283 Responses to Start the Week 8 January 2024

  1. taffman says:

    Back here again !
    Have any new illegal landings on our shores being reported yet?
    Apparently, more Home Secretaries have been to To Rwanda than migrants?

       27 likes

  2. tomo says:

    Dopey econuts cause eco indignation in Bristol but BBC Bristol goon puts the nutters claims unchallenged in closing paragraphs….

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-67893216

       16 likes

  3. Deborah says:

    Claudine Gay and Harvard

    View from the Left

    I received this from someone in the US who I would be very surprised if she ever visits this site. I thought I would post it to provide an alternative view but not saying whether I agree with it but I think people here can probably guess.

    The plagiarism charges were really a hill of beans—insignificant truly. While her answers to Congress were evasive and she’s done nothing to quell antisemitism, those who are attacking her and ready to pull their funding of the university are really right-wing bullies—dangerous men who use their money as leverage to affect the content of education and don’t believe in universities as a place for an exchange of ideas. They want to remove all teaching of race history in this country and they are, in my opinion, dangerous and loathsome. I do believe we need to have open discussions with those who hold views we may even find repugnant. It’s the only way to sharpen our own ability to articulate and defend what we believe in—even if there’s no possibility of anyone winning.

       12 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      “Gay responded that hateful speech is at odds with Harvard’s values and that calling for the genocide of Jews is antisemitic.
      But when pressed on whether it violates the code of ethics,
      she replied that “it can be, depending on the context.”
      Q What context ?
      Gay “targeted as an individual”
      video https://twitter.com/EpochTimes/status/1732443533251133838

      That seemed to be a script that all the university heads stuck to

         15 likes

    • atlas_shrugged says:

      View from the Left:

      If you are a wimmin and even better a wimmin of colour then you must be untouchable.

      How come there is no fuss about Dr Sally Kornbluth of MIT. Has she not been kicked out yet?

      Perhaps she has ‘weathered the storm for now’.

         8 likes

    • Kaiser says:

      “plagiarism” is the cardinal sin of academia

      hill of beans my arse , that someone could find it so quickly shows either

      1 there was lots of it
      or
      2 she had so few publications it didnt take long to check

      either way the fact she thought calling for jewish genocide could have “context” is bad enough all by itself, without the hypocrisy of the rest of her beliefs in micro- aggressions, triggers , safe spaces, believing in only 2 sexes is calling for trans genocide blah blah blah.

      your left wing acquaintance is prepared to let the antisemitism slide for the greater good , how mid century german.

         9 likes

  4. tomo says:

    Yuge if true – will be fun watching the BBC tie itself in knots?

       25 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Unlikely. Better to let the more acceptable face that the BBC can sell walk in, then can him once they have the keys to the cookie jar, and what could be done about it?

         17 likes

    • Thoughtful says:

      Is he going to call it “The Conservative party”??

         9 likes

      • taffman says:

        Thoughtful
        Is he going to call it “The Conservative party”??
        “The Conservative party” ?…………
        Very much the same really !

           5 likes

  5. tomo says:

    What a f-ing farce.

    The BBC will be cheering tomorrow?

    w-t-f.jpg

       13 likes

    • Lucy Pevensey says:

      There’s a term I haven’t heard before “carbon negative”

      Is it a step up from carbon neutral & net zero?’
      Net -10

         12 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        It’s when all that is left is calcium.

        https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/terminator2-crush-skull-robot-gif-8479151

           5 likes

      • StewGreen says:

        Carbon negative
        Drax woodburning is currently creatively accounted as zero CO2
        The theory being that although the smoke coming out of today’s Drax chimney contains CO2 from burning a dead tree
        that CO2 will be absorbed by the new seedling they planted
        However since that seedling is tiny, this year it will only absorb a tiny amount of CO2
        It will take 20-30 years to absorb all of the CO2 from the burnt tree.

        They reckon if they instead install tech to pump that CO2 from the chimney into caverns made up of old oil fields in the North Sea, each new seedling they plant will extract existing CO2 from the air . An amount extracted over 30 years the same as a whole tree
        So the air will have a lower CO2 count .. ie the process is Carbon negative.
        However the process needs power .. quite a lot of power so it will have a carbon footprint , plus the growth takes 30 years
        .. and China opens a new coal fired power station every 45 minutes ../sarc

           23 likes

        • tomo says:

          If I recall correctly we’re now up to two Drax woodchip suppliers that aren’t what they claim to be and are simply clear felling vast areas in the USA.

          iT’S A SCAM

             11 likes

      • andyjsnape says:

        Hello Lucy, I recently renewed my car insurance with these…

        https://zero.aviva.co.uk/

        I can even pay more should I wish, to offset my carbon footprint – honestly, I just want car insurance, and why I would want to pay anymore as we are all being ripped off in the 1st place with car insurance prices

           23 likes

  6. Guest Who says:

    It is just a sick, bizarre game to them all.

    https://x.com/skynews/status/1744129366953447729?s=61
    Israeli police accidentally kill young girl after ‘ramming attack’ on West Bank checkpoint

    As with the plethora of Gazan reporters getting offed as a result of exchanges of fire post events of Oct 6, might one ponder if this poor innocent would still be alive had there not been a ‘ramming attack’?

       10 likes

  7. andyjsnape says:

    TB Joshua: Megachurch leader raped and tortured worshippers, BBC finds
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67749215

    Yes bbc these type of people do it, I’m not surprised, but this is front page news to the likes of the bbc

       8 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Nice to start the week with good news …

      Channel 4 – sister to the BBC – reports it is to cut 200 jobs because of an advertising ‘slump ‘ …. Now why would there be an advertising ‘slump ‘ ?
      Could it be that the advertising industry has been overtaken by woke kidults who care more about inserting unrepresentative faces ( coloured folk ) into commercials ? And that the white British are fed up with this ?

      Or could it be that no one watches Channel 4 . ? Or are those factors linked too ?

         39 likes

  8. JohnC says:

    ‘I can’t stay silent’ on knife crime, Idris Elba says
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67903124

    I only read these article to see how the slippery BBC use their dirty tricks to avoid telling us the real truth is about who are doing all the stabbing.

    Here are those stabbed in 2023:
    Knife%20Crime%20Stabbing%20Victims%20London.jpg?crop=8:5,smart&quality=75&auto=webp&width=1024

    The BBC just mention two of them. They show us this one:
    _132221199_harrypitman.jpg.webp

    And link to this one:
    _131651177_alfie1.png.webp

    One black victim is used – but only for the empathy vote:
    ‘Yemi Hughes, whose 19-year-old son Andre Aderemi was murdered in 2016, has donated the outfit he was wearing when he was killed.
    Andre was stabbed 26 times in broad daylight in Croydon, South London.’

    She kept his clothes ???.
    Here’s who did it:
    croydonmetpolice0405a.jpg?crop=8:5,smart&quality=75&auto=webp&width=1024
    Rodney Mukasa,Ali Zahawy and Fabio Cela

    This problem is never going to be solved because the Left will not even admit what the problem is. They will call any attempt to stop it as racist – like the BBC do for stop and search. Theyt don’t care one bit about any of these people if they can’t use it to virtue-signal. The agenda is more important.

    Well done Charlotte. Another of the BBC’s finest.
    charlotte-gallagher-on-air-on-the-bbc.png?id=34862684&width=780&quality=90

       29 likes

  9. Fedup2 says:

    If you get a chance have a look at the exchange between Neil Oliver and George Galloway on the YouTube GBNews . Galloway suggests the need for revolutionary change in British as the once trusted institutions are now crap . Obviously he includes the BBC in this – but he names so many ….. particularly the lack of difference between sunak and starmer – both of whom seem to be claiming to be agents of change – which is a lie from both …

    Incidentally there is a report that comrade Corbyn is planning a ‘real Labour Party ‘ presumably based on the structure of the ‘real ira’ which he so enthusiastically supports ….

