Very, very funny today on Today…Justin Webb stunned before a prolonged squealing of indignation whined its way out of him.

They’re talking about racism in the acting business and why Black actors apparently have to go to the US to get work.

Black actor Gary Beadle says that we are in denial….’There is’, he said…Webb interrupts to suggest ‘racism’…Beadle says…’No…more ‘institutional attitudes’ [racism then]…and it’s ‘rampant in the Arts’.’

Which is on one level funny/ironic…because of course it’s the ‘Arts’ mob that is always taking the high  ground on moral issues…when we know they are as bad, if not worse than everyone else….Russell Brand springs to mind for instance.

Then Simon Albury,  diversity co-ordinator for the Arts (to promote, celebrate and share good practice around the diversity agenda) spoke up….he laid into the BBC…

Having walked through the BBC’s news room  ( with the posters of George Bush as Hitler?) , in the middle of London, when London is 40% black and minority ethnic, he saw one Asian who was there merely to bring guests in, otherwise the news room was fully white, behind him was a control booth, in it were 6 white men and 1 white woman….it’s clear, he said, that the broadcasting,  film and creative industries cannot be trusted to deliver (diversity).

Webb lost it then, his beloved BBC under attack and he in turn attacked Albury….hardly able to get the words out he said:  ‘You’re head of the diversity organisation and you’re white…’

The meaning of that was perfectly clear…if you’re white you cannot possibly make a judgement about racial discrimination…because of course being white you must in fact be a racist.

Well…that’s a bit racist in itself….and it begs the question what colour does Justin Webb think he is himself?  Does he have no mirrors in his house?  And yet he quite happily sets up his little kangaroo court day in day out ‘judging’ various things about which he has little real experience.

Albury counters…‘It is ironic you’ve invited me here instead of Trevor Phillips or Lenny Henry’.

Webb…‘Well you needn’t have accepted’.

So there…

Well…perhaps someone has to stand up and make some noise because if you’re Black and complain you may not work in this here BBC town again…..

Patrick Robinson, who has appeared in television series such as Casualty, claimed that he was ostracised by one of the BBC’s executives for almost a decade after he spoke out about the lack of opportunities for black actors.

For the BBC, the consideration of equality and diversity is vital. Strong reach and share, high quality programming and high audience appreciation across all our output are essential to the continued success of the BBC and we recognise diversity as a creative opportunity that enhances the originality and distinctiveness of our output and drives innovation. One of the BBC’s core values is ‘working together’ and to us that’s just as important beyond as well as within the BBC. Working in collaboration with other broadcasters and media sector bodies has helped the CDN establish a clear common vision of what good looks like – in terms of increased diversity on and off screen. The job now is to find practical and creative ways to make that happen and to build on work already undertaken. It will only be by our continuing to work together that we will make the most sustained impact.

Diversity website at the BBC

Oona King was more impressed  by Albury….

Oona King, now Baroness King of Bow, paid tribute to Albury’s championing of diversity in broadcasting, and said that his legacy included being “at the forefront” of the establishment of the industry’s Cultural Diversity Network. “He was persistently coming up with ideas to unlock the unyielding grip white men had on the broadcasting industry,” King recalled. “I love white men, I think they are so great I married one … I think they are wonderful, But I felt they shouldn’t be the only group in charge of TV.”

But is it all to do with ‘race’?

Black actors complain of being stereotyped in the UK…however similar complaints are made by white actors who go to the US:

Oscar-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren has complained about British actors being typecast as villains.

‘‘I think it’s rather unfortunate that the villain in every movie is always British, we’re such an easy target that they can comfortably make the Brits the villains.

Speak to some producers working in US television and they will admit cost is an issue.

Cheap labour

“More value-for-money, that’s really what it is. If they wanted someone experienced and I was American, they’d pay a lot of money – and I’d be better known, I suppose. We’re cheaper.”

English actor James Purefoy, who played Mark Antony in Rome, believes the network of British actors is perceived by American colleagues as cheap labour.

“We are often referred to in Los Angeles as white Mexicans,” he told an audience of British hopefuls at a seminar on how to make it in America.

Then there’s the fact of life as an actor…you’re mostly just ‘resting’…..

As we mentioned in a previous article, it’s a fact that at any one time around 90% of actors are out of work, and only 5% of the remaining ten percent make a living from doing just acting alone.

