General BBC-related comment thread!

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. This is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may also be moderated. Any suggestions for stories that you might like covered would be appreciated! It’s your space, use it wisely.

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78 Responses to General BBC-related comment thread!

  1. moonbat nibbler says:

    Bishop Hill has a third article on CEMP and the BBC:

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/12/21/more-on-cemp.html

    The last line sums it up:

    “The BBC – the public relations arm of Greenpeace.”

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  2. Lurker in a Burqua says:

    This might have brought cheer to all those, such as Al Gore and the BBC, who have been obsessively telling us that the Arctic ice will soon disappear altogether. They were dismayed enough last winter when, after reaching its lowest point in 30 years, the ice bounded back to near “normal”.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3883550/Facts-melted-by-global-warming.html

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  3. Anonymous says:

    compare and contrast time

    AP coverage of iranian human rights centre being shut down by the mullahs.

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hG0LBG4JQD8MueFPUBxNQl87C9NAD95794OG0

    the AP report and others manage to mention what lawyer sherin abedi actually stands for …

    “Among her group’s work, it has campaigned for judicial reforms such as banning stoning and cutting off limbs as punishments for convicted criminals. It has also campaigned against executions of juvenile offenders.”

    al beeb’s version is simply a regurgitated press release from the iranian ministry of justice.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7794788.stm

    it fails to offer a context for why the centre is being closed, it fails to say what sherin abedi opposes and it gives an unopposed quote from a totalitarian government such as parrotting accusations that the centre has been –

    “promoting illegal activities such as issuing statements on different occasions, sending letters to domestic and foreign organisations, holding press conferences, meetings and conferences” which created an atmosphere “of media publicity against the establishment in recent years”

    they even manage to post a link to the iranian presidency website.

    is it really legitimate to link a txpayer funded broadcasters website to a fascist theocratic psychopaths website ?

    file under double standards , dhimmi ,collaborators and fith columnists….

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  4. John Bosworth says:

    Judging from Justin Webb’s blog he is worried about the relationship between the outgoing Bush team and the incoming administration of President Obama being too cordial. It’s good to see where he stands on the subject and confirms his own bias towards the Huffington Post view which he quotes adoringly.

    Don’t worry Justin. You’ll soon have lots of Obama missteps you can blame on Bush.

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  5. Dichaba Molobe says:

    Since the BBC avoids the use of the word “terrorism” in its reporting , does this mean therefore that Lockerbie , 7/7 and 9/11 were acts of militancy and not terrorism?. It would be interesting to get an answer on this one from the BBC .

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  6. deegee says:

    I thought I’d allow Yisrael Medad to comment on Road to Bethlehem EVENING, SATURDAY , 20 DECEMBER: SHILO. Medad is a well-known blogger and critic of the Israeli media.
    BBC Interview: First Impressions
    Reflecting on That BBC Interview.
    I am a little disappointed because Aleem Maqbool was supposedly staying with him and I expected a far more vigourous defence of Jewish moral, legal, historical and pragmatic right of settlement. I have asked his to write more.

    Summary:
    *The map of the journey is incorrect. Shilo is south of Salfit.
    *Two and a minutes (including question) is insufficient to answer this question: “the whole world considers your presence here illegal and interfering with Palestinian life and infrastrucure, so what do you say?”
    *None of the Arab villages he was passing through on his Nativity trek existed as Arab villages at the time that Jospeh and Mary supposedly made their way south from Nazereth to Bethlehem. Identifying the country as Palestine was an anachronism.

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  7. deegee says:

    Road to Bethlehem EVENING, SATURDAY , 20 DECEMBER: SHILO.

    Having a foreign passport, Israeli government press card and hotline to the army are privileges that make it difficult to totally understand how living without them would affect life here As Homer Simpson would say, “Duh”. You expect privileges as an international journalist and complain because you get them.

    He told us that Palestinian doctors, ambulances and patients were frequently held up at checkpoints around the city. He didn’t tell you of the involvement of Palestinian doctors, ambulances and patients in hostile propaganda and active terrorism. (BTW I am going to Hear Phillipe Karsenty of al-Dura fame speak today. Yet another incident were ambulances

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  8. deegee says:

    oops. continued from above.
    … Yet another incident were ambulances and the Palestine Red Crescent allowed themselves to be used in the struggle and why Israel doesn’t just wave them through.

