209 Responses to OPEN THREAD WEDNESDAY

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  1. AsISeeIt says:
    April 19, 2013 at 1:20 pm

    Just can’t wait for Mark Mardell to pop up and tell us all about these ‘home grown’ Boston bombing ‘extreme right-wing’ good ol’ boys.

    Perhaps he can then elighten us as to his brilliant sources for that ‘security chatter’ which tipped him and the BBC off and put us all on red alert for the NRA survivalist anti-Federalists.

    What?
    It’s starting to look like a bum steer?
    Our BBC and their top Washington correspondent have sold us a pup?

       8 likes

  2. Jon Wood says:
    April 19, 2013 at 2:42 pm

    Away from Boston

    I note that another Minor celebrity who has appeared on BBC a couple of times has been interveiwed under caution.

       2 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:
      April 19, 2013 at 3:50 pm

      None of the others fingered so far has come as much of a surprise. But Rolf…. 😯 that would destroy some childhood memories!

         4 likes

  3. George R says:
    April 19, 2013 at 5:54 pm

    “Nearly 80 percent of UK Jewish community sees BBC bias against Israel.”

    http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3294/nearly_80_percent_of_uk_jewish_community_sees_bbc_bias_against_israel

       5 likes

  4. Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
    April 19, 2013 at 7:13 pm

    Inbbc has just discovered a new sarffff..london accent.
    Its mcle multiculti london english.
    Oh FFS!
    How much more of my licence fee are these knobs going to piss up the wall?

       5 likes

  5. #88 says:
    April 19, 2013 at 10:58 pm

    There were an interesting couple of editorial decisions on the BBC Ten o’ Clock News this evening.

    With regard to Boston they were happy to continue to speculate that the Marathon Bombers has a ‘home grown’ motive but not that they may have been radicalised, despite growing evidence that this may have been the case. The BBC restricted themselves to say that the motive may be from elsewhere.

    AND…the BBC new chose not to mention, at all, that the Tories today launched their local election campaign – unlike their coverage of Miliband’s launch yesterday. They nevertheless found time in their bulletin to report the launch of the Green’s campaign.
    Extraordinary and unjustifiable.

       14 likes

  6. Joshaw says:
    April 20, 2013 at 12:59 pm

    I feel a rant coming on.

    Just put the TV on (Saturday lunchtime) to get the latest news. TV came on in the middle of a discussion about the Boston bombing. Lineup looked more like the UN than the British Broadcasting Corporation. Much talk about other violence among American kids being to blame, second generation alienation, the internet, then some reference to poor prospects for youth in the UK affecting certain people in places like Bradford. No mention of you-know-what being the common factor from Thailand to Timbuktu.

    Then there was condemnation of people who anticipated the identity of the bombers (and they didn’t mean white supremacists) and then the inevitable concern about a backlash of Islamophobia.

    This disgusting organisation is actually getting worse. There are photographs taken shortly after the bombing of some poor sod with the ends of his legs missing and these foul examples on the BBC dare to show disgust at the fact that some people were thrown off buses for speaking Arabic following 9/11.

    They were afraid of being killed, you idiots!

    Rant over.

       10 likes

    • Andrew says:
      April 20, 2013 at 2:01 pm

      For those sure there is no conspiracy at the BBC and that any bias is merely an accidental result of an accumulation of liberal/Left-thinking middle class arts graduates in the state media, the BBC’s appeasement of Islam is awkward. The BBC ought to be sceptical of it as a religion (being based on faith not reason) and a more militant one than our own CofE. They ought to worry about the ill-treatment of women, gays and infidels, plus the calls for violence. They instead practise a dishonest double-think in which White people are judged by higher standards than Moslems or Blacks – the very racism they claim to deplore. They pick on easy targets like the BNP or UKIP, who won’t kill them, while sucking up to the religious terrorists whom they are too gutless to oppose. Even as a strategy for appeasement, this is flawed, as each concession emboldens the enemy, while the BBC itself hinders public understanding of the menace.

         8 likes

      • Owen Morgan says:
        April 22, 2013 at 3:29 am

        See “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.”

