Some Good Old Lefty Shlock

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

TELETUBBIES FOR NORTH KOREA…?

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.

ROGER AND OUT…

Did you read this?

“The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds over six years trying to keep secret an extraordinary ‘eco’ conference which has shaped its coverage of global warming,  The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The controversial seminar was run by a body set up by the BBC’s own environment analyst Roger Harrabin and funded via a £67,000 grant from the then Labour government, which hoped to see its ‘line’ on climate change and other Third World issues promoted in BBC reporting.”

Strangle The Climate Sceptics In Their Beds!!

 

 

 

James Delingpole under threat:

@JamesDelingpole Hey scumbag, just remember they hanged Lord Haw Haw. #Haiyan

 

This post is just something to suck on and give you pause for thought before I look at the BBC’s recent bit of climate propaganda…Is there a Green Hush?

The BBC has maintained a constant narrative that climate scientists are ‘under attack’ from sceptics and therefore such pressure explains the scientist’s refusal to explain their actions or indeed their ‘science’.

 

The trouble is it is in fact the sceptics who are under the worse attacks, led it might be said by the mainstream media…such as the BBC and the Guardian.

 

Harrabin admitted he was a climate change campaigner:

I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change.

 

Roger Harrabin complaining about the sceptics:

In the absence of any formal inquiry, trial by internet will continue. For better or for worse.

 

 

The BBC has been at the forefront of attacks on climate sceptics….and is still at it.  Roger Harrabin is the BBC’s environmental correspondent who has helped orchestrate those attacks.

 

 

 

Here is a Harrabin email  organising the troops, trying to develop a party line on how to react to, how to report, Al Gore’s setback:

In any future reporting of Gore we should be careful not to suggest that the High Court says Gore was wrong on climate…….

We might say something like: “Al Gore whose film was judged by the High Court to have used some debatable science” or “Al Gore whose film was judged in the High Court to be controversial in parts”.
The key is to avoid suggesting that the judge disagreed with the main climate change thesis.

Please pass to presenters because this issue about Gore will arise again.

 

…and it must be squashed!

 

Delingpole again is under threat…from the BBC’s very best:

“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.

Phew..that’s OK then!

 

Here Harrabin lays the groundwork for what follows:

Over two decades I’ve spoken to mainstream scientists who are sick of hearing their work attacked and their motives questioned. In this world, climate science extends beyond arguments about trend-smoothing to become a matter of life and death for millions of people, according to the mainstream projections on temperatures.

 

Can there be much doubt that such sentiments lead to this type of thinking from the Green Lobby?:

With high probability GW will cause hundreds of millions of deaths. For this reason I propose that the death penalty is appropriate for influential GW deniers.

 

Below is a selection of voices articulating what measures should be taken to silence or punish climate sceptics….if you think calls for death might be a little extreme you might ask why the BBC’s favourite ‘caring’ activist, Richard Curtis, also ‘jokingly’ implies that might not be a bad idea in his climate video for the 10:10 campaign.

 

‘Execute’ Skeptics! Shock Call To Action: ‘At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers’ — ‘Shouldn’t we start punishing them now?’

NASA’s James Hansen has called for trials of climate skeptics in 2008 for “high crimes against humanity.” Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out at skeptics in 2007, declaring “This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors” In 2009, RFK, Jr. also called coal companies “criminal enterprises” and declared CEO’s ‘should be in jail… for all of eternity.”

In June 2009, former Clinton Administration official Joe Romm defended a comment on his Climate Progress website warning skeptics would be strangled in their beds. “An entire generation will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds,” stated the remarks, which Romm defended by calling them “not a threat, but a prediction.”

 

This video highlights the Green’s campaign of vilification against climate sceptics…by terrorizing children…as someone put it, an ‘eco-snuff movie’.