There’s clearly only a small pool of successful actors and decent jobs out there….only 0.5% of actors can make ‘a living’ purely from acting.

So there’s a massive amount of competition out there treading the boards…so just how far should the special pleading and positive discrimination go?

Though this is a fair question…

As some one new to acting , being an ethnic minority, has been an interesting position.
I look at some of the roles advertised as white, Caucasian( another name used to describe non ethnic minorities) and think does that role need to be for a white Caucasian person?
For instance, a fitness instructor, the advert says must be white, why?

This issue has been making headlines for a while now……..here’s a Guardian article from Feb. 2012:

Why black British actors are heading for the US

This from The Stage in 2011:

‘Talent drain’ warning as black actors head to the US

TV and theatre is suffering from a talent drain of black British actors, with many looking to the US for work because of the lack of opportunities in the UK, leading figures have warned.

Webb’s reaction to criticism of the BBC was classic BBC…an unwillingness to accept it, usually it is either laughed off as ‘ridiculous nonsense’ or, as here, they get very tetchy.

Of course all the more enjoyable to see the self proclaimed ‘great and the good’, BBC included,  pilloried for what the BBC considers the most heinous crime…racism.

Many countries chose to adopt the Euro…many countries are living to regret that as even the EU has now admitted….however the BBC doesn’t seem to want to report such a major admission of fault  the Telegraph reported it at 5:00 pm:

From the Telegraph:

Euro ‘increasing unemployment and social hardship’, says EC

Deepening economic divisions between North and South, rich and poor eurozone countries threaten to undermine the European Union itself, report states

You may see the relevance of this photograph of Muslims making the Quenelle gesture when you listen to this broadcast about the decisive battle against Muslim invaders into Europe…

The Battle of Tours (Poitiers)

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Tours. In 732 a large Arab army invaded Gaul from northern Spain, and travelled as far north as Poitiers. There they were defeated by Charles Martel, whose Frankish and Burgundian forces repelled the invaders. The result confirmed the regional supremacy of Charles, who went on to establish a strong Frankish dynasty. The Battle of Tours was the last major incursion of Muslim armies into northern Europe; some historians, including Edward Gibbon, have seen it as the decisive moment that determined that the continent would remain Christian.

Listening to 5Live I caught this look at Zoopla (17 mins) ending its sponsorship of West Brom because Anelka made what is an anti-Semitic gesture.

We heard that the owner of Zoopla was Jewish…but no indication of Anelka’s religion.

Anelka was quoted as saying this was an anti-‘system’ gesture not anti-religion….strange choice of word there by Anelka.

Lucy Grey, the BBC presenter, then asked ‘Is this Opportunistic of Zoopla?‘….Suggesting perhaps they weren’t really offended…that there was nothing to be offended about?

The equivocation, scepticism and lack of depth as to the nature of the Quenelle made me have another look at the subject…..

The BBC were slow to realise the significance of Zoopla’s move, reported 4 days ago but barely noticed by the BBC.

That seems to have changed today as it is given a prominent place on the Frontpage:

The BBC however still have problems with deciding whether the ‘Quenelle’ is anti-Semitic or merely an ‘up you‘ to government.  (Wonder how they would take it if it was a Tea Party member who made a similar salute?…the BBC’s disdain for white, anti-government Americans being well known).

Sky has no such problem:

The Truth Behind Footballer’s ‘Sick’ Salute

Nicolas Anelka may or may not have known what he was doing with his Nazi-like salute, but his great friend, the French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, almost certainly does.

Dieudonne is smart. Very smart.  He’s smart enough to invert an idea, and invent a gesture, and direct them towards the same place – modern anti-Semitism.

Newsnight had a look at this with its now infamously coy description of the Neo-Nazi Alain Soral as merely a ‘writer and film-maker’ and a close friend of Dieudonne.  Paxman does says twice that the gesture is anti-Semitic but allows Soral to get away with several references to the ‘Zionist lobby’…or the ‘System’…Paxman should have been asking exactly what he meant by that as it was clear it was being used as a euphemism for Jewish….the ‘System’ also a euphemism…as Dieudonne claims the ‘System’ is being run by Jews.  Soral himself says ‘That’s the question’….except Paxman doesn’t take him up on that.

