219 Responses to WEEKEND OPEN THREAD….

  1. Ember2014 says:

    BBC in EU promo mode today:
    “EU launches flagship Sentinel satellite project to monitor Earth”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26875544

    Actually it’s the ESA with EU funding. ESA does all the technical work. And here’s the thing: if there was no EU we would probably see the ESA member countries contribute enough for the project anyway. (Because we’d have spare money from not wasting it on the EU – the middle man.)

    We don’t need the EU to fund collaborative science/engineering projects amongst nations of Europe or any other grouping around the globe.

       8 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      The whole space industry in Europe – including in Britain – has NEVER sold a single satellite in open competition.

      The European industry has always been “light-years” behind the Americans. Typical European projects – and British projects, civil or military, have no fixed deadlines for delivery and can take years and years – compared to 2 to 3 years for construction of US satellites. The cost is not defined, there are no proper penalties for lack of performance or late delivery.

      A total waste of taxpayers’ money. Has been going on for decades now.

      And many of the “vanity” European projects we are forced to pay for are duplicating space facilities already in orbit.

         7 likes

      • Stewart says:

        But it could have been different
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero_(satellite)
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow
        And ,had we not joined the common market, might have been

           4 likes

        • John Anderson says:

          I don’t really think so. The UK defence industry contractors were featherbedded. I remember seeing Marconi’s satellite “factory” in the mid-1980s, kept open by our tax money. It looked like a bike shed compared to US satellite production lines such as Hughes or RCA.

             2 likes

          • Stewart says:

            The early British rocket engineers virtually did work out of a bike shed. But,building on those scraps left over to us from operation paper clip by our allies, put a satellite into orbit that’s still there even though we have forgotten.
            One of their designs ( thrush I believe it was called ) was still being used for atmospheric test well into the 1990s. there’s value for money
            Why money was pulled from them and given to the like of Marconi is another question and I believe EU membership has a bearing on that
            As to the US, well who funded those satellite production lines if not the US tax payer?
            It proves that the industrial military complex can work but only if all involved have some sense of a national project Unfortunately our flag wrapped industrialists and entrepreneurs ( not including Bulgarian lumpers Danny) have repeatedly proven that their patriotism is not even skin deep , reaching only as far as their wallets.

               3 likes

    • Richard Pinder says:

      Until 2009, ESA used to send me its Bulletin, but then for the first time, they did some cost cutting, by only sending the Bulletin to people who ordered it.

      I did not bother, it was mainly comprised of articles dreaming about future missions or navel gazing bureaucracy.

      It would be far more cost effective for Britain to transfer its ESA subsidy to Reaction Engines, for its Skylon project.

         3 likes

    • Frank Words says:

      Wasn’t there a previous European space project back in the 1960s called Europa or some such. I seem to recall that a number of our old Blue Steak Missiles were used as the first stage booster. Don’t think it was particularly successful.

         0 likes

  2. Thoughtful says:

    BBC radio 4 ‘The Reunion’ The Miners’ Strike

    One of the more disgracefully biased programs, with a hugely biased panel, the only voice speaking in favour was Tory wet Ken Clarke. Even the Police officer said he was from a staunchly Labour family!
    They’ve dragged in a Communist admin worker who wasn’t involved in the pits at all.

    Ken Clarke was a Health Minister during the strike, so other than him being a ‘soft’ Tory, what is the point of having him on the program at all?

    The presenter Sue MacGregor was incredibly partisan on the side of the miners.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zxmyt

       23 likes

    • Eric says:

      As posted in an earlier thread – the BBC love the dispossessed white, working class when they moan about their communities being destroyed by “Thatcher” and “the Tories”.

      When the same group complain about their communities and culture being destroyed by multi culturalism and EU imposed immigration the BBC don’t want to know and the rent-a-mob progressive lefties call them racists, bigots, etc etc….

      Funny old world

         31 likes

    • Deborah says:

      In the bit I listened to I thought Ken was doing a sterling job against the crowd, but it got too much and I turned off.

         5 likes

  3. noggin says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26830284

    UK – please don’t ban the Muslim Brotherhood …. or else!
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4055311.ece

    Robert Spencer – note Mounir’s veiled threat: if the Brotherhood is banned, there will be jihad terror in the U.K. Of course, if it isn’t banned, there will be jihad terror in the U.K. … but he doesn’t mention that.