And…all lovingly written by the man who is is allowed by the BBC to use its massive broadcasting platform to pump out ‘poverty porn’ and when he’s not doing that filling the airwaves with Green hype and misinformation..Richard Curtis:

 

 

 

The Guardian, of course:

There will be blood – watch exclusive of 10:10 campaign’s ‘No Pressure’ film

Here’s a highly explosive short film, written by Richard Curtis, from our friends at the 10:10 climate change campaign

“Clearly we don’t really think they should be blown up, that’s just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?” jokes 10:10 founder and Age of Stupid film maker Franny Armstrong.

Why take such a risk of upsetting or alienating people, I ask her: “Because we have got about four years to stabilise global emissions and we are not anywhere near doing that. All our lives are at threat and if that’s not worth jumping up and down about, I don’t know what is.”

“We ‘killed’ five people to make No Pressure – a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change,” she adds.

Jamie Glover, the child-actor who plays the part of Philip and gets blown up, has similarly few qualms: “I was very happy to get blown up to save the world.”

 

Here the ‘Tallbloke’ reveals the thoughts of another eco-fascist who wants to punish sceptics by killing them, though he thinks freedom of thought is a ‘very valuable thing’!:
The opinions of everyday GW deniers are evidently being driven by influential GW deniers who have a lot to lose if GW is taken seriously, such as executives in transnational oil corporations.
I have always been opposed to the death penalty in all cases, and I have always supported the clear and consistent stand of Amnesty International on this issue. The death penalty is barbaric, racist, expensive, and is often applied by mistake.

Even mass murderers should not be executed, in my opinion.….[but]…….GW deniers fall into a completely different category. They are already causing the deaths of hundreds of millions of future people. We could be speaking of billions, but I am making a conservative estimate.
With high probability GW will cause hundreds of millions of deaths.

For this reason I propose that the death penalty is appropriate for influential GW deniers. More generally, I propose that we limit the death penalty to people whose actions will with a high probability cause millions of future deaths

Does that make me crazy? I don’t think so. I am certainly far less crazy than those people today who are in favor of the death penalty for everyday cases of murder, in my opinion. And like them I have freedom of speech, which is a very valuable thing.

 

Climate sceptics need ‘treatment:

 

You must understand climate scepticism isn’t a result of intelligent thought or informed debate, it’s because climate sceptic’s brains are wired wrong:

Psychology provides insight into why people doubt climate change

The authors drew on dozens of studies into people’s reactions to news about climate change, some of which suggest that certain types of people are more likely to find the evidence for human-induced climate change less convincing than others.

 

 

More in a similar vein:
David Roberts is a blogger over at the green website Gristmill.   On September 19, 2006, evidently fed up with climate change deniers, Roberts made an interesting suggestion for how to resolve scientific issues. To wit: “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards—some sort of climate Nuremberg.” Roberts is far from alone. As Brendan O’Neill over at spiked points out, “climate change deniers” are now being likened by some activists to Holocaust deniers or even Nazis themselves. Apparently, it is no longer acceptable to question in polite company the hypothesis that humanity is causing catastrophic climate change.

 

Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech
The demonisation of ‘climate change denial’ is an affront to open and rational debate.
‘David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial’, she wrote. ‘Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’
The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.

 

 

Of course the BBC is at the forefront of the attacks on climate sceptics, orchestrated by Roger Harrabin who runs the Green’s ‘Black Ops’ misinformation campaign…CMEP.

When the CRU emails were released into the world, after a months silence from the BBC, we finally got a response from Harrabin and Co…a response that was obviously an organised one being exactly the same from several BBC journalists and some of their allies:

HarrabinThe UEA’s CRU is one of the most respected centres in the world and its data set is like others around the world.  Hackers stole private emails that climate sceptics say manipulated the data…if it were true it would be extremely serious but scientists behind it absolutely reject the allegation…I have spoken to a lot of scientists and they are very confident that the science behind the CRU data will be upheld.
Obviously this was a bid to sabotage Copenhagen…millions of dollars are spent by American business trying to discredit AGW and this is the background as to why researchers have behaved in a defensive way.

Some of the e-mails reveal the frustration and annoyance among mainstream climate researchers about the probings they face from critics who relentlessly question their methodology.