We are told supporters of Dieudonne say if there are no disturbances at Dieudonne’s shows, and there hasn’t been we are reassured by the BBC, then what is the problem?…even if it was anti-Semitic?

The problem might be that it is not only people in the theatre that see these performances…Newsnight itself admits that You Tube broadcasts of the shows get 2 million hits a week….just how many of those viewers then become ‘poisoned’ (using Sarah Montague’s description of the supposed effect of the EDL’s own statements) and then go on to act out their prejudices for real?

And what of Soral?  He is a well known Neo-Nazi….Newsnight even flashed this picture of him making the Quenelle salute at the Holocaust memorial up on the screen:

And yet Paxman made no link to that during the interview.

The BBC, Paxman aside,  do seem reluctant to come out and say outright that the Quenelle is an anti-Semitic gesture….or that it is associated with some Muslims…the BBC preferring to link it to the Far Right and in this report allows Dieudonne to get away with using  ‘Zionist’ rather than Jew or anti-semitic. 

‘It is the trademark of the hugely controversial French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, who once said he would like to put a quenelle – a rugby-ball-shaped serving of fish or meat paste – up the backside of Zionists.

Dieudonne made the gesture when he headed his own anti-Zionist campaign in the European elections in 2009. French media trace it further back, to one of his performances in 2005. It came to greater prominence in September when two soldiers were photographed appearing to make the gesture outside a Paris synagogue.

There are thousands of examples posted online, some at sensitive sites such as the Auschwitz death camp, and Dieudonne’s fans can be seen repeating it outside his theatre.

Both Anelka and Dieudonne say it is an anti-establishment symbol of defiance. But the French sports minister, Valerie Fourneyron, was one of many to disagree with the footballer’s interpretation, saying it was sickening and incited racial hatred.’

We were told in one interview with an ‘expert’ that it was the ‘Far Right, radical Muslims and youths from the Banlieues’ who are following Dieudonne in big numbers….so that’ll be the Far Right, radical Muslims and lots of other Muslims from the Muslim Banlieues then.

Just what are the BBC hiding with this constant refusal to admit ‘normal’ Muslims are making the gesture…such as Anelka?

Here Anelka Tweets his excuse:

Another ‘supporter’ of Dieudonne doing the Quenelle outside the Jewish school in Toulouse where a Muslim killed some of the pupils.

But Anelka is a good friend of Dieudonne….and here he is once again making the salute…this time in a theatre, so presumably he is there to see the show……he must be under no illusions exactly what Dieudonne means…..

Dieudonne has publically supported the openly anti-Semitic views of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and even dedicated his live show “Mahmoud” to him.

“What he says about Jews, no one else would even dare to utter,” says Camus. He is the most prominent proponent of anti-Semitism in France. He breaks all the taboos.”

This is a screenshot of Dieudonne from his film L’Antisémite.……

 Guess who the ‘them’ might be…….

“L’Antisémite,” directed by and starring the French comedian Dieudonné, was, according to Le Monde, co-produced by Iran:

After images that hold Auschwitz up for derision, we see the shoot of a film centered on an alcoholic and violent character who is disguised as a Nazi officer for a costume party. The Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson appears as himself for a few minutes, the Shoah is personified as a saint.

Here’s the trailer. In voice-over, a woman says:

Tell me you’re not an anti-Semite. My love, it’s a sickness. You have to be truly cured. For the children. Anti-Semitism is the worst thing that could happen to them.

Then, on camera, Dieudonné says:

You’re right, my dear. I’m an anti-Semite. It’s clear the Jews control everything—the media, finance, politics. We no longer have a choice. We must—

and he turns to camera and, staring into it, says—

exterminate them.

 

Now you might be thinking that he’s just acting, those words or sentiments are merely what’s in the script…..but have a look at this Press TV interview Dieudonne has done…..once he gets onto the ‘Zionist Lobby’…you will soon note the exact same sentiments towards them as on the film as a whole…..

He says…...I will be happy to celebrate the destruction of Israel…the Jews are the greatest Mafia in the history of mankind….we should always fight against those who do bad in the world…and those who created the State of Israel.

So is the Quenelle just ‘anti-System‘?

To Dieudonne the ‘System’ is the Jews, the Zionist Lobby which ‘runs the world’…..so anti-system is merely an evasive subterfuge for saying anti-Semitic.

Here the BBC ask….

