Author Archives: David Vance

JIHAD AGAINST EMPLOYMENT

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The BBC is a strange beast. The past few days have seen it giving lots of publicity to those trade unionists/marxists/hard leftists who oppose the Coalition plan to allow unemployed people to gain unpaid work experience. I guess falling unemployment is unhelpful to the Left but am less sure why the likes of the BBC Nolan Show (both on 5Live and Radio Ulster) seem intent on persecuting TESCO for having the temerity to offer work experience.

I was on the Nolan Show yesterday debating this issue. You can listen here – go to 22 mins in. As you will hear, I debate with a Guardian journalist who quickly exits the scene and the rest of the debate is really me versus Nolan. I thought he was supposed to be impartial in debates? You will hear some unfounded allegations against the likes of Tesco and the whole bogus “slave labour” narrative is reinforced by Nolan at every turn. I took the opportunity to mention the fact that Tesco is not the ONLY large company to run such schemes…the BBC also offers unpaid employment. He briefly acknowledged that, in passing, and moved on to bear-baiting against Britain’s most successful private employer.

Then, this morning, on Today, the topic bounced up yet again. (7.53am) This time, the BBC found someone who had actually been on this scheme and gotten a full time job out of it! He was up against someone from “The Right to Work” campaign who despite the undeniable success of it as regards the chap who had managed to get a job, simply sneered at Tesco and repeated the “slave labour” meme. It struck me that the “Right not to Work” would be a more apt name for this leftist propaganda group.

The entitlement class out there hate the idea that they might have to be asked to work for their benefits and there are sections within the BBC that are quite happy to provide a soapbox for Big Sloth. I do not deny them that voice but there has to be balance in the debate. To my mind, that was entirely missing yesterday.

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RICHARD BLACK – THE NEW HERACLITUS?

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It’s not often a BBC correspondent invites comparison to figures from Greek antiquity but B-BBC contributor Alan notes;


“There will come atime when we have an answer to the climate change question. When that timecomes somebody may well sit down and write the history of this period intime…the history of the media coverage in particular. If they did what might they find?

They would find a world respected media organisation with a duty to providenews regardless of vested interests which has had its name and reputationdragged into the gutter by a cluster of senior journalists and presenters whofailed to uphold the high standards of impartiality and truthfulness that theBBC demanded of them. Climate change alone would be enough to tarnish the BBC’s reputation but addonto that its coverage of Europe, immigration, the Labour Party, Islam,terrorism and the Middle East and there is hardly an area of world events thatthe BBC has not mislead the British and world audience on.

It is unfortunate that no one can trust the BBC to give them the absolutetruth….any report from the BBC now has to be double checked and cross referenced…preferablywith the original source material or with other news organisations or expertcommentators. A recent example of this comes appropriately enough from their environmentcorrespondent Richard Black.

Here he tweets an attack on Bush….
@BBCRBlack via Twitter
Canada accused of ‘muzzling scientists’ http://t.co/I8iq2AO1@BBCPallab – another echo of US under George W Bush?

Bush was fully prepared to believe in man made climate change…he just wanteddefinitive proof…which we still don’t have. Read the Bush clean air speechbelow from 2002.

Black then goes onto attack the ‘new’ attempt to reduce emissions of othergases as short term …..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17073186
‘The US is leading a new six-nation initiative aimed at curbing climate changeby tackling short-lived warming agents including methane, black carbon andhydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
(but)…according to the science, tackling short-lived climate pollutantsdoesn’t prevent global warming – it just delays it….. emphasising short-termwarmers in the absence of meaningful action on CO2, to some observers, smacksof short-term politics and an unwillingness to get to grips with the mainissue.’

 The ‘main issue’?

Here he is clearly still pushing hard for CO2 reduction policies as moreeffective…despite methane being a more powerful greenhouse gas….butnote….although global warming is such an urgent priority Black tells us thatCO2 reduction will only be effective from 2060….’tackling CO2 and not doinganything about the short-lived substances sees more warming in the next fewdecades – but beyond about 2060, it’s more effective than tackling theshort-lived agents.’