    “Where’s your donkey then?” This is the part of the story I must have missed, where Mary and Joseph required three donkeys to make the trip.

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  9. frankos says:

    This might have brought cheer to all those, such as Al Gore and the BBC, who have been obsessively telling us that the Arctic ice will soon disappear altogether. They were dismayed enough last winter when, after reaching its lowest point in 30 years, the ice bounded back to near “normal”.

    So the BBC and New Labour will have to find some other excuse to tax the arse off the working man–I’m sure it won’t take long

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  10. DB says:

    The BBC’s Katty Kay was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week to discuss the prospect of Caroline Kennedy getting Hillary Clinton’s senate seat. This was Kay’s impartial assessment of one possible Democrat rival to Kennedy:

    There are plenty of very well-qualified women up there if they wanted a woman. There’s, y’know, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand • she’s great, she’s already run for office, she’s had tough races, she’s really smart.

    Kay is obviously a huge fan. Last year she and Gillibrand attended a conference on women’s issues (described as “a bit of a Democratic love-fest” by the blog Capitol Confidential) where Kay said that Gillibrand would be the first female president.

    An unbearable thought for Democrat sympathisers like Kay is the prospect of a Republican woman getting the top job before one of their girls. (For Kay’s views on Sarah Palin check out the response to her poor sap of a husband when he made the mistake of saying he understood why men liked the Alaskan governor.) One thing seems sure • as with the rest of the BBC’s American correspondents, Kay clearly feels under no editorial pressure to hide her pro-Democrat views.

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  11. Frankl says:

    DB | 22.12.08 – 11:06 am

    Are these beeboids flagrantly flouting the rules of impartiality or do they not apply to US politics?

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  12. Anthony Walker says:

    See
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7794961.stm

    Nice that the BBC has airbrushed the attack on the Jewish centre in Mumbai mentioning only the hotels, restaurant and railway station.

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  13. Biodegradable says:

    Less than 6,000,000 dead Jews don’t count.

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  14. Biodegradable says:

    The BBC are thrilled that Hamas have declared another “truce”:

    Gaza factions in ‘day-long truce’
    The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas says armed factions in the Gaza Strip are observing a 24-hour halt to rocket fire against Israel.

    Hamas said the truce, which came into effect on Sunday night, was declared at the request of Egyptian mediators.

    Yeah, right:

    Kassam rocket lands in Eshkol regional council area; none wounded
    Palestinians on Monday afternoon fired a Kassam rocket towards Israel.

    The rocket landed in an open area in the Eshkol region. No one was wounded and no damage was reported.

    Standby for the BBC telling us that Israel has broken the “truce”.

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  15. It's all too much says:

    nice bit about warmist propaganda

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3883550/Facts-melted-by-global-warming.html

    BBC seen as warmist cheer leaders!

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  16. It's all too much says:

    oops – didn’t notice it was already posted

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  17. DB says:

    Are these beeboids flagrantly flouting the rules of impartiality or do they not apply to US politics?
    Frankl | 22.12.08 – 11:31 am

    I don’t think they apply anywhere in any meaningful sense at the BBC.

    Michael Voss’s latest Viva La Revolucion! article hasn’t gone down well at Babalu Blog. From the comments:

    It is bad enough that the BBC would take the scripted musings of a Cuban national assembly member as an indication of the political thoughts of the general population of Cuba. But if that were not enough, they choose an 18-year-old who has no idea what she is saying.

    But she is cute and she knows how to recite the party propaganda, so the BBC saw a perfect opportunity to shill for the regime.
    http://www.babalublog.com/archives/010915.html

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  18. TPO says:

    Interesting article in the Telegraph about the fiddling of facts to support the AGW scam.

    Facts melted by ‘global warming’
    Something very odd had happened to the daily updated graph on the official Nansen website last weekend, writes Christopher Booker

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3883550/Facts-melted-by-global-warming.html

    One of the posted comments illustrates the BBC’s complicity in this scam.