        While it’s far from being the best written book I have read, it does a decent job of exposing the hypocrisy of leftists who, for instance, extol women’s rights, until that clashes with islamic “honour killings”; who are all in favour of same-sex marriages here, but turn a blind eye to the judicial murder of homosexuals, hanged from cranes, in Iran; who indulge the right to protest in this country, but remain utterly silent, when much braver people are gunned down for protesting in Tehran.

           0 likes

  7. Alex says:
    April 20, 2013 at 4:49 pm

    What vile groveling to Islam this gushing BBC blog represents…

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogbbctv/posts/Make-Me-A-Muslim-What-brings-women-to-faith?sortBy=RatingValue&sortOrder=Ascending

    I wonder if the sycophantic BBC lefties would make a film about Muslims converting to Christianity? No, I suppose being blown up in Egypt because you’ve converted to Christianity doesn’t make happy viewing. Revolting!

       9 likes

    • thoughtful says:
      April 20, 2013 at 9:31 pm

      They can’t ever make a film about Moslems converting to Christianity without completely anonymising the subjects. Any Moslem leaving the ideology risks being branded an apostate and from then on it’s the duty of every other Moslem to kill them.

      But be careful what you wish for becase there are plenty of Moslem asylum seekers who claim to have converted and then that they cannot be sent back because they would be killed. Of course this is all done under Al Taqieh which allows a Moslem to drink alcohol, eat porkm and deny his faith, providing he returns to it when able.

      I can just see the angle the bBC would give to this and Al Taqieh wouldn’t even get a mention.

         6 likes

  8. George R says:
    April 20, 2013 at 7:22 pm

    LEVESON affair.

    -Cant’ find this reported by BBC-NUJ:-

    “Leveson and a very disturbing affair”

    By DAILY MAIL COMMENT.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2311876/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Leveson-disturbing-affair.html#ixzz2R1qyByBB

       3 likes

  9. Matthew says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:01 pm

    BBC are describing this as a ‘schoolboy error’ as its title in the Features section.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

    What they fail to mention is that the alleged schoolboy is a 28 year old graduate student.

       3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      April 20, 2013 at 10:10 pm

      But the BBC is most interested in this because it debunks a paper which claimed that massive debt seriously restricts growth. That’s heresy at the BBC, and they’re happy to point out when it can be even partially disproved.

         3 likes

    • Matthew says:
      April 20, 2013 at 10:12 pm

      Of course, the underlying message from the BBC is

      “Austerity proved wrong”
      “Conservatives are idiots”

      And so on.

      The actual issues are far more complex than this, but the BBC are gloating and promoting as a big story that the economists didnt include all the countries in their average, and that the subjective view of the socalled schoolboy must therefore trump the subjective view of the Harvard Professors.

      A dubious conclusion for sure, but the message from the headlines is very clear. “The students who caught out the profs of austerity” = austerity bad.

         6 likes

    • Matthew says:
      April 20, 2013 at 10:27 pm

      Another typical BBC theme, is to only report the left wing opposition, not the original right wing viewpoint. The current BBC debunking, actually the third in two days:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22198809

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22197958

      Suggests that this study “spread”, was “famous” and “policymakers wanted to know more”.

      Yet for all this a google search shows, that er, the BBC have published not one article about it, despite it being 3 years old. It’s mentioned a few times in comments on BBC pages, but never acknowledged by the BBC itself.

      So in other words, it wasn’t worthy of comment until it turned out some part of it didnt use all the available data, and then it becomes major news, with some leftwing grad student interviewed at length about it, a privilege at no time afforded to the distinguished professors who wrote it.

         6 likes

  10. AsISeeIt says:
    April 21, 2013 at 8:53 am

    Does Question Time share an audience with The Voice?

    It is the little things which give away the BBC’s institutional biases.

    Poker Tells – definition:
    A tell is effectively a change in the way a player is acting at the poker table. More often than not, it is a very subtle change but one that you can spot and use to your advantage. In order to capitalise on the tell, you have to not only be able to notice it but also to interpret it correctly. Some players tell unconsciously and thus their behaviour is reliable.