What is the quenelle gesture?

Jean-Yves Camus, a French academic who studies the extreme right, told the Independent the quenelle has become a “badge of identity, especially among the young, but it is doubtful that all of them understand its true meaning”. He says Dieudonne has become the hero of a movement convinced the world is run by Washington and Tel Aviv.

Note no mention of Muslims.

And again here the BBC miss out a certain sector of society well known for anti-Semitic views (Their ‘dirty little secret’ as Mehdi Hasan called it):

 Can you accidentally do a Nazi salute?

A 20-year-old Greek footballer has been banned for life from playing for his national team after a controversial goal celebration in which he appeared to give a Nazi salute. The player says he hadn’t understood the meaning of the gesture – but is it possible, in 2013, for a European to be so poorly informed?

Many parties on the fringes of European politics employ elements of neo-Nazi symbolism, he says, although they present it as something else to stay on the right side of the law.

In particular, those groups have managed to infiltrate sport in countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK.

“Football culture is symbolically rich and neo-Nazi-type gestures and symbols have become immersed in certain of those cultures… It’s obvious what they represent.”

In 2005, the then Lazio striker Paolo Di Canio received a one-game ban for a raised-arm salute.

Contesting the ban, he described himself as a “fascist” but “not a racist”.

“I made the Roman salute because it’s a salute from a comrade to his comrades and was meant for my people,” he said.

Matthew Goodwin, associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, and a specialist in political extremism, thinks that it is inconceivable that young Europeans could be entirely ignorant of the associations of neo-Nazi symbolism.

“Europe still displays a fascination with Nazi Germany – its paraphernalia and culture is still very heavily present. There is the popular culture, the films – the symbolism is still represented,” he says.

In Greece, in particular, it is “incredibly doubtful” that people don’t have notion of what the symbolism or gestures mean, says Goodwin – partly because of all the fuss over Golden Dawn.

“It’s not a marginal issue,” he says.

“Naivete and ignorance is difficult to digest in modern Greece.”

Once again the BBC refers solely to the ‘Far Right’.

Of course Muslims would never think of doing such a salute….and if they did, the BBC would never report it…….

Hezbollah and the Mullahs of Iran.

Hamas reaching for the TV remote.

“The Hamas credo is not just anti-Israel, but profoundly anti-Semitic with racism at its core. The Hamas Charter reads like a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf.'”

Here is the Hamas Charter:

"Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it

as it had eliminated its predecessors."

         The Imam and Martyr Hassan al-Banna

[Al-Banna has had a huge influence on Islamic thought.

He is the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan and older brother of Gamal Al-Banna.]

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.

Nothing is loftier or deeper in Nationalism than waging Jihad against the enemy and confronting him when he sets foot on the land of the Muslims. And this becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman; a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorization, and a slave without his masters’ permission.

 Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill

From Harry’s Place….just so we know what’s what and who supports who….

Labour and Hamas UK

The BBC go on to tell us that…..

Anelka is not the first French footballer playing in England to make the gesture. Samir Nasri and Mamadou Sakho were also photographed in this way, although Sakho later tweeted that he had been tricked and didn’t realise its true meaning.

‘French footballers’?

Anelka is a Muslim, Sakho is a Muslim, Nasri is also Muslim…why no mention….not relevant?

Mamadou Sakho (L), Tony Parker (C), and Samir Nasri (R). Photos: Screengrab/Slate/Youtube/DieuPharaon/AstuceFoot

The Quenelle is clearly intended by Dieudonne to be an anti-Semitic salute…the evidence is just too overwhelming to say otherwise….pity the BBC doesn’t seem too keen to look hard into this and seems more concerned to deflect people off into looking at the ‘Far Right’ whilst failing to mention that three footballers who made the gesture are all Muslim.

The BBC fails in its obligations to inform us and bring us the News…instead bringing us a version of the news that bares only a passing resemblance to the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Hiding the fact that some Muslims maybe anti-Semitic is an insult to everyone…..the BBC were quick to report the exaggerated claims of the Muslim pressure group ‘Tell Mama’ about alleged incidents of anti-Muslim attacks but seems all too keen to sweep under the carpet incidents of anti-Semitism, all too willing to ascribe it to some other intention or to blame some other convenient scapegoats.

Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph tells us the truth about ‘Tell Mama’…and about the BBC…

“Over the past week or so, these sorts of hate crimes have noticeably increased in number and, in many instances, become more extreme.

Sorry this is late but here you go….a new thread to start the week.

Grahame Morris MP announced as new Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East

Wonder if the BBC has any comment about this Labour fruitcake (via Harry’s Place):

Grahame Morris’s ill judged ‘Nazis’ tweet

Bishop Hill has spotted the remarkable similarity between the takedown of a high flying academic in the field of psychology and that of Steve McIntyre and the Hockey Stick debunking.

The only difference being one is a hero to the Guardian, the other a miserable oddball trouble maker…..the BBC’s dreaded ‘Blogger’…..

Unfortunately, while his grasp of maths was strong enough to see the problem, it wasn’t sufficiently firm to be able to mount an academic takedown of Fredrickson’s and Losada’s work…..he decided to seek the help of an academic mathematician. Not just any academic mathematician either, but one who had made a name for himself by puncturing the bogus use of maths and science in another discipline…. Alan Sokal.
 

[Note this next bit…..scientists careers and bank balances depending on a good write up…slaps on the back from fellow scientists, ‘peer review’, no doubt reciprocated….and of course this would entail closing down criticism as well perhaps]

Sokal did a little research and was amazed at the standing the Fredrickson and Losada paper enjoyed. “I don’t know what the figures are in psychology but I know that in physics having 350 citations is a big deal,” he says. “Look on Google you get something like 27,000 hits. This theory is not just big in academia, there’s a whole industry of coaching and it intersects with business and business schools. There’s a lot of money in it.”

The paper mounted a devastating case against the maths employed by Fredrickson and Losada, who were offered the chance to respond in the same online issue of American Psychologist. Losada declined and has thus far failed to defend his input in any public forum. But Fredrickson did write a reply, which, putting a positive spin on things, she titled Updated Thinking on Positivity Ratios.

[Here they note the ‘wishful thinking’….a scientist will find what he is looking for…by happily ignoring inconvenient other ‘things’ that contradict his exciting new theory]

What you do in science is you make a statement of what you think will happen and then run the experiment and see if it matches it. What you don’t do is pick up a bunch of data and start reading tea leaves. Because you can always find something. If you don’t have much data you shouldn’t go round theorising. Something orange is going to happen to you today, says the astrology chart. Sure enough, you’ll notice if an orange bicycle goes by you.”

I imagine the exact same thing goes on in climate science…the CRU emails proving that inconvenient science was blocked from publications…..and not just climate science…

In 2008 Physicist Lee Smolin’s book ‘The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science and What Comes Next’ was published.

What he had to say about the way science worked and how ideas and theories were produced and then supported regardless of reality was a stinging rebuke to those people who jump on a bandwagon and base their career and funding on the ‘truth’ of that idea….if the idea is discredited so are they, and the funding dries up…..

Here is what he says about String Theory and its proponents….

‘….with a cry of joy, most of these scientists seized on string theory as the answer.  But their enthusiasm was such that they came to think not that it might be the answer, but that it must be.  They formed themselves into a cult.  Dissenters and apostates were not just scorned, they were denied posts in universities.  Einstein the thinker could not now get a job in any leading physics department.  For any young physicist, it was easiest simply to suppress one‘s doubts and go with the stringies.’

Sounds familiar.

The British amateur who debunked the mathematics of happiness
The astonishing story of Nick Brown, the British man who began a part-time psychology course in his 50s – and ended up taking on America’s academic establishment

The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking.

Unfortunately, while his grasp of maths was strong enough to see the problem, it wasn’t sufficiently firm to be able to mount an academic takedown of Fredrickson’s and Losada’s work…..he decided to seek the help of an academic mathematician. Not just any academic mathematician either, but one who had made a name for himself by puncturing the bogus use of maths and science in another discipline…. Alan Sokal.

Sokal did a little research and was amazed at the standing the Fredrickson and Losada paper enjoyed. “I don’t know what the figures are in psychology but I know that in physics having 350 citations is a big deal,” he says. “Look on Google you get something like 27,000 hits. This theory is not just big in academia, there’s a whole industry of coaching and it intersects with business and business schools. There’s a lot of money in it.”