    ‘Another informative article by Christopher Booker. The bias in favour of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) by the BBC continues apace but complaining about the bias is a very long drawn out business. I began by emailing via the BBC website complaints window and first received a fairly bland reply. I followed this up with official temperature data showing the well known stall in warming over the past decade. I received another email effectively explaining that it was editorial policy to support AGW because of the clear scientific consensus. I then complained to the BBC Trust and after hearing nothing for a month learned that they had ‘not received my letter.’ I re-sent the epistle and am now told I have not completed the complaints procedure necessary before going to the Trust, and need now to complain to the BBC’s Editorial Compliance Unit. Banging one’s head against the wall comes to mind.
    On Saturday we learned that the government’s share in AWE is being sold to a US company to raise money. Perhaps they should be better to consider selling off most of the BBC and thereby saving taxpayer money as well as benefiting the exchequer’

    P Stroud on December 22, 2008 at 10:57 AM

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  19. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    Moonbat – Thanks for the link to The Bishop – an excellent find

    I loved this reference from the ecowhack “New Economics Foundation”

    “Tackling the ‘triple crunch’:The financial crisis, climate change and soaring energy prices can only be tackled by shift to policies based on green principles”

    “Soaring energy prices”: Filled up recently have we?
    “Climate Change”: no warming in ten years eh?
    “Financial crisis”: Yeehaaw !Got one in three right.

    Its “new” economics alright. Wronganomics.

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  20. Hugh Oxford says:

    sex worker …the BBC’s new Orwellian word for prostitute.

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  21. DB says:

    Just found this video of a rally by the Stop the War Coalition and the Manchester branch of the NUJ in support of the Iraqi shoe-thrower. Now where do you suppose would be a good place to hold such an event? That’s right, BBC Manchester! Skip to 4:45-ish to hear how the man on the front desk wished he too could have thrown shoes at Bush, followed by a speech from a BBC NUJ representative. Her statement can be found in full next to the clip at YouTube, but here’s a flavour:

    “What Muntadar al-Zeidi did at that press conference was not the normal action of a journalist covering a prestigious meeting of respected world leaders. With blood on his hands, George W Bush is no respected world leader.
    Against this background Muntadar acted on impulse and in doing so attracted the sympathy of much of the world for his actions – a symbolic gesture of distaste at US policy. He spoke in the most graphic terms for so many in his country who have been so badly abused by George Bush and his rotten administration.”

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  22. Universal Shami says:

    I see there’s a lovefest on BBC1 at the moment about their economics editor.

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  23. george whyte says:

    BBC “favorite” Muslim-spokesman: “Any Muslim killed fighting Israel goes to paradise”
    As to all those who disagree with this position, well, they can simply “piss off!” — according to Mr. Ashgar Bukhari, leading spokesman of The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), “one of the media’s favourite Muslim organisations.”

    “Any Muslim killed fighting Israel goes to paradise, says MPAC spokesman,” by Damian Thompson for the Telegraph, December 19:

    The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is one of the media’s favourite Muslim organisations – radical and outspoken but not extremist, we’re led to believe. One of its spokesmen, Asghar Bukhari, is a particular favourite of the BBC[…]

    So I was interested to see how Bukhari would “deal” with me when I rang him to ask about an interesting discovery by The Centre for Social Cohesion, in my opinion the most formidable of the think-tanks monitoring Islamic extremism, which has been rooting around Facebook discussions.

    In one recent thread, Bukhari says: “Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are ‘Mujahadeen’ and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights and dies against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise … There is no greater oppressor on this earth than the Zionists, who murder little children for sport.”

    Well, Bukhari didn’t evade the question. He confirmed that the Facebook discussion was authentic, and said: “I stand by that [his comments], and I think any Muslim in the world stands by that … if you think I’m going to tap dance for you and say ‘These Muslims are really bad and should sort their own house out’, then I’m not going to.”

    Indeed, he added, if that was my view then I could “p— off”.

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  24. Martin says:

    I see America is likely to have it’s first coast to coast white Christmas in 40 years. Nice to see that the BBC’s global warming shite is having this effect.

    Oh and I see there is snow in Moscow now. I wonder if some BBC rent boy user will go back there and do a story after the shite they pumped out last week?

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  25. DB says:

    Martin | 22.12.08 – 10:18 pm

    Talking of “global warming shite”, this just in from the Ministry of Truth…

    Met Office press release 25.09.08:
    Trend of mild winters continues
    The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.
    Seasonal forecasts from the Met Office are used by many agencies across government, private and third sectors to help their long-term planning…
    The forecast of another mild winter across the UK has been welcomed by Help the Aged, who work with other agencies to support older people.