Logical incoherence?

Black’s logic fails spectacularly….because although methane may disappearfrom the atmosphere relatively quickly…it only disappears if you stop puttingmore up there….you don’t cut the grass once every summer….you have to keepcutting….keep putting methane into the air and its effects continue….it isdifferent methane but with the same effect.Guess you shouldn’t ask that old riddle of Black…is a river the same river aswater flows through it? 


According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that ledto logical incoherence…..“Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things go andnothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river, he says youcould not step twice into the same river”

Black, the new Heraclitus? ….’from the riddling nature of his philosophy andhis contempt for humankind in general, he was called “The Obscure”and the “Weeping Philosopher”.’

Compare that to this from Geoffrey Lean in the Telegraph who is a convinced climatechange advocate himself:

Then you may want to look at what George W. Bush actually said and did ratherthan the cheap jibes from Black and Co.

In 2004 Bush started the Methane reduction plan….and it carries on today….
‘Writer Rod Dreher laments that the media has not given Bush credit for pushingthe 2004 Methane to Markets initiative through Congress. Dreher stated thatmethane is “twenty-three times more potent a contributor to global warmingthan the carbon dioxide emissions the Kyoto treaty aimed at cutting”. Theinitiative plans to reduce global methane emissions, the second largestcontributor to atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, in order toenhance economic growth, promote energy security, improve the environment, andreduce greenhouse gases. Other expected benefits include improving mine safety,reducing waste, and improving local air quality.

This is the up to date website for this programme:
http://www.epa.gov/globalmethane/basicinfo.htm
Then look at this from 2002:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-5.html
 

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MORE ISRAEL BASHING…

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You can rely on the BBC to treat Israel with rigorous impartiality. Only joking! An irate B-BBC reader writes;

“I was appalled to listen to Saturday PM (18 Feb)to hear an interview on Iran with S Joshi of the United Services Institute. The interviewer earnestly drew attention more than once to Israel’s threats and sabre rattling against Iran and looked to Mr Joshi for confirmation. Again Israel was made to look as if the problem was 50-50 between Israel and Iran and of course the danger Israel would cause by attacking Iran .The clear implication was Iran did not mean its threatsand it was Israel we had to beware of. No mention of Iran, a fellow member with Israel of the UN , threatening to wipe Israel off the map. The Jews heard such threats before in the 1930s and are likely to take them seriously. Israel has never threatened any country in this way. The bias was excruciating”

In my view, the BBC’s hatred of Israel is visceral, profound and continuous and is perhaps one of the most recurring themes we cover here.

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MARDELL ON BUCHANNAN

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Biased BBC contributor Alan comments;

“Mark Mardell suspects Pat Buchannan of being a racist based on some quotes from his book…some of which are reproduced below….though they seem nothing that you wouldn’t read in any British newspaper, Guardian and Independent excepted, today…or hear from Trevor Phillips himself, not to mention Cameron’s speech on multi-culturalism.

Mardell complains of a more obvious split between left and right….why might that exist now? Because previously, pre-Internet, the Left wing media had the field pretty much to themselves….not to mention all the teachers and academics. The BBC was the collossus that dominated and bestrode the world having huge influence on the direction of political and social thought. Now with the internet not only can people read for themselves the sources of information without a journalist filtering it through his own prejudices but they can spread their own ideas to vast numbers of people that were out of reach only a few years ago.

The Left has lost its monopoly on information…and information is power….which is why there is a concerted effort to close down any rightwing blogs or websites that don’t echo their own thoughts….and not just websites but political parties also….Germany, whose intelligence agency states that Islam is the greatest danger to the German democracy, has decided that it is rightwing parties that should be closed down perhaps…not mosques. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,815242,00.html)

Mardell whilst lamenting the separation of politics still plays that game himself…calling Buchannan a racist and his thoughts at best ‘maverick’ and ‘pungent’….no right thinking person could possibly think like that surely?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17079971

‘I haven’t read the book, but judging from extracts it is easy to see how his pungently expressed anti-multiculturalism could be seen as racist.Conservative views that seem very far to the right by British standards are all over the place – from blogs, to right-wing talk radio, and above all on Fox News. You can’t be in America long before you hear people bemoan the death of a more bipartisan past. To an extent this is piety, but sometimes the split in the media makes America feel like it is dividing into two armed camps. There is a grave danger for American democracy that the two parties not only can’t agree, they can’t even discuss.’