But speaking to my source at the CRU, it is also clear that the unit has been dragged down by what it considers to be nit-picking and unreasonable demands for data – and that there is personal animus against their intellectual rivals.

Now this sort of hostility is nothing new in academia – but the revelations come at a sensitive time as the world’s nations gather for the climate meeting in Copenhagen.

In the absence of any formal inquiry, trial by internet will continue. For better or for worse.
Tom Feilden….this shows how difficult it can be to remain objective when scientists are subjected to concerted attacks by those who will do or say anything to win a wider political argument.
The CRU emails are taken out of context….are they the result of  exasperation by someone who has been subjected to constant harassment by an orchestrated group of campaigners?

 
Seems that BBC correspondents and climate alarmists are ‘orchestrating’ a campaign…..the themes are all consistently the same….out of context, stolen, scientists under attack and being forced to be defensive, climate sceptics orchestrate.
Curiously climate misinformation campaigner, Bob Wade from the Grantham Institute at the LSE, uses the same excuses…political motivated theft  and harassed scientists.

 

In 2008 Harrabin was involved in a controversy after he altered a BBC Online report on climate forecasting report following complaints by an environmentalist and the World Meteorological Organisation. Conservative critics accused Harrabin of caving into pressure.

Blog bully crows over BBC climate victory

 

Harrabin denies it:

 

 

However:

Abbess: “Several networks exist that question whether global warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have no expertise in this area.”
Harrabin: “No correction is needed. If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will decrease, that’s what we will report”
Abbess: “Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that ‘global warming finished in 1998′, when that is so patently not true.
“Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door open to doubt about that.”
Harrabin: “We can’t ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media. Best to tackle this – and explain it, which is what we have done.”
(still no mention of the WMO…)
Abbess: “When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg [sic] ‘Really?’ or ‘Wow !’ You don’t read the whole article, you just get the headline.
“It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. [Even the BBC? – astonished ed] They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth. I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.”
“A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say, and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and email their mates and say “See! Global Warming has stopped !”
“I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.”
Harrabin: “Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.”

 

 

Harrabin has a little job on the side, using his BBC job as a platform to launch his lucrative public speaking career:

The  Gordon Poole Agency:   He gets 5k to 10k for talks on environment etc

Many of today’s environment/equity themes became issues of public
            concern following Roger’s reports on Radio 4’s “Today” programme.
            They include climate change, biodiversity, carbon footprints,
            population, over-fishing, green taxation, road pricing, global
            inter-connectedness, 3rd World debt, and many more. He was years
            ahead of the pack in showing how the environment links to energy,
            transport, farming, government aid, foreign policy, planning

“Echo Chambers” – An Alternative To The BBC Feature #2

The first installment with my own mission statement is here. Zurcher’s next topic was inevitable, so here goes. Again, I’m doing this without having read any of it other than the title and the first sentence.

Chris Christie’s Bridge-sized Headache

Somebody has leaked or stolen some emails by the popular and prominent New Jersey Governor detailing and gloating about deliberately blocking traffic on a vital commuter conduit in order to retaliate against a local politician who didn’t endorse Christie in the last election. The deputy chief of staff – whom Christie has now fired – seems to have made no bones about what they were doing, and even expressed pleasure in doing so in emails between her and the the Port Authority official in charge of running the George Washington Bridge, who’s a high school friend of the Governor and was appointed by him. It does have all the appearances of being very cozy.

It’s ugly business, not because it’s a national incident but because it’s a clear case of using government power to harm a political opponent, which is a major issue on its own thanks to the IRS scandal, never mind the negative affect it had on ordinary citizens, apparently simply because most of them voted the wrong way. As this editorial from Investor’s Business Daily says, “What’s infuriating is how this kind of politics is becoming the norm.”