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080925.html

    Met Office press release 22.12.08:
    Met Office helping the nation stay well
    As Britain experiences its coldest start to December for more than 20 years, weather-related health problems have risen significantly, putting NHS services under increased pressure.
    Importantly, the latest Met Office winter forecast predicts cold weather to continue through into January. At these times Met Office health forecasting services are at their most useful, helping people suffering from long-term conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) stay healthy and out of hospital…
    Several health authorities are reporting additional strain on services as respiratory admissions climb to near-epidemic levels in many areas across the country. Met Office health forecasting has proved a great success for both patients and health authorities, helping reduce hospital admissions and bringing reassurance to patients who use the service.

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081222.html

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  26. simon temple says:

    surprised noone commented on interview in Andrew Marr Show where we had separate questions to William Hague and Neil Kinnock. 8 minutes given to Kinnock, only 5 to Hague, Typical.

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  27. Robert S. McNamara says:

    Yeah, my heart goes out to all those Americans and the snow storms they’re experiencing. Of course, this is conclusive proof, had you needed it (what, an already proved wrong computer model whose author is a proven fraud who fudged the data and a propaganda film with CGI polar bears by the guy who single-handedly invented the internet ain’t enough for you?), that Anthropogenic Global Warming is very real and we must arbitrarily wreck our already fucked economies by self-imposing drastic cuts of some organic, abundant gas in order to ‘do something about it’.

    Similarly, if America was experiencing unseasonal heatwaves, it’d be conclusive proof of AGW. And so too would no change at all.

    We must start living like they lived in the Bronze Age again. Everything was great back then, no? Mother Earth can’t wait. Ignore the laughter of the Chinese and the Indians as they build this week’s second coal-fired power station. They’ll follow our lead, just like the nice, misunderstood Communists did during the Cold War when we unilaterally disarmed ourselves and then proceeded to sit around playing the bongos and smoking weed.

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  28. deegee says:

    Donkey Serenade,
    The Road to Bethlehem MORNING , 22 DECEMBER: AL-BIREH

    Batya Medad My Wife’s Turn at the BBC

    It’s sort of ironic that a series using the journey to Bethlehem as a hook completely ignores the Christian connection with Shilo.

    According to Wikipedia Shilo (or Shiloh was:
    * Basis for naming fifty American towns.
    * The religious capital of Israel in the time of the Judges and sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant.
    * Site of one of the most brutal episodes in the Old Testament – the kidnapping of the maidens by th men of Benjamin (Judges 21)
    * The place where the priest Eli raised the prophet Samuel (OK to be politically correct the Jewish/Christian/Muslim prophet Samuel).
    * Mentioned as having been visited by St. Jerome (Ep.46,13, PL 22, 492)
    * The site of major Byzantine archaeological excavations, including major mosaic floors.
    * The site of a synagogue supposedly built in the design of the Tabernacle.

    None of this is worthy of a mention, perhaps because they illustrate how little Muslims have to do with the site.

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  29. deegee says:

    Donkey Serenade continued,
    The Road to Bethlehem MORNING , 22 DECEMBER: AL-BIREH

    I was told that the family’s former house, and the land around it had been confiscated by the Israeli army as it was next to the checkpoint to the north of the village (which I had entered earlier). There had been no compensation, they said. No compensation offered or the Palestinian Authority declaring that accepting compensation would be severely punished as it would be seen as a accepting israeli authority?

    Earlier this year, the younger son had been arrested by the army in a 3am raid on the house. How ungracious! Surely the IDF should have made an appointment with his secretary. 😉

    His brother told me that he had been held without charge (something the Israeli authorities call “administrative detention”) for six months before being released. Ironically using British Army Emergency Regulations from the period when the British occupied the country on a League of Nations mandate to create a Jewish State.

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  30. Atlas Shruged says:

    I mentioned my tin foil hat right?

    I’ll sell you all one at just a mere 50 quid a go…

    Mine aren’t cheap shit, they really do stop Aliens reading your mind.

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  31. David Preiser (USA) says:

    deegee,

    Well said. I can’t wait until the BBC does an Easter production like this. Maqbool will retrace Jesus’s steps with the cross, and continue the analogy of Israelis in the role of the Romans.

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  32. John Bosworth says:

    Five men were found guilty of trying kill GIs. The BBC reports: “The five, who are all foreign-born but have spent much of their lives in the US, were arrested in May 2007.

