Things have gone pearshaped once again so here’s an emergency open thread….

When you consider how ready the BBC is to plaster the thoughts of Chairman Brand all over the airwaves when he really hasn’t got anything of any originality or coherence to say it is surprising that when the Labour leader and his mansion tax policy is pretty much destroyed by another ‘celebrity’ we don’t hear a thing about it on the BBC….all the more surprising as the mansion tax is one of Miliband’s major policies designed of course to show how he is taking from the rich to give to the poor…might have thought the BBC would show an interest especially as Myleene Klass is said to have done a ‘Paxman’…perhaps she could get a place on Newsnight.

From the Telegraph:

Singer Myleene Klass ‘wipes the floor’ with Ed Miliband over mansion tax

The singer told the Labour leader: “For me, it’s so disturbing – the name in its own right: ‘mansion tax’. Immediately you conjure up an image of these Barbie-esque houses, but in London, which is where 80 per cent of the people who will be paying this tax actually live, have you seen what that amount of money can get you? It’s like a garage.

Yesterday the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner treated us to his big hope….he thought that the West and its allies may consider ISIS to be such a threat that they decide to put boots on the ground…

Frank said ‘I really hope that’s not the case.’

Thanks Frank for your personal opinion.

Today he continued the theme informing us that military actions just don’t work and that good policing and political processes will defeat terrorism.

Well apart from the fact military action certainly does work in many cases just how does he propose Dixon of Arabia handle ISIS, will they come quietly’?  And what sort of negtotiations are you going to have with such terrorists?

Can they have part of Syria, part of Iraq, what about a bit of Turkey?  And what if they don’t want to stop there, their whole raison d’être being to create a world caliphate?

Simplistic, childish, very political dreams from the BBC.

One of the reasons ISIS popped up again was because the US withdrew its military and intelligence capability from Iraq…under pressure from people in the media and other commentators just like Frank.

Well then, one can argue as to whether Kim Kardashian’s posterior “broke the internet” but last week saw our server “break” and cause a lot of hassle. My thanks to Rob and Geoff for fixing things but as you can see some posts vanished along with the comment threads which is VERY annoying. Anyway, let’s hope for a pain free week. And whilst I am at it, I had asked you all if anyone fancied putting up some posts here to ease the strain on Rob and myself. If you would like to talk about this  then please email me.  The floor is yours….

This is from the Telegraph...so far the BBC has refrained from being drawn in….

2014 on track to be one of the wettest years on record

Unusually rainy November and December could make 2014 the wettest year since records began

The Telegraph is quoting the Met. Office and that old fraud Bob Ward (who isn’t a scientist) who tells us…..

Mr Ward said the trend for wetter weather was being caused by climate change.

“The very wet and warm year we are experiencing is part of a pattern, with the seven warmest years and four of the five wettest years on record so far have all occurred from 2000 onwards. Climate change means the UK is now about one degree warmer on average than in 1970, and the warmer atmosphere holds more water, leading to heavier rainfall,” he said.

However even the Met. Office says…

“As we head into December there are signs that rainfall amounts should become nearer normal.”

But what do the numbers say? Do they, as Bob Ward claims indicate one of the wettest years ever?  Do they indicate a trend towards wetter weather?

No. of course not.  You didn’t believe the paid up peddler of climate propaganda did you?

In the years 2000-2014 in England and Wales the wettest year was 2012 with 1244.4 mm.

That’ll be less than 1768 then, with 1247.3 mm…

or 1879 with 1284.9 mm.

The trend is definitely there then.

But surely 2014 is heading to be the second wettest on record….

Well so far there has been 900.1 mm…..and with December looking to be average, and even if it wasn’t, the rain would have to be totally extraordinary to be above the levels seen in the years quoted above.

Even if you add in Scotland and Northern Ireland there is no trend towards wetter weather…and you have to take into account records there only start in 1931 not 1766 as in England and Wales….

The wettest year in Scotland since 2000 being 2011 with 1668.2 mm…but 1990 had 1720.4 mm, 1954 had 1675.7 mm and 1948 had 1669.9 mm.

In NI in 2002 there was 1193.6 mm, but 1958 had 1197.1 mm, 1954 had 1315 mm and 1950 had 1238.2 mm.

That trend for wetter weather is shaping up nicely…but only in the mind of climate fraud Bob Ward.

Shame the newspapers, and all too often Roger Harrabin, give him any credence at all.