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/uks-senior-muslim-brotherhood-leader-to-british-officials-dont-ban-us-or-else

    “would a Jew, ask Hitler how to fix the gas oven?”
    world renowned expert on the Quran -D Cameron, his latest expose of his gross incompetence… inviting Tariq Ramadan? to be a religious advisor
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597896/David-Camerons-religious-adviser-descended-founders-terrorist-Muslim-Brotherhood.html#ixzz2y6EcOxc2

    check this out …
    http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/foreign-office-responds-to-my-warsi.html

       8 likes

  4. George R says:

    The Vikings.

    1.)

    “The Vikings were feared for a reason.
    Ignore recent revisionism. The Norsemen carried out atrocities to equal those of the German SS.”

    By Patrick Cockburn.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-vikings-were-feared-for-a-reason-9241032.html

    2.)

    “Were the Vikings really so bloodthirsty?”

    By Tom de Castella.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26431858

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      What a lovely bit of ‘nobody knows so here’s a punt’ whitiffery by our Tom there.
      I’d be guessing everyone back there was probably engaging in activities that would give Shami a fit of the vapours. Certainly if Rolf whipped off a few heads on a rape & pillage outing in downtown Whitby and got left behind by the rest of his crew, I’m guessing a there’d be few calls for Staffy to pop round to ensure the Miranda’s were read out properly before he was ushered off for a ‘whatwerehis motivations?’ interview with a citizen journo from BBCNorthWest on his iParchment.
      Because… it was a different time?

         9 likes

      • Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:

        Err…..yes I can just imagine the scene now,
        ” so Rolf, how did you come to be radicalised? “

           11 likes

    • Stewart says:

      Synchronicity maybe but I just today started re-reading ‘The lost king of England’ by Gabriel Ronay
      In particular were he describes Cnut’s treatment of his Anglo Saxon hostages – whether the Vikings were any more viscous than many other first Millenia groups is moot. But one thing is for sure they weren’t the multi-culti,fair trade loving ,internationalist entrepreneurs the BBC seem to have been trying to make them for years now. For reasons I simply cant fathom
      Their desperate attempts to put flowers in the hair of the bronze age (despite the accumulating evidence of mass human sacrifice) I can understand but not their efforts to rehabilitate the vikings .
      Maybe they have no agenda here ,but thats the problem with their continual and obvious bias in other areas , I simply don’t trust them.
      Oh and professional northerners .Cnut made his capital at York because he failed to take London -twice.

         6 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        York, Capital of Northumbra from 410 to 954, Old King Cole to Eric Bloodaxe, Kings of an independent north.

        Those where the days.

           5 likes

      • Flexdream says:

        The whitewashing of the pagan Vikings and the airbrushing of their conversion to Christianity has been going on apace for years. I can’t remember any exhibition or programme about the Vikings being critical of them.
        My best guess is that this revisionism is motivated by an instinctive anti-clericalism against the monks of the Middle Ages and their values. I think the Irish do value and understand the contribution of their Celtic Christianity to preserving civilisation, but the British seem less inclined.

           5 likes

        • Stewart says:

          Now I get -that makes sense of a film I watched on C4 (i think) about a year ago called Valhalla marching or something like that, in it ‘christian’ vikings were portrayed as being more violent than their pagan counterparts ,Driven of course by their intolerance .I don’t know how that would square with the fate of the early christian missionaries .Perhaps being boiled alive was a sign of odinic hospitality
          Generally in popular history programs, ancient western historians are portrayed as pathological liars always ready to corrupt the truth in service of their masters ( But never the inked dripped from an eastern Chronicles quill but it was the absolute truth). And most especially the medieval chronicler/monks, despite the fact that modern archaeology more often than not supports their claims.
          A classic case of projection I guess.

             4 likes

        • Jorvikman says:

          Which is rather ironic really, because the Vikings would probably despise your average ‘right-on’, spineless, godless, progressive lefty. Makes me wish we could fly the Raven Banner over the North once more and rule ourselves.

          If the BBC got into any sort of depth about the Vikings conversion to Christianity it might take them into uncomfortable territory. For example, the great deeds of the Vikings and Englishmen in the Varangian Guard. The saga of Sigurd the Crusader comes to mind as well, I particularly like the part were the Norwegians attack the Balearics, kill all the Muslims, take their treasure and free the Christian slaves.

             6 likes

          • Stewart says:

            I agree with most of that except I would rather see the ‘Fighting man’ raised than Landwaster.
            Still Waes Hail cousin Waes Hail

               2 likes

            • Wild says:

              The Left (since at least Rousseau) are anti-civilization. It is absolutely predictable that they seek to excuse the Vikings (and attack the Christian Church) because at that point in our history the Christian Church was Western civilization. The Left are sick in the head.

