Fighting back against the BBC, Mark Reckless, MP takes it to the BBC's Evan Davis

Mark Reckless has the whole story on his blog. There are some things that the BBC just don't want to allow to be discussed.

"don't blink"

Chameleon Circuit- "Blink"

I think they may be Doctor Who fans!  Blink beling one of the best Doctor Who episodes ever.

Israel - Did you know?

The stories about Isreal on the BBC, in The Guardian and Indepndent newspapers and much of the West's media is overwhelmingly negative. Here's some more positive facts:

'Did you know...

...That Israel has the 8th longest life expectancy in the world: 80.7 years. More than the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany.

 

...That there are 26 official Muslim States, 18 official Christian States, but there is only 1 Jewish State-Israel.

 

...That relative to its size, Israel is the largest immigrant absorbing nation on Earth, it has absorbed 350% of its population in 60 years.

 

...That Israel has more Nobel Prizes per capita than any other country. It has more laureates, in real numbers, than Spain, Mexico and China.

 

...That Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain of trees, made more remarkable by the fact that it is 60% desert.

 

...That 93% of Israeli homes use Solar energy for water heating, the highest percentage in the world.

 

...That Israel scientific research institutions are ranked 3rd in the world.

 

...That Israel is ranked 2nd in space sciences.

 

...That Israel is one of the eight countries in the world capable of launching its own satellites.

 

...That Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin.

 

...That Israel has the 3rd highest rate of entrepreneurship amongst women in the world.

 

...That Israel has attracted the most venture capital investment per capita in the world, 30 times more than Europe.

 

...That Israel leads the world in patents for medical equipment.

 

...That Israel has more NASDAQ listed companies than any other country, besides the US. More than all of Europe, India, China and Japan combined.

 

...That in proportion to its population Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute numbers Israel has more startup companies than any other country besides the US.

 

...That Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world.

 

...That Israel is the world's 8th happiest country.

 ...That Israel is ranked 17th in the Human Development Index.

 

...That Israel is ranked 27th in terms of Gross domestic product per capita with $32,297.

 

...The proportion of women among R&D workers in Israel is approximately 23.4%. This puts Israel in second place behind Denmark. Women earned 37% of all degrees granted in science and engineering in Israel, one of the highest proportions in the world.

...That Israel is among the top three countries in cyber attack defense.'

Thanks to Double Tapper for the facts.

Some seriously beautiful underwater footage of dolphins

The Blue from Mark Peters on Vimeo.

How could George Galloway say such a thing?

How could the great egalitarian (sic) George Galloway say that the rape allegations facing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange amount to little more than "really bad manners" and "bad sexual etiquette"? It's beyond me...


In a completely unconnected matter I spotted this video of rules for Muslims during Ramadan, I found the first ruling from Palestinian Authority Mufti Muhammad Hussein most instructive...

Do you have an iPad and miss your old typewriter?

Austin Yang's iTypewriter - genius or insanity?

The top 10 funniest jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe 2012

• 1. Stewart Francis - "You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh and Becks."

• 2. Tim Vine - "Last night me and my girlfriend watched three DVDs back to back. Luckily I was the one facing the telly. "

• 3. Will Marsh - "I was raised as an only child, which really annoyed my sister."

• 4. Rob Beckett - "You know you're working class when your TV is bigger than your book case."

• 5. Chris Turner - "I'm good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet… I don't know Y."

• 6. Tim Vine - "I took part in the sun tanning Olympics - I just got Bronze."

• 7. George Ryegold - "Pornography is often frowned upon, but that's only because I'm concentrating."

• 8. Stewart Francis - "I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Riveting!"

• 9. Lou Sanders - "I waited an hour for my starter so I complained: 'It's not rocket salad."

• 10. Nish Kumar - "My mum's so pessimistic, that if there was an Olympics for pessimism… she wouldn't fancy her chances."

The Enterprise IT adoption cycle

Yes, that looks about right!


Thanks to Boing Boing for the spot.

Hamas in their own words

I know I keep banging on about this but I am trying to counter the BBC/Guardian/Independent line that Hamas want a peaceful coexistence with Israel. That's not true and Hamas prove this time after time.

Two videos today, the first is of Hamas Deputy Speaker Ahmad Bahr preaching for the annihilation of Jews and Americans.

"Jihad... in order to annihilate those Jews..."
"Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, destroy the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count them one by one, and kill them all, without leaving a single one."


Are these the words of someone looking to arrange peace with Israel? No, but that is why the BBC don't report such speeches, it would ruin their carefully constructed narrative.