The paper mounted a devastating case against the maths employed by Fredrickson and Losada, who were offered the chance to respond in the same online issue of American Psychologist. Losada declined and has thus far failed to defend his input in any public forum. But Fredrickson did write a reply, which, putting a positive spin on things, she titled Updated Thinking on Positivity Ratios.
What you do in science is you make a statement of what you think will happen and then run the experiment and see if it matches it. What you don’t do is pick up a bunch of data and start reading tea leaves. Because you can always find something. If you don’t have much data you shouldn’t go round theorising. Something orange is going to happen to you today, says the astrology chart. Sure enough, you’ll notice if an orange bicycle goes by you.”

‘BBC staff ignored up to 1,000 attacks on children by predatory DJ Jimmy Savile’ according to new damning report lifting the lid on entire scandal

This is the most interesting comment from the Daily Mail article:

Liz Dux, a lawyer from Slater & Gordon, who is representing 74 of Savile’s victims, added: ‘This will not be a what-the-BBC-want sort of report.’

The report will ‘ go right to the heart of how Savile was able to get away with the most heinous of crimes under the very noses of BBC staff for more than 40 years.’

It may not be what they want but you can bet the first thing the BBC say is that in the round the report backs the BBC which dealt with the situation appropriately. The BBC made mistakes but we have learnt from them and now we must move on.

David Cameron ‘feeds fears of Christian persecution’, former Archbishop of Canterbury says

 Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has attacked David Cameron for doing more than any other recent political leader to feed Christian anxieties that they are part of a persecuted minority.

Guess nothing has changed.

Hugely disappointed in Farage for having succumbed to media pressure to dump his Christian councillor…..having had his ban on the man speaking to the media flouted.

Farage is happy to be sticking two fingers up at the politically correct when he thinks it makes him look good…such as when drinking beer or smoking but when it really counts he has made his excuses and ducked out.

Why would Farage ban the man from speaking to the media and expressing what are his beliefs based upon Christian teachings (and Muslim)?

Does this mean no Christian can now serve in government or in the Public Sector?

Has Cameron introduced, ironically, a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell‘ policy for Christians?

You can serve but keep quiet about your beliefs.

The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service.

The BBC interviewed Tory Michael Fallon this morning asking him about the state of UKIP….why ask him, is he likely to give a sensible answer?

There is clearly a much deeper issue here than party political abuse.

Rather than the state of UKIP shouldn’t the real question be about attitudes of the two faced politicians like Fallon and Cameron along with the media that ‘persecute’ Christians…whilst of course not daring to say anything about Islam.

Is not a question about the status of Christianity in Britain far more a relevant question…especially perhaps on a Sunday?

Are the Tories saying all Christians are ‘fruitcakes’?

A  senior Conservative minister who is tipped to the party’s next chairman warned there are still “fruitcakes” in the UK Independence Party.

Speaking about the state of Ukip on the BBC’s Sunday Politics Show (1 hour  9 mins), Michael Fallon, a business minister, said the comments showed that “there clearly are one or two fruitcakes still around there”.

This lot will have to go then…..

The Lords Spiritual

26 bishops of the Church of England sit in the House of Lords. Known as the Lords Spiritual, they read prayers at the start of each daily meeting and play a full and active role in the life and work of the Upper House.

Who Reads Prayers?

A senior bishop (Lord Spiritual) who sits in the Lords reads the prayers at the beginning of each sitting.

What might a prayer say?

Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Hmmm…‘Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven’….presumably the Will as expressed in the Bible.

Presumably those Bishops all believe in Christianity and all its teachings….are they also ‘fruitcakes’?

What about this bloke?

David Cameron: “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so”

David Cameron on Jesus, pancakes and Sunday mornings

David Cameron has described his faith as “not a bad handbook” for life but admitted he is unwilling to follow the example of Jesus to give all his possessions to the poor.

“I’m a Christian and I’m an active member of the Church of England, and like all Christians I think I sometimes struggle with some of the sayings and some of the instructions.

Perhaps, as said, the BBC should be challenging Cameron and Co on the hypocritical smear that Christians, UKIP Christians that is,  are ‘fruitcakes’….the BBC is more than happy to ring fence Islam and actively defend it……why no such ‘protection’ for Christians?

The BBC is having all too much fun poking a stick at UKIP…as usual.

Carrying on from the last post where I suggest the BBC is merely regurgitating the climate change lobby’s press releases you can see a particularly blatant example of that in their reporting of the ‘Anthropocene Era’.

