FLOWER POWER…?


May is my favourite time of year and have you noticed that – after our rather cold winter – it’s a fantastic month for, well, the mayflower? I travelled from Brighton to London yesterday by train and mile after mile of hedgerow was filled with that wonderful blossom. Strange, then that the BBC isn’t reporting it – especially as in 2007, after a winter that was a tad warmer – it was inundating us with reports, for example here (at 7.42am)and here, that tried to panic us in to believing that early flowering hawthorn is a certain harbinger of the global warming disaster that Richard Black and his cronies tell us is going to engulf us all. The more that BBC so-called ‘science’ reports are examined, the more they seem to resemble the ramblings of deranged necromancers.

HARRABIN – A PINCH AND A PUNCH?

The Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole reports back from the International Conference on Climate Change which has just finished in Chicago. To him, this stellar gathering of climate scientists has established beyond reasonable doubt that only morons now believe in global warming. By contrast, to Roger Harrabin, of the BBC, who was also there, the whole event was easily dimissed as a gathering of right-wingers. Mr Delingpole has interesting observations about Mr Harrabin’s approach to his job.

The other main objection I heard – from the BBC’s Roger Harrabin – is how utterly ridiculous it was that a total know-nothing like James Delingpole was speaking on a “Science” panel with meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, climate expert Fred Singer, and economist Ross McKitrick (co-destroyer – with Steve McIntyre – of Michael Mann’s hockey stick). Indeed, when I introduced myself to him, he snapped back “I’m not sure whether I should shake your hand. I want to punch you.” He sounded jolly cross indeed – and ranted that I was utterly irresponsible and had disseminated lots of lies – though he later apologized to me saying he was jet-lagged and had confused me with Christopher Booker. Hmm.

In the interests of fairness, I would point out that we have only Mr Delingpole’s account to go on that this exchange happened; but I have no reason to disbelieve him, and a hundred reasons to believe that Mr Harrabin’s reporting of this issue is exaggerated, one-sided, left-wing fanatasy.

IN THE GUTTER…

Anthony Watts, of the admirable Watts Up with That? blog is currently at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, where genuine climate scientists – as opposed to the buffoons who advocate global warming – are currently gathered in Chicago. It transpires that an amateurish, grubby, sharp-practice, wet-behind-the-ears BBC-funded crew is prowling the corridors of the conference hotel trying to misrepresent what is going on and to twist the words of participants. Anthony has filed an account of his meeting with this sordid BBC operation, and I reproduce it in full because every word deserves to be savoured:

I gave a couple of interviews today. The interview I had in the evening after the keynote dinner with an independent crew working for BBC on some documentary on “The Skeptics” was unscheduled. They caught me in the grand hall asking if it could do an interview. It started out pleasant enough, but soon deteriorated. They had no organization at all and had no idea where to shoot it. They suggested we shoot the interview in my room, because they wanted to have me set in front of my computer. I thought that was more than a bit forward and suggested the foyer, we got there, setup and then after starting decided they didn’t like the setting. They they suggested that we go to the media room (which they apparently just discovered) so they tore down and went there.

After a couple of false starts the questions started coming. I started to wonder where they were going with this, and when they started asking about what I thought about Dr. Phil Jones “wanting to commit suicide” I realized that it wasn’t going to be factual, but more emotionally spun. I told them flat out that question and what went on in Dr. Jones mind/intent wasn’t something I could or would comment on since I have no information beyond the press report.

These two independent filmakers were just kids, early 20′s and were struggling to come up with questions. They kept trying to get me to use the word “fraud” as applied to Dr. Jones. There were about five attempts to do so in questions, asking essentially the same question over and over again in different ways.

They also asked why climate skeptics are so “angry” and why there are so many nasty comments on forums. I pointed out that they should visit some of the entertainment forums where people talk about celebrities like Britney Spears etc if they wanted to see some real vitriols, and that nasty comments are a part of the blogosphere, particularly when anonymous commenting is involved. Alarmists make a lot of nasty comments. Look up dhoghaza and Joe Romm.

The capper came at the end when they asked me to sign a release form. I was shocked, because standard procedure is to have the interviewee look over and sign the release form before the interview.

Reading it was like reading no other release form I’ve ever seen. It had a clause that said “gives us the right to use your content however we see fit” which concerned me because usually an interview for a documentary is limited to that venue. For all I know they may put me on a political comedy show.

Then there was something I’ve never encountered in all my years of television. An oath of “honesty and factual accuracy” was in the release. While I certainly thought I answered honestly and factually, this clause concerned me. When somebody interviews me on a contentious subject like climate, I’m giving my opinion. Opinions are almost always disputed. I was sure mine would be. To have such a clause connected to one’s opinion is just insane because then someone can hold up anything and say “but scientific consensus says..etc…etc…so Mr. Watts lied and violated his contractual oath in the release form”. It’s not a court of law, it’s an interview. Jeez Louise!

