The BBC coat of arms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: BBC Television and Radio studios in Newcastle known as 'The Pink Palace' and officially opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 1988. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BBC TV Centre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place at the head of Regent Street, London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The BBC is a good old-fashioned state broadcaster. It would have been comfortable operating in the USSR in the 1960s.

Sometimes, Auntie, "sorry" doesn't cut it

BBC News - BBC apologises for Newsnight child abuse report.

Take one 'Tablet' three times a day

I want to start this survey of Radio 4's Sunday (as you have to start somewhere) with a series of posts discussing its treatment of Roman Catholicism, as some might see the programme's ongoing focus on 'bad news' stories for the Vatican as a sign of BBC anti-Catholicism. I would say at the outset that it is clearly no such thing. It seems to me, if anything, to be evidence of bias in favour of liberal Catholicism.

I'm not the first person to believe this. Holy Smoke blogger, Daily Telegraph columnist and - crucially for this post - former editor of The Catholic Herald, Damian Thompson, wrote a piece nearly two years ago entitled Ed Stourton reveals his liberal Catholic bias again as he puts the boot into the Ordinariate. Damian wrote "Radio 4's Sunday programme offers perhaps the most undiluted liberal bias to be found anywhere on the BBC...Yesterday's discussion of the Ordinariate was introduced by Ed Stourton, whose interviews with his fellow liberal Catholics often sound as if they were taped at a meeting of the board of the Tablet (on which he sits).

Bias at the BBC?

The point of the Hypothetical is to generate discussion, debate and ideas. The situations aren’t real; the discussions aren’t binding and they certainly don’t define BBC policy.
There was discussion of the BBC’s culture and some provocative points were made.

Iraq : 10 years of Stupidity

opit says:

25 March 2013 at 17:43

10th anniversary of the 19-20 March 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq the stupidity coalesced

That is not the stupidity of the leaders but rather the lameness of the pretexts. It is tough to sell invasion of a state by nuclear armed powers because the victim doesn’t have any – as per the NPT and IAEA certification. To then assert that the people openly advocating ‘overthrow of governments in an arc encompassing energy producing states’ as per the PNAC website or any analysis devoted to the Great Game and rewriting the political map of the Middle East are overly concerned about the health of their puppet governments ( like Saddam, who fought proxy war against Iran ) ignores not only the evidence of NATO Colour Revolutions in the Arab Spring and meddling of Al CIA-da in Libya and Syria but of the war gaming preceding the invasion i.e. Post Saddam Iraq : Desert Crossing.
Do not excuse as stupidity that which is perfectly explainable as cupidity. In the runup to ‘war’ it was blatantly advertised that the costs of the operation would be recouped from Iraq oil revenues. An excellent – if limited – video from the Panelist exposes part of the neglected scenario of the corporate rape of a country : The Real Winner in Iraq was Monsanto.

( Iraq was partitioned, rather like India, Korea and Vietnam.. Kurdistan - feared by Turkey and suppressed by Saddam - became an ignored power...which happened to cause genocide of Christian Iraqi pacificists as per reports in aina - Assyrian International News Agency. )

Assyrians Call for End to Kurdish Terror Raids in Karkuk, Mosul
(AINA) -- The precipitous disintegration of Iraqi armed forces towards the end of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" led to a provocative advance of Kurdish forces into the ...
http://www.aina.org/releases/karkukmosul.htm

Iraqi Kurdistan Region: A Heaven for Anti-Freedom Terrorists
Read more on Journalism and freedom of expression in Iraqi Kurdistan ; Kurdish lawyers strike over shooting of Human rights lawyer in Iraqi Kurdistan‎ 29.6.2011
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/6/state5221.htm

Kurdish People and PKK Terror Organisation - kalibre on HubPages
PKK and It’s Political Formation It’s clear that, there is an economic imbalance between east and west side of the Turkish Republic. This economic imbalance ...
http://kalibre.hubpages.com/hub/Kurdish-People-and-PKK-Terror-Organisation

The Kurdish Terrorism-and-Drugs Connection
A portrait of people and culture - photography and journalism ... (Spring 1995) Again and again, the day's headlines bear out the psalmist's observation that "there is ...
http://www.int-review.org/terr7a.html

Kurdish people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to G. Asatrian, the word Kurd was first written in sources in the form of ... the extent of security forces' excesses in autumn 1994: While acts of terrorism in ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_people

Controversy Over LNG & Oil Exports Heats Up As Production Expands

The natural gas and oil boom is fueling both a domestic industrial renaissance and a contentious debate over the extent to which the United States should export domestically-produced energy. More »

