A Biased BBC reader notes;

“I watched Wild Winter: Surviving Avalanches on BBC4 last night (Tuesday). A fantastic documentary, except for the following. At the 39 minute mark we have cine material showing the snowy Cairngorms in the 1960’s, and then scenes of the next two snowless decades. This is followed by news footage of the last three years of sever snow. The narrator adds a token global warming comment and then goes on to explain how weather is affected by many things. BUT, right in the middle of this a bizarre scene has been crudely inserted where a ‘climate scientist’ tells us he knows what the weather is going to be in 2080, and it’s going to be hot! Cue scene with orange glow. I have watched it again and again, and if you mute this brief segment, the narrator’s voice effortless segues, making perfect sense. I have shown this to a colleague who doesn’t share my bias, and he agrees that this clip appears to have been edited in afterwards in order to remain ‘on message’.  The programme is on iplayer now on BBC4, fast forward to 39 minutes and watch BBC warble gloaming propaganda at its finest.”

Oh Mr Miliband, you DO so impress us. First you take on the “Big 6” energy companies and now you take on the “Big 5” banks. Amusingly, you then send Chris Leslie, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, onto the Today programme and ..oh dear, it’s a car crash. Did you hear it by chance? Just after 8.08am Mishal Husain was pretty straight with him and he wiggled like a worm, showing just how lightweight Labour is on this topic. So, top marks for her but I did notice that Nick Robinson was doing his usual spot of cheer-leading for Miliband’s nonsensical new big idea.

Middle of the month, my birthday, so a new Open Thread for you and I am off for the day shortly! Enjoy.

China is still massively hooked on coal.

Roger Harrabin has been reporting the ‘excuses’ for China’s use of coal and telling us how wonderful the Chinese are at tackling environmental issues for a long time.

There are always two threads he likes to emphasise….firstly that China must continue to develop economically, it’s only fair, and that the West is responsible for China’s emissions as they buy Chinese products.

Harrabin never questions those ‘orthodoxies’.

Despite being told the Planet is about to burn unless we immediately reduce all carbon emissions China et al can continue to pump out massive quantities of the stuff…so kind of gives the lie to how urgent the environmental issue is….so is it all just ‘political’…a leftwing conspiracy to close down Western industry?

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the
United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of
ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies

Here is a Harrabin  report from 2011….

It is virtually impossible for the world to keep within the CO2 limits defined as safe for the climate, according to the chief economist of the International Energy Agency think tank.

Dr Fatih Birol told an audience in London that key nations were not prepared to take the steps necessary to cut carbon growth.

Dr Birol said the unsayable – that peaking emissions by 2020 was virtually impossible, and that in those circumstances we could “kiss goodbye” to the 2C target.

“We would need to double decarbonisation efforts, then double them again to keep emissions (of CO2 and equivalent gases) within 450 parts per million,” he said. “The bulk of the effort needs to take place in countries where climate change is not high on the policy agenda. We have to be realistic.”

Dr Birol referred to the debate in Europe as to whether the EU would cut emissions by 20% or 30% by 2020 against 1990 levels. The difference between these two targets, he said, was equivalent to just two weeks of China’s emissions.

He said the West could not blame China because per capita emissions and car ownership there were still comparatively very low and he urged the UK and EU continue with “climate leadership”.

Did you note that sentence?

“The bulk of the effort needs to take place in countries where climate change is not high on the policy agenda. We have to be realistic.”

In other words countries like China must make the most effort to reduce emissions.

Still, can’t blame China.

and one from 2007

China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said.

He said there was no point blaming China for rising global CO2 emissions.

Rich nations had to set an example of low-carbon development for China to follow, Mr Ashton told the BBC. 

There is  a moral case.  Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been put there by developed countries without the constraint of having to worry about the climate. That means we should bear the leading edge of responsibility.

Rivers of Gold

So the ‘West’ has to pay twice….we’re already pumping massive amounts of money into China’s economy..in infrastructure and manufacturing investment and then by buying the products yet more goes in…and now we’re also supposed to provide compensation for making China rich?

But what does China do with all that money?