       29 likes

  10. Zephir says:

    This applies to the bbc mob especially I suspect:

    “The term “luxury belief” is similar to “virtue signaling”, but luxury beliefs are specific to virtuous sounding positions whose consequences don’t affect you personally; you might claim, for example, that you believe trans women should be included in female athletic competitions without being, yourself, a female athlete engaged in a manifestly unfair contest with a biological male. Claiming that “trans women are women” for all practical purposes is very much a luxury belief; the sort of people who make this claim are unlikely to be inmates in a female only jail.

    In some circles, it is fashionable to support the unlimited immigration of migrants from all over the world; those who support such a policy are unlikely to be in competition for the low skilled jobs these migrants tend to do, or live in neighborhoods where these migrants dwell, and have to compete for housing and school places with them. The majority of the British working class supported Brexit because they found themselves in competition with people who had come from Eastern Europe to work in the UK.

    Saint Greta of Thunberg is a classic example of someone who holds luxury beliefs; she comes from a privileged family in Sweden, one of the safest and most prosperous countries in the world, whose wealth derives, to a considerable degree, from car manufacturing, yet she wants the use of fossil fuels to be phased out with an utterly unfeasible rapidity, ignoring the reality that poorer nations will not be able to replace their gas powered vehicles with electric ones for decades to come, or switch over to renewable sources of electricity overnight. She claims that her childhood was ruined by worrying about human induced climate change, but the chances of her adult life in Sweden being seriously affected by a warmer climate are close to zero.

    Similarly, the sort of people who advocate for things like organic vegetables, and grass fed beef are the ones who can afford such foods, and live in areas where they are sold, but tend to be unaware of urban “food deserts”, where the only food available for miles around is likely to be highly processed. Those who advocate for veganism tend to be city dwellers, who are unlikely to be aware of the role that livestock plays in regenerative farming, or the fact that that there is land which is unsuitable for agriculture, yet can produce meat and milk from hardy grazing animals. There is also the problem that adopting a fully vegan diet can be dangerous without being aware of the need to take certain supplements, particularly vitamin B12.

    After Hamas launched a massive attack into Israel from Gaza this weekend, many protesters came out into the streets of Western countries advocating for justice for the Palestinians; these people have the luxury of not living next to the Gaza strip, where there is always the chance of rocket attacks ruining ones day. It is possible to recognize that the Palestinians have genuine grievances towards the state of Israel, whilst understanding that Hamas’ deliberate murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians was an atrocity, however, the demonstrators have the luxury of being able to protest freely, and indulge in black or white thinking over a very complex situation, which cannot be properly understood without a deep dive into the relevant history of the region.

    Luxury beliefs are actually very affordable; in fact, they are entirely free for those who hold them, and express them with their cheap words. One can get an undeserved reputation for virtue without actually doing anything but repeat slogans like “Meat is murder”, “Freedom for Palestine”, “Migrants are welcome”, “Just Stop Oil”, and so on. However, when such beliefs are enacted into policies, they can be very expensive for everyone; everyone apart from their advocates, that is.”

       36 likes

  11. JohnC says:

    BT Group to turn old street cabinets into electric vehicle charging points
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67873890

    Aother absolute classic ‘Written for idiots by children’ BBC ‘technology’ article.

    ‘The first converted cabinet will be installed in Scotland within weeks, under a pilot programme.’. Right – so they are not being converted, they are being replaced. And just one for now.

    ‘BT hopes up to 60,000 could be converted, which would help tackle a shortfall in electric car chargers.’. lol – why do I think BT see this as as tapping in to all the free ‘green’ money.

    ‘The green lockers that are set to be decommissioned will have one charge point per cabinet, which provides two charging sockets.’
    ‘They also have a battery backup so existing broadband services should not be be disrupted during installation.’

    What ??. First if they are being decommissioned, they are being removed. Why would it affect existing services ?. And does the BBC’s ‘Technology Correspondent’ actually believe all that is needed to keep it running is a ‘battery backup’ ???.

    We don’t go near the fact that all the cabinets I see are in the most inconvenient places possible for people to park and charge.

    ‘Engineers will be able to retrofit the cabinets with a device that enables renewable energy to be shared to a charge point alongside the existing broadband service with no need to create a new connection, because they are already connected to a power source.’
    They use mains electricity. Why is it ‘renewable energy’ ?. How much power are those cables connecting it to the mains designed to handle ?. Clearly they will not be ‘fast’ at all.

    While checking this out, I discover the ‘BBC Technology Correspondent’ has simply hashed up a press release from a brand new BT ‘startup’ called ‘Etc.’and presented it as news. She seems to have added the ‘renewable energy’ and ‘battery backup’ bits herself.
    https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-pilot-powers-up-first-ev-charger-repurposed-from-street-cabinet/
    They have a picture of the first one installed. Looks fake to me – no signs of installation anywhere around it or the cabinet. And it’s not a converted cabinet at all. It’s a completely separate unit.

    100% certain we will not hear about this again and none of us will see a ‘converted cabinet’.

    Intrigued by what kind of person the BBC employ to write this child-like rhetoric, I sought her out:
    1_Shiona-McCallum-Ramsay-2JPG.jpg
    ‘Radio 1 journalist bravely opens up on mental health battles after lockdown birth of son’

       23 likes

    • Zephir says:

      Which one wrote it ?

         29 likes

    • moggiemoo says:

      Not only is it not converted, you can still see the green cabinet behind the newly installed charger. I’m fairly sure conversion doesn’t mean building something else near the original object.

         13 likes

    • gb123 says:

      Another thing I am seeing more is the cabinets being vandalised. One near us is constantly being prised open.

         14 likes

    • tomo says:

      I reckon that even BT won’t be able to circumvent Ohm’s Law….

      Distribution hasn’t been designed for the extra load – end of.

         12 likes

      • Guest Who says:

        My first thought.

        The cabinets outside our house send leccy that tinkle a bell. Now fibre.

        What is the power demand into a cabinet to feed all the single lines?

           7 likes

      • JohnC says:

        I have a feeling it’s an exercise designed to get as much government funding as possible until the bubble bursts.

        From the PR release, not included by the BBC:

        ‘Commercial – public funding options, private investment, partnership, and wider financial modelling to establish a route to commercial benefit for the Group’

           4 likes

    • atlas_shrugged says:

      Dear bBC

      ‘Radio 1 journalist bravely opens up on mental health battles after lockdown birth of son’

      I fixed your headline for you:
      bBC girlie clearly violates socialist-distancing rools – 2.0m!!!!

      wet-police to investigate? Sue wotsername to write full report?

         11 likes

  12. JohnC says:

    TB Joshua: Megachurch leader raped and tortured worshippers, BBC finds
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67749215

    Here we have another example of the BBC being outraged and launching an investigation AFTER the culprit is dead and they can focus on ‘victims’ without any burden of proof or accountability.

    What a shame you are never outraged enough to investigate these things while you know they are happening BBC. Saville for example.

    It was in Nigeria. Comes with the territory BBC – as you would know if you actually reported all the murder and crime that goes on there instead of concentrating on your ridiculous ‘pigin English’ nonsense.

    Their murder rate in 2017 was 6th highest in the world.
    https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country

    Plenty of far worse stories there (and the rest of Africa) if you were inclined to be bothered about them.

       19 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Toady
      The big interview was Idris who is ‘heading up ‘ the latest nonsense about stopping knife crime . Idris clearly hasn’t got clarity of thought and is troubled when not reading a script …

      .. he and the amol one went through the confused tradition of tutting about knife crime – yoof- yoof services – cuts not done by knives ….