                 9 likes

  5. Aerfen says:

    Just listened to end of Andy Murray match – BBCs delight at his being beaten by Italy’s Fabio Fellini barely disguised.

    If Murray were black it would be a different story, but because British tennis is entirely ethnic British and white, they are on the side of foreigners.

    Nation wreckers.

       7 likes

  6. George R says:

    Wow! BBC-NUJ decides to catch up on Islamic ‘Trojan Horse’-

    “Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ plot ‘started 20 years ago'”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-26883618

    ‘Telegraph’ (£)-

    “Muslim parent: Radical school is brainwashing our children.
    Mohammed Zabar, whose daughter attends Oldknow Academy, has spoken out after the head, Bhupinder Kondal, was driven out.”

    By Andrew Gilligan.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10747220/Muslim-parent-Radical-school-is-brainwashing-our-children.html

       8 likes

  7. AsISeeIt says:

    Credit where credit is due

    An example of one of those all-too-rare occasions where one wants to praise the BBC.

    David Loyn brings us a report about the Afghan elections.

    We learn that ‘one third of voters were women’ – a large percentage we are told for this ‘deeply traditional’ country.

    Well done David Loyn. You have chosen to avoid the much more familiar BBC phrase ‘deeply conservative’.

    Licence Payers will have very often heard BBC reporters using the word conservative in this sort of connection with the effect – intentional or not – that the word has assumed very some very negative connotations.

    So I praise David Loyn for chosing the more appropriate word : traditional.

    And, I would suggest, there is no excuse for other BBC reporters to not follow suit.

    Afterall, in Fiddler on the Roof Topol didn’t sing about Conservatism – he sang about Tradition!

       9 likes

    • Thatcher Revolutionary says:

      Did I see that the voting was segregated? Women with a blue ballot and men with a green?

         0 likes

  8. Guest Who says:

    Things for which the hashtag #needaheartofstonenotto was created:
    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/university-challenge-final-is-a-starter-for-men-bbc-criticised-for-not-ensuring-a-minimum-of-female-competitors-in-the-tv-quiz-9241182.html
    ‘The BBC said it was reluctant to interfere with team selection. A University Challenge spokesperson said:’
    Oo… well dodged, Aunty! Not a man or a woman… a person.
    That ‘reluctant’ suggests the dead hand of Cohen is not yet stayed.
    Maybe they need to insist that all teams are comprised of members whose sex is impossible to determine, ranging from androgyny to plain minging?

       8 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Meanwhile, just for giggles:
      http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2349045/bbc_climate_reportage_is_confusing_not_informing.html
      ‘In response to the criticisms, a BBC spokesman re-affirmed…
      How very dare they put up a man! Or at least let him be identified as such.
      Guessing that, much more of this, and they’ll need to put up a tag-team, like Breakfast. Except then there’d be the whole hideously ‘shhh you know who’ thing.
      Before we know it, every BBC PR ‘gotitaboutright’ default blow off will need to be delivered by a choral group.
      Gender diverse, differently-abled reduced stature persons of mixed allsorts, start up your CV’s! Just don’t be ugly. TV does have its (own, rather selective) limits.
      In fact, another #needaheartofstonenotto.
      On top of this one of course.
      And to any hoping this can be used as a ‘clearly can’t please all the people’ attempt… not really.

         3 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        In fact, Alan, David, DB etc should morph in to ‘BBBC spokespersons’, which would really lob a spanner in a bunch of Flokker interrupter gears.
        What’s good for the goosed…

           3 likes

  9. In response to the OFSTED report on nurseries and the “need” for them to

       0 likes

  10. A couple of days ago when OFSTED reported on the “need” for nurseries to start actual teaching of the basics to poorer children, where did the Beeb send a team to see a nursery at work? A Monttessori nursery in West London!!
    You couldn’t make it up folks

       14 likes

    • chrisH says:

      That`ll be where Sarah Montagues kids will go c/o Maria the Filipina maid.
      A lot of “poverty and nursery” vox pox comes from those leafy little places round the corner from BBC studios within a taxi call from wood Lane.
      I`d expect nothing else these days.

         12 likes

    • Stewart says:

      I saw this ‘debated’ on QT the other night (it was about all I could stand)
      The one question not asked by the BBC or the rest of the liberal inquisition ,is how have we come to this state?
      What has happened that children start school unable to speak in coherent sentences or even able to use the lavatory unaided?
      Poverty was the nearest to an explanation given .

