Norwegian street art

Mark Thompson is a twat, The BBC , lack of Trust and the triumphs of Strictly Come Dancing

The Trouble With Trust: Building Confidence In Institutions by Mark Thompson, DG of the BBC. Speech given at QEII Centre, London Tuesday 15 January 2008.

Is a tiresome piece of corporate self serving bullshit , only worth reading to confirm one's first (and lasting impression) about this lickspittle accountant and Gubment apparatchik . He kicked off by quoting Comrade Blair's "feral beast" speech to Reuters last year , as he exited with his carpet bag to keep the Zionistas happy in Tel Aviv (who evidently don't give a fuck about public trust, local or global) ..

"... this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner
that requires repair. The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief;
it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it
reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our
future."

The audience in his echo chamber composed of metropolitan muttering classes were bombarded with charts, slides and powerpoint wizardry (apparently) ..but everything is OK now ..

"Surveys definitely suggested falling public confidence in phone voting, yet the
actual numbers of people voting – at least on BBC programmes like Strictly Come
Dancing – went up, not down."

So that's alright then. Thank Christ..democracy is safe in their hands.

He concluded .."Public trust is the life-blood of the BBC." and in the way they can of course orchestrate public views (see the current beautifully directed Newsnight / Today / WATO / PM syndicalised and syndicated drumbeat on Radicalising the young brown skinned, Koran waving, internet groomed , terrist, suicidal jihadist fundamentalist sons and daughters of chip shop proprietors ) the DG was on "Feedback" today just after WATO.. and Mark Thompson was batting off the softballs lobbed by Roger Bolton " ...this is all about giving the public the information , the facts and the arguments so they can make their own minds up.." (20.40 secs into recording available here (only available for 7 days replay)

Well consider this information ...

The Guided Bomb Unit-24 (GBU-24) Paveway III Low Level Laser Guided Bomb [LLLGB] consists of 2,000-pound of lethal High Explosive , in the typical MK-84 general purpose bomb, US $55,600 a pop. The operator (pilot) illuminates a target with a laser designator and then the munition guides to a spot of laser energy reflected from the target. One way to deliver LGBs from low altitude is a loft attack. In this maneouvre, the aircraft is pulled up sharply at a predetermined point some miles from the target and the LGB is lofted upward and toward the target. Get it wrong and the bomb will impact well short of the target. This can be dropped from Harriers and Tornado GR4's and other now antique RAF hardware and the Typhoon / Eurofighter (19 years in development at a cost that makes Northern Wreck look reasonable) dropped it's first into the Irish Sea recently , althoughn it neded another plane to illuminate the target (We'll ignore the BL755 CLUSTER BOMB with 147 bomblets that they can also carry and drop).



These two photographs show the general configuration and one with artificers gives a better idea of the size ...these are big muthas .. 2 tons all up.




Now the Royal Air Force are dropping these bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan every day ... and have been for years ... have the BBC provided you ...er .. " information , the facts ..." or even "the arguments " for dropping them?

Go and have a look at the daily bulletins of the Coalition bombing from the air on civilians for the last 4 years which Bomber Harris and the embryonic perfected in Iraq in the 20's and Hitler tried out first in Spain in the 30's

Here is the most recent (Jan 16th) of the daily airpower summaries for coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

..."In total, coalition aircraft flew 65 close-air support missions for
Operation Iraqi Freedom - and Five Air Force and Royal Air Force intelligence
surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in
Afghanistan

" What happens on "close-air support missions" missions is rarely detailed ..on Jan 13th .."A Royal Air Force GR-7 Harrier performed a show of force to deter enemy activities in Musah Qal'eh. A JTAC confirmed the mission a success." In reading these reports for years, we haven't seen one described otherwise.

This relentless, endless daily listing of the massive firepower of the coalition forces, unchallenged either from the ground or the air does have it's comic elements. Only today there is a fine piece of military journalism ... entitled "Don't overlook airpower in joint counterinsurgency doctrine"

Field Manual 3-24 by the Army and Warfighting Publication 3-33.5 by the Marine
Corps, has been widely celebrated since its publication in December 2006 for
filling a gap in American military doctrine.