This second video is of the released Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi on the Palestinian public's delight at suicide bombings. This is the result of years of preaching hatred and encouraging murder of Jews.




Hamas spread hatred and incite murder of Jews (and others) on a regular basis, not that you would know this if you relied upon the BBC, The Guardian and The Independent for your Middle East news.
Thanks to the incredible MEMRI for the video clips.

Daled Amos: After Holocaust Denial, Is Mocking The Holocaust Now Acceptable?

http://daledamos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/after-holocaust-denial-is-mocking.html

The financial mismanagement that is ingrained in the Labour party

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Balls & Ed Miliband helped to create a debt bubble that the UK may never recover from. Guido Fawkes has spotted that the Labour party is as addicted to debt as ever.

Odd things tongues

YouTube has some rather odd tongue related videos, here are some of them.

A split tongue, how and why do spring to my mind...



A talented tongue...


A very wide tongue...


A very fast tongue...


Nick's 9cm long tongue...



I think that's enough for now.

'The envy of the world'

Two articles from a while back that make you wonder how those people who claim the NHS is 'the envy of the world' can sleep at night.

The first is from early July and reports:

'A young patient who died of dehydration at a leading teaching hospital phoned police from his bed because he was so thirsty, an inquest heard yesterday. Officers arrived at Kane Gorny's bedside, but were told by nurses that he was in a confused state and were sent away. The keen footballer and runner, 22, died of dehydration a few hours later. ... Yesterday an inquest was told how Mr Gorny died after blunders and neglect by 'lazy and careless' medical staff at St George's Hospital in Tooting, South London. His mother Rita Cronin, a civil servant told Westminster Coroner's Court that staff tutted at her and repeatedly refused to listen to her concerns that her son hadn't been given vital medication. ... At one point he became so desperate and upset that staff sedated and restrained him – and on the night before his death, his mother said, he was not checked on by medical staff, despite being in a room on his own. Following his death, a nurse allegedly inquired whether the family, from Balham, South-West London, was 'finished' and asked a matron in front of them whether she could 'bag him up'. ... Miss Cronin said she sat in his room for three hours the night before he died without a single nurse checking on him or giving him vital medicine. She said she told a nurse who walked past the room that Mr Gorny had not had his medication. When Miss Cronin volunteered to return to the hospital should he wake, another nurse allegedly told her: 'You don't need to do that. If he makes noise, I'll close the door and then he won't wake everyone up.' She added: 'I later realised that her comment was unbelievable but I was so distraught that it didn't register.' The morning of her son's death, May 28, 2009, Miss Cronin arrived at the hospital early to find him delirious with swollen lips and a swollen tongue. She recalled: 'I then heard three nurses outside his room and I said: "There's something wrong with my son. He doesn't look right." 'The nurse said to me "He had a good night. There's nothing wrong with him and he's just had breakfast and a chat with us." 'I thought: "How could he have had breakfast? There's no evidence (of breakfast)." 'The nurse carried on her handover then I interrupted again and said: “He's not right.” 'The other nurse then tutted and said: "She's already told you he had a good night." And with that the three of them walked off.' Miss Cronin said she then noticed that her son hadn't been given his medication because the packet was still on the table by his bed. She told the locum doctor about her concerns, but the doctor said it wouldn't do him any harm. A doctor doing the rounds then checked on Mr Gorny. Miss Cronin said: 'He took one look at him then he started calling to everyone “Get in there quickly”. 'It suddenly dawned on me he hasn't had his medication, hasn't had his bloods done, nobody's given him a drink, nobody's bothered to put his drip back on him. 'Nobody's done anything since yesterday afternoon when he became aggressive.' She said there was a 'flurry of activity' and everyone 'had a very sad look on their face' as they battled to save her son's life. Miss Cronin said: 'The main doctor came out and you could tell he was really angry. He said: “You need to go and see your son. He's dying.” The couple then found their son lying in blood and fluid-soaked sheets and a nurse came in and asked them to help her to change them. The same nurse later came into the matron's office and asked whether they were 'finished', adding: 'Can I bag him up?' The death certificate said Mr Gorny died of a 'water deficit' and 'hypernatraemia' – a medical term for dehydration.'