‘Provincial governments and state-owned enterprises often see more political and financial advantage in diverting the river of investment money flowing into China towards polluting heavy industries.’

Here from 2009 we see that China thinks its emissions will peak, that’s right peak, between 20 and 30 years from now….

‘a modelling exercise published recently by three respected organisations – the Energy Research Institute (ERI), Qinghua University, and the State Council Development Research Centre – concludes that emissions could peak between 2030 and 2040.’

Harrabin of course can’t lavish enough praise on the Chinese and thinks they are the saviours of the planet……

‘It is almost impossible to tell industrial policy and environment policy apart.’

The blog ‘Not a lot of people know that’ tells a different tale where China is combating pollution in the cities…by moving it out into the countryside:

A Look at China’s Current and Proposed Coal Use

With its rapid economic development in recent years, China has been expanding coal power generation capacity at an astonishing speed for the past decade (see graph below). It is worth noting that this period of rapid expansion followed a period of relatively slow growth in new coal-fired capacity. The action plan marks the first time the Chinese government has introduced a ban on new coal-fired plants.

However most of China’s coal development is moving westwards to less developed regions. The graphs below show that current coal consumption is strong in northern provinces (left), and the geographic distribution of proposed coal power projects (right) indicates a further growth of coal consumption in the northwestern provinces. Most of these regions are not covered by the action plan, and more than 80 percent of the proposed projects in the 2012 pipeline are currently exempt from the ban and special standards.

So China is still building coal fired power stations at the rate of one a week…and emissions will continue to rise until maybe 2040.

Yep……no problem there then if you believe in CO2 powered Global Warming, Climate Change or is it Global Weirding?

And by the by this gives the lie to just how much politicians and the great and the good really care about energy prices…..from last year……

Cheap coal ‘threatens UK pollution targets’

Coal on the global market is so cheap that it threatens government attempts to tackle climate change, the chairman of the Environment Agency has warned.

Lord Smith says the UK’s share of electricity generated by coal is up to 40% – the highest since 1996.

Unless this trend is curbed, he says, the UK will miss its targets on curbing climate change and sulphur pollution.

The price of coal has been driven down by the dash for shale gas in the US.

Lord Smith told the BBC: “There’s lots of talk about a dash for gas but in effect we’re in a dash for coal that’s completely unsustainable.

The government must ensure it doesn’t continue.”

Yes…can’t have cheap energy can we? Instead we must meet some emissions targets driven by scientists who have allowed themselves to be trapped in their own hubris and desire for the massive research grants to continue and by a political set that are also caught in their rhetoric on the subject and in many cases by a desire to use climate change as a vehicle for change socially, industrially and politically.

Now, to be honest I could not care less who or indeed what Francois Hollande sleeps with. Firstly, he is not President of my country and second, it’s what he is doing to the French economy so vigorously that is the real concern. BUT his liaisons with a french actress and the hypocrisy involved is surely an issue worth some coverage? No. Or so BBC correspondent Hugh Schofield informs us….

A long half-hour of less-than-riveting talk about the economy finally ended, and the first question came from the French press. As expected, it asked the president to clarify the position following the allegations about his affair with the actress Julie Gayet. His answer was concise and not especially revealing. Yes, he was passing a difficult moment in his private life. And yes, there would be a decision about the status of Valerie Trierweiler in advance of his planned visit to Washington next month.  But for the rest, this was a private matter – and therefore he was not ready to say any more. The French press accepts this. It is perhaps to its credit that it agrees that private matters should remain just that.

However, when it comes to similar affairs involving Conservatives, the BBC never flinched from reporting suchlike. Privacy for the left, but not les autres…

About a decade ago, Qaradawi issued a fatwa on the gradual conquest of the entire continent of Europe via Islamic exhortation (dawah) and the demographic factor, leading to the fulfillment of Muhammad’s prophecy on the conquest of the cities of Constantinople (Istanbul), Jerusalem, and Romiyyah (Rome) as a condition for the emergence of the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah.