      But as usual it was the omissions which said more – the following were not mentioned –

      1 how do children become feral
      2 schools
      3 parents – do they exist
      4 what is a father ?
      5 stop and search
      6 third world Gangs of kids
      7 tribal wars
      8 deterrence – in any form
      9 failure to name killer children
      10 the failure of past campaigns

      It’s quite a while since I was a teenager and I’m not from the 3rd world – so I recognise my ability to get within the ‘mindset ‘ of a feral yoof – a violent animal -stuck in his hierarchy – is extremely limited if not impossible – same with Idris and the rest I reckon …

         24 likes

      • Zephir says:

        11 a culture of “music” that admires violence, crime, rape and mysogyny

           24 likes

        • BRISSLES says:

          AND Mr Elbo has a secondary job as a DJ so I reckon it’s odds on he includes rapp in his repertoire.

             9 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        In Iran it is reported that a young woman received 74 lashes for refusing to wear the veil. As mentioned a above violence of all sorts is rife across the entire continent of Africa . In Pakistan and many other Muslim countries Christians are persecuted and have been for decades. Everyone knows this to be true and endemic to those societies. These are behaviours and attitudes that everyone in the West finds frightening, upsetting and agrees cannot be tolerated in a civilised society.
        Yet the neoliberals want more and more immigration from these parts of the world. These neoliberals are either deafened by their own cognitive dissonance or they believe that by some mysterious process the immigrants will shed their beliefs , attitudes and customs as soon as they land in the West. Despite many horrors on our streets proving that the latter belief is pie in the sky our moronic neoliberals carry on clamouring for more immigration.
        Neo liberalism looks increasingly like the disease which killed off the West!

           27 likes

    • digg says:

      I think you will find that the main reason for the BBC intensive interest in that story is the word “Christian” in the name of the “church” involved.

      The BBC want to smash anything to do with it as it clashes with almost everything they hold dear including LGBT, Islam etc, etc.

         19 likes

  13. Fedup2 says:

    Toady
    Justin interviews a blue Labour junior treasury minister . This clone rolled out the usual politician speak – ‘my heart goes out ‘ to the the post masters sez politician ( his first lie – politicians don’t have hearts ) – then blah blah blah – designed to switch off the listener ….
    As the blah blah carried on I wondered why these interviews are done – these characters don’t speak like people – they speak like politicians – just insincere lies – whether red or blue …..
    And this character sounded so tired … like the current regime …

       16 likes

  14. Guest Who says:

    Ex bbc anger and protests editor pokes a dangerous bear.

    https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/1744265578863382762?s=61

       4 likes

  15. Guest Who says:

    ‘Hamas says’ is not journalism.

    https://x.com/stone_skynews/status/1744145252926063045?s=61

       10 likes

  16. Fedup2 says:

    Joey Barton – a bad boy of footy – seems to have taken on the mantle held by the now cancelled Laurence fox of telling truths – it msybd about the triviality of screechy girl footy pundits but it’s evidence of what happens to any ‘push back ‘….

       15 likes

  17. Guest Who says:

    https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1744184530691379225?s=61
    Some personal news: I’ve decided to leave MSBNC.
    New year, new plans, new challenges:

    I thought it was when even MSBNC could no longer handle the ‘cattle’ videos cropping up.

    Maybe he could become the KJP for ‘The Squad’?

       9 likes

  18. Jeff says:

    We’re living in strange times. Hopefully, one day we’ll look back and laugh…

    According to the BBC the climate debate is done and dusted. “The science is settled”, they tell us, smugly. There’s no room for argument, no debate to be had. The BBC have spoken. David Attenborough and Greta have told us…

    However, on a subject I would have thought was much more obvious; ie what constitutes male and female, the debate is wide open. Gender is a construct, or so they say. You can be whatever you want.

    If I stuck on a blonde wig and a bit of lippy, you’d be expected to call me “Jenny”. Don’t panic, it’s not going to happen. Phew…

    A while ago Radio 4 Extra serialised Eddie Izzard’s autobiography. As you know Eddie likes to dress up in women’s clothes…but that doesn’t make him an actual woman.

    “Eddie / Suzie is telling us about her early days living in xxxx and how she coped with…”

    Look, let’s just be honest, Eddie Izzard is a chubby, unattractive bloke. FFS, when he’s dressed up in all his female clobber he looks like a nightmarish Ugly Sister. Referring to this bloke as “she” and “her” is both insulting to women and our intelligence. It’s utter cobblers. He’s not a woman, he’s a weirdo.

    As the old song goes

    The king is in the altogether…

       45 likes

  19. MarkyMark says:

    Radio News Bulletins
    24 December 2023

    In overnight output we ran a story about Hamas accusing the Israeli army of carrying out summary executions in the Gaza strip.

    This was a Hamas statement, but although the accusations were attributed and our story contained a response from the Israeli military saying they were unaware of the incident and that Hamas was a terrorist organisation that did not value truth, we had not made sufficient effort to seek corroborating evidence to justify reporting the Hamas claim. We apologise for this mistake.

    05/01/2024

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications

       19 likes

  20. Dickie says:

    Assisted dying. Perhaps Esther Rantzen should take herself off to Canada.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/is-profit-behind-the-push-for-assisted-dying/

       5 likes

  21. AsISeeIt says:

    Monday press review with Mr AsI, your free, early bird, overcoming roadblocks to implementation edition

    Thank heaven for our news media – one might not have realised it was winter time: 192 Flood Warnings… Oh Snowballs! Big Freeze is on the way… It’s Arctic Monday. A 12-day chill and white outs are on the way from Scandinavia – and it’s not just the jokey blokey comic ‘Proud to love animals‘ – excepting seagulls, bed bugs and killer hornets – Daily Star where the thought for the day is a seasonally appropriate: Get your big coats on!

    Quick, call the government for help!

    Just like the nineteenth century French novelist and social campaigner Émile Zola, the left-leaning poundshop Guardian that is the ‘i’ is quick to shout J’Accuse!: More than 1800 homes already flooded… Government accused of ‘slow response’ on drainage and flood defences – can’t they see ministers have been hard at work filling our reservoirs in preparation for the summer drought?

    Not yet over High water levels across flooded regions pose further risks in coming days – even the venerable FT does a cor blimey tabloid take on the weather this morning and we note one of those rare occasions the globally focused pink paper notices in which country it happens to be based

    There is something of a conspiracy theory that says all this super-excitable weather reporting may constitute a not so subtle psyop to convince a doubting populace on the issue of climate change.

    One couldn’t possibly comment on the veracity of that claim – but one can’t help but note the prime ad spot on the lower right hand corner of the frontpage of the Financial Times today is taken to promote something in the way of a conference calling itself: Climate Capital Live… Overcoming roadblocks to implementation… With 92% of the world economy now subject to 2030 net-zero targets, the pressure is now on governments and businesses to turn these pledges into concerted action – not a discussion open for us cash strapped hard up hoi polloi however: THE EARLY BIRD IN-PERSON PASS Gain access to in-person sessions and drinks. Network and connect with your peers. £1,539 £1,919 Offer ends 28 January

    Were it possible to arrange a consultation with an NHS doctor these days the ‘i’ newspaper would no doubt present with accute and lingering coronaphobia: Covid wave could hit all-time high

    Don’t worry boys and girls at the ‘i’, we’ll soon be getting to the very nub of the problem with this virus and have satisfactorily solved all the thorny public health issues involved: Covid Inquiry costing taxpayer £200k a day… Baroness Hallett will travel to Edinburgh next week… will spend three weeks in the Scottish capital before travel to Wales and Northern Ireland… Amid suggestions from MPs that “tours should be left for boy bands, not taxpayer-funded public inquiries” (Telegraph) – leave some pop culture gags for Mr AsI to crack

    Apologies to the former artist formerly known as Prince

    Oh yeah!
    In China, a skinny man died of a little disease with a big name
    By chance over here in the west we came across a needle and soon we did the same
    In London there are seventeen-year-old boys and their idea of fun
    Is being in a gang called ‘Hamas’
    High on crack and totin’ a machine gun
    Time
    Times
    Hurricane Henk ripped the satellite dish off another house and frightened everyone nationwide
    You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died
    NHS ward sister killed a baby ’cause she couldn’t afford to feed herself
    And yet we’re sending rockets to the Ukraine…

    Navy turns to Serco to recruit deckhands (Telegraph) – Serco by the way is one of those crony corporations up to its elbows in lucrative state illegal migrant funding – so I guess if you’re after recruiting some fighting age chaps… who you gonna call?

