Author Archives: Alan

I wonder if there are any records of phone calls or emails between Occupy and BBC editors especially with regard to the Olympic sponsorship.

Down with McDonalds and Coca Cola!

If you wanted to hear the Bullingdon Club in action you could do worse than to tune in to the Today programme where Humphrys, Webb and Mardell do a good impression of a cabal of rich, over indulged, self obsessed, elitist, arrogant, complacent yobs throwing bread rolls and brickbats at any passing foreigner they don’t like.

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‘Cynics say the best thing that could have happened to whip up enthusiasm for the Olympics here was to have a high profile foreigner come here and rubbish them. Well it happened. And you don’t get much more high profile than Mitt Romney, who might well become the next president of the United States. The BBC’s Mark Mardell reports.’

Romney rubbish the Olympics?  ‘Well it happened’.

No it didn’t….that’s just a flagrant BBC lie.

Mardell ‘reports’…only he didn’t, it was one long sneer at Mitt Romney and it was clearly intended to be that because looking at what Romney said there was nothing in the slightest offensive or ‘gafflike’ in it….and seeing as he is not privvy (cue loo jokes) to British school boy humour about tits, boobs and backsides….and Mardell in this report on the BBC website actually excused Romney…so for him to play along with Web and Humphrys and then to add to the mirth by suggesting Romney was the nearest thing to the Luftwaffe London was likely to see this year neatly shows that this ‘report’ on Today was a pure attack on the Republican Presidential candidate.

It is in effect BBC racism…Humphrys and Co thinking it’s OK to mock Romney in a way they never would Obama purely because Romney is a white, Christian, Republican American…whereas Obama is black, a Democrat and may not even be American….and may  be a Muslim to boot.

This is what Romney said about the Olympics…bearing in mind the BBC’s weeks of apocalyptic predictions about strikes and security Romney’s remarks are measured and considered and completely fair…..

‘Mr Romney told NBC News he saw “a few things that were disconcerting” about London’s preparations. “The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging,” he said.’

 Yes…highly controversial stuff, an obvious diplomatic gaff of great importance.

This is what Mardell said on the web:

The British press have decided he is a knave and a fool.

As for the major offence, Mitt Romney was merely raising the same doubts behind the stories that have dominated both the BBC news and newspaper headlines for weeks.

The Sun did not accuse the Mail of a slur, nor the Mail say the Sun was a party-pooper for raising legitimate questions about London’s readiness to run the Games.

Their security physically stopped the cameras getting shots of anti-Mormon protesters, but nothing could block the barrage of negative coverage.

And note that ‘anti-Mormon protestors’.  Something the BBC approves of as Romney is white and Christian?  Funny how the BBC takes a completely different tone about the EDL as they protest about Islam.

PS: From ‘Spiked’….This explains why the BBC et al attacked the Olympics:

That is the thing about the current attacks on the Olympics for what look like freedom-loving reasons. These attacks are cynical and opportunistic. And as a result, they are particular. The reason for that is threefold. The increasingly shrill attacks are motivated as much by a dislike of sport and those who enjoy it – seen by our enlightened commentators as ‘bread and circuses’ dupes – as for any principled reason. Second, it is only now, in London, amid the transport disruptions and increased police presence, that such authoritarianism is affecting broadsheet journalists and Hackney-dwelling postgraduate Marxists. Before, the state’s focus always seemed to be confined to those on the margins of British society, from the binge-drinking chav to the foul-mouthed racist. And third, it is now not just the British state involved in limiting individual freedom; it appears to involve entities far worse: that’s right, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Nike. Big Corporations. Evil Corporations. For metropolitan liberals, who have tacitly supported the state’s war on the behaviour of the less savoury members of society, it is only now, when Nike and McDonald’s are seemingly involved in this perfect storm of illiberalism, that there seems to be a battle worth fighting.

But slamming London 2012 for supposedly bringing corporation-backed authoritarianism to these shores is not only wrongheaded; it’s also just really miserable.

For many years now we have been told by the BBC that we have peace in our time…peace that is, in Northern Ireland and have been generous with the airtime for the slippery Hain and Mandelson who spared no blushes in fulsome praise of the brave Gerry Adams for making the decision to use the ballot instead of the bullet.