    Those convicted include Serdar Tatar, a legal US resident from Turkey; Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, a US citizen born in Jordan; and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, illegal immigrants from the former Yugoslavia.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7796478.stm

    So tell us, BBC. what do these men have in common? Why were they trying to kill American soldiers?

    Here’s the answer: “They said the base, mainly used for training reservists for Iraq, had been chosen because one of the defendants was familiar with it since his father’s pizza shop made deliveries there.”

    So were they M*****? Plumbers? Naw, this time they’re pizza delivery men.

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  33. Dick the Prick says:

    Just heard this gem on the World Service: “His suspistions were aroused when the men asked him to copy a video tape of them firing automatic weapons and shouting Jihadi slogans” – really?

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  34. Dick the Prick says:

    Whatever you might think of the BBC, you’ve got to doff your cap at the fantastic way the Toady programme works as an alarm clock. 8 minutes in and I’m bloody furious.

    Anyway, don’t worry peeps, we’re all gonna DIE from eating too much salt on Chrimbo day – how foolish?

    If you value your sanity don’t listen to the report on violence in schools – another Tory plot apparently?!?!

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  35. deegee says:

    Maqbool will retrace Jesus’s steps with the cross, and continue the analogy of Israelis in the role of the Romans.
    David Preiser (USA) 23.12.08 – 12:58 am

    Does that include reenacting the crown of thorns, the beating, the spear in the side and finally the crucifixion? 🙂

    Given Maqbool’s success as a donkey wrangler can we hope for a ‘work accident’? 🙂

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  36. George R says:

    Inconsistent, politically ill-informed BBC video report from INDONESIA:

    “Indonesia terror attack drill”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7796420.stm

    According to this BBC report, Indonesia’s security forces are taking part in such drills as a precaution against the risk from ‘militant groups’.

    So, in its linguistic gymnastics, this BBC report, about Indonesia, ‘the most populous Muslim country’ in the world, suggests that ‘terror’ emanates from ‘militant groups’.

    For the record, the main jihad group in Indonesia is Jemaah Islamiah. It is popular among a large number of Indonesian Muslims:

    ‘Jihadwatch’ (of 2006):

    “One in 10 Indonesian Muslims back violent jihad; 20% support jihad group”

    [Extract]:

    “If the ten percent figure is correct, that’s 22,000,000 people who support jihad actions such as the Bali bombings, and nearly forty-five million who support Jemaah Islamiah. And that’s just those who are willing to tell a pollster something that they would know the government would not likely be happy to hear. Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from modern, moderate Indonesia: ‘One in 10 Indonesia Muslims back violent jihad-poll,’ from Reuters..”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013590.php

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  37. deegee says:

    The Road to Bethlehem

    Now a church was built on this site (al-Bira). At the moment there is quite a lot of rubbish here and later a mosque built next door, as well, because of the religious significance of where we are.

    Could there be a connection between the total destruction of the church and the rubbish all around and the mosque next door? naa! Maybe the name gives a clue. The mosque is named after Umar ibn al-Khattab who turned the Christians of Jerusalem into Dhimmis. To be fair according to Moshe Sharon German engineers finished the job in 1914 to build a bridge.
    The Jesus connection had nothing to do with it
    .

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  38. John Reith spins in his grave says:

    Poll out today from the BBC’s favourite pollsters (last month) COMRES – shows Tories up again and a huge majority (49/32) in favour of slashing govt spending.

    Something makes me think we’re not going to see “Pollwatch” back on the Beeb website anytime soon.

    I’d like to see a poll question along the lines of….

    Should the BBC be privatised and the billions raised, together with the 3 billion annual running costs, be used to help “hard working families” keep a roof over their heads?

    Don’t hold your breath.

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  39. DB says:

    Burning Our Money reviews the Peston Panorama:
    http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2008/12/super-show-darling.html

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  40. George R says:

    The BBC, and its dhimmitude towards ASGHAR BUKHARI and the MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (MPACUK):

    Melanie Phillips has this:

    “Prosecute Him”

    [Extract]:

    ..” as CSC researcher Robin Simcox points out, the BBC still treats the MPACUK as legitimate interlocutors:
    ‘Concern has previously been expressed to the BBC and other media about their continuing use of Bukhari and his organization. Despite this, they are regularly treated by the BBC and other mainstream media as representative of mainstream Muslim opinion,’ Simcox said.
    Surely there are now clear grounds for prosecuting Bukhari • even if the BBC will never get the point?”