    Special Report – teases the Telegraph: How BBC sport coverage fell apart under current regime

    The Sun weighs in with: 2 complaints over Strictly Giovanni and 3 other stars ‘unhappy’ Beeb won’t step in

    Regretably, we have to address party politics. To borrow from football analogies our Rishi may have been a surprise foreign signing but he’s not proved to be Premier League material. Whereas Sir Keir is strictly Sunday league level – literally: Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, takes evasive action while playing in goal for his Sunday league team… side lost 14-8 including two goals let in by the former Director of Public Prosecutions (Telegraph) – relegation to a pub side? Well, he was involved in ‘Beergate’ but one recalls him being barred from a public house

    Is it time to add more beans to your diet? (BBC)

    Khan bows to unions over tube strikes… bumper pay offer to RMT in ‘foretaste’ of Labour government (Telegraph) – further comment there would seem superfluous.

       20 likes

    • Fedup2 says:

      Solving the flooding problem – build reservoirs in places which flood – ban rivers from flooding – Rename any place relaying to water – flood lane – river road ….

         14 likes

      • atlas_shrugged says:

        Cranebridgeshire geniuses have a firm grip on this flooding problem. Current mass-house building in the flood plains of:

        1) Trumpington WATER meadows
        2) WATERbeach

           11 likes

  22. Zephir says:

    climate lies, see attached annual rainfall fairly constant from 1995, so why all the floods?

    Annual amount of rainfall in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1995 to 2022

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/610664/annual-rainfall-uk/

       11 likes

  23. Zephir says:

    The bbc seems to dwell a hell of a lot on Palestinian casualties and use the excuse that these invaders of Israel not be called terrorists despite their blatant attacks on civilians as the bbc are “impartial”.

    If that is the case, where are the endless, weekly empathy articles with photos of Russian casualties in another war ?

       17 likes

  24. G.W.F. says:

    Moon rocket.
    ”Launching a new era in space flight to the Moon and beyond”.

    One day we may see a manned rocket landing on the Moon.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-67910757

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      She Buzz Lightyear’s spokesbimbo?

      Or the BBC Science, Tech and Space Cadet?

      IMAGE-4_Lightyear_Mo-Darby-1.jpg

      Half price at Aldi.

         6 likes

  25. Guest Who says:

    Damp Starmer standing beside a body of water issuing a daft meaningless political press release for BBC Propaganda to pick up.

    https://x.com/BBCPolitics/status/1744328672994029681?s=20

    Whatever designated idiot Milimpeded has planned will no doubt be fully funded, gloriously inept, in short order and BBC bimbo approved.

    Cats were hugged.

    #CCBGB

       9 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      “Sir Keir Starmer calls for a “Flood Resilience Taskforce” to help combat the impact of flooding

      Labour’s leader adds the government’s response “wasn’t quick enough”

      https://bbc.in/48GHu6z

      12:02 pm · 8 Jan 2024
      14.5K Views
      18 Reposts
      3 Quotes
      50 Likes

      Keir Starmer has said that Labour MP Rosie Duffield was wrong to say that only women have a cervix. Ms Duffield has stayed away from Labour’s annual conference this week after receiving threats online from people who regard her comment as discriminatory.26 Sept 2021

         11 likes

  26. StewGreen says:

    16 months ago today, Labour’s former Chief Whip Nick Brown was suspended from the party
    .. and we STILL haven’t been told why?

       19 likes

  27. Terminal Moraine says:

    Another day, another opportunity to reengineer society. Turns out beer and the mafia are far more feminine than we thought. Because men haven’t really originated anything of much worth.

    “Women were the original beer brewers – what changed? The first beer brewers were women. But today, less than 2% of breweries in the US are owned exclusively by women. How did the industry become male-dominated?”

    “The woman who inspired the Sopranos”. The writer/producer’s “wife Denise had long been convinced that his mother was comedy gold, and that other people would see it too. She wasn’t the only one who thought this: colleagues on TV shows he was working on would say the same thing when they heard his stories about her…”

    —————
    https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0gwgmz8/women-were-the-original-beer-brewers-what-changed-

    https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240105-how-the-sopranos-began-as-a-comedy-about-a-mother

       9 likes

  28. Terminal Moraine says:

    Marianna’s back with her knickers in a twist over online hate and social media’s role in allowing nasty things to be said about Israel/Gaza. How the BBC would love to put a dent in X (formerly known as Stephen Yaxley Twitter).

    “What stands out, [counter terror police] say, is how many of the profiles have never posted this type of content before. They believe unsuspecting people are becoming ‘swept up’ in sharing ‘naked antisemitism'”.

    One solution would be to stop waving in so many terrorist sympathisers to the country in the first place, but such a radical idea won’t ever occur to the likes of Marianna and the BBC.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884785

       16 likes

  29. Fedup2 says:

    From the DT – where BBC sport went wrong – enjoy ….

    The year 2024 is one that BBC Sport should be attacking with confidence and conviction. After all, the summer smorgasbord promises not just a European Championship, but a first Olympic Games in a proximate time zone since the giddy sugar rush of London 2012, when the department’s blanket coverage brought director Barbara Slater an OBE. Those golden 17 days, marked by teary video montages and the ubiquity of Clare Balding, feel as if they belong to another lifetime. For 12 years on from the biggest event in British broadcasting history, there are multiplying signs of a corporation that has lost its way.

    It is not just that the store cupboard of live rights is now so bare that even the Paris Games will be restricted to one linear and one digital channel. It is not just that the BBC’s genuflecting to on-screen “talent” is so out of control that Gary Lineker, having triggered a full-systems crisis last March with his comments on the Government’s asylum policy, continues to send political tweets with impunity. It is that in its obsessive pursuit of the under-35 demographic, it appears to have lost all sense of how best to serve its core sports audience.

    A Question of Sport, once appointment family viewing, has been mothballed. Sports Personality of the Year has been shunted from its prestige Sunday night slot to the midweek boondocks. Even Football Focus looks vulnerable, with its average viewing figures having fallen to just 564,000 since Alex Scott took over from Dan Walker in 2021. Across the board, the old flagships are listing badly. And if there is one recurrent theme, it is the BBC’s habit of taking tried-and-trusted formats and finding ways to make them worse – before eventually shelving them altogether on the pretext that tastes have changed.

    Des Lynam, who as the BBC’s face of sport for decades combined journalistic rigour with a priceless levity, observes this trend with dismay. “I feel sorry for the department,” he says. “I gave my life to it. Sport needs someone who fights its corner. I had Jonathan Martin, my head of sport at one time, on the phone the other day. He was a strong man and whether you liked him or not he fought for Sport. The trouble now is getting money out of the BBC. Most departments fight like mad for it, but I don’t feel that sport has fought the battle strongly enough. Plus, they’ve made dreadful mistakes, like getting rid of Sue Barker.”