Pattern Energy: Court Upholds Federal Right of Way for California Wind Project

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted Pattern Energy and the United States Bureau of Land Management summary judgment on all claims in the suit brought by the Quechan Tribe against the Ocotillo wind project, located near San Diego. More »

Interest Groups Take Novel Approach of Using Cross-Boundary Provisions of Clean Air Act to Prod EPA Greenhouse Gas Rulemaking

Climate Change

Brad Marten has been selected to serve as General Editor of the LexisNexis Climate Change Practice Series

( One might surmise any thinking that climate change is not SHOWN to be significantly affected by human energy producing activity will not meet with approval here ! Supposedly Proof underpins both Science and Law. Meanwhile protection of drinking water is actively withdrawn, especially in the case of hydrofracking and Tar Sands.)

In Second Obama Term, Expect Significant Changes to Energy and Environmental Law

Yet Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Climate Change Lawsuit Brought by Alaskan Native Village

Stop the Tar Sands! How exactly? | Suzuki Elders | David Suzuki Foundation
The companies in the oil sands are licensed to withdraw 650 million m 2 of water from the ... The objective, fellow Elders, is not to stop the tar sands, it's to make ...
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/suzuki-elders/2010/08/stop-the-tar-sands-how-ex...

Factsheet Water Contamination - Tar Sands Watch
TAR SANDS SHOWDOWN - WATER CONTAMINATION • Tar sands extraction requires between 3.5 and 5 barrels of water and only 10% can be returned to the river system.
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/files/Water%20Contamination.pdf

Tar Sands and Water Don't Mix - The Council of Canadians - Le Conseil ...
... partners to convey a strong message to politicians studying the tar sands: Tar sands and water ... rights threat of our time, and while millions around the world are dying ...
http://www.canadians.org/publications/subscribe/enews/2009/May.html

Tar Sands Projects Responsible for Water Pollution in Alberta's Rivers ...
As Cree elders have said for some time, tar sands companies are spoiling the water and the air.The research ... Furthermore, water intensity of tar sands production is high ...
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/tar-sands-projects-responsible-for-wa...

Oil Versus Water | Oil Sands Truth: Shut down the Tar Sands
"The elders say that before, in the 70s, people weren't sick like they are ... claims public and called for an inquiry into the effects of the tar sands operations on water ...
http://oilsandstruth.org/oil-versus-water

Healing Walk Past Toxic Tailings Ponds | field notes
Fort McMurray – First Nations, Metis elders ... help to protect and heal the land and water that is being decimated by tar sands ... and members of our community are dying ...
http://www.aenweb.ca/media/healing-walk-past-toxic-tailings-ponds

Investor Advisory Invasion Tar Sands - Natural Resources Defense ...
rare cancers we are living and dying with while the governments ... tar sands oil will bring toxic emissions and pollute air and water. Construction of tar sands ...
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/TarSandsInvasion-full.pdf

tar sand « WastedEnergy
Posts about tar sand written by ... the last bits of juice out of dying ... mimics what is happening in the tar sands, as the toxic byproducts of an energy- and water ...
http://wastedenergy.net/tag/tar-sand/

Taking on Tarmageddon -- New Internationalist
Canada's tar sands are the most destructive project on ... And right now, indigenous people are dying due to ... which require enormous quantities of energy and water ...
http://newint.org/features/2010/04/01/keynote-tar-sands/

Ottawa tarsands: Cree arrested at Parliament | the narcosphere
We see the birds dying, animals dying, and the elders don’t want to eat the ... If we ruin our water with oil spills and once the tar sands kill the waters of our ...
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2011/09/ottawa-tarsands...

World's Crudest Extraction: At the tar sands they’re digging up dirty ...
... hundreds of ducks [were] dead or dying ... on the ticking time bombs of waste water produced in the mining of the tar sands. ... -ANY meeting with elders/chiefs has to be ...
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/2124

For one square meter of bitumen to be mined, six
square meters of tailings are created. These tailings
contain salts, heavy metals, toxic hydrocarbons
and pollutants such as naphthenic acids. The
water is so toxic, minnows dropped into a pond
die within 96 hours.
• These toxic lakes currently cover over 55 km2 in
parts of Northern Alberta.

Marking Up the Alberta Government's $30,000 Keystone XL Ad

If you're a regular reader of the Sunday New York Times, you might have noticed a half-page ad in the A section promoting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline last weekend. Paid for by the Alberta government with $30,000 of taxpayer funds, the text-heavy ad asserted several reasons why President Obama should approve the project.

