214 Responses to OPEN THREAD

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  1. AsISeeIt says:
    February 3, 2013 at 10:31 am

    There’s a reason why I don’t usually watch BBC1’s the Big Question. It’s been quite some time since I enjoyed fourth form debate with a trendy supply teacher minding the class because games has been rained off.

    I suppose I could apply to the head of some local comp and ask to sit in on such a lesson. Or I could take some form of late career teacher training. Don’t think I’ll bother.

    Of course the character of fourth form debate is that the participants don’t have much of a stake in society yet.

    Most teenagers and – apparently most BBC Big Question contributers – don’t pay taxes, don’t have to fret much about the supply of housing, bringing up their own kids in a pleasant enviroment, don’t seem to work in real employment situations , etc etc etc…..

       2 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:
      February 3, 2013 at 11:42 am

      I don’t watch that crap as it is on just after I’ve had my breakfast,and I prefer to keep it in my stomach rather than decorate the floor with it

         1 likes

  2. noggin says:
    February 3, 2013 at 10:47 am

    TBQ … (shakes head)
    should we say criticising israel is antisemitic?
    so lets ask -the MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN?, or IBRAHIM MOGRA??!*?!*?*
    what is this horsesh-t?
    one has to ask, just who is the head of religious
    programming? eh! … anyone would think that that
    someone was trying to equate the horrors of where antisemitism can lead … with a concocted phenom, an invented term, a lie that is intended to deceive, a totally false concept, like “islamophobia” wouldn t they ….
    now …. who in the bbc would sanction a lie like that eh!

       6 likes

    • noggin says:
      February 3, 2013 at 11:13 am

      i mean whatever next … hijack it into a “poor palestinian” drone or wheel out a couple of socialist worker party stooges … would just be a right old
      pantom… oh! … nikki campbell … oh! …. 😀

         2 likes

  3. Jeff Waters says:
    February 3, 2013 at 11:31 am

    Can we have another open thread please?

    Jeff

       0 likes

  4. deegee says:
    February 3, 2013 at 12:48 pm

    Palestinian propaganda that doesn’t even attempt to be anything else. Could you imagine the outcry from the BBC if Israel banned Palestinians from working in areas the Jews have developed in the West Bank or for that matter in Israel proper? Or from studying in institutes of higher learning in those same areas? Or from shopping in Jewish owned stores? Or receiving medical attention from Israeli hospitals? That would be racism, wouldn’t it?

    Palestinian but working on Israeli settlements

    There are so many questions that could have been asked. Like, what are the Jews like as employers? Do they pay you properly? What is your relationship with them? Would you be punished if complimented the Jews as bosses? How do other Palestinians accept that you have been working for settlers for a decade? What will you do if the Palestinian State is established but the Jews are expelled as Abbas demands? Isn’t the expansion (not that there has been) of ‘settlements’ the thing that keeps your family fed?

    The written context to the video leaves much to be desired as well.

    A UN report on Thursday said that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories violate the rights of Palestinians, claiming settlements are systematically driving Palestinians off the land, and subjecting them to discrimination and intimidation on a daily basis.

    Israel responded by calling the report and the UN Human Rights Council biased. Isn’t this just another from the BBC template? Criticism of Israel is just reported. Israel’s defence is reduced to one line.

    Is there no basis to Israel’s criticism of the UNHRC? Surely the ‘poor’ Palestinian worker, making a living, is an eloquent rebuttal to UN claims?