Except of course he never really did…just as he has never admitted to being a member, let alone a commander of the IRA, he will never admit that IRA weapons still exist and that the intent still exists to use violence.

Adams has successfully distanced himself from the violence but is having his cake and eating it as ‘dissident’ IRA groups continue the work….the EOD bomb disposal teams can be called out anything up to 700 times a year…at least half of those explosive devices being ‘viable’.

Adams of course did admit that ‘the Struggle goes on to unite Ireland’…..peacefully of course.

Now we hear that all the dissident groups are uniting under one command…up to 20 groups of varying sizes….you know that does sound like the war really is over doesn’t it?

Guess like Islam the IRA is misunderstood and that a few ‘criminals’ are ‘distorting and perverting’ the Republican cause.

‘YOU WILL SEE WHY 1984 WILL NOT BE LIKE 1984’

‘With more than a nod to George Orwell’s novel 1984,the advert warned of a future where soulless drones unquestionably soak up the words of their dictator who speaks to them from a large screen. Moments later a gorgeous nameless heroine in red shorts and a white tank top comes running down the aisle with a hammer in her hands while apparently being chased by the thought police.

She hurls the hammer at the screen just as “Big Brother” is telling the faithful “we shall prevail.” ‘

I’m still waiting.

WSJ 2003 Michael Gonzalez:

The BBC has been described as Orwellian, because of its unequaled role in shaping perceptions in Britain.

‘The BBC has been described as Orwellian, because of its unequaled role in shaping perceptions in Britain. This is one reason the government of Tony Blair has taken the broadcaster to task over its biased coverage of the Iraq war and its aftermath. But George Orwell also warned us about the dangers the BBC presents in other important ways.

Orwell recognized that Britain’s chattering classes have a suicidal habit of flirting with appeasement. Other great British thinkers have also seen this–not least those who, despite having a healthy mistrust of nationalism, realized that an elite estranged from feelings of patriotism represented a threat.

That the BBC has become the home to this elite today is a tough judgment to pass, and the BBC does many great things. Its non-news documentaries are excellent and its comedies – from “Fawlty Towers” through “Blackadder” to, most recently, “The Office” – are brilliant in a way that few American sitcoms dare to be.

Still, it is important not to close one’s eyes to what else the BBC has become, particularly since the corporation and its journalists are themselves blind to it. The BBC refuses to admit that its coverage of the lead-up to war, of the conflict and its aftermath, has been tendentious; that it has relentlessly pushed the agenda that the war was wrong. The last straw was its claim that, against the wishes of the intelligence agencies, the government had inserted into a dossier on Iraq the assertion that Saddam Hussein had the ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

The BBC’s Andrew Gilligan quoted a source – who turned out to be the scientist David Kelly – as criticizing the government. Kelly later refuted how his comments had been portrayed by Mr. Gilligan to a parliamentary committee. Then Kelly committed suicide. Now the BBC has to either admit that it misquoted a mourned scientist or call him a liar.

That’s the scandal in a nutshell. What led to it is the BBC’s all-out campaign to validate its world view. Because the mass graves and accounts of torture by Saddam’s regime are too real, the BBC has grabbed onto the fact that WMDs have not yet been found to justify its animosity toward the liberation of Iraq. And this animus sprang from the consensus that the West is always wrong.

As Conrad Black, owner of the Telegraph newspapers, wrote in a letter in the July 26 Daily Telegraph: “The BBC is pathologically hostile to the government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy.”

Lord Black added: “Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform.”

This is not hyperbole. The BBC can be a formidable foe. It has, in its own words, “the most widely watched national news bulletins in the UK.” Thus when the BBC decides to manufacture a story, or ignore another, it forms reality for millions in Britain and world-wide. It gave a demonstration of its muscle July 25, when it ran (and ran) with a scoop that Mr. Blair’s director of communications, Alastair Campbell, was about to quit because of the Kelly scandal. That dominated headlines for days.

Mr. Campbell is a powerful man, and his imminent departure would be news. But his resignation (still to be confirmed) also validated the BBC’s position. Also news, however, was the fact that the same day as the Campbell scoop the BBC had changed its mind and requested that Parliament not reveal testimony Mr. Gilligan had given on the scandal. In telling contrast, the evening’s bulletin did not report these facts.