This is a major national story also because Christie has a national profile not only because of his public image as a straight talker and a caring, competent administrator after the devastation of parts of his State from Hurricane Sandy, but because he’s been considered by many in the media and political wonk class to be the front runner for the Republican candidacy for President in 2016. Anything that calls his integrity into question is going to be big. It’s especially going to gain legs regardless of the facts because at the moment he’s the number one obstacle to President-in-waiting Hillary Clinton. So Christie now has the biggest target on his back of anyone in the country.

He’s going to get the vetting that the media never did for the Junior Senator from Illinois in 2008, or even during Obama’s first term as President. It’s no secret that the mainstream media knows they didn’t do their job properly, and that they really did use the power of the press to support him and attack enemies. There’s been a little pushback in the last couple of months, and it was probably always going to be inevitable that they were going to overreact in order to reestablish public trust and prove that they really do want to hold politicians accountable and speak truth to power.

As Paul Bedard points out in the Washington Times:

The Big Three networks, in a frenzy over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s traffic headache dubbed “Bridgegate,” have devoted a whopping 34 minutes and 28 seconds of coverage to the affair in just the last 24 hours.

By comparison, that’s 17 times the two minutes, eight seconds devoted to President Obama’s IRS scandal in the last six months, according to an analysis by the Media Research Center.

“While routinely burying new stories on the IRS scandal, the media practically fell over themselves to start taking shots at the potential 2016 Republican presidential nominee,” said the conservative media watchdog.

It’s important to keep this background in mind when considering the media coverage now, regardless of the facts as they come out. Opinion on the validity of the IRS scandal can be viewed as a metric. So, naturally there’s noise in both the Left and Right echo chambers. Christie says he didn’t know the truth and was misled by his staff about the whole thing. Naturally, some won’t trust him and are asking “What did he know and when did he know it?”, while others are taking him at his word. While it’s impossible to prove a negative, many are pointing to his known brusk, tough-talking, and at times aggressive behavior as evidence that this attitude was endemic in his administration, and thus he shares blame.

A good example of this comes from the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. Just his blog title says it all:

Chris Christie: ‘I am not a bully’ – LOL

During his 107-minute me-me-mea culpa over the traffic fiasco that plunged his national political fortunes into chaos, Gov. Chris Christie said something that was LOL funny. It came in response to a question from NBC News’s Kelly O’Donnell: “Your critics say this reveals that you are a political bully, that your style is payback,” she asked the New Jersey Republican known for his love of rhetorical fisticuffs and penchant for retribution. “Are you? And does this compromise your ability to serve?

Capehart then cites a couple of instances of Christie making snarky retorts at people asking him challenging questions. Those responses are part of what made independents and people on the Right like him, while it tended to anger those on the Left. To Capehart and those in his echo chamber, it’s proof that Christie is a bully, and proof that he either knew or his style encouraged the corrupt behavior.

At the top of that echo chamber is this editorial from the New York Times:

There are plenty of questions that Mr. Christie and his aides, current and former, need to answer.

First, is it plausible that officials as high up as Ms. Kelly and Mr. Christie’s top appointees at the Port Authority, which controls the bridge, would decide to seek revenge and create this traffic chaos on their own?

Did Mr. Christie know in December, when Mr. Baroni and Mr. Wildstein resigned, that these two members of his inner circle had taken part in the scheme? Did he ever ask them what happened?

Piers Morgan says it’s as big a scandal as Watergate.

The echo chamber from the other side is obviously more willing to give Christie the benefit of the doubt. But they’re certainly not just accepting his side of the story and drawing a line under the incident. Charles Krauthammer is taking a wait-and-see attitude. He even suggests that if Christie’s toughness image comes across after this as “a petty toughness”, he’s “toast”.  That and the IBD sentiment I mentioned above are echoed by Red State’s Eric Erickson (writing for Fox News here):

I’m ambivalent on his run for the presidency . But I don’t see him getting that far for the very reasons underlying this issue — he and his staff operate as divas.I have had congressmen, governors, and the staffers of congressmen and governors tell me horror stories about dealing with Christie’s people.

All of them seem to dread it.

It seems that even if Christie comes out of this with clean(ish) hands, the bully label is going to stick. Of course, nobody in either echo chamber is comparing that to Hillary Clinton’s own horror stories about how she treats people, but it’s only a matter of time if Christie does eventually declare.