Welcome to the dawah of political Islam. With its high octane blend of politics and religion as potent as any of history’s grand ideas.   John Ware, Panorama

Funny thing…the BBC spent a lot of time and effort to counter ‘myths’ about Muslim demographics….the Muslim birthrate…

Disproving the Muslim Demographics sums

&

Debunking a YouTube hit

Even producing their own little YouTube counterblast:

Strange now though how quiet the BBC is about the frontpage story in the Times which tells us that 10% of child births are ‘Muslim’.

Of course talking about Islam is not the done thing….criticising Islam is ‘polluting’ polite society as Sarah Montague reminds us:

‘It’s one thing to say these are extremist groups on the fringes [The EDL]…but it’s the extent to which they pollute the rest of the population I suppose in terms of how you deal with it is the concern and how much pollution do you think has gone on?’

The BBC only refers to it in ‘What the papers say’ and links to that on Twitter.

Could it be that the BBC is hiding certain news that it thinks will cause a bit of a stir…..‘‘the one-in-ten birthrate statistic could “generate alarmism”.’

And alarmism there might be…or is that genuine concern?……

Matthew Goodwin, a leftwing academic has made it his job to study the ‘far Right’ and the ‘Counter Jihad movement’……from his work we can see that 50% of his poll agree that there will be a ‘clash of civilisations’ between white Britons and Muslims…36% disagree.  Further more 52% of Conservatives, 33% of Labour, 18% of UKIP and 24% ‘other’, and only 5% of the BNP agree with the EDL (as was).

So probably a good thing to talk about such concerns and not brush them under the carpet as the BBC does.

The BBC weren’t so quiet when it came to a Christian birthrate:

A Womb is a Weapon

Across the world, and increasingly in Europe and the UK, a unique Christian evangelical movement is growing.

For some, encouraging larger Christian families is part of a project to outbreed other religions, particularly Islam, winning back the world for Christ one baby at a time.

The BBC’s Giles Fraser, in his alternate gig at the Guardian said this:

“Why do you have so many children?” I asked [a Palestinian in Gaza]. Perhaps it was a rude question. But I didn’t get how in so poor a place as Gaza it made sense to have a dozen kids. “It’s political,” the man said – going on to explain that Yasser Arafat had told to them that their victory was to be found in “the Palestinian womb“. I was shocked. But in a place whose very existence is threatened, having children is all about national survival.

So no doubt there then that demographics is important.

The Guardian does its own bit of counter ‘alarmism’  trying a similar tactic to the BBC to reassure everyone that there really isn’t a problem:

Is it true there is a ‘startling’ rise in the birthrate of British Muslims?

The figures do not calculate birthrate as such, but show that almost a tenth of babies and toddlers (under-fives) in England and Wales are Muslim.

But are these figures anything new? No.  [Well…that’s OK then]

The story points out that fewer than one in 200 over-85s are Muslim. [Of course it’s the over 85’s that are likely to become fundamentalists aren’t they?] 

What about the focus on Muslims?……the one-in-10 birthrate statistic could “generate alarmism”.   [So best to hide it eh?…Never mind why it might generate alarmism]

The Spectator takes it’s own look at the story:

I suppose that The Times should be congratulated for reporting at all a fact which most of our media  refuse to touch.  The majority still go along with an ‘expert’ quoted in the Times story who warns that ‘the one-in-ten birthrate statistic could “generate alarmism”.’  [See Guardian for proof of that statement]

There are certainly a lot of people who go along with that line of thinking. Something big may be happening, and people can see it is happening, but best not to mention it in case people are ‘alarmed’. Elsewhere in the piece there is an account from Batley in West Yorkshire of how the growing young Muslim population there has led to ‘pubs, hospitals, houses and public buildings’ being turned into ‘Muslim private schools, madrassas, mosques and a Sharia court to satisfy rising demand from families.’

All of which nicely demonstrates part of the pickle this country is in. Even the papers that will report on one of the biggest underlying stories of our time, and one which demonstrates an unprecedented change in the make-up of our country, must on all accounts be turned into a good news story. And since expressing any worries about the fact is undoubtedly terribly bigoted and nasty, we’ll all just have to nod our heads, keep our fingers crossed, mouth the same platitudes and all put our collective future in the hopes of Sheikh Mogra.