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3185441/prosecute-him.thtml

    The BBC needs to get its finger out in 2009 on its political subservience to Islam, starting by exposing Bukhari and MUPCUK; otherwise the BBC could find itself nominated as international dhimmi of the year, in succession to Rowan Williams, in the ‘Jihadwatch’ poll.

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  41. George R says:

    More BBC (‘Today’) pandering to Islam:

    “Islamist group’s message to women”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7796000/7796124.stm

    We have the BBC here dhimmi-like accepting a Muslim woman’s version of why she joined Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), and why she left HT, and why she thinks it should not be banned.

    So the BBC (like the Labour government, in its ‘multiculturalist’, Muslim-vote appeasing way), defers to Muslims to decide what the vast non-Muslim majority of British people should do for Islam, including, apparently tolerating HT!

    ‘Jihadwatch’ (Aug. 2008):

    ‘Hizb ut Tahrir London meeting: an eyewitness report’

    “A Jihad Watch reader went undercover to the Hizb ut Tahrir conference in London on the Caliphate last Saturday, and kindly sends us this exclusive report about what was said there…”

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022288.php

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  42. Tom says:

    George R | 23.12.08 – 11:53 am

    That BBC link on Hizb-ut-Tahrir is priceless. No satirist could come close to this:

    But rarely have we heard from a woman who used to member. And yet women play an equal just as important and significant role within HT as the men. They are, you could say, an ‘equal opportunities’ organisation.

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  43. Lurker in a Burqua says:

    Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’

    Joins Senate Report of More Than 650 Dissenting Scientists

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2

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  44. Anonymous says:

    The BBC has apparently revamped the appearance of its ‘Freedom of Information’ page, but not the content; despite the misleading introductory BBC blurb:-

    “Welcome to the BBC
    Freedom of Information Act Website: As a publicly funded organisation the BBC is fully committed to meeting both the spirit and the letter of the Act.”

    BUT, of course, the BBC isn’t committed to such ‘freedom’, as a search for ‘BALEN report’ reveals:- ZERO.

    “BBC Freedom of Information homepage”
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/

    A reminder from the ‘Daily Mail’ of last year –

    ‘Report on BBC’s anti-Israel bias will stay secret’

    [Extract]

    “The BBC has faced repeated claims that its reporting of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed towards the Palestinian cause.
    Its critics cite the revelation from Middle East correspondent Barbara Plett that she cried when Yasser Arafat was close to death in 2004.
    A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC has always maintained that the Balen Report is held for purposes of journalism and, therefore, outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-451138/Report-BBCs-anti-Israel-bias-stay-secret.html

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  45. George R says:

    Anonymous 1:27 pm was me.

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  46. Lee Moore says:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7797269.stm

    Note that the BBC story is not that the Pope has said such and such about homosexuality and transsexuality, but that gay groups are cross with what he said. Had there not been gay group anger there would have been no story, on the BBC system of news priorities. Note also that we hear plenty from critics of the Pope, and nothing from supporters.

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  47. Tom says:

    Lee Moore | 23.12.08 – 1:44 pm

    Something weird is going on here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the BBC weren’t once again up to its old trick of totally distorting what the Pope has said.

    Vatican radio doesn’t even mention the word homosexual in its account of the Pope’s speech.

    http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=254194

    Neither does Zenit News from Rome –

    http://www.zenit.org/article-24652?l=english

    So why does the BBC place gays and transexuals at the centre of the story?

    Even the Guardian steps back from that, offering the following context:

    Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said today that the pope had not wished specifically to attack homosexuality or sex change operations in his speech. “He was speaking more generally about gender theories which overlook the fundamental difference in creation between men and women and focus instead on the role of cultural conditioning,” he said.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/23/pope-gender-sexuality

    So, it’s the BBC spinning again……

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  48. Tom says:

    And the Holy See’s own account of the event has no mention of homosexuals or transexuals either:

    http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/e5_en.htm

    Is the BBC just making this stuff up?

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  49. David Preiser (USA) says:

    DB | 23.12.08 – 10:45 am |

    Awesome. They just forgot to mention that Peston is Mr. Brown’s biographer. Plus, Peston was caught red-handed a couple of weeks ago when Nick Robinson accidentally let it slip about their VAT briefing. It’s no longer a question of “suspect”.

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