It is a newly coined phrase to describe the era in which man’s influence on the planet changed it…for the worse.

Climate lobbyists would like to claim it began 200 years ago with industrialisation or even as late as the 1940’s….but more honest scientists would put man’s influence thousands of years before that:

Many scientists are now using the term and the Geological Society of America entitled its 2011 annual meeting: Archean to Anthropocene: The past is the key to the future. The Anthropocene has no precise start date, but based on atmospheric evidence may be considered to start with the Industrial Revolution (late eighteenth century).

Other scientists link the new term to earlier events, such as the rise of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution (around 12,000 years BP).  Evidence of relative human impact such as the growing human influence on land use, ecosystems, biodiversity, and species extinction is controversial; some scientists believe the human impact has significantly changed (or halted) the growth of biodiversity. 

Those arguing for earlier dates posit that the proposed Anthropocene may have begun as early as 14,000 to 15,000 years before present, based on lithospheric evidence; this has led other scientists to suggest that “the onset of the Anthropocene should be extended back many thousand years”; this would be closely synchronous with the current term, Holocene.

This BBC report allows the scientist promoting the theory to swiftly dismiss the claim that the era began with man’s development of agriculture (deforestation and domestication of cattle etc) and places it firmly in modern times…

Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?

That’s bad enough but what of this?…..

The Anthropocene: Welcome to the Age of Modern Man

It’s on the BBC’s international site so you (me at least) have to access it using a proxy server like this:

Hide My Ass

Insert this:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120209-welcome-to-the-age-of-modern-man/all

Who is the reporter?

One Gaia Vince….no, that’s her real name.

She also did a radio 4 series on this which you can hear here.

It is an extraordinarily alarmist portrayal of the future:

Climate Apocalypse…mass extinction…on a scale comparable to worst event in history such as the dinosaurs.  

And the main causes…fossil fuels….domestication of animals…cows, sheep, pigs, goats etc and modern science inventing synthetic nitrogen which is flooding the natural ecosystem which has powered the mass rise in population (rampant materialsim plundering the world’s resources) whilst also poisoning the natural environment.

Cities roar and blaze with the energy of fossil fuels….but not for long…millions of years from now the fossil record will show…global seas levels rose…mighty cities were abandoned, others  drowned as the sea invaded. 

Hair shirt time!

Gaia Vince has worked for Nature, still does in fact…the science publication which is the gatekeeper for the climate change lobby….so if her name didn’t give you an inkling of what her beliefs might be there’s plenty of other evidence….

‘I am the opinion, analysis and features editor for the journal Nature Climate Change, which publishes the latest research in the field. I also write for a variety of different outlets, including the BBC, The Guardian, New Scientist, Australian Geographic, Science, Seed, and I do pieces for radio. Before I set off on this journey, I was the news editor of the science journal Nature.’

Here she isn’t reporting but advocating for the global warming alarmists….

‘Progress on addressing the most critical global challenges, such as climate change, has reached a farcical level in which time spent arguing over punctuation and grammar of lengthy documents have stymied any real action on greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, global warming has increased, with the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already hitting 400 parts per million in the Arctic, and new data show that the rate of climate change could be even faster than thought.’

Presumably that’s all being pumped out to and targeted at the ‘developing world’…encouraging them to parcel out the blame..and where there’s blame there’s a claim.

Nice to know our license fee is paying for climate propaganda designed to put us in the stocks, destroy industry and impoverish us.

I think the core of what the environmental 
movement has done is it has taken sin, guilt and fear 
from religion and has used those very strongly. The 
problem is that in good religion – if I can put it that 
way – that is always combined with a sense of hope, a 
sense of liberational salvation and a sense of personal 
responsibility but not the kind of responsibility that 
makes you feel you are a victim of the weight of your 
sins and guilt.

ROWLATT: I don’t have a problem with people 
campaigning for those other agendas for their vision 
of a better society – for me the problem comes if the 
fear of the consequences of climate change is used as 
cover to smuggle in other objectives for social and 
political change. That’s because many people already 
have a sense that there’ s something suspicious about 
the campaign to tackle global warming; they 
instinctively distrust the science and if they feel that 
the solutions people are proposing are less to do with 
carbon than pushing through a hidden agenda that 
will only serve to confirm their scepticism.