We have looked at the BBC’s ever growing commercial empire and massive influence in the media world that distorts the market for the genuinely commercial operators who haven’t got a tax payer funded safety net to cushion them in bad times and which allows the BBC to experiment and fail without penalty.

The Guardian is complaining bitterly about the BBC moving in on its territory in Australia…it shouldn’t worry if the BBC’s top Oz reporter is Jon Donnison…he’ll only be reporting on Gaza.

I don’t know the truth about this but it wouldn’t be the first time the BBC’s Panorama programme has cobbled together some very dodgy ‘evidence’ related to Murdoch and his businesses and using very suspect sources to beef up their story……

Sun reporter Mazher Mahmood has accused the BBC of giving “deeply misleading reasons” for postponing the broadcast if its Panorama Investigation Fake Sheikh: Exposed.

Mahmood failed last week in a bid to stop publication of recent images of himself (which he said would undermine his safety).

But last night the BBC pulled the programme less than hour before broadcast because it said it had received new information from Mahmood’s lawyers.

Mahmood said today that this new information was made available last week.

He also questioned the reliability of the testimony which he said the programme was based on.

Mahmood said in a statement: “The BBC Panorama programme ‘Fake Sheikh – Exposed’ has now been postponed twice. The reasons given by the BBC last night are deeply misleading and I am forced into making a statement to correct the impression they have given.

“The BBC approached me on 15th October and made a number of allegations against me relating to my career as an investigative journalist. As a result I instructed lawyers and they have provided detailed rebuttals and evidence showing that the allegations are unsustainable and wrong.

Must be something in the air…Is The BBC Biased notes that Muslim Aaqil Ahmed, in charge of the BBC’s religious programming, has decided to broaden the appeal of Songs of Praise and spread the joy around, broadcasting from many places of worship and denomination…but definitely will not be heading Mosqueward…until of course we hear of a lovely, joyous coming together of Christians and Muslims, evidence of the tolerance, mutual respect and friendship that exists between the two religions…and proof of that is that Christians are graciously allowed to visit a mosque…from which the BBC will broadcast the propaganda.

Noggin in the comments has coincidentally linked to the same fellow in a story from last year that will confirm much of what we have heard about the good Aaqil, his professional qualifications and his leanings.

Questions raised about the running of the BBC’s religious affairs department

These are trying times for Aaqil Ahmed, head of religion and ethics at the BBC.

As we revealed in the last Eye, some of his department’s commissions for Songs of Praise are now being scrutinised by the Beeb’s investigation unit, which has been told by Lord Patten that “if on investigation there is any suggestion that a criminal offence has been committed, the matter should be referred to the police.” Ahmed’s reaction to the story was to announce that he is launching a “witch hunt” (sic) to find our source.

Meanwhile, he has another hefty headache. The Ottomans, a three-part series in which Rageh Omar wanders through the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, is beset by problems and falling even further behind schedule. Although 18 weeks had been allotted for editing all three one-hour programmes, the first two have already taken 30 weeks, including delays for an expensive re-shoot in the Middle East. The main problem is Ahmed’s ignorance arrogance, which have resulted in hours wasted trying to persuade the contributors to give interviews backing his eccentric interpretations of religious history. At the last count he even omitted reference to the Crimean War.

As is his custom, Ahmed assigned the production not to experts in his department but to an old freelance chum, Faris Kermani, who made many programmes about Islam for C4 when Ahmed was head of religion at the channel and later followed him to the BBC to make The Life of Muhammad. The justification for engaging Kermani was that he could gain exclusive access to middle-eastern locations and contacts that were somehow out of the reach of the BBC. In the end, however, this was handled by department staff using a local fixer in the usual way.

As costs spiral out of control, the job of rescuing the production has gone back in-house, too, with the department’s main development executive – helped by a producer on attachment from BBC Bristol – striving to bring some order and intellectual rigour to the chaos.

Also good to hear a Labour MP this morning remind us, on the savage murder of Peter Kassig by ISIS, that Islam is a fine and peaceful religion.

I  note with interest the BBC insists on calling Peter Kassig by the Muslim name he chose to use under duress in an attempt to save his own life under threat from his Muslim captors….

US hostage Abdul-Rahman Kassig ‘killed by IS’

A video posted online claims to show that Islamic State militants have killed the captured US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

 

Apparently this is ‘A photograph of Abdul-Rahman with his father, Ed, fishing on the Ohio River in Indiana in 2011’…no, no it’s not.  It’s a photo of Peter Kassig.