      Ignoring the fact that what passes as poverty now would have seemed comfort and security to millions of working people only a few generations ago (and well within living memory). Are they (including that skull faced monster Haine) saying that the poor have become genetically inferior?
      Was it always thus? Then why has it only become a problem now?
      The truth is (and this is why the will not confront the question), that this is a direct result of that bourgeois fauxcialist agenda of deconstructionism that they ( including the BBC) have promoted so assiduously.
      This brave new world is entirely of their construction along with the monsters in it.

         20 likes

      • chrisH says:

        Of for that matter, why 20% of pupils after 11 years of compulsory education under the Labour unions STILL can`t read!
        Now THAT`S a scandal-yet it`s one that the BBC, NUT, NAS/UWT/ATL/OFSTED seem never to care about.
        As long as they recycle a light bulb, attach a condom and vote labour if at all…that is all that seems to be required by Blunketts boobies!
        Hence the Bitesize BBC exams and the removal of any content-especially if Orwell might crop up afterwards.
        Meanwhile here`s Tom Paulin and Richard Curtis to soothe you all…with an introduction from Russell Brand or Bonnie Greer.
        “We don`t need no educayshun”- wonder where Pink Floyds kids went then?…not ALL to the Cenotaph surely?

           15 likes

  11. chrisH says:

    Heard a repeat about the triumph of the smoking ban around Europe(Clearing the Air, Radio 4 1,30 pm 6/4/14).
    The Irish TD who “pioneered” the banning of smoking from pubs got his strokes…and we can see why the Welsh and Scots see themselves as fellow pioneers re e-cigs and pricing booze.
    Gets you love from the EU and the BBC.
    Quisling Celts all.
    To be fair, Dennis Murray DID spot that it was where the Soviet satellites used to run things that the smoking ban was not in action-freedom to choose seems to matter more there.
    He also noted the number of jobs lost in enforcing the ban, and the lack of conclusive facts to show that our health/mortality had improved…in France it had got worse in the case of women in fact.
    But no-the BBC are more than happy to tell us all about how the Big Health Project is going in Europe?
    Less happy though to tell us about who in Europe is the equivalent of Nigel Farage or Daniel Hannan….imagine if OTHERS in Europe despised the loss of national sovereignty just as we do?
    It`s not the BBCs job to undermine European Cohesion is it?…not when Coercion is demanded by their Brussels paymasters.

       7 likes

  12. chrisH says:

    And in that vein.
    Top 10 British traitors re the EU
    1. Roy Jenkins
    2. Ted Heath
    3 Geoffrey Rippon
    4. Neil Kinnock
    5. John Prescott
    6. John Monks
    7. Peter Mandelson
    8. Nick Clegg
    9. Margaret Thatcher(sorry-signed the Single European Act)
    10. Leon Brittan.
    Hope to know who their treacherous equvalnts are in Germany and France etc…a dangerous elite

       8 likes

    • Frank Words says:

      But Chris – where is Tony Blair?

         5 likes

    • Stewart says:

      The only issue I would take with that running order would be to move Madelson up and Prescott down.
      Prescott is a dolt who simply followed orders. Mandelson gave them .
      Roy Jenkins No.1 – absolutely .

         9 likes

    • Eric says:

      They make Lord Haw Haw look like John Bull.

         4 likes

      • RJ says:

        I have a slightly different take on Leon Brittan. He was a good Home Secretary but was knifed by Heseltine over Westland, with the Tory bosses siding with Heseltine. He was exiled to Brussels (resigning as an MP) and as he was then being paid by the EU he gave them value for their money. I think if he’d stayed in UK politics he’d have remained loyal.

           3 likes

    • uncle bup says:

      I seem to remember a few years ago droid cameramen being on a …swindle basically… where they could claim double-time on tour if they had to return to work within twelve hours of their previous shift completing.

      And rinse and repeat.

      Always juuuuust seemed to be the need to get back on the job within that twelve hours, to the extent that one shameless *****r managed to be on 64 times his hourly rate.

      That’s history (I hope – but who knows) but can even the thickest ‘national treasurer’ not see a problem with a model that firehoses £3.5 billion a year every year at the droids.

      You would, yer know, get Radio 4 and Desert Pissing Island Discs at say a billion quid a year, or even god forbid by voluntary subscription.

         10 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      One is sure A. BlockbusterProducer will be along soon to explain that this number of people is an industry standard.
      For ConAir maybe. ConTV… not so much.
      Especially for a freakin’ lambing show???!
      The excuses are piling up. Not sure many are buying.