       2 likes

  5. chris H says:
    February 3, 2013 at 1:04 pm

    That Sunday Service ( 8am Radio4) is beginning to really take the mick these says isn`t it?
    The useless tool from the crypt at St Pauls said very little indeed on the significance of today being Candlemas/Presentaion of the Lord… a feast long honoured by Christians worldwide, and Orthodox in particular.
    Instead we got some guff about St Pauls being a fulcrum for those in favour of freedom and democracy…why the church doors should be narrowed against “envy and pride”…and why the educational experiential opportunities afforded to children are paramount…indded he said that love turns out to be social justice , in a sense (of course vicar!)
    Now then-do remind me-WHO exactly voted for Occupy then two years back…didn`t they WIDEN their doors so that the spiteful and envious could smear the church and use it to spread their evil?…and when Jesus actually returned to that Temple years on, the elders there actually KNEW things, argued and taught things too…didn`t just read BBC Bitesize crap and regurgitate Guardian editorials or the the thoughts of Johann Hari?
    Jese wept alright…but He`s every right to send useless tools of liberal vicary to the depths of the Thames!
    No wonder the BBC broadcast this pap!

       1 likes

  6. George R says:
    February 3, 2013 at 1:32 pm

    “Every boss has to have a portrait…but what if he lasted only 54 days? Why sacked director-general is the very picture of a BBC dilemma.
    “Bosses unsure whether to give traditional honour to George Entwistle.
    “He was forced to stand down after Lord McAlpine scandal.
    “Was given £450,000 pay-off and BBC loath to spend more on painting.”
    By MILES GOSLETT

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272445/BBC-dilemma-portrait-54-day-director-general.html

       3 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      February 3, 2013 at 1:59 pm

      Maybe a special edition of “You’ve been framed!’? Where TV viewers can laugh along at the hapless antics of amateurs with access to video equipment. In the case of the BBC and its market rates… To a limitlessly funded degree.

         3 likes

    • AsISeeIt says:
      February 3, 2013 at 3:34 pm

      BBC need a cheap portrait of Entwistle? Perhaps Rolf Harris could knockup a quick ‘can you see what it is yet?’ He used to be an old friend of the Beeb, didn’t he?

         3 likes

    • Teddy Bear says:
      February 3, 2013 at 5:26 pm

      The only thing good about this story is that it highlights the stupid and hypocritical mindset within the BBC. They have no problem with their agenda to destroy the traditions and values of our whole society in pursuit of their own power and glorification. But within their own mini society they want their traditions to go on, even if this particular one showed himself to be totally incompetent, not just the typical corrupt that we have been used to.

         3 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 3, 2013 at 8:02 pm

      They’ll just wait a few months until everyone has forgotten about it and quietly sneak a portrait in anyway. They’ll have had plenty of time to work out their defense statement (and a plan to “drip poison” on naysayers, eh?), job done, line drawn under the whole affair.

      Also, I’d suggest that the £10,000 given to Entwistle for “public relations assistance” is a giveaway that the BBC bosses see him as an innocent scapegoat. We already know that a significant faction of upper-echelon, powerful Beeboids wanted to protect him and get rid of Peter Rippon and anyone else who was a threat. So there will be plenty of sympathy for Incurious George. They’ll figure something out.

         1 likes

  7. Buggy says:
    February 3, 2013 at 1:46 pm

    This isn’t about bias, just a rather odd factual omission.

    Just watched ‘Countryfile’ (avoid it usually like the plague, but I’m at my folks for lunch and it’s on the tellybox…..) with the exciting story of “The Welsh Great Escape” from somewhere near Bridgend.

    Craven tells us it happened “in 1945” which in itself makes escaping a wee bit pointless for the 70-odd eager Boches involved in the caper. Still, a bit of the old “Har-de-har” about prison guards giving some of the escapees a push start in the doctor’s car they’d just nicked. Silly guards.

    Reading the actual BBC Website, however, we find that the escape actually took place on the night of May the 10th 1945, i.e. two full days after the war had bloody well ended. As this little fact turns the whole episode into a Dad’s Army style comedy of Helmut and Fritz running around the countryside feverishly trying to escape from people who wanted to send them back home to the very place they wanted to escape TO, rather than a dramatic tale of derring-do, it’s curious that it wasn’t mentioned: it certainly explains the relaxed attitude of the aforementioned guards and the woman interviewed on the prog., and must have been deliberately left out by Craven for whatever reason. Very odd.