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain. He doesn’t seem to see the large increase in the Muslim population of the UK as posing any particular challenges and is quoted saying: ‘I just wouldn’t want our fellow citizens to be alarmed by an increase in number… This generation is very much British. They feel very much this is their home.’

Others might agree, but are more honest about the eventual intended ending….

Dawa is prescribed in the Quran as an obligation of all Muslims.

In the 1990s, Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the prominent spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, dramatically re-envisioned the strategy of the worldwide Islamist revivalist movement, and in the process, offered a bold new vision for Islamic dawa in Western countries.

For Qaradawi, Muslim settlement in the West isn’t simply religiously permissible. It is, he argues, a religious necessity and an obligation for the worldwide Islamic revival movement. The Muslim presence in the West is necessary because it enables the conduct of dawa, which in Qaradawi’s view serves multiple purposes—from proselytization to Europeans, to creating Islamic enclaves and an Islamic environment for Muslim immigrants and European converts, to influencing the social and political climate towards Islam and the Muslim Nation (umma) within Western societies.
Qaradawi ultimately believes that Islam will be established as the dominant religious and political force in Europe through dawa. As he has written, “Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor after being expelled from it twice … the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology….Muslims must start acting in order to conquer this world.”

Most people who praise Qaradawi’s liberalism do not recognize that he defines Muslims in Europe not as European Muslims but as “expatriates” who live under special conditions of weakness and hardship. The rules he developed for Europe should not, therefore, be understood as a liberalization of Islam in general, nor as an attempt to develop an independent European Islamic law with permanent validity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdsQGhiBkSI

‘We do not disassociate Islam from war.  On the contrary, disassociating Islam from war is the reason for our defeat.  We are fighting in the name of Islam.  Religion must lead to war.  This is the only way we can win.’
Said by the moderate and respected Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, February 2006

The BBC did once venture down this road:

Panorama with John Ware in 2006….  The Muslim Brotherhood movement already dominates many Islamic groups here. Islam Expo was a further attempt by the movement to position itself as mainstream. Its followers are foot soldiers to the most influential dawah missionary of political Islam today, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. But it is only to Middle East audiences that the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, the Sheikh of the Mujahideen, unveils his prophetic dream. Europe, as he sees it, Islam’s next frontier. 

YUSUF QARADAWI: So Constantinople has been conquered and now the second part of the prophecy remains, which is the conquest of Rome. This means that Islam will return to Europe once again.

Perhaps the next conquest will be the conquest of dawah and ideas. There’s no need for conquest to be with the sword. We might conquer these countries without armies. We want armies of dawah preachers and teachers. WARE: Islam is undergoing a huge revival, here and everywhere, and it is the Muslim Brotherhood who are leading it. Welcome to the dawah of political Islam. With its high octane blend of politics and religion as potent as any of history’s grand ideas. You can comment on tonight’s programme or find out more by visiting our website.

There’s the Truth, and there’s the Truth as reported by the BBC…as Rod Liddle points out…

In Sweden there are riots…almost all the people doing the rioting were, to adapt Nick Robinson’s phrase, people of non-Swedish orign.  These were…are..race riots.

It was not the ordinary Swedes rising up against the oppressive Swedish state; it was immigrants.  Come on James – why not tell us the truth?’

Mein Kampf becomes an ebook bestseller

Digital editions of Adolf Hitler’s fascist screed, in less public format, attract surge in readers

The Today programme (08:24) reports, with a shudder, that interest in Hilter’s Mein Kampf has risen…it is number one bestseller in its Amazon category.

We are told….It’s an important book because it influenced millions of people…and post war it still does…on the Far Right.

We are told it can come with a health warning for readers…..

Mein Kampf is an evil book but it is important to read it…for all who care to safeguard democracy.

We were told it’s had a following all over the world…including India and the Middle East.

Mishal Husain asks…‘Why India?’

Why  the interest in just India from Mishal Husain you might ask….because it isn’t Indians chasing Jews from Europe once again….surely relevant to the topic under discussion.

It is certain fundamentalists who read an equally disturbing book that is perfectly legal to buy, indeed praised and admired by many…possibly those who haven’t actually read it.