So is it going to doom Christie’s presidential hopes? It’s too soon to tell, of course, but there are plenty of guesses out there. Lisa Schiffren in the National Review Online’s “The Corner”, thinks this too shall pass and Christie the (eventual) candidate might even come out of this the better for it. The other echo chamber, here in the form of Jason Linkins of the HuffingtonPost, thinks there’s always the possibility of a “Comeback Kid” story, as the media likes to create these Narratives.

There’s one other facet to this story – particularly the coverage and the opinion-mongering – which goes back to what I said about how opinion of the IRS scandal can be a kind of metric. The same people on the Left who defended the President on that saying he couldn’t possibly have known, and his behavior had no influence on the IRS going after his political enemies, are now certain that Christie’s behavior influenced and led to everything, and of course he probably knew.

Before closing, we must also consider the other, other echo chamber: Twitter.

 

 

It’s too early to know how this will turn out, but the various opinions have been far more revealing of the attitudes and politics of the people making them than about anything in the story itself.

Listen Up Whitey….The BBC’s Nod And A Wink To Rioters

 

 

The IPCC’s study into deaths in police custody in England and Wales between 1998 and 2010 shows:

Those who died in custody were mostly white (75%), male (90%) and aged between 25 and 44.

 

An invitation to Mark Duggan’s aunt from the BBC’s Nicky Campbell:

I’m going to give you two minutes to be open and honest about the cancer in our society…say honestly from the heart what you want to say….say anything you want.’    

 

 

 

There are some dangerous myths being propagated in some communities….one is that radicalisation is caused by ‘western’ foreign policy……today we hear the excuses for Black radicalisation….Black youths are more likely to die in police custody than any other segment of the population, and that police community relations are failing because of police actions such as stop and search.

I have heard these mentioned again and again today but not a word of dissent from the BBC, as with Muslim callers or commentators who suggest foreign policy causes radicalisation the BBC seems unable to challenge anyone who wraps themselves in their flag of convenience….that being their race or religion.

There is no mention of the real figures of deaths in custody nor the reasons for stop and search..no look at the numbers of black youths killed by other black youths, no looking at Trident in relation to all this.

The narrative does seem to go just one way…the police are to blame for all the problems….they don’t understand the community, they don’t communicate with them and they persecute them.

No thought that maybe the Black community brings it upon themselves….or rather a segment of the black community brings it upon the whole….all to be taken advantage of by the race hustlers.

 

 

 

Having caught quite a bit of the BBC’s coverage of the response to the Duggan verdict I can only conclude that the BBC would be quietly sympathetic to anyone who decided the best reaction would be to riot, burn down homes and businesses, and if innocent people are killed, then so be it….that’s the price of injustice when Democracy fails you and injustice stalks the streets.

 

David Cameron said that ‘the judicial process has to be respected.’

The BBC’s response was to say bollocks to that, asking instead….’Should the police guidance on the use of lethal force be changed?’

That question from the BBC tells you a lot about their thinking.  It immediately suggests that though a jury has found the shooting legal the BBC believes that the police guidelines on the use of lethal force are wrong…and therefore the verdict, based upon those guidelines, is wrong….and therefore…

The killing was unjustified…in other words the BBC are suggesting Duggan was murdered by the police.

 

Just a coincidence that the BBC’s  broadcast this by their tame Black activist, Alvin Hall, on the day after the verdict is given:

Sweet Nothings

Sugar

 

Sugar is apparently:

Toxic and detrimental to society…in fact it is worse than tobacco as tobacco isn’t introduced into food.

 

The BBC tells us that:

Nearly two thirds of people in the UK are overweight or obese – leading to other health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

 

Really?  You have to ask firstly is that true?  Not sure I believe the figure….looking around most people look pretty average to me.  Secondly who sets the parameters to make that judgement…how do you define ‘obese’?