    Sue Barker hosting Wimbledon
    Sue Barker admitted to anger at the way she was dropped from A Question of Sport CREDIT: Guy Levy/BBC
    ‘They hire sportspeople, not broadcasters’
    There is abundant evidence to support Lynam’s thesis. In Slater’s 14-year tenure, the live BBC portfolio has been denuded at an alarming rate, with rights for Formula One, the Open Championship and the Grand National all surrendered. At last month’s Spoty ceremony, a look back at the year’s golf majors consumed a grand total of eight seconds. References to F1 were restricted to one shot from the grandstands of Max Verstappen rounding the final corner at Silverstone.

    Barker’s soothing presence is also sorely missed. She combined the gravitas befitting a French Open champion with an inimitable on-screen warmth, interviewing Andy Murray after Wimbledon defeat in the manner of an indulgent mother whose son had just flunked his piano exam. But having developed a winning chemistry with Question of Sport captains Phil Tufnell and Matt Dawson, she found herself dropped.

    She left as Wimbledon presenter a year later, with Barry Davies, another voice who represented the BBC at its best, convinced that even at 66 she had far more still to give. “She was very natural, very knowledgeable, and if I had been in charge, she would be going on,” Davies says. “Sue’s right when she says you want to go out at the top. But she certainly had a few more years.”

    In Barker’s absence, A Question of Sport collapsed, with her replacement Paddy McGuinness displaying the same reverse-Midas touch he had shown on Top Gear. The role of lead female anchor at live spectaculars is likely to fall increasingly to Scott, 39, the ex-England women’s right-back tipped for a major role at the Paris Olympics. Scott’s own presenting style can be an acquired taste, and Lynam is not persuaded it works. “She’s able, but in my opinion, if she went in for an interview without the sports background, she wouldn’t pass it,” he says. “I wasn’t a sports person of any repute, I was a broadcaster. I think the BBC have moved away from broadcasting too much. They hire a lot of people who are excellent at sport but not at broadcasting.”

    Alex Scott divides opinion as a presenter CREDIT: Zac Goodwin/PA
    ‘A lot of shouty stuff – a lot of ego’
    One criticism levelled at Scott’s Football Focus is a perceived excess of earnestness. In the age of Bob Wilson, the programme’s longest-serving presenter, the live links to John Motson in the snow suggested all that mattered was the football. Today, there is the inelegant distraction of segments that serve only to emphasise the BBC’s immersion in fashionably worthy causes. In one episode, there was a poem from performance artist Bemz to highlight Black History Month, followed by an interview with Russell Martin that dwelt less on his achievements as Swansea City manager than on the fact he was a vegan who compelled his players to recycle and to turn off the tap while brushing their teeth.

    The same shift can be glimpsed at the Sports Personality love-in. In 1988, a year dominated by Ben Johnson’s drugs disgrace in Seoul, Lynam opened the show by teasing a visibly nervous Linford Christie about serving him a cup of ginseng tea, on which the British sprinter had successfully blamed his own positive test. Fast-forward 35 years, and there was nothing so close to the bone, with Scott wrapping up a 12-minute panegyric to the Lionesses by reading from Maya Angelou.

    “I always felt it was a bit tense,” Lynam reflects. “It was like sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s. You had all the blazers who didn’t really want to be there, and then the sports personalities who were shy about taking part. So, we tried to inject some humour and lightness. Now they want to make it a showbizzy event. They have the orchestra playing for the first couple of minutes and you think, ‘Is this a sports show?’ It doesn’t work for me.”

    Certain elements of the BBC Sport offering work brilliantly. Dan Roan is one of the finest sports editors the organisation has had, while several specialist radio correspondents, from Chris Jones in rugby to Iain Carter in golf, elevate their events with a lyrical touch. It is a point that Cornelius Lysaght, the BBC’s former racing correspondent, is at pains to make. Lysaght was deeply hurt at how he was let go in 2020, describing how he felt his insides had been torn out. But he acknowledges that on a frantic football afternoon, few places distil the action better than his old home of Radio Five Live.

    Cornelius Lysaght was a familiar voice on the BBC’s racing coverage until he was dropped in 2020 CREDIT: John Lawrence
    “I believe Five Live’s core product of live sport is outstanding,” Lysaght says. “If you want to listen to very user-friendly, informative football commentary, Ian Dennis, Conor McNamara and John Murray are all superb. The phone-ins are rubbish, though. When that format started with Danny Baker in the Nineties, it was smart, intelligent. Now there’s a lot of shouty stuff, a lot of ego. It’s all very well catering for your younger audience, but you have to serve your established audience, too.” Echoing this concern, Lynam argues: “Phone-ins can be done by anybody. They have to avoid appealing to the lowest common denominator. They’re the BBC, for heaven’s sake.”

    ‘They’ll offload Lineker if he’s not careful’
    In his era, Lynam was the undisputed doyen of sports presenters, heralded as such by his successor Lineker. But other than when he moved to ITV in 1999 – “wonderful for my bank balance, not so much for my career,” he jokes – his high profile never created a headache for the BBC. The same can hardly be said of Lineker, whose sallies into politics have continued in spite of the firestorm he unleashed by comparing Suella Braverman’s small boats crackdown to the language of 1930s Germany. Even after a toughening of social media guidelines, he has carried on undaunted, mocking Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and recommending a video from pro-Palestinian propagandist Owen Jones.

    The problem is not so much the content of these messages as the reality that nobody else could post them and stay employed by the BBC. And not just employed, but lionised, paid £1.35 million for fronting a football highlights show, a salary six times that of political editor Chris Mason. “We love Gary and Gary loves us,” Slater told MPs last November, disregarding how Lineker had lit the fuse on one of the BBC’s most tumultuous sagas.

    Slater retires from her role this spring, and Lynam is doubtful, irrespective of his personal friendship with Lineker, whether the slavish deference to a star name can last. “I’ve always got on well with him, but there needs to be a little bit of caution,” he says. “He gets himself into trouble. They’ll offload him if he’s not careful.”

    Gary Lineker has continued to present BBC Sport’s biggest programmes despite bringing the corporation to the point of crisis CREDIT: Henry Nicholls/Reuters
    As it stands, Match of the Day will endure on the BBC until at least 2029. But resentments over how Lineker’s heedless tweeting has been handled still simmer. On the radio side in particular, there was anger at how presenters were called “scabs” for not joining the celebrity pundits’ decision to withdraw their labour in protest at Lineker’s exile. “I’ve had the same conversations you’ve had,” Lysaght says. “And there was a slight feeling by some of ‘I’m damned if I’m going to go out for Gary Lineker, I know perfectly well he wouldn’t go out for me’. It does seem an amazing scenario. There are people who have been very big at the BBC in the past, but this…” He opts against saying any more, knowing how incendiary the subject of Lineker has become.

    ‘No evidence the youth policy works’
    Lysaght does not hold back, however, in railing against the ever-expanding layer of middle-management. “There are a lot of people at the BBC who come along with marketing or promotional backgrounds, and who talk about chasing the youth audience,” he explains. “It’s a W1A situation. They decide to have a youth policy, and it looks so good on paper and they think everyone will be terribly impressed. But there’s no evidence to indicate it works.”

    You can detect this youth focus even in such cherished staples as Ski Sunday. At its inception in 1978, held together by the smooth baritone of David Vine, the show became unmissable for winter sports enthusiasts, glamorising the daredevil antics of Franz Klammer and the playboy charm of Alberto Tomba. Ever since, it has gone downhill faster than Hermann Maier, with the skiing squeezed out by low-budget travelogues and bleeding-heart lifestyle items. For many loyal viewers, the last straw was when one show posed the question: “How do you solve snowsport’s diversity problem?”