    Now many here will have heard BBC Question Time audiences respond to some inane sloganised Leftish sentiment from the panel and inexplicably applaud it to the rafters. The QT audience is of course regularly stacked with public sector workers, single (leftist) issue campaigners and Labour activists. Last week Dimbleby closed the show by thanking the audience in Aldershot, to which town, he acknowledged, many had had a long journey. Really? I wonder why?

    I have teenage daughters. Consequently I find myself watching The Voice. It is another Karaoke competition but one where BBC values clean up the genre developed by Simon Cowell and make it all less cruel but rather worthy.

    The sound of the audience response to the acts are obviously edited and manipulated – from dramatic utter silence to near insane cheers and whoops.

    (There is an inconsistency here already – I have been to BBC audience recordings and have been given the instruction : ‘don’t whoop, you are not Americans!)

    Now this is what I’ve noticed about the whooping and cheering amplified by the BBC production team on the voice….

    Whenever a contestant is asked about which part of the British Isles it is from which they hale, then the further that location is from London and the South East the louder the cheer.

    Northern towns and the Celtic fringe get big cheers.

    Then there is the question about what the contestants happen to do for a living. Any occupation in the public sector is similarly cheered and whooped to the very rafters.

    Don’t believe me? Watch the show. Witness some of the little ‘poker tells’ that reveal the BBC’s anti-private sector attitude and condescending regional biases.

       9 likes

    • Old Goat says:
      April 21, 2013 at 10:28 am

      “The Voice”? Just another “shriekfest”, which I avoid like the plague. Whatever happened to respectful applause? A rarity, indeed – it’s all just inane ululation, now. Awful.

      And how can you possibly justify cheers and shrieks merely by living somewhere? The world’s gone mad.

         7 likes

    • Andrew says:
      April 21, 2013 at 11:25 am

      Typical BBC infantilism: the crude division of the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and the shrieking, booing, emotional reaction to what is ‘bad’ achieved by audience manipulation and tolerated by one or other of the Dimblebys. I thought Kenneth Clarke and Menzies Campbell did very well during the first “Question Time” after Lady Thatcher’s death, keeping the debate at a higher level with calm reasoned argument. The TV-lynchings of the US Ambassador (post ‘9/11’ in 2001) and more recently of Nicholas Griffin (BNP) on “QT” were nadirs of their kind. My father gave up on “QT” decades ago … and I can see what he means, though I still watch it sometimes just to see the BBC bias in action.

         6 likes

  11. Colonel Blimp says:
    April 21, 2013 at 10:40 am

    I found this article interesting

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22213219

    A comedian writes about Excel errors after the Reinhardt/Rogof paper was found to be wrong. All part of the BBC’s unbridled joy that austerity has been found to be wrong and based on a mistake (although the conclusions of the paper largely remain the same after the error is collected, albeit much toned down). Strangely I don’t remember any similar articles about errors in mathematical models when someone fed white noise into Mann’s climate model and showed that you could put *anything* into it and it would produce a hockey stick

       6 likes

  12. harry toe says:
    April 21, 2013 at 11:35 am

    BBC will not be judgemental and must avoid “triumphalism” in new TV series about the First World War. Presumably, to beeboids this means the Germans were the good guys!

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312200/BBC-infuriates-veterans-plans-British-German-troops-equal-prominence-First-World-War-centenary-drama.html

    I pay £145 for this revisionist piece of crap? Makes my damned blood boil.

    Wonder how many of the the writers/directors/producers behind this garbage are paedo’s or tax dodgers?

       5 likes

    • Albaman says:
      April 21, 2013 at 12:39 pm

      I find it difficult to see anything triumphal in a conflict that led to the death of over 37 million military and civilian casualties.
      As for the Daily Mail’s assertion that this has infuriated veterans one can only wonder who they are talking to bearing in mind that the conflict ended some 95 years ago.

         6 likes

      • Andrew says:
        April 21, 2013 at 1:00 pm

        You know who veterans are. A man of 20 (i.e. of fighting age) in 1939-45 might well still be alive, even if the last WWI veterans Henry Allingham, Harry Patch et al are now no longer with us. This applies even more to veterans of Korea, the Falklands War, Afghanistan, etc.