The release was obviously written by amateurs, and I refused to sign it. They then admitted that “it’s being revised to ‘simplify it’ and ‘could we send you a revision?’. I said I’d look at it, gave them my card with email address, told them that I thought they had the process backwards and that I was unhappy with being confronted with flawed legal language after giving a good faith interview, and left.

How low can the BBC stoop? Let’s remind these cretins that Anthony has spent 25 years in the weather business and unlike the BBC, bends over backwards to ensure that the warmists he so fervently disagrees with are properly represented in both postings on his site and in cross-links. The BBC, for its part, distorts everything it reports to include a warmist spin. And clearly, it doesn’t give a damn how it gets there.

TURN OUT THE LIGHTS…

God help us all. The “left-leaning” (BBCspeak for ardent lefty, Europhile, climate change fanatic) Chris Huhne is taking up the environment and climate change brief. Expect this intolerant, self-opinionated noneity to be omnipresent on BBC programmes from now on; and expect an instant stepping up of the volume of climate change moonshine. Oh, and prepare for massive power cuts – because that’s where we are heading.

The Brown Stuff

Immediately following Gordon Brown’s announcement that Labour and the Lib Dems have decided to screw the Tories and fuck the country up the arse with red hot pokers wrapped in barbed wire, BBC News had a panel ready and waiting – two Labour guys (Lord Adonis, Alastair Campbell) and one Lib Dem (David Steel) all spinning the message that a LibLab coalition was the best way forward. Hilariously, at one point Huw Edwards – lacking an opposing viewpoint – even turned to Adonis and asked if he agreed with what Alastair Campbell had just said. Like he was going to say no!

Next up was another Labour rep (Douglas Alexander) – parroting the same message. Then, two more supporters of an anti-Tory coalition – Labour MP John Mann and someone from the SNP, rubbing his hands at the prospect of screwing the English for more and more taxes. And finally – 45 minutes after Brown had spoken – BBC News gave us the first opposing view in the person of Tory MP Nigel Evans.

And I see Nick Robinson is already speaking as if it’s all now a done deal – “historic realignment of politics”.

Update. I don’t think the voters in my constituency of Thirsk and Malton (we haven’t had our say yet – May 27) will take too kindly to the prospect of a progressive coalition of the losers and yet another unelected Labour leader. I predict a massive majority for Tory candidate Ann McIntosh. (Update 2 Unless of course the Cameroons turn up and start canvassing with a message about the Big Society and similar toss like that.)

Update 8.20pm. BBC News just had Prof Simon Lee on from a studio in Hull and he went at it from the word go, savaging Gordon Brown’s record as PM and Chancellor. Unsurprisingly the BBC decided to cut him short after a few brief seconds.

FARCICAL…

The EU’s “rescue” of the Greek economy has become a naked attempt by the Brussels machine to extend the powers of our EU government so that it will regulate all 27 economies on an unprecedented scale. The UK – still represented by the Brownite squatters – is powerless to prevent this happening, and is saddled with a bill that is estimated will cost the UK taxpayer £43bn. Meanwhile, the BBC report on the fiasco as if it were about events in a different country. Following on from my post yesterday, Dave’s policy towards Europe is shown up to be the obscene shambles that it is; he shunned a pre-election deal with UKIP – calling them “fuitcakes and loonies” – and lost at least 20 seats as a result; and now he’s cobbling together a coalition with the mosty Europhile party of them all, the Cleggmaniacs. To the BBC, this is an issue that does not even register; they long since took the Brussels shilling.

ON THIN ICE (AGAIN)

Election or no election, the BBC continues to spew out with wearisome predictability tendentious nonsense about global warming. This time, it’s another melting glacier alert. This one ticks all the boxes for a BBC scare story because the mountain in question is in Africa, and of course, a central axiom of the BBC’s belief system is that Africans urgently need more money to fight the endless injustices heaped upon them by the filthy, capitalist West. The glacier is on Mount Margherita (Africa’s third highest peak), in the Rwenzori mountains on the border between Zaire and Uganda. The area in question is virtually inaccessible because of continuing warfare, but hey-ho, the local Africans know with certainty it must be global warming to blame and are keen to tell the world it is, so it must be true.

Completely absent from the BBC story is any mention of that the combined area of all glaciers in Africa, including those on Kilimanjaro, is less than 11km, and that it has been repeatedly pointed out that the causes of melt are both cyclical and to do with other man-made factors such as deforestation. Nor does the BBC care that not a smidgeon of detailed research appears to have carried out at Mount Margherita; papers that do exist acknowledge their lack of accurate information. A crack appears, the local authorities say it’s global warming and that’s all that it takes for our eco-freak friends at the corporation to spread at full volume yet another baseless scare story.