Quite how the BBC’s news department got to this juncture is difficult to parse. Journalists are overwhelmingly left of center to begin with. But there’s more to it than that. BBC journalists are part of the self-appointed elite. In London, home of the global avant-garde, they imbibe the latest anti-Western ideologies and platitudes at the dinner parties where they sup.

No man was better than Orwell at diagnosing the ills that have led to the state of affairs that Lord Black so eloquently describes. In “Notes,” Orwell wrote: “In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion – that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware – will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are skeptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice.”

Through its declarations the BBC reveals itself to be unaware that some people think of it in this manner, let alone that it might be true. It is a testament to Britain’s genius that time and again heroes have emerged from unlikely places to slay the nihilism of the intelligentsia. Whether there are any out there to battle with it today remains to be seen.’

This is an interesting programme from the BBC about the Amish in the US.  It is interesting in its own right but you cannot help wondering if there is a message buried in there somewhere.  Every BBC programme now comes prepacked with a message….about climate or stimulating the economy or the joys of Islam.

The Amish are pretty fundamentalist followers of their particular version of Christianity as taken strictly from a German language Bible.  Flouting certain customs or rules can get you thrown out of the community….they are however totally opposed to any kind of violence…..“A gentle, quiet, peaceful people.”

It is quite possible, or probable, that this was intended as a foil to deflect criticism from Islam and its oppressive and extreme nature….‘Look everyone Christians are just as intolerant and at times as mad and oppressive as you think Muslims are….so don’t criticise Islam!’

Truly we can say that the Amish are our brothers and sisters.

 However there are some differences….Christianity being a real religion of peace…nowhere in Christianity does it command you to make war on unbelievers or to kill non-Christians or to take slaves and loot in the name of God….or to respect women as you would respect your best cow.

Nowhere does Christianity tell you to kill or whip adulterers or to kill gay people or to cut bits off people for crimes.

Christians have certainly done things in the name of God but these really were ‘perversions’ of the religion unlike in Islam where they are encouraged.

The BBC is yet again trying to muddy the  waters and present Islam as something it is not….and continue the pro Muslim proselytising with this from Michael Portillo which is nothing but outright Muslim propaganda from the State Broadcaster.

It’s a funny old world…when the Jews have been under attack for 60 years and defend themselves the BBC pillories and demonises them, when Muslim terrorists blow up half of London or head off to Iraq to blow up other Muslims there are undercurrents of praise and a quiet  glorification of their actions.

When the latest British GDP figures were about to be released the BBC treated us to frequent doom laden warnings of what they would contain…and when they were released John Humphrys called them ‘apocalyptic’ having fallen 0.7%.

(However since the Coalition took over the GDP figures have only fallen a total of 0.3% overall.)

The USA has just released its figures…no fanfare of catastrophe from the BBC, in fact very little comment at all….none on Today or on the news(on the radio).

What was revealed?

Growth in the US economy slowed in the second quarter to an annualised pace of 1.5%, as consumer spending eased.

The 1.5% annual pace in the second quarter is equivalent to 0.4% quarter-on-quarter growth.

Note….no comparison with previous figures showing by how much the economy has slowed until right at the very end…… whilst figures that were revised upwards have been highlighted in the first paragraph.

So what were the previous quarter’s figures?   Two percent…..so GDP fell 0.5%…….must be very close to Humphrys’ ‘apocalypse’ surely?

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012,
(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

That is the first paragraph of this…..funny the BBC miss out that very salient point!

Note also that when Balls  & Co say that the economy was recovering when they were booted out of office and it is the Coalition’s policies that are dragging the economy under perhaps the BBC would like to ask them to explain how the same pattern of economic activity occurred in the US:

The new estimates show that economic activity fell by 3.1 percent in 2009 and then rose by 2.4 percent in 2010. The government previously reported that activity fell by 3.5 percent in 2009 before rising 3 percent in 2010. The estimated pace of growth in 2011, 1.8 percent, remained basically unchanged. It was previously reported as 1.7 percent.

Another question…..just how is that STIMULUS doing for Ya?

The BBC has been using the Olympics as a springboard to attack the big commercial companies that are part of the Olympic deal. The BBC, for all its talk about GDP, growth and jobs seems implacably opposed to the very businesses that provide all those things.