A book that Churchill compared to Mein Kampf:

“All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world.  Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”

Or another British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who called the Koran an “accursed book” and once held it up during a session of Parliament, declaring: “So long as there is this book there will be no peace in the world.”

When the BBC starts to examine the contents of the Koran in as rigorously challenging and uncompromising  manner as it looks at Mein Kampf, and indeed the Christian Bible,  we might get some genuine, if inconvenient, truths.

OK folks, here is a new fracking approved Open Thread. Anyone spotted Barbara Plett crying about Ariel Sharon? Nope? What a shocker. The floors is yours….

Watched Sherlock last night…His Last Vow.

Who was the evil mastermind, Sherlock’s new nemesis?  Rupert Murdoch…the Australian newspaper owner.

No sorry, it was in fact someone called Charles Augustus Magnussen, a newspaper proprietor…and as the BBC call him…‘The King of Blackmail’….using his newspapers and information gathering power to influence government policy…allegedly….not meant to be anyone we know at all.

The show opened with him up before a Leveson style panel where you get the idea of exactly what the subtext is underlying the show….over powerful media owners using that power to blackmail people using very unsavoury methods.

Here’s some of the opening lines:

‘Mr Magnussen how would you describe your influence over the Prime Minister?’

‘I notice you’ve had 7 meetings at Downing Street this year…why?’

‘Do you think it right that  a newspaper proprietor, a private individual, and in fact a foreign national, should have such regular access to our Prime Minister?’

At which point a caption flashes up on screen indicating Magnussen’s thoughts about the questioner’s weak points that he can exploit later….this one…his ‘disabled daughter‘…nasty eh?  Boo Hiss the evil rightwing, foreign, newspaper owner.

‘Mr Magnussen, can you recall if at any point your remarks could have influenced government policy or the Prime Minister’s thinking in any way?’

We also had a drug addled character prepared to use a knife called ‘Bill Wiggins’…’Wiggins’ was a ‘Baker Street Irregular’….only known as ‘Wiggins’ originally…though may have been called ‘Sam Wiggins’.  Why change his first name?

Bill Wiggins is a Tory MP….pure coincidence I’m sure….though Joan Collins was squired by another Bill Wiggins who was a cocaine addict… Bungalow Bill as he was known…because he had nothing going on upstairs.    The character in the show later turns out to be a cut rate ‘Sherlock’ and becomes part of the team.

Later we have a a security guard at Magnussen’s office who is attacked and may be dead.

Sherlock’s response…on seeing he has some sort of tattoo…‘He’s been in prison..and is a white supremacist…so who cares’.

Bet he wouldn’t have said that about a Muslim extremist….nice to associate Murdoch with such things though..never miss a chance to put the boot in.

Magnussen……when asked how he proves his claims about people …..‘Proof…I don’t need proof…I’m in news…I just have to print it.’

Ah..those terrible, untrustworthy rags.

The writer is Steven Moffat…….well known for his support of the Labour Party and previous insertions of leftwing propaganda into BBC shows…such as Dr Who.

‘Sherlock’ of course has form:

BBC’s Sherlock attacks Boris Johnson as ‘dithering’ and ‘self-interested’

A fake newspaper shown during BBC One drama Sherlock included an article mocking the Mayor of London’s ‘hair-brained’ plans

In another episode (Hound of the Baskervilles) from an earlier series we had a martinet, ‘rigthwing’ army officer running a secret research base producing chemical weapons…on his book shelf in his office….books about Maggie Thatcher….someone in props having a laugh I expect.

No doubt there are vast numbers of such little lefty jokes placed through out the programmes.

The Game is afoot….with more comebacks from the dead than Lazarus and Jesus combined.

LOL

I see that the BBC is hoping to use the ‘soft power’ of the Teletubbies, Top Gear and Doctor Who to …cough…break down North Korea’s hardline regime.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has revealed the Foreign and Commonweath Office is working with BBC Worldwide to provide programmes ‘that could be shown on Korean TV’. Negotiations are also on-going with Pyongyang to strike a deal to broadcast a range of shows on the state-run Central Television Station.