And that’s despite his captors giving him his real name in the video of his death…..

“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen, of your country”

The Telegraph has the right idea…

Peter Kassig’s family call for restraint after beheading video

A little earlier listening to 5Live I was urged to keep listening as I would be treated to an investigation into the hidden child hunger epidemic sweeping the land.

Who knew?

It must have been very well hidden as I have always been led to believe that the problem was one of an epidemic of child obesity….sweeping the land….from the Telegraph…

Schoolchildren refused second helpings at lunch in obesity crackdown

Schoolchildren are being refused second helpings at lunchtime, it has emerged, as councils launch a crackdown on child obesity.

Education chiefs in parts of Wales have stopped kitchen staff giving out an extra portion to teach children sensible eating habits.

Some local authorities are also preventing pupils from having extra puddings because of their high sugar content.

Cardiff Council has started giving children slices of dry bread if they are still hungry after lunch.

Rise in child obesity-related hospital admissions

The UK has the highest rate of child obesity in Western Europe, which is estimated to cost the NHS about £4.2bn a year.

 

The paradox is of course that we are told that ‘poverty’ is the cause of the hunger epidemic, and ‘poverty’ is the cause of the obesity epidemic….and the very same class of children, the poor, are victims of both these epidemics.

Poverty driven by government policies on welfare of course.

Guess there must be an election coming.

The BBC had better be careful, if they keep churning out these scare stories, as they have been doing daily, they’ll run out before the election and will have to start looking for real news stories instead of feeding us press releases from charities, NGO’s, think tanks and the Labour Party.

As there are nearly 200,000 charities in the UK I am guessing the BBC thinks that won’t happen.

Was it Friday on the Today programme that I heard McDonalds was responsible for the breakdown of society, its cohesion and communal life?

Don’t know about fat kids, but certainly a lot of fatheads around.

The BBC’s coverage of the FIFA world cup scandal has been woeful.

FIFA released a report that exonerated Russia and Qatar from accusations of corruption in the bidding process for the World Cup…however England and Australia were singled out for special attention.

The BBC failed completely to question FIFA’s decision and concentrated almost solely on England’s claimed abuses.

Now that might seem extraordinary considering the background to the story and the well known and substantial claims of corruption against Russia and Qatar.

TalkSport told us that the report was a farce, a disgrace and a whitewash….that Russia had managed to ‘lose’ all the data on its computers relating to the bid and that no emails or phone records were examined by FIFA.

In contrast the BBC took the report at face value.  Listening to their news bulletins it was all England, even their specialist sports reporters on 5Live, the ‘home of football’ apparently, failed to question the claims.

We had Peter Allen telling us England’s behaviour was ‘shocking news’ and he emphatically declared that ‘this was an independent inquiry’.

An ‘independent inquiry’?  This was FIFA investigating FIFA and finding itself not guilty and conveniently, the two countries who are going to hold World Cups are also innnocent, and therefore the bidding process won’t have to be reopened.

Very convenient.

However that all changed at 12:10 when the man who investigated the bids, Michael Garcia, but who didn’t provide the conclusions released to the world by FIFA, stated that the FIFA report “contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”.

The BBC tells us that ‘Garcia’s statement, issued less than four hours after the report was published, has reopened the debate about the validity of the bidding process for both the 2018 and 2022 competitions. ‘

‘Reopened the debate’?  Well, no it didn’t, or rather everyone else was already asking serious questions about the credibility of the report….everyone except the BBC.

Once again the BBC fails to do any work for itself and relies on press releases by organisations that can’t be trusted….and adds insult to injury by taking a distinct pleasure in laying into the England bid operation whose Chief Operating Officer, Simon Johnson, on the BBC, told us that it was ‘sad that the headlines are all about England.‘…when the real story is elsewhere…..the story “shouldn’t be about the conduct of England’s bid, it should be about the pre-ordained exoneration of Qatar… and this smells of a politically motivated whitewash”

Perhaps the below might explain the BBC’s haste to condemn the England bid, trying to excuse and justify their own actions in order to claim that the bid’s failure had nothing to do with their  badly timed stunt …from the Daily Mail 2010….

WILL BRITAIN’S MEDIA BE BLAMED FOR LOSING VOTES?