           4 likes

      • harry toe says:
        April 22, 2013 at 12:49 am

        Indeed, most of the WW1 veterans are now deceased. So, why do the BBC choose to spit on their graves? Only the leftoid jackals at the BBC would think of defecating on the heroism of their own country’s brave soldiers. After all, they were only pitiful, unenlightened patriots weren’t they? And as they are dead: screw them. They can’t fight back can they! I bet all your Islington chums enjoy engineering this kind of treason. And I see the lot of you are laughing all the way to the bank – don’t forget that WE (the license-fee payers) pay for all this. Why do you bother trolling this blog? Go back to swilling champagne at your progressive dinner parties.

           1 likes

  13. George R says:
    April 21, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    SYRIA.

    INBBC continues its propaganda for West to aid the Sunni jihadists.

    “Syria crisis: US steps up aid to rebels at talks in Turkey”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22232313

    ‘Jihadwatch’:-

    “Syrian rebels announce plans to implement Sharia;
    U.S. gives them $123 million more in aid.”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/04/syrian-rebels-announce-plans-to-implement-sharia-us-gives-them-123-million-more-in-aid.html

       2 likes

  14. Sidleybird says:
    April 21, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    Just wanted to share this nice summation of the BBC mindset by Jonathan Foreman:
    “The most important thing to understand about BBC bias is that, like its institutional obsessions with youth and celebrity, it is neither conscious nor in any way officially mandated. There are no orders from the top reminding journalists that Israel should be considered the greatest threat to peace, freedom, and justice, or that businessmen should generally be treated as crooks until proven innocent. That is just what everyone in the corporation believes in the same way that they know the world is round. Moreover, it is what they believe that everyone else—by which I mean everyone who is intelligent, educated, and of decent moral character—believes.”

    Full article here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-bbc/

       6 likes

    • chrisH says:
      April 21, 2013 at 7:59 pm

      A devastating critique….as if the BBC would ever consider it so.
      Maybe we need another “Shameless”, where the likes of Evan Davis and Michael Rosen are played by comedy actors om ITV…liberal elite, up their own arses and ridiculous.
      I`d have Jo Brand and Jonathan Ross in a Hampstead Waitrose to start it.

         2 likes

  15. Teddy Bear says:
    April 21, 2013 at 5:30 pm

    Earlier this year we observed the BBC in full ‘politically correct’ mode editing out certain lines from the Fawlty Towers episode of The Germans. It was noted that only those with a BBC like mindset could find offence with it as the rest of us understood exactly how to see it.

    The scene involves Basil Fawlty and the major, played by actor Ballard Berkeley, exchanging their normal pleasantries before the conversation moves on to Basil’s wife Sybil and women in general.

    The major tells Fawlty about the time he took a woman to see India play cricket at the Oval. He then says: ‘The strange thing was, throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. “No, no, no,” I said, “the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs”.’

    Most viewers who complained to the BBC about their editing this line out made the point that the ‘bigoted character’ was meant to be laughed at – not with.

    Now there’s another scene from this episode we can expect to be edited out, or perhaps they won’t even show it again:

    article-2267351-0C9CFBB300000578-650_634x415.jpg

    It seems the BBC don’t want to offend the Germans with a new WW1 Drama about the war, so a drama they commissioned and scheduled to be run during Armistice week, is to give equal prominence to both sides.

    The Great War, which the writer admits ‘will probably cause controversy’, is said to be part of a BBC strategy to guard against any ‘triumphalism’ over the Allied victory in the 1914-18 conflict. However, according to one insider, BBC bosses are sensitive about ‘not offending the Germans’ – partly because they hope to sell the drama to Germany and other European broadcasters.

    So we can see how the BBC justify their output, putting ‘high minded’ reasons as the basis, at least in their mind, yet underneath that thin veneer we see a far less altruistic motive. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were open and honest about it to begin with, but that as we know is not the BBC way. ‘Transparency’ is just a phrase they mouth to convince the public that they understand it, not what they actually are.

    Perhaps the worst part to this story is this:
    The series creator Tony Jordan, a former EastEnders lead writer, said he realised the decision to give equal weight to both perspectives might cause controversy, but dismissed any critics as ‘cretins’.