This is what a BBC high flier has to say about his time at the BBC:

‘Sir Antony (Jay) admitted that when he was a BBC staffer, he ‘absorbed and expressed all the accepted BBC attitudes: hostility to, or at least suspicion of, America, monarchy, government, capitalism, empire, banking and the defence establishment; and in favour of the Health Service, state welfare, the social sciences, the environment and state education’.
He said that when he was there, BBC people tended to be anti-industry and saw private profit as distasteful. Many were anti-monarchy, and were suspicious of the Army.

He said: ‘What I have noticed is that it comes down to values, and the hardest thing to change in an organisation is its values.

‘And these values are behind the BBC’s view on global warming, which is everything the BBC didn’t like – it was about industry, profit, big corporations and that sort of thing.’
Panorama’s film, ‘The Truth about Sports Products’ , whilst having some points was intent on destroying the credibility of the companies it ‘investigated’ and their products.

Essentially concentrating on sport’s drinks and training shoes it made some valid criticisms but descended into tabloid vilification and overwrought emotiveness, attacking the products based on extremely tenuous evidence.

It ended up almost saying buying trainers was just throwing money away….you might be better off running bare foot…..try it! You won’t go far.

Sports drinks, it suggests, are the devil’s brew….ineffective and with 2lbs of sugar in every bottle…well they got very excited about sugar.

The drinks certainly have a lot of Carbohydrates in them…but it is not all ‘sugar’. Panorama seemed shocked that children should be drinking this stuff…..as opposed to what ? Coke…or eating a mars bar? At least they were running around playing football working it all off again.

I use energy drinks (‘Go’ usually)….and they work. Panorama claims they are only for the most dedicated, gut busting professionals….and asks why they are sold on supermarket shelves…not true…there are hundreds of thousands of ‘amateur’ sports people who get home from work and spend hours training for every sport under the sun and attain levels of skill and fitness that are almost professional….it is easy and convenient to go to the supermarkets which are open all hours to buy these drinks…supermarkets which after all stock drugs as well…and we’re not all doctors…oh and food ingredients…and we’re not all Gordon Blooming Ramsay.

The BBC does seem to be very upset about companies like Coca Cola and McDonalds having anything to do with sport and the Olympics….the BBC starts off from the premise that their products are inherently bad and unhealthy.

The BBC Great and The Good know this because they have discussed it in detail with their likeminded friends at the local wine bar where they happily indulge themselves munching on quail’s eggs and foie gras.

Victoria Derbyshire set out on the trail of McDonalds today as doctors demand sports stars do not endorse ‘junk food.’

Here is a taste of their food fascism….

Dr Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist in London, said: ‘The very lucrative financial gain for these athletes is sadly at the expense of our children’s health and we shall not allow this to continue.’

Gary Lineker endorses a brand of crisps…he doesn’t say eat them to the exclusion of all other food…they are a snack…grow up….he is not ‘glamourising junk food.’

Derbyshire dragged on Kris Akabusi to berate him about his endorsement of McDonalds’ burgers…which Victoria knows are unhealthy and dangerous.

Akabusi doesn’t see the problem…he takes a realistic view…burgers are as much ‘food’ as any other sort and just as nourishing….Derbyshire screeches..’But it’s selling (evil deadly )BURGERS!’

She starts getting stroppy and claims he only does it for the money.

Akabusi again says he is struggling to see her point…’it’s food, not junk food….like any food it’s how much of it you eat.’

Derbyshire says burgers are not ‘energetic’…..all that beef, fat and other good ingredients not energetic? What a woman.

Akabusi takes her to task…calling her ‘churlish, arrogant and hoity toity’.

Can’t say he’s wrong…and its not the first time callers have decried her attitude.

Akabusi shook her up a bit, out of her complacency. When a food charity campaigner came on claiming burgers jeopardised lives she jumped on him, shame the attitude change never lasts.

It is pure snobbery and ignorance that belittles the good old burger….if it was on a plate with a knife and fork she wouldn’t look twice.

It is just another example though of the BBC attitude towards these big companies….if you consider that Tescos has been the object of prolonged campaigning against it, the BBC playing a part in that, you realise that the profits fall could justifiably be laid at the BBC’s door in part.