    I was disappointed that they didn’t also interview John ap Llewellyn Barry John Gower Peninsula Dai Rees JPR Llandudno Prescott for his memories of the escape, but on investigation I see he couldn’t have helped as he was born in Prestatyn. Which is also in Wales.

       4 likes

  8. Doyle says:
    February 3, 2013 at 4:38 pm

    There was a story on the BBC text service the other day about the Chairmen of five select committees urging the Prime Minister to remove students from the immigration figures. I know there isn’t much space for details on Text but the report omitted the names and parties of these people. Immediately, I smelt a rat so I looked on the BBC News website and found a lengthier version of the story. Here it is – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21263976 – and notice that the names are only mentioned at the very end. There doesn’t seem to be any mention of the UN definition of an immigrant being anyone who lives in a country for over a year but this is a BBC report after all. For those that don’t click on the link none are Tories (3 Labour and 2 crossbench) and Vaz and Hodge are two of them. On the face of it, it sounds like a story until you find out the names of the usual suspects behind it. If you got all your news off the BBC Teletext service, you’d only get half the story – maybe that’s the point.

       4 likes

  9. Dave666 says:
    February 3, 2013 at 4:49 pm

    Help I appear to be stuck in some kind of Star Trek style time warp. Every time I turn on BBc there appears to either be a repeat of the Great comic relief bake off (should that be grate?), the same episode of American Dad / Family Guy.

       4 likes

    • Mark says:
      February 3, 2013 at 6:13 pm

      Comic Relief ? It’ll be a relief when that clapped out right-on circus is finally shut down.

         5 likes

  10. Teddy Bear says:
    February 3, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    As soon as I saw the headline of this article in the Telegraph this afternoon, I had to look and see if my suspicion about who was responsible was correct.

    Man with knives tasered outside Buckingham Palace

    I don’t know if this man had seen too many reruns of Blazing Saddles, where the new black Sheriff holds a gun to his own head to make the racist townsfolk stop threatening him, but this guy at the Changing of the Guard held a knife to his own throat and got tasered.

    What I also saw in the article did confirm my suspicions.
    This is one of the pictures of him:

    Taser gun used on man with knives outside Buckingham Palacetaser-knifeman_2469620c.jpg
    Recognise a particular race?

    Also this line in the article:
    Further photos showed two knives, a hat and a pair of trainers believed to belong to the man who was arrested.

    Prayer beads were also found at the scene.

    So next I wanted to see if the BBC covered this story, and whether they indicated the origins of this person at all.

    I would have made a bet that they wouldn’t.
    They covered it here
    But sure enough – no picture of the perpetrator or any mention of prayer beads.

    Do they not understand that avoiding reference to the ‘elephant in the room’ draws greater attention and criticism than otherwise?
    Apparently not! 🙄

       8 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:
      February 3, 2013 at 6:50 pm

      Is Islam a race? Theoretically, with the prayer beads, he could be a Buddhist or even Catholic. The BBC should have mentioned the prayer beads either way, I guess, since whatever his religion is must have been a motivation for his actions.

         2 likes

      • Teddy Bear says:
        February 3, 2013 at 8:53 pm

        Is Islam a race?
        Well the BBC seem to think so, and criticism of them tends to receive an accusation of being racist, so it can stand for now.

        (In the accent of Homer Simpson)
        “He COULD be Bhuddist, he COULD be Catholic,”
        But I’m willing to bet he’s who we can mostly imagine, probably justifying it for ‘support of Israel, or intervention in Afghanistan, Mali, Iraq and the murder of ‘MILLIONS OF INNOCENT MUSLIMS”.

        They want us to let them kill each other.

           4 likes

  11. George R says:
    February 4, 2013 at 8:43 am

    BBC-NUJ perennially runs propaganda series on ‘POVERTY’, as recently on BBC 4 TV.