    This trumpeting of inclusion at all costs has invited concerns in other areas, especially the coverage of sport’s transgender debate. In April 2022, Catherine Leng, a senior journalist on the BBC News Channel, wrote to Stephen Mawhinney, the head of sports journalism: “It has been a really enormous issue in the last month or so, and our coverage has all been from the point of view of trans inclusion, rather than the impact of women’s sport.” Mawhinney responded robustly, stressing that the BBC had, for instance, carried the testimonies of female swimmers concerned about the US collegiate title won by Lia Thomas, a biological male.

    But Leng’s overarching point is difficult to contest. When Austin Killips last year became the first trans-identifying male to win a UCI stage race for women, the BBC tweeted the news with the words, “History made!” The post was subsequently deleted.

    It is just one example of tensions complicating the immediate future at BBC Sport, a place that can often appear too beholden to the forces of political correctness. “On the one hand, people will say, ‘Look at sport on the BBC, it’s a disaster,’” Lysaght says. “But on the other, it’s a really interesting challenge for someone to take on, to ensure that it remains relevant. One thing I do know, though. There’s no point shooting yourselves in the foot by infuriating your core audience – the people who really want to love you.” It is a cri de coeur his embattled former employers would do well to heed.

    ENDS
    on the up side -when ordinary people who still don’t realise what the BBC has become watch a sport with the approved notice I’m sure even they notice …

       13 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      I thought I first saw this here, so apologies if repeating;

      Part of a longer thread:
      https://x.com/leng_cath/status/1744341465227010322?s=20
      Oh look at that. They went in and took off his byline. Shame they didn’t correct the error and bias at the same time
      If only women could hide too, but we’ve no choice
      @ianhunt77 you’ve let women down, you’ve let the BBC down but most of all you’ve let yourself down #frit

      The BBC, run, and you can hide.

         3 likes

    • BRISSLES says:

      Fed, an interesting and enlightening read. One thing struck a lightbulb moment – how do you solve diversity in skiing ? I’ve never skied or had an inclination to, but I loved Ski Sunday, and all the championships, and yep it’s certainly not for the faint hearted disabled, and, like swimming and the equestrian world, a non-white face is a rarity, but it’s no-ones fault, all sports are open to all, some cut the mustard and others don’t.

         4 likes

  30. Emmanuel Goldstein says:

    We are continuously told we have to pay higher wages to get the best people.

    I wonder what wage the heads of the post office, Nat west and the other poorly run businesses are paying their top people.
    Just like the civil service, pay more to get the best people yet everything is failing.
    The NHS for example, but all the departments are failing.

    I think that paying these people huge sums doesn’t get the best, it gets the greediest.
    There are so many hard working normal people not getting these huge salaries but are much more deserving of higher pay than this bunch of interchangeable chums being given top jobs because of who they know and not what they know.
    It’s also apparent that it’s just a merry go round anyway, fail in one job, (get a golden goodbye) and get another similar job (with the usual golden handshake)

    Like inheritance tax. All those telling us it’s a good idea are the 5% who benefit from it. They make the rules.
    Put the lot of them on the B Arc.

       16 likes

    • Thoughtful says:

      The Post Office was paying Vennells an average of around £620K pa and she provided them with excellent service in return for that money, quietly destroying small businesses and making up false figures which the government would add to its balance sheet instead of subtracting from. From their point of view she was an excellent employee and did exactly what they wanted from her.

      I wasn’t aware that Nat West was being badly run at the present time save for the crazy Left wing loon who had to be got rid of because of her inability to control her toxic femininity and political beliefs?

      The Civil Service certainly don’t pay good money the head of the civil service is paid around £200K which in todays terms where most FTSE100 directors are making over a million and CEOs average around £5 Million it’s pretty much a pittance – and he’s the guy at the top!

      The problem is people who are party political favourites being gifted part time jobs at the very top paid a lot of money and then doing very little. One ‘Lord’ I was aware of had so many quango appointments he would be lucky to spend one day a month on each of them, of course he was getting paid for all of them.

      We are not selecting the best people, in fact we are not selecting anyone at all. It’s an old boys network where people are appointed by political favouritism and it destroys the country. Take the appalling diversity monster Sharon White who wrecked John Lewis, and right from the day her appointment was announced I was predicting what would happen, but the Tory idiot who appointed her thought she was amazing.

      This is the trouble with the lot of them, they are clueless ex public school establishment figures who move between appointments and if they are fortunate most of the time it’s plain sailing, it’s only when it all goes wrong you find what they really are.

         14 likes

      • Nibor says:

        I could agree with what you say there except about the senior civil servants. I would hang them .

           7 likes

        • Thoughtful says:

          The problem with them is that they enter the civil service direct from university and they are generally politically motivated, prepared to accept lower pay in order to effect the political change they wish to acheive.

             7 likes

  31. StewGreen says:

    Does this BBC response properly explain and answer complaints about Nihal Arthanayake’s wild comments ?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaint/nihaldiversity

    It doesn’t even quote him

    12 December 2023
    Summary of complaint
    We’ve received complaints about comments made by Nihal Arthanayake at the NCTJ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Conference in Salford, concerning the diversity of his work place.

    Our response
    Nihal’s comments were referring to what he sees as a lack of diversity in his workplace, and how this affects him. He was speaking at an event which looks to bring new talent in as we work towards making our organisation as inclusive as possible.

    As the BBC we want everyone who works with us – and those considering a career with us – to know we are focussed on creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels they belong.

    #BrushedOff

    I found that hidden away
    The BBC has a Complaints page , which makes it took like there have only been 4 recent issues
    You have to know to click the tiny button marked “see all” and that gets you here
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/recent-complaints

       10 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      It’s like Douglas Murray’s insight on Nazis vs. Hamas.

      The BBC know they are currently teflon, but also clearly demonstrate they know that they are doing wrong by such efforts to conceal it.

         7 likes

  32. Thoughtful says:

       8 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      OK Jon there is an explanation
      BBCnews isn’t funded by BBC Commerial as Jon said
      rather the World Service bit
      There used to be 2 BBC sections, The Main BBC and the World Service which was funded by UK government Foreign Office grants .. as it was PR or propaganda that benefits the UK
      The Tories imposed a kind of internal tax on the BBC by saying the BBC would still have to do that World Service role, but would get no funds from government, so would have to use funds generated from elsewhere say BBC Commercial.

      In the old days when a crazy dictator country was having elections , there was not much of a counter view so the World Service gave it to the people.
      I imagine the Foreidn Office thinks that a more democratic Pakistan would benefit Pakistani and British people, so is behind BBC Urdu propaganda.
      Similarly for the Pidgin language services.

         6 likes

  33. StewGreen says:

    We know that Marian lied on her CV
    but I note that in 2019 we talked about Katya Adler doing the same thing
    #BBCtruthTellers

       7 likes

  34. vlad says:

    Not the BBC but part of the same Long March through our Institutions: anyone noticed that out public libraries have become year-round outlets for Leftist propaganda?

    I’ve visited quite a few recently, and they all have non-stop display stands that revolve seamlessly from Black History month to Pride month to Wimmin’s month, to Trans month, to Climate Apocalypse month, to Ramadan month, to Poor Refugees month, to The NHS is Wonderful month, to Whatever the latest Agitprop month, round and round, endlessly.

    Will a future Tory government begin to tackle that and roll back the Long March? Like hell they will. A British Donald Trump might be reckless enough to try, but no sign of one here. (Anyway, they’ll probably assassinate the American one if the current lawfare and vote rigging doesn’t take him out.)

       22 likes

    • tomo says:

      University libraries have gone full ivory tower and often now only allow present staff and students to access them…

      My 20 year external membership at Bath was terminated without notice and several ex uni staff elsewhere of my acquaintance were annoyed to get excluded from their libraries too.