BBC-BNP..

A guest post by hippiepooter
Here is somefeedback we got to our email digest from a senior figure in UKIP 22nd April:
We constantly have problems with the BBC over first of all getting them to cover us, andthen when they do, they HAVE TO mention the BNPin the same breath!  Or are very unprofessional in the way they slanttheir reports.
Here are four examples on BBC Online within 24 hours of the BBC linking UKIP with the BNP(hat tip to ‘BoBs’ on the open thread for the third):

UKIP is a legitimatedemocratic party.  The BNP is a neo-Nazi Party.  It is not possible to exaggerate how utterlyoffensive it is to link UKIP with the BNP.  The worst aspect of this despicable bias isthat while it no doubt loses UKIP votes it also wins the BNP votes. In the minds of any otherwise non-racist voters angry aboutmulti-culturalism but wary of the BNP,seeing the BBC link the BNP with a legitimate democratic party like UKIPmay very well persuade them that the BNPisn’t racist and Nazi after all.
In ademocracy, a broadcaster with a duty to impartiality has a democratic duty ofbias against subversive parties to expose their totalitarian agenda.  The biased treatment the BNP receives should be exactly the same as partieslike Respect / SWP receives.  We knowthat’s not the case.  The bias that the BBC displays against the BNPis very often not a democratic one, but a left-wing one.  They try to establish in the public mind thatpolicies against immigration and multi-culturalism are racist and fascist perse rather than expose the BNP’sdesire to exploit people’s legitimate grievances over these issues to implementthe racial hatred of their Nazi ideology. When it is more important for the BBCto attack the BNP from itssubversive agenda on the Left to stigmatise democratic parties for addressingpeople’s legitimate concerns, is it any wonder that support for the BNP is growing? If the BBC really were animpartial broadcaster serving democracy it would scrupulously keep thedemocratic fold separate from the totalitarian fold.
When it comesto directly associating UKIP with the BNPthe trick the BBC use is to take BNP policies on immigration, multi-culturalism andthe EU on face value rather than examine the road that the BNP are coming from in order to link them with UKIPwhose policies on these issues do bear objective similarities (as do to alesser extent the policies of Labour and the Tories!).  The BBCwould no doubt reel off their ‘duty to impartiality’ under the Election Act,but the only time they ever do show impartiality with the BNP is when it’s a means to link them with UKIP,which seems to be happening increasingly often as voting approaches.  At the end of the day the BBC and the BNPare opposite extremes who meet full circle. Sheesh, being willing to aid and abett British Nazism to lose UKIPvotes.  What more needs to be said aboutthe depravity of the BBC?

ECO NONSENSE

All the cretinous party leaders and their supporters (except UKIP) in our so-called general election are wedded to eco-mania. There hasn’t been a single meaningful debate about the topic, despite the fact that all the main parties are advocating energy measures that will lead to fuel poverty on a savage scale. This underlines the increasing divide between the political classes and the rest of us, who must endure the consequences of their inane, insane vacuity. Meanwhile, the BBC ploughs relentlessly on with its eco-warmongering, publishing this report that – in chilling Orwellian terms – suggests that taking exercise in the open air is linked with the “green” agenda. What’s so terrifying about the framing of stories like this is the hijacking and politicisation of every aspect of our lives and language by greenie fanatics at the corporation. And meanwhile, Richard Black continues to churn out his own brand of eco-facism: in this piece about another hijacked and done-to-death word, “biodversity”, he advocates that the only answer is for us to go back to the stone age. And exercise a massive cull of human beings – there’s too darn many of us. The type of logic exercised by Black and his cronies leads to nonsense like this story, from What’s Up with That? – a so-called educational display at a US aquarium featuring a cow in a gas mask to prevent methane emissions.

SANDBAGGED…

Richard Black continues to churn out BBC groupthink about the need to cut CO2 emissions as if Climategate has not happened and the IPCC AR4 report is still the gold standard of reliability. What’s fresh about his wearying latest tirade is that he’s found a new group of climate change fanatics to support his assertion that whatever we are doing, it’s not enough; nothing less than the end of industry is required. This one’s called Sandbag (what a nice, twee, right-on lefty name – I wonder which brand focus group thought that one up?); the cast of eco-agitators – not one of them a sceintist as far as I can see, but hey, what does that matter? – includes one from the BBC’s own in house climate change agency, our old friends Futerra – to whom the BBC sends its staff for indoctrination. How cosy.