In case you think that NHS staff that neglect patients to that sort of degree would get adequately punished, you should read this Mail article which reported that:

'Rogue nurses who have been found guilty of threatening or abusing patients, stealing from them or being drunk on duty are being allowed to continue working, a Daily Mail investigation has revealed. The nursing profession's official regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is repeatedly letting nurses go back to work despite being found guilty of a catalogue of offences, including just being dangerously incompetent. Today, the regulator’s overseer, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, has released a hard-hitting report demanding fundamental changes in the way the NMC is run after concluding that patients are being let down because of 'failings at every level'. As a Daily Mail investigation reveals, this is not before time. For not only has the body failed in important cases to protect vulnerable patients from rogue staff, it has run its administration system so badly that, even when such nurses have been disciplined, the sanctions against them did not go on their professional records for employers to see. This occurred in at least 500 cases, of which around 100 were ‘of major concern’. ... Meanwhile, the nurses’ regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, has seemed concerned less with protecting patients from harm than with saving the careers of nurses who have seriously transgressed the laws of their profession and the basic tenets of human decency. The body is responsible for the regulation of the 670,000 nurses and midwives currently registered in the UK. Last month, for example, a nurse who was sacked for hitting a patient and charged with common assault by the police was allowed by the NMC to remain working. The council’s disciplinary panel heard how Maureen Yoliswa Booi, a Registered Mental Nurse, struck a resident in her care at an NHS-run unit. The incident was witnessed by a colleague, the hearing was told. Ms Booi was dismissed by her employer and has since been charged with common assault. But instead of being struck off, she was placed under a ‘conditions of practice order’ for 18 months, which stipulates that Ms Booi must not, at any time, be the sole registered nurse on duty, and that she must tell the Nursing and Midwifery Council of the outcome of her pending prosecution for assault. This means she is free to apply for a job with any employer, though the NMC requires that she tell them that there is an ‘order’ on her record. This is perturbing enough as an isolated judgment, but it has remarkable similarities to another case heard last month, of Loveness Makombe, a registered nurse working at the Bupa-run St Christopher’s Care Home in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. The NMC panel found her guilty of ‘shouting aggressively’ at a confused elderly patient, as well as verbally threatening the woman, who had dementia, and dragging her out of a room ‘in a manner that caused her to become distressed’. Rather than cracking down on this abuse, which bears disturbing similarities with the sort of intimidation exposed at Winterbourne View, the disciplinary panel said it ‘does not believe there is an under-lying attitudinal or behavioural problem with the nurse’. The sanction it handed down amounted to a regulatory slap on the risk — it placed only a ‘caution’ on her record for a three-year period.'

Ah the NHS, 'envy of the world' you know!

Scott McKenzie RIP

Scott McKenzie, whose 1967 hit San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair) was an anthem for the flower power hippy age, has died aged 73.

RIP Scott McKenzie, whereever you are I hope you meet some 'gentle people there'...

In Mallorca?

I read today that the British Prime Minister is currently on holiday in Mallorca, which is a very nice place to go on holiday. I wonder if he is aware of what happened in the capital of Mallorca, Palma, just 10 days ago?

Here's some amateur footage of some minor rioting by (apparently illegal North African immigrants)

Oddly I do not recall hearing about this in the UK media at the time. I only heard about it yesterday and so went looking for any video.

Finally someone takes the fight to the BBC's Stephanie '2 Eds' Flanders

The Mail reports that:

'A major row erupted after a Cabinet Minister accused BBC Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders of showing a pro-Labour bias by undermining the Government’s jobs claims. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has made a formal complaint to the BBC about its ‘carping and moaning’. He singled out Ms Flanders over her coverage of figures that showed unemployment and welfare handouts are falling in spite of the slump. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, he claimed that the BBC backs the economic stance of Labour leader Ed Miliband and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and seizes every chance to ‘dump on the Government’. And he accused influential Ms Flanders of ‘pouring cold water’ over the rise in employment and ‘peeing all over’ British business. He said the BBC had ‘set up’ an interview with a self-employed nurse who agreed when Ms Flanders suggested that she was among the ‘hidden unemployed’. Last week’s recession-defying leap in jobs in the three months to June surprised experts. Mr Duncan Smith claimed it was evidence that Government policies are working. He was furious when Ms Flanders questioned the figures in the BBC Six O’Clock and Ten O’Clock TV news on Wednesday – and did not screen an interview with him proclaiming the Coalition’s success. On screen, she said: ‘Britain’s jobs numbers are a puzzle which keeps getting harder to solve. Of course it’s good news .  .  . but it is not necessarily good news for us or the Chancellor if we are needing more people as a country to make less stuff.’ Ms Flanders claimed ‘hidden unemployment’ could be ‘lurking behind the statistics’. She interviewed nurse Jacqui Connell, who was made redundant last year and is now self-employed, taking her off the dole register. Ms Connell agreed: ‘I do think I’m a hidden figure.’ Ms Flanders added that ‘many in the City’ expected dole queues to rise over the coming months.'