         8 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        Clearly the austerity cuts are biting deep at the nation’s most tolerated money-pit.
        Of course, what self-respecting OB crew can be expected to do without the Director’s boyfriend’s hairdresser’s poodle-walker’s fluffer at such a time?
        At least they kept it in-country for once.
        Not like ‘Sun, Sex and Astoundingly Uncurious BBC Trust Oversight’ in Ibiza.
        I can’t wait for ‘One Man and his Dog… plus Half of Salford Quays on a Jolly’

           7 likes

  13. George R says:

    SYRIA:

    Muslims murdering Christians–

    INBBC seems to let much of this pass it by:-

    “Christians Flee Syrian Town After Muslims Kill 80, At Least 13 Christians Beheaded, Churches Desecrated, Homes Looted”
    – See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2014/04/christians-flee-syrian-town-muslims-kill-80-least-13-christians-beheaded-churches-desecrated-homes-looted.html/#sthash.s1TdBJ1g.dpuf

       9 likes

  14. George R says:

    More discrimination against majority, non-Muslim British children.

    No doubt BBC-NUJ will support teachers’ union in this discrimination against non-Muslim children, as the political class implement the further Islamisation of Britain-

    “Bid to bring forward GCSEs so Muslim pupils aren’t fasting for Ramadan while they take their exams”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597832/Bid-bring-forward-GCSEs-Muslim-pupils-arent-fasting-Ramadan-exams.html

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597832/Bid-bring-forward-GCSEs-Muslim-pupils-arent-fasting-Ramadan-exams.html#ixzz2y8wRwQHF

    Comment from Robert Spencer at ‘Jihadwatch’:-

    [Excerpt]:-

    “ ‘If you run exams in the morning because of this, you may be disadvantaging a non-Muslim pupil who then has two exams in one day rather than one.’ But who cares about them? This is the brave new Submissive Britannia, eager as always to accommodate its new Muslim masters! Why doesn’t the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union add to its agenda a discussion about making girls sit in the back of the class, so as not to offend Muslims?”
    -from:-
    “UK teachers’ union to discuss changing UK exam timetable to accommodate Muslims and Ramadan”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/uk-teachers-union-to-discuss-changing-uk-exam-timetable-to-accomodate-muslims-and-ramadan

       6 likes

  15. John Anderson says:

    Ignorance as well as bias on the World Service.

    A snippy young female BBC presenter called up Wellington New Zealand where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had just arrived for the start of their 9-day tour. Distinct anti-Royal line eg “Will the visit be popular – you can tell me the truth” and “Is there really any affection for them?”,

    What stupid, stupid questions. Indeed she had already had the implicit answer – she had been told that all the NZ media were publishing maps of the Royal routes in each city.

    There is no need for the BBC to go overboard on sentimentality. But my impression is that most New Zealanders will welcome the couple and the baby and the tour will be great fun all round. The weather was dreadful at Windy Wellington – but there were still crowds at the airport perimeter in the mist, wind and rain.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2598337/Duke-Duchess-Cambridge-begin-New-Zealand-Australia-tour-Prince-George.html

    Royal tours of OZ and NZ are about the links between the Dominions and Britain. “Family”. But the BBC can’t see the value and importance of the Anglosphere, so we can expect their reporters to be as acid as this morning’s stupid “report”.

       8 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      At least they didn’t fly her down there, but the poor girl clearly had to do something to justify her cubicle space.
      I watched Ep. 3 of W1A last night, and the joke really is wearing off and is now more and more on the staff.
      The locations are impressive, but as the cast burble away illustrating nothing more than no marks in non jobs, I was gazing out at the vast cubicle gardens behind them and thinking those in shot, for real, were clearly doing exactly the same. But the joke about ‘Young Mr. Tony’ issuing ‘You are all doing very well’ platitudes or being protected from cock up after cock up to spare his displeasure has a ring of truth, especially with junior staff being instructed to do the dirty work of misrepresentation to spare very highly paid senior staff getting their hands dirty.
      Fairly clear it’s exactly the same time as the clock has stopped at the BBC.

         4 likes

  16. Guest Who says:

    Sometimes a transcript of what has been actually said is all that’s necessary to really appreciate what a limited playlist DOTI’s have to call on:
    http://bbcwatch.org/2014/04/07/a-former-bbc-reporter-recounts-an-interesting-episode-in-bbc-history/

    JH: “It was a long time ago.”

    Well yes, Jon. But only when the BBC wants it to be does it become a serious attempt at an excuse. If history supports the narrative, they’d go back past the Big Bang to cite it.

       3 likes