         4 likes

  35. StewGreen says:

    October, 2018 story
    Media storytellers are here for the clicks today
    they don’t care if they get caught out
    They’ve had their clicks, so they delete and move on
    Here Sky made up a phrase TR never said

    I double checked ..their ghosted video still no longer exists on YouTube

       13 likes

    • vlad says:

      Even if TR had said that, fear of muslims is a perfectly rational response to a violent, murderous, totalitarian, supremacist, intolerant, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic, barbaric, medieval death cult.

      Oh, and by the way, in the last 30 days the religionists of peace have murdered 871 people – many of them Christians – in 22 countries, and injured many more (see link below).

      You bet I’m scared.

      https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30

         18 likes

    • MarkyMark says:

      Omission is the greatest lie.

         4 likes

  36. Up2snuff says:

    TWatO Watch #1 – there is an elephant in the studio, Sarah!

    A private company has been working with the North American Space Agency to send a rocket into space and the BBC who are totally sold on Global Warming and Climate Change do not ask the key question. You would think they would. Or they could ask Marianna Spring to stand underneath the rocket at launch and tell the BBC whether it gets hot. Just in order to verify the science. Or not.

    Rocket fuel is normally a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen and so does not contribute to global warming apart from the massive amounts of heat to lift several tons free of the earth’s atmosphere. The big CO2 requirement in manned space travel is for electricity for tracking and telecoms. This mission to the moon is unmanned so I would have thought there would be a reduced requirement for electricity for telecoms. However Sarah talked about manned missions to the moon and Mars where there would be a substantial requirement for for electricity for both tracking and telecoms, let alone the media coverage.

    Funny thing, with Sarah interviewing two scientists she did not ask about Global Warming and Climate Change. You would think that with the BBC deciding the science was settled, that would be the first question for the Montacutie to ask!

       9 likes

      • Up2snuff says:

        Guest, yes but it is kind of hot. I have forgotten what temperatures are required to lift a space vehicle. I’m sure that James Burke told me but as it was the 1960s, please forgive me not remembering. Remember the heat is released at ground level and until the rocket reaches the lower or upper atmosphere (where things are cold at high altitude) it is releasing more Global Warming. It is the big electricity requirement where questions should be raised by the Warmistas and Climate Cultists.

           5 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          Not disagreeing with you. I struggle to see many planetary plusses to what squirts out of the stern of these things, so it’s a trade off between exploration and pollution. A bit like Greepeace diesel ships and those gin palaces ‘investigating’ Antarctica with rich Americans and Chris Packhams on board.

          At least things have moved on from T-stoff and F-stoff.

             8 likes

          • Guest Who says:

            This just appeared in my timeline. Sort of a complement to a few BBC science efforts:

            https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a43307630/laws-of-thermodynamics/?

            I am usually chary of ‘what you need to know’ but it promises to be brief so worth checking for accuracy.

            Good start:

            The laws that those early scientists wrote down were empirical, which means they were not based on any grand theory of the universe, but on cold, hard experimental verification. In other words, they wrote down these statements because, after years of repeated experiments, they always saw these statements holding true.

            Ah, but, computer mod….

               7 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      @Up2 “Rocket fuel is normally a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen and so does not contribute to global warming”

      Where do they get their hydrogen from ?
      Ans, from treating methane with steam .. that is the only economical way in the West*
      It yields Hydrogen and CO2
      (There’s a bit of CO in the middle but it reacts with the steam to become CO2 and H)
      Green dreamers think they can economically capture that CO2
      It’s not currently viable

      * There’s one place in Africa where they capture natural H from beneath the earth and use it to make electricity onsite. H is difficult to store and transport, unlike diesel or methane)

         11 likes

      • Up2snuff says:

        Stew, quite so. And then there is the storage question, oxygen has to be liquified, if I recall correctly, and stored as a liquid which requires a low temperature. Maybe for the hydrogen, too.

        There are further AGW&CC hiccoughs: if for any reason a launch has to be postponed for technical or weather reasons, the rocket has to be de-fuelled and then re-fuelled. For an understandable reason, NASA do not like large bombs sitting around in the Florida sunshine on top of their launch infrastructure while the techie glitch is solved or the weather improves, especially if there is lightning around.

           7 likes

  37. Nibor says:

    BBC ,

    In Re the German farmers protests , there is a difference between a subsidy- where a government gives you money – and not taxing , lowering a tax and not increasing a tax .

    And there will always be ‘ fears ‘ of far right groups joining protests from people such as yourselves because you’re undemocratic .

       9 likes

    • StewGreen says:

      BBC headline went up at 11:24am and 11:37am
      “German farmers blockade Berlin with tractors in subsidy row”

         10 likes

      • StewGreen says:

        page has 3 mentions of “Far right”

        The stealth edit was her changing the number of tractors by 250%
        “with some 200 tractors parked up by Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.”
        to “with more than 500 tractors and trucks parked up by Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.”

           14 likes

      • StewGreen says:

        @Nibor Are plain biscuits in the UK SUBSIDISED ?
        The VAT on plain biscuits is zero , but on chocolate ones it’s 20%
        That’s a tax difference not a subsidy

        “Subsidy Row”is not a BBC invention .. other media have used those words previously eg AFP on Thursday
        The German government on Thursday dropped part of its plansto cut agricultural subsidies in the face of massive protests from farmers.
        Contrary to the initial plans, a discount on the vehicle tax for agricultural machinery would be maintained,

        Meanwhile, tax breaks on fuel used by the same vehicles would not be scrapped completely but reduced progressively
        ..

        Germany’s highest court decided in November that the government had broken a constitutional debt rule when it transferred $66 billion)earmarked for pandemic support to a climate fund.
        Son end to the farm subsidies was announced in December

        The move almost immediately prompted significant protests by farmers, who descended on central Berlin in their thousands.
        (So why didn’t BBC report it earlier than today ?)

        The protestors blocked one of the main roads in the heart of the capital with tractors and dumped manure on the street.
        The partial reinstatement of the tax breaks was “insufficient”, said the head of the German Farmers’ Association (DBV).

        Is it a subsidy ?
        In the UK Red diesel is neither a subsidy nor tax break
        The farmers don’t gt govt $$, they pay for the fuel. And all farmers pay red diesel market price. A subsidy is when on or a few get the advantage and other don’t.
        It’s just that the tax is lower like for plain biscuits over chocolate ones

        Farmer’s weekly says the German system is different
        There is no difference in price between street diesel and agricultural diesel.
        However, farmers can claw back €0.21 (18p) paid on every litre,
        .. although they have to pay €350 (£295) per farm per year
        and the subsidy applies only to the first 10,000 litres per farm each year.

        Actually i still wouldn’t call that a subsidy

           4 likes

      • atlas_shrugged says:

        Dear bBC Cokeheads

        Sorry to interrupt your coke snorting.

        The German farmers are reacting to a new TAX. A subsidy is what happens when you make food cheaper for food consumers.

        It is a new TAX they are complaining about. Just like we complain about the telly-tax.

        Are you suggesting that people like me who do not have a TV are being subsidised? Really?

        Idiots!

           8 likes

        • StewGreen says:

          Yes To simplify the BBC are spinning the headline, by copying the earlier German media narrative that RAISING TAXES on farmers is a SUBSIDY CUT

          my example
          Local bookshops are often small so pay ZERO business rates
          and their books are charged ZERO VAT
          If the British government turned around and said “we have to balance the budgets so the new law is full rates and 20% VAT” and then the shop owners protested
          the BBC would not use the headline “UK bookshops protest in SUBSIDY row”

             4 likes

  38. G.W.F. says:

    They will have to stop Trump

       14 likes

  39. Zephir says:

    “Peregrine Mission One lunar lander carrying JFK’s DNA suffers ‘anomaly’ as it heads to the moon
    A private mission carrying human remains to the moon suffered an anomaly. The craft was unable to point its solar panels toward the sun while in space”

    CCBGB:

    “Software by Fujitsu”

       14 likes

  40. Thoughtful says:

    OK here is another thing of a heads up about what we are not being told about the world which is going on unreported largely.