Federal Government Missing in Action on Most Destructive Project on Earth – the Tar Sands [February 2008] A report from Environmental Defence highlighting the downstream effects of tar sands development. Read More

Financing of fossil fuels and renewable energy by Canadian banks A report by RainForest Action Network Read The Report

11 Million Litres a Day: The Tar Sands' Leaking Legacy A report from Environmental Defence Read the Report

Oil Sands Truth exists to disseminate information regarding the environmental, social and economic impacts of tar sands development projects being proposed and currently in progress. Oilsandstruth.org holds the view that nothing short of a full shut down of all related projects in all corners of North America can realistically tackle climate change and environmental devastation.

The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin.

( Another advertised environmental activist pushing the UN/ IPCC agenda )

The IPCC: Who Are They and Why Do Their Climate Reports Matter?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in recognition of the problem of global warming. AR4 has the potential to play a key role in informing decision makers as they shape climate policies over the next several years.

INTEGRATED PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE COURSE (IPCC)

Instituting a uniform and compulsory entry level test

Imparting an upgraded Information Technology Training

Globalizing chartered accountancy education through organization of education and training abroad

A Primer On Cap and Trade

"The American Clean Energy and Security Act" (HR2454), also known as the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, passed the U.S. House of Representatives

this bill could well sink a big chunk of America's economy into economic purgatory for some time to come.

The journey of HR 2454 began over two decades ago with the United Nations' creation in 1988 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC's mission statement is straightforward: "The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential and options for adaptation and mitigation."

Skeptics point out the inherent bias of a government-funded mission to identify human-induced climate change. If you don't find it, does your funding go away?

Global economic crisis intrudes into Australian carbon tax “debate”

Even as Gillard and Abbott were trading blows, Italy and other eurozone economies came under further scrutiny from the ratings agencies and financial speculators, the spectre of a US default emerged, and concerns grew over China’s industrial growth rates. The air of unreality surrounding the carbon tax debate was punctured last Friday by Westpac Bank chief economist Bill Evans who issued a report anticipating that official interest rates would be lowered to “avert a damaging round of contraction.” He added: “I recently visited fund managers and central banks in Europe and could not find anyone who expected the current crisis to be resolved without an extended period of financial market turmoil.”
On Saturday, the Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly wrote a column, “Carbon fiddling as world economy burns,” which noted the “staggering” juxtaposition between developments in Australia and elsewhere. “Europe hovered on the brink with its debt crisis threatening more nations in the eurozone, America was mired in gridlock over its huge debt burden and Australia declared its confidence in the domestic and world economies by moving to price carbon,” he wrote. Kelly concluded by questioning whether “the Gillard government is locked into an insulated political fantasy as the rest of the world sinks into the financial mire.”

Carbon tax

Carbon taxes can be a regressive tax, in that they may directly or indirectly affect low-income groups disproportionately

Carbon tax will stoke inflation and hurt productivity | The Australian
... are the terrible twins of Australia's economic policy. ... has drawn attention to the way Australia's productivity performance ... name of reform is a great big new carbon tax ...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/carbon-tax-will-stoke-inflati...

Australia’s Carbon Tax Contributing to Record Business Failures
Australia instituted a carbon tax in the ... last year after being socked with additional costs of $500,000 a year owing to the carbon tax ... the economy under carbon ...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/australia/item/14874-australia-s-carbon...
Carbon Tax: a way forward or economic ruin? - Rear Vision - ABC Radio ...
... it's traditionally a concern to look after ... And as I say, the macro-economic performance of the economy ... In Australia, a carbon tax can be introduced on the back of the ...
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/carbon-tax-a-way-forward...
Carbon tax exposed as a corrupt fraud | thetelegraph.com.au
Not one of Australia's trading competitors have an economy-wide carbon tax ... and uneven economic performance around the world. There is no need for Australia ... quits after ...
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/carbon-tax-exposed-as-a-corrupt-fr...

3/22/13	CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYMENT INCREASES IN 145 OUT OF 339 METRO AREAS BETWEEN JANUARY 2012 & 2013 AS FIRMS BEGIN TO WORRY ABOUT SUPPLY OF SKILLED WORKERS
3/18/13	CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYMENT INCREASED IN 34 STATES AND D.C. BETWEEN DECEMBER AND JANUARY AS CONTRACTORS FIND WORK IN MORE PARTS OF THE COUNTRY