    He said: ‘If there’s a moron in Tunbridge Wells who thinks that what we’re commemorating is beating the s*** out of the Germans, then all I can say is these are the kinds of people who made the war happen in the first place.

    I would say that the cretin is himself. We expect the BBC to make programmes from the standpoint of our nation and our society. WE ARE THE ONES THAT PAY FOR IT. We can feel justifiably proud of our troops, and any veterans left, for going through an unimaginable tough time to prevent Germany taking over Europe. The very clear ethical justifications for going to war should be highlighted, and the lesson to be learned, that standing up for freedom and democracy when threatened does reap rewards, is a lesson that the BBC for one might benefit from.

    THE CRETINS ARE THOSE AT THE BBC.

    BBC infuriates veterans with plans to give British and German troops equal prominence in First World War centenary drama

       4 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      April 21, 2013 at 6:59 pm

      Is there such a thing as Tunbridgewellism? If not, a quango with a fat budget needs to be created asap, and a £100k Head of PR dispatched pronto to the Breakfast sofa to emote on the truly awful nature of the prejudice to the fabric of modern society.
      Mr. Jordan does rather seem to have laid out a hardly conciliatory view from the outset, presumably using the the BBC tried and trusted technique of getting one’s blows in first when they control the edit and can pull the plug when it suits. Usually that would be a risky course, but when you are essentially unaccountable then he’s likely in safe ground.
      Lord Hall Hall must be thrilled to have such spokesperson articulating the BBC’s ‘screw you’ vision to licence fee payers so… eloquently.
      The precedent of setting out what any critic daring to raise concerns is, in advance of them doing so, an interesting one.
      ‘Before we start Mr. Paxman, if any £1Mpa, post-McAlpine Islington media luvvie like you presumes to question any aspect of my words or deeds negatively, you are simply a cretin… OK? Fire away…’
      May breathe a bit of life back into the dead parrot that is Newsnight, mind.

         4 likes

      • Andrew says:
        April 21, 2013 at 7:41 pm

        What of Glasgowism? Or Manchesterism? Or, God forbid, Salfordism? Would anyone be allowed to stereotype these places and their inhabitants?!

           2 likes

  16. stewart says:
    April 21, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    Realised it would cause controversy but did it anyway.Bit like having a character in a children’s program call the Falkland islands ‘Las Malvinas’?
    ‘Dismissed any critics as ‘cretins’.Sound a bit like a member of a self appointed ‘liberal elite’ holding the ‘lower orders’ in contempt?
    Clear evidence (except to those who refuse to see or think it legitimate) that the BBC are on ideological mission and denounce any that oppose them as witches and heretics.
    “‘If there’s a moron in Tunbridge Wells who thinks that what we’re commemorating is beating the s*** out of the Germans, then all I can say is these are the kinds of people who made the war happen in the first place.”
    No Mr.Jordan they are the kind of people that fought that war,and secured your freedom to piss on their graves.

       5 likes

  17. AsISeeIt says:
    April 21, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    Oh dear, a PC dilemma in the world of ‘elf ‘n’ saftey.

    A wheelchair user runs down an elite African woman runner.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2312424/London-Marathon-2013-Tiki-Gelena-crashes-wheelchair-athlete-Josh-Cassidy-Priscah-Jeptoo-wins-womens-elite-race.html

    ‘I have a brand new 2,000 dollars pair of wheels that are damaged, who’s going to pay for them? Things have to change.’

    Now where were are my PC top trumps? Inclusion versus elf n saftey?

    Wheelchair (expensive) versus black African woman?

    Wisely the BBC play down the incident.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22236946

    ‘In the women’s elite race, there was controversy early on when 2010 wheelchair winner Josh Cassidy dropped out after a collision with Olympic champion runner Tiki Gelana.’

       4 likes

    • David Brims says:
      April 21, 2013 at 10:23 pm

      In the Cultural Marxist world, black trumps disabled.

      1. Black
      2. Muslim
      3. Gay
      4. Women
      5. Disabled

         2 likes

  18. Jeff Waters says:
    April 21, 2013 at 9:14 pm

    Can we have a new open thread please?

    Jeff

       1 likes

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