The BBC is setting itself up as the judge of what is acceptable in life…whether it’s the food we eat, where we buy that food, what papers we read, what we think and what we can say out loud.

It is deciding what businesses are ‘acceptable’, whether you can earn a bonus or not, whether you are ethical or moral…never mind that you are entirely ‘legal’ in your operations.

Look at Face The Facts today which laid into out of town shopping centre developers who applied for several changes over several years, approved by the councils, and then applied for a change of use….then going to court where it is often approved.

The BBC decided this was somehow immoral despite being entirely legal and having passed the scrutiny of the Councils and the Court.

How very nice that the BBC sets itself up as some sort of quasi judicial body, not incorporated by Parliament but by, well, God presumably…driven by its own sense of moral outrage and purpose to impose its own values upon the rest of us.

Victoria Derbyshire was comprehensively routed and put to the sword today….twice.

The latest GDP figures were announced and apparently the economy is sinking fast…or as the BBC put it in every news report…‘Britain is in the worst recession since records began…50 years ago.’

Hang on! The worst recession since records began…but only since the 1960’s?…that’s very convenient….was there no record of the Great depression then? Was that just a legend, a Dickensian tale designed to frighten and entertain us?

Derbyshire cancelled whatever plans she had to concentrate on this new shocking news….as of course a fall of 0.7% is important news.

Derbyshire appealed for the listeners to call in and tell her their tales of woe, how they are coping with this recession to end all recessions….and what the government should do.

However things didn’t go to plan….only one caller had a tale of woe and she was a ‘civilian’, not a business person. All the other callers said they were doing great business…and of note….two said they had built their businesses without ever having to borrow money from a bank.

Two callers insisted that the media were part of the problem…being entirely too negative and damaging confidence.

Derbyshire jumped in and defended herself saying she ‘only reported the facts’.

This was challenged….as she hadn’t emphasised the huge leap in employment during this ‘recession’….a recruitment agency said that industry was crying out for skilled workers in engineering and IT….there are jobs there, and this was in the North….(but all those people Gordon Brown sent to study media studies and politics at university aren’t qualified for the real world).

This was pretty much a repeat of a show a month or so ago when Derbyshire asked a similar question and most businesses said they were doing well…that time the show lasted the full hour…this time the calls were cut off after 30 minutes…..wonder why?

Stop the Presses…hold the front page….new evidence has emerged of Christian perfidy!

Libby Purves rewrites history on Midweek and reveals the little known ‘fact’ that Spain was in fact  Moorish, a Muslim country, until it was conquered by the Christians in the 13th century whereupon they forced everyone to convert to Christianity and were force fed pork by the Inquisition.

A slight liberty with the facts there by Purves…which totally alters the reality of events in Spain.

Today fabricated a story to keep climate change in the headlines…..

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Analysts are saying that America’s worst drought for 50 years could mean that rising food prices could hit some of the world’s poorest countries. Joe Kelsay of the Indiana Department of Agriculture explains how bad the situation is, and Dr Alice Bows, senior lecturer in Energy and Climate Change at the Sustainable Consumption Institute, explains what needs to be done.

Kelsay said that their own climate expert believed this was just ‘climate’ and that they’d had droughts in the 1930’s , the 1950’s  and the 1980’s and was likely just one of thise things that happen ocassionally.

Not so said Dr Bows…she admitted there was no proof that the drought was linked to climate change…that is man made climate change…but she thought it was regardless of the lack of proof…and that it was evidence that we are going to suffer from ever more extreme weather…or is that climate?

What ever happened to predictions of no snow in winter and  no rain in summer?…..now we get some heavy snow in winter and the usual British wet summer……and now apparently that is what they really thought all along….until next time the weather changes.

This seemed just like an idea to get climate change back on the airwaves along with the usual dire predictions….they weren’t really interested in drought in Indiana nor the history of drought…it was merely a chance to get Bows in to spout her doom laden scenario and keep up the pressure at a time when even the government are backing down on ‘investment’ in the Green industry…..really enjoyed that last line from the BBC….Bows  ‘explains what needs to be done.’

 Well..only if she is right….which she almost certainly isn’t.

Still no proof at all that CO2 causes global warming….so far it is the other way round….warming causes a rise in CO2….as admitted by the infamous Phil Jones.