Of course there are official guidelines, but you kind of suspect that many people so categorised would not accept the label…and would say if this is ‘fat’ then I’m quite happy being ‘fat’…so get lost!

The BBC have been banging on all day about this ‘major’ news story….a bunch of arrogant, not to say verging on fascist, doctors have yet again decided to dictate what we can and can’t eat ‘for our own good’.

There doesn’t seem much of a challenge to their claims from the BBC….this report is wholly from the doctor’s point of view save for the inset interview clip.

Campaigners vow to cut sugar in food

 

There is no balancing view in the report to put any other side to the argument….unlike the Telegraph which puts both sides:

Dr Victoria Burley, a senior lecturer in Nutrional Epidemiology at Leeds University, said the group’s claims were alarmist and misleading.

She said: “It is nuts to claim that sugar is as dangerous as alcohol. It’s total hyperbole, quite crazy.”

 

Here is some more of that hyperbole from the campaigners:

Action on Sugar says children are a particularly vulnerable group who are targeted by marketers of calorie-dense snacks and sugar-sweetened soft drinks.

Professor Simon Capewell said: ”Sugar is the new tobacco. Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are now pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focussed on profit not health.

 

That’s just rubbish….fizzy drinks, sweets, biscuits, crisps and whatever were all around in my youth and I wolfed them down as much as anyone when I could…..thing is I was limited in the amount I could eat……and was far from being anywhere near obese….conclusion…it’s not the amount of sugar in the products it’s how much of those products you eat…eat too much lettuce and you will also suffer problems.

As to ‘pressed on unsuspecting parents and children’….well as above..the same foods were available when I was young and yet my parents managed to avoid having cynical industrial types peddle their wares to them ‘unsuspected’ fleecing them for sugarcoated profits.

The doctors seem to think everyone else are stupid and ignorant, and incapable of making their own informed decisions about the food they eat…..and the BBC doesn’t seem to be disabusing the doctors of that opinion.

Listen to the tone when they do bring on an industry spokesman…it’s entirely negative and suspicious of the capitalist exploiters of children.

 

Shame that once again a fanatical pressure group gets given so much credibility and airtime by the BBC without a proper challenge to their claims.

 

 

 

 

 

The Road To Success?

 

Mark Mardell is enjoying saying this:

This scandal is hugely damaging – if not yet fatal – for Christie’s ambitions to be the Republican contender for president in 2016”

 

about this:

Chris Christie apologises for bridge-gridlock scandal

On 9 September, two of three traffic lanes to the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey to Manhattan, were shut for several days.

Emails and texts made public on Wednesday appear to link Ms Kelly to the move.

The move caused traffic chaos in the New Jersey borough of Fort Lee, whose Democratic mayor had declined to back Mr Christie in last autumn’s gubernatorial election.

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said the alleged skulduggery was “appalling”….”It’s the example of the pettiest and most venomous side of politics,” he told the Bergen Record newspaper.

 

No such concerns about ‘petty, venomous politics’ when Labour opened the borders and imported millions of immigrants purely to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’.

Nor indeed any such concerns bout Ken Livingstone’s ‘traffic management schemes’ which deliberately jammed the traffic to give him an excuse to introduce congestion charges:

 

Hundreds of sets of traffic lights at some of London’s busiest junctions are being secretly altered to increase the time motorists have to wait, according to The Independent on Sunday (p5).

The changes affect as many as 300 traffic lights. After months of suspicion, the body in charge of traffic lights, Transport for London, has now admitted that many have had their red phases increased and the green phase reduced.

Motoring groups say London mayor Ken Livingstone has intentionally created traffic chaos now in order to make his congestion charging scheme more popular when it is introduced in nine months time.

 

 

Just how many ambulances and police response vehicles were delayed by Ken’s little games?

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER MANDELA, DUGGAN?

Well then, who would have thought that the BBC would have found a new icon to worship after the death of Mandela, and who would have thought it was a London “gangsta”? BBC coverage has been extensive and very pro Duggan, and the comrades also seem disappointed there has not been a riot! Thoughts?