    Before its next series on the subject, perhaps Beeboids could intellectually digest these basics:-

    “Are one-in-five Britons really living in poverty?
    A new book casts a sceptical eye at today’s poverty claims, and offers some thoughts on how people might be made wealthier.”
    by Rob Lyons.

    http://www.spiked-online.com/site/reviewofbooks_preview/13312/

       2 likes

    • Michael White says:
      February 4, 2013 at 1:31 pm

      They need to run the same stats on real poverty as opposed to relative poverty, the latter being the one the EU invented and the BBC loves – and determined by earning 60% or less of the average salary.

         1 likes

  12. Dysgwr_Cymraeg says:
    February 4, 2013 at 10:53 am

    Itv this morning features a news review. They have female panellist who thinks police action with taser on the guy at buck house was excessive and they could have used pepper spray instead. Don’t know who she is, and off topic? Bbc will have her on speed dial very quickly. Just wait! Dozy sod!

       4 likes

  13. DYKEVISIONS says:
    February 4, 2013 at 11:00 am

    Completely off topic and of course, Chris Huhne has just been court ‘perverting’ something or other which is far more interesting. How will our BBC deals with that?

    However, enjoyed these factoids from an old book, though I have no idea of its accuracy or provenance. I especially liked the last observation:-

    What the Secret Service thought of Past Presidents and First Ladies
    From the Secret Service/Very interesting snippets from Ronald Kessler’s book about our presidents.

    JOHN & JACQUELINE KENNEDY
    *A philanderer of the highest order. *
    *She ordered the kitchen help to save all the left-over wine during a State dinner, mixed it with fresh wine and served again during the next White House occasion.*

    LYNDON & LADYBIRD JOHNSON
    *Another philanderer of the highest order. In addition, LBJ was as crude as the day is long. Both JFK and LBJ kept a lot of women in the White House for extramarital affairs, and both had set up “early warning systems” to alert them if/when their wives were nearby. Both Kennedy & Johnson were promiscuous and oversexed men. *
    *She was either naive or just pretended to “not know” about her husband’s many liaisons. *

    RICHARD & PAT NIXON
    *A “moral” man but very odd, weird, paranoid, etc. He had horrible relationship with his family, and in a way, was almost a recluse.*
    *She was quiet most of the time.*

    SPIRO AGNEW
    * Nice, decent man, everyone in the Secret Service was surprised by his downfall. *

    GERALD & BETTY FORD
    *A true gentlemen who treated the Secret Service with respect and dignity. He had a great sense of humor. *
    *She drank a lot!*

    JIMMY & ROSALYN CARTER
    *A complete phony who would portray one picture of himself to public and very different in private, e..g., would be shown carrying his own luggage, but the suitcases were always empty; he kept the empty ones just for photo ops. Wanted the people to see him as pious and a non-drinker, but he and his family drank alcohol a lot! He had disdain for the Secret Service, and was very irresponsible with the “football” with nuclear codes. He didn’t think it was a big deal and would keep military aides at a great distance. Often did not acknowledge the presence of Secret Service personnel assigned to serve him.*
    *She mostly did her own thing.*

    RONALD & NANCY REAGAN
    *The real deal — moral, honest, respectful, and dignified. They treated Secret Service and everyone else with respect and honor. Thanked everyone all the time. He took the time to know everyone on a personal level. * One “favorite” story that has circulated among the Secret Service personnel was an incident early in his Presidency, when he came out of his room with a pistol tucked on his hip. The agent in charge asked: “Why the pistol, Mr. President” He replied, “In case you boys can’t get the job done, I can help.” It was common for him to carry a pistol. When he met with Gorbachev, he had a pistol in his briefcase. Upon learning that Gary Hart was caught with Donna Rice, Reagan said, “Boys will be boys, but boys will not be Presidents.” [He obviously either did not know or forgot JFK’s and LBJ’s sexcapades!]*
    *She was very nice but very protective of the President; and the Secret Service was often caught in the middle. She tried hard to control what the President ate, and he would say to the agent, “Come on, you gotta help me out.” The Reagans drank wine during State dinners and special occasions only; otherwise, they shunned alcohol; the Secret Service could count on one hand the times they were served wine during their “family dinner”. For all the fake bluster of the Carters, the Reagans were the ones who lived life as genuinely moral people.*

