the private companies but as you hear a senior nurse explaining what is happening it turns out that there aren’t targets, that hospitals are visited by the sponsoring company’s, and others, sales reps, who of course attempt to sell their product but do not have any power to pressure nursing staff into prescribing more….for one thing the prescribing is done by GPs not nurses (ChrisH in comments advises some nurses can prescribe…my mistake…I listened at 23 mins 30 sec where mentions nurses only advise GP on patient needs and GP then prescribes….not the whole picture obviously)

The story of stealth privatisation and rising costs was almost entirely fabricated by the BBC.

A second story conflates two different things in an attempt to damn the government.

A recent survey of hospital staff says many would not recommend the hospitals in which they work to their own relatives to be treated in.

The BBC happily makes the connection between that and low staff morale with mythical Tory led ‘cuts’ in the NHS.

Firstly there are no ‘cuts’ in the NHS…there is a rebalancing of the budget with resources reallocated to different parts of the NHS to ensure high priority commitments are met…but the budget remains the same.

Labour spent £100 billion on the NHS…..and yet thousands died as a result of bad treatment and neglect…..was that a result of ‘cuts’?

Here Tony Livesey, (52 mins in ) sitting in for Shelagh Fogarty, claims that the survey is an ‘absolutely damning indictment’ of the NHS (under the Tories)…before bringing in a health union spokeswoman to give us her considered opinion. No need to wonder what the line was.…a massively pressured financial situation…staff shortages due to cuts.

Unfortunately, for the BBC’s agenda,  Livesey unwittingly brought on a patient, Dan Sencier, who had cancer and had been badly treated by the NHS which, in his own health area, seemed determined not to treat him losing his notes, not replying to letters and emails and removing him from their patient list when he wrote to complain.  He was diagnosed with cancer on the 8th June 2010.…hmmmm…those Tory led ‘cuts’ had a pretty quick effect no?

Eventually he came up with a solution…to ‘shop around’ for the best NHS service available to him.…..when he said this Livesey jumped in and diverted away.…why might he do that?

Shopping around is of course the Tory led Government’s  policy for freedom of choice in the NHS enabling you to assess which hospital can give you the best treatment and allowing you to go there.

And that’s exactly what happened…..this is nothing to do with budget or nursing….just poor admin and NHS bureaucracy……but that doesn’t make for much of a story for the BBC……and look how old Dan Sencier’s story is…..the Daily Mail reported it in 2011…so why has the BBC dug up his story now to illustrate the current state of the NHS?  Are there no more recent stories?

The BBC’s  two stories……. no more than Labour Party propaganda dressed up as journalism.

It does seem Dan Sencier is unlucky with admin….his cancer may be gone but this has got to hurt:
‘I continue at University, now in my third year, but not without problems. Due to a cock up in the admin I was missed out of the students who are allowed access to the main media web site. This meant that I’ve completed 2 years without key information that was available to all other students in my year group. The enquiry is still ongoing, but it looks like I will be doing a fourth year (fully funded) to complete the media module. I don’t mind too much, I love it there and the people are great, so what’s another year? ‘