These are some of the quotes…are they ‘pungently’ expressed…or just expressed? They seem standard fayre for someone proud of his heritage and regretting seeing it deliberately being broken down and labelled as nasty colonialism or white and therefore racist, or too Christian or not gay enough…he looks to an America of one culture with one set of values regardless of colour…..not a dangerous mish mash of competing ones:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/twelve_pretty_racist_or_just_crazy_quotes_from_pat_buchanans_new_book.php

 ‘Perhaps some of us misremember the past. But the racial, religious, cultural, social, political, and economic divides today seem greater than they seemed even in the segregation cities some of us grew up in.  Back then, black and white lived apart, went to different schools and churches, played on different playgrounds, and went to different restaurants, bars, theaters, and soda fountains. But we shared a country and a culture. We were one nation. We were Americans.’

‘When the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, the people die. That is the progression. And as the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian summer of our civilization.’

 From the chapter, “The End Of White America”:

‘The white population will begin to shrink and, should present birth rates persist, slowly disappear. Hispanics already comprise 42 percent of New Mexico’s population, 37 percent of California’s, 38 percent of Texas’s, and over half the population of Arizona under the age of twenty. ……. Mexico is moving north. Ethnically, linguistically, and culturally, the verdict of 1848 is being overturned. Will this Mexican nation within a nation advance the goals of the Constitution—to “insure domestic tranquility” and “make us a more perfect union”? Or has our passivity in the face of this invasion imperiled our union?’

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NUCLEAR SKEW

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A Biased BBC reader draws our attention to some interesting information concerning one of our ..ahem..favourite BBC propagandists….

“For further analysis of how the BBC’s environment correspondent Richard Black can misread and skew data in regard to climate change go here. Now, in a news report of major importance regarding Anglo-French cooperation in the future of nuclear power, his fingerprints are all over the BBC’s web page report here

There are three mini headlines at the top of the BBC’s web page. They are:

UK and France sign nuclear deal (the real, important news) a treaty signed by the prime minister and French president no less (not known recently as a loving couple) which will create ‘a number of commercial deals in the nuclear energy field, worth more than £500m and creating 1,500 UK jobs… and even,‘…. helps to deliver our emission reductions targets..’

Given equal prominence is this: UK nuclear subsidies ‘unlawful’ (by Mr Black) Wow, this is big news! But wait, hold! Read on. It’s not a fact. And it’s not even new. It‘s certainly not news. It’s simply another Greenpeace eco-fanatic move reported last January, now recycled by Black as a headline.

He starts: “Green energy campaigners are attempting to block new nuclear power stations in the UK by complaining to the European Commission that government plans contravene EU competition regulations.” It’s an old complaint. But on the BBC it gets equal news billing. Which conventional newspaper would publish a story first published a month ago, as a news headline at the top of its front page? The editor would get the boot. But BBC headline readers will get the message.

Black and the BBC doesn’t finish rubbishing the nuclear plans there. Its next equal prominence headline is: Nuclear power ‘has small support’. (by Mr Black). His story is about a global poll, ‘…..BBC News, polled 23,231 people in 23 countries from July to September this year… (wait for it)…. ‘..several months after an earthquake and giant tsunami devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power station.’ The question asked by the pollsters, while the terrible events and clean-up in Japan were still being actively reported, started with, ‘Agree: Nuclear power is relatively safe….’going on to ..’..should build more plants.’

If you continue to read halfway down all the detail, you will find, ‘In the UK, support for building new reactors has risen from 33% to 37%.’ A view from nuclear spokesman John Rich is provided right at the end of the piece including, ‘..(nuclear) facts warrant a better educational effort from industry, from governments and from journalists.’

From ‘green’ journalists too? Skew must be joking.”

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