    GEORGE H. & BARBARA BUSH
    *Extremely kind and considerate Always respectful. Took great care in making sure the agents’ comforts were taken care of. They even brought them meals, etc. One time Barbara Bush brought warm clothes to agents standing outside at Kennebunkport; one agent was given a warm hat, and when he tried to nicely say “no thanks” even though he was obviously freezing, President Bush said “Son, don’t argue with the First Lady, put the hat on.” He was the most prompt of the Presidents. He ran the White House like a well-oiled machine.*
    *She ruled the house and spoke her mind.*

    BILL & HILLARY CLINTON
    *Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy — he was nice mainly because he wanted everyone to like him, but to him life is just one big game and party. Everyone knows of his sexuality.*
    *She is another phony. Her personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. She was another one who felt people were there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton.*

    ALBERT GORE
    * An egotistical ass, who was once overheard by his Secret Service detail lecturing his only son that he needed to do better in school or he “would end up like these guys” — pointing to the agents.*

    GEORGE W. & LAURA BUSH
    *The Secret Service loved him and Laura Bush. He was also the most physically “in shape” who had a very strict workout regimen. The Bushes made sure their entire administrative and household staff understood they were to respect and be considerate of the Secret Service.*
    *She was one of the nicest First Ladies, if not the nicest; she never had any harsh word to say about anyone.*
    *KARL ROVE was in fact, though, the guy who was the most caring of the Secret Service in the administration.*

    *BARACK & MICHELLE OBAMA
    *”Clinton all over again” – hates the military and looks down on the Secret Service. He is egotistical and cunning; looks you in the eye and appears to agree with you, but turns around and does the opposite — untrustworthy. He has temper tantrums.*
    *She is a complete bitch, who basically hates anybody who is not black; hates the military; and looks at the Secret Service as servants.*

       7 likes

  14. Michael White says:
    February 4, 2013 at 1:16 pm

    I’m mildly surprised that the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton is not yet higher on the BBC’s home news page than Chris Huhne’s admission today of guilt and ergo perverting the course of justice. It may not last long so take a good look at the irony of a skeleton next to Chris Huhne. I was also surprised by the commentary of James Landale which suggests bravery in that he: “…could have been deputy prime minister. Instead, his decision to plead guilty to perverting the course of justice means his career in politics is now over.”

       2 likes

  15. noggin says:
    February 28, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    after the J “plank” Kerry and little willy Vagues escapade re Syria today … aren t you glad this pair are organising lots of
    aid to help the fascist jihadists plot a strategic overthrow there?

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/02/26/kerry-to-muslim-teen-in-america-you-have-a-right-to-be-stupid/

    “In America, you have a right to be stupid if you want to be, and you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be”

    “The Kerry ramble continued…
    And unfortunately, in too many parts of the world, some religions – not – and I’m not just speaking of one religion or another. You have intolerance in a number of different kinds of religions or different points of view in different things. I know that Islam is not represented by a lot of jihadists and others. I know it’s a beautiful religion. I’ve read more and more about it,” he said.”
    “I’ve been reading a book recently called *No god but God, ( ooooooh brother! must be obamas copy), which is the history of the Prophet (whose prophet?), and where he came from and how it developed as a religion. It’s fascinating. If I went back to college today, I’d probably go back and be a comparative religion major
    (*the book thats written by that arch apologist reza aslan)

       1 likes

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