The Mail report the BBC's defence, which is what you would expect. The Mail also report some background on Stephanie Flanders:

'Ms Flanders, 44, is the daughter of British actor and comic singer Michael Flanders, of Flanders and Swann fame. She attended the fee-paying St Paul’s Girls’ School in London and studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. She lives with long-term partner John Arlidge and their two children in a £1 million West London home.'

Oddly they omit some rather relevant information about Stephanie Flanders' background. Some information that I have reported before:

'Stephanie Flanders earned her nickname as Wikipedia delicately put it 'She previously dated Ed Balls and Ed Miliband who went on to become Shadow Chancellor and leader of the Labour Party respectively.' What is less well known about the BBC's economics editor is that she also worked as a speechwriter and adviser to the U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers in 1997. You will not be surprised to learn that Mr Summers was the United States Secretary of the Treasury for Bill Clinton. So in summary Stephanie Flanders previously dated two men who went on to be the two leading figures in the Labour party and then went on to work for a US Democrat administration.'

As I blogged only last week:

'I am not saying that Stephanie Flanders is biased in favour of the British Labour party and against the British Conservative party. I am not saying that Stephanie Flanders is biased in favour of the US Democrat party and against the US Republican party. Many would say that she is guilty of both these types of bias, what do you think? However I do think that the BBC, if they insist on presenting Stephanie Flanders as their unbiased economics editor should at least subtitle her reports with a health warning as to her background.'

A small news article about Gordon Brown that seems to have passed pretty much unnoticed

The Telegraph reports that:

'Gordon Brown has spent nearly £20,000 of his parliamentary expenses on flying between London and Edinburgh, despite rarely appearing in the House of Commons.

Rules allow MPs to claim for the cost of travelling between London and their constituency homes if they are on parliamentary business. However the former prime minister has only spoken in the Commons on three occasions since May 2010. Mr Brown has also participated in only 15 per cent of parliamentary votes since the 2010 election, according to an analysis by the politics website publicwhip.co.uk.

In all, he has claimed £19,237 in parliamentary expenses on air travel between London and Edinburgh between June 29 2010 and Jan 23, 2012.

Priti Patel, the Conservative MP for Witham, Essex, said: “It’s shocking that Gordon Brown is claiming thousands for travel, but rarely turns up to speak or even vote on his constituents’ behalf in the Commons.”

A spokesman for Mr Brown’s office said it was “obvious” that when Mr Brown travelled between London and Scotland “he has expenses for travel by aeroplane or train which have to be — and are — fully accounted for”.'

So MPs 'claim for the cost of travelling between London and their constituency homes if they are on parliamentary business'. Was Gordon Brown on parliamentary business? Note that Gordon Brown's spokesman doesn't actually confirm/claim that - “he has expenses for travel by aeroplane or train which have to be — and are — fully accounted for”.

I have no doubt that Gordon Brown or his staff have the receipts for his air travel to and from London but that does not mean that the flights were to enable Gordon Brown to undertake parliamentary business.

Maybe Gordon Brown or one of his spokesman could identify the parliamentary business that Gordon Brown was undertaking on his trips to London, he wasn't appearing in the House of Commons chamber.

Mrs NotaSheep and I are now on holiday for a week, blogging may be light

We are surprisingly good on a surfboard!

Hmm, now what might Jew4Palestine be advocating?

'Palestine by any means necessary' - I think we know what that means...

Barack Obama is above criticism

To this social studies teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely, criticism of Barack Obama is is not allowed - it's disrespectful.




You can read more at the Examiner here's an extract:

'Another great moment in modern education was preserved for posterity—literally, on acell phone recording—last Monday. The Salisbury Post reports that a social studies teacher at North Rowan High School, in Spencer, N.C., told her class during an animated debate on the relative merits of the two major party presidential candidates that a person could be arrested for speaking ill of President Obama.

The teacher, who is quite obviously an Obama supporter, didn’t specify whether the “law” she was referencing applied to all presidents or just the current one, though she did read students the riot act for daring to “disrespect” Obama in her class, making it clear several times that she will not tolerate this behavior.'

Somehow I doubt that the teacher would have defended George W. Bush from criticism. Despite her comments from 6:00.

You might be interested in this article as well.