    Israel / Hamas.

    I was previously unaware that the Hamas attack was not some kind of spontaneous unprovoked action, but came as a result of an incursion by the Israeli’s into the Al Aqsa Mosque the third most holy site in Islam.

    I was also unaware that several EU countries including Spain and France have been very quiet about the current conflict because of the large violent Muslim populations they have stupidly allowed to grow like a cancer in their countries.

    The conflict has been leveraged by the BRICS group into pretty much removing the Wests influence and presence in the Middle East and they have unified the Arabs against the West.

    In this situation the Iranians no longer need to close the Straits of Hormuz as that will affect their trade with BRICS, so they have instead moved with the Houthi’s to close the Bab Al-Mandab Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea which will affect the West.

    In this instance American incompetence under Biden and the CIA has led to this disastrous outcome, alongside a blind support for Netanyahu’s murderous campaign which if handled differently might have led to a different outcome.

    Ukraine / Russia

    This situation is now close to an end. It is reported that the military leaders of both countries are discussing an end to the war. The political leaders who are of course corrupt want the war to carry on, and the missile attacks by Russia are pressure to force them to reality.
    If the West under the incompetence of Biden and the CIA are unable to come to any kind of accommodation with Russia Ukraine will surrender without any Western influence and it will be yet another military failure of the Biden (mal)administration.

    This after Afghanistan is a major blow to American military prestige and standing in the world. I think the people backing Biden care more about US Dollars in their pockets today than they do about the future of their country and the West in general.

    BRICS and the Russian Presidency.

    Russia takes the presidency of BRICS and are planning on very many international meetings this year. It appears pretty much inevitable that they will be seeking the introduction of the Gold backed BRICS trading currency. This is not a currency for countries or people, but a currency to cut out the US Dollar and trade between member states in.

    The loss of the Dollar as world reserve will be a blow to America from which it will not recover.

    We have all been played, by incompetent and arrogant leaders who failed us utterly, and instead of concentrating on what was vitally important they decided to concentrate on what was completely unimportant and that has led to total disaster – only they don’t know that yet because it hasn’t happen, but it’s pretty much baked in now and there’s nothing much which is going to prevent it happening.

       5 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      So some folk stuck their nose in a runner up mosque uninvited and this was inspiration to unleash a coordinated airborne assault by drugged up troops instructed to kill, maim, rape and record it all as a spontaneous slap wrist?

      OK.

      But the rest, yes. The political media estates of the West have served up the populations first based on stupidity and cowardice, but will get eaten eventually.

         13 likes

      • Thoughtful says:

        I don’t know what went on at the Al Aqsa Mosque, all I can tell you is what I was told, what ever happened was the catalyst for October 7th, but according to other sources Netanyahu has been spoiling for a war with just about anyone since he returned to power.

        And by the way October 7th was no about any of the things you’ve listed, they were just a side show.

           2 likes

        • Guest Who says:

          I prefer not to get into debates with people who don’t know things, but in catalytic terms, I was merely looking to question if a visit into a place was on par with some rather dubious Viking activity back, neighbour wise.

          As to ‘sources’, other or otherwise, I leave them to Ms. Rigby and her credibility in journalism based on… er..

          ‘Spoiling for war’ is not exactly unique to most political leaderships, but handing one a gift with an outrage pre-planned over a long period is a fairly good way to get one… if that’s what you and your population of children and reporters and credulous media boosters are ok with it.

          Oh, and, Bob is well aware.

             7 likes

        • Teddy Bear says:

          Thoughtful??? You appear not to have ANY understanding of what Islam is all about. Since 9/11 there have been 44,565 Deadly Terrorist Attacks around the world for the purpose of taking over the world.
          http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/TROP.jpg

          Hamas is just ONE of the groups used by Islam, with Iran one of the main contenders to be at the head of dominating the world. Israel is 0.01% of all the surrounding Arab lands and actually has 2million Arabs as Israeli citizens – 1/5th of the population. There are no Jews in the Palestinian territories (terrortories)
          There is NO mention even once of Jerusalem at all in the Koran. Islam’s claimed 3rd holiest site (Al-Aqsa) was added in recent history and was claimed that this is where Mohammed went to heaven on his donkey. It was claimed to be located at THE HOLIEST PLACE in Jewish history -The Temple Mount. Do you think there was a purpose behind using this particular site for their claim?
          I suggest you look at the website The Religion of Peace which I linked to above to understand more about what Islam is trying to do. Do you really imagine that Hamas built all their tunnels, and managed to bring in thousands of rockets, as well as the other arms they have on the spur of the moment to counter some recent action by Israel. Hamas are doing exactly what they did to do their best to bring Israel down, in world opinion if nothing else. They certainly seem to have won your support.
          Try some research to go with your chosen name.

             16 likes

  41. JohnC says:

    Iranian woman whipped 74 times for refusing to wear hijab
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/07/iranian-woman-whipped-74-times-refusing-wear-hijab/

    Not on the BBC as of yet. But of course we don’t want anything negative about Hamas or their allies at the moment.

    This is exactly what happens when the feminists at the BBC encourage women to stand up against the men in a Muslim country. They get 10 minutes of front-page headlines while the BBC clones virtue-signal and parade their misandry then they are left to whatever fate comes to them.

    The BBC quickly lose interest when something higher up the agenda like Gaza comes along.

       16 likes

  42. Zephir says:

    May 2023:

    “As more women forgo the hijab, Iran’s government pushes back

    Billboards across Iran’s capital proclaim that women should wear their mandatory headscarves to honor their mothers. But perhaps for the first time since the chaotic days following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, more women — both young and old — choose not to do so.

    Such open defiance comes after months of protests over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police, for wearing her hijab too loosely. While the demonstrations appear to have cooled, the choice by some women not to cover their hair in public poses a new challenge to the country’s theocracy. The women’s pushback also lays bare schisms in Iran that had been veiled for decades.

    Authorities have made legal threats and closed down some businesses serving women not wearing the hijab. Police and volunteers issue verbal warnings in subways, airports and other public places. Text messages have targeted drivers who had women without head covering in their vehicles.”

    https://apnews.com/article/iran-headscarf-hijab-protests-unrest-7cfce99b8841d6df5e8ad95ec8032b28

       8 likes

  43. Zephir says:

    And the muslims in the UK that say “they choose to wear it”

    yeh, right:

    “In 1979, tens of thousands of women in Iran took to the streets of Tehran, just weeks after the revolution. They were chanting, “We didn’t have a revolution to go backwards.”

    In 1979, Iranian women protested mandatory veiling ⁠— setting the stage for today
    ‘That struggle … that flame of resistance, has never died out,’ says Minoo Jalali, who fled Iran in 1983.

    Since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 in Tehran, tens of thousands of women have taken over the streets in dozens of cities across Iran, chanting “Women, life, freedom.”

    Those protests are part of a long history of feminist resistance in Iran — and the continuation of a struggle that began in 1979.

    “The struggle against mandatory veiling and for women’s basic rights and freedoms has really been 43 years in the making. It began on Day 1, as soon as Islamic forces declared victory in the revolution that overthrew the shah,” said IDEAS contributor Donya Ziaee.

    “It was led, in large part, by women who themselves participated in the revolution and wanted the shah overthrown, but refused to let their revolution be overtaken by regressive forces that now wanted to deny them their rights.”

    https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/iran-women-protests-1979-revolution-1.6605982

       11 likes

  44. Thoughtful says:

       4 likes

  45. Guest Who says:

    https://x.com/BBCNews/status/1744408882452001224?s=20
    Man jailed for raping teenage girl in park

    See, all you need to know.

       7 likes