However, its relegation of
airpower to a five-page appendix does not fully recognize the important part air, space and cyberspace operations can play in neutralizing insurgencies, said
Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the Air Force deputy judge advocate general.etc.,

Apparently according to Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., over 4 years into this illegal invasion of Iraq and "recosntruction" of Afghanistan the Coalition Air Forces aren't dropping enough bombs, shooting enough missiles and shooting up the terrists.

Now that's something else mark Thompsons BBC , dedicated to trust and "giving the public the information , the facts and the arguments so they can make their own minds up.. haven't told you. Yet.

As we finish this vile bile we are listening to BBC 4 "PM" .. Toni Fabuloso is inconsoleable to learn from the news headlines that Dawn French AKA Vera Duckworth of ITV's "Coronation Street" is killed off tonight.

The Venezualan Experience. Dudamel .. one hot Dude.

We are indebted to the excellent (and vastly underheard and underrated Rod Sharp on BBC Five's Up all Night) for flagging up President Chavez's concerns about 15 year old Venezulean girls on their "quinesa" or 15th birthday being given breast implants by their parents.

Unless hearing is going the way of Alzheimers, the report said that 400,000 Venezuelean women (Total pop. 26Mn !) seek breast "augmentation" every year at a cost of upwards of 2,000 Yanqui dollars a time... which seems highly improbable...but should do wonders for the tourist trade ... especially tha sad bastards who sit up all night or drive lorries up the M1 listening to this.

Chavez himself reminisces fondly about attending past beauty pageants. But when his televised speech to the United Nations interrupted the September 2005 Miss Venezuela broadcast for 15 minutes, hundreds of angry viewers in Caracas protested by banging on pots from their windows, blowing whistles and even firing guns into the air.

At the same time the child prodigies of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will make their Bay Area debut(Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco - next up San Francisco, Boston and Carnegie Hall) led by Venezuelan wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, 26 and the most talked-about conductor on the planet.

Those who have followed the ecstatic response in Europe have watched the superstars fighting to conduct them including Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado and Esa-Pekka Salonen all who praise the youhful (and hey girls glamorous)Dudamel.

When Salonen leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic,in 2 years Dudamel is lated to will take his place in Walt Disney Concert Hall.

For 30 years, Venezuela's music education program, known as "El Sistema" ( the state funded program that puts an instrument in any child's hand by the age of two)- or the "National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela" - has turned tens of thousands of youngsters into classical players. (Chavez takes the credit but it started long before he was elected) Dudamel the dynamic, rock-star-y conductor and the Simón Bolívar band (one of about 200 youth orchestras in the country today) are its shining stars.

The Department of Health in Venezuela devoted 29 Mn. Yanqui dollars this year to the program whichproduced 250,000 students who practice or play two to three hours a day ans 30 professional orchestras have sprung up to accommodate them, and 125 youth orchestras.

For a taste, go to www.youtube.com, search on "Gustavo Dudamel," and take your pick of videos: The wunderkind conducts Mahler, Shostakovich or Brahms. Or do an Internet search for "Gustavo Dudamel mambo proms," and click on: "Video gtltornt9 - gtltornt, 9 - Dailymotion Share Your Videos."

Girls, get ya tits out... this Dudamel is one hot Dude ... and he has dimples!

PS. Didn't George Best claim Miss Venezuela (AKA Miss World that year ?) was the best score he ever made ?

Comair Flt 5191 / Lexington Crash - sub poena's defied, gag orders, TSA censors reports ..WTF!?!?

It has now become apparent that the NTSB took the rare step of subpoenaing the lone survivor of Flight 5191 , co-pilot James Polehinke, but the interview never happened because Polehinke’s doctor insisted he was unfit to cooperate - he suffered major burns and in juries in the crash.

Today in the Miami Herald there is an unsigned news report that Attorneys for Polehinke said on Friday that neither he nor his crew was to blame for the crash that killed 49 people despite the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington on Thursday.

The attorneys for First Officer James Polehinke of Margate (Miami), the sole survivor of the crash, released a statement on Friday saying the board's findings are insufficient.

The board's findings fail to address, for example, faulty charts that misled the pilots to believing the original taxiway ended at the assigned runway, according to the statement from attorneys H. Bruce Brandon and Larry I. Moore III of Greensboro, N.C.

Curiouser and curiouser....

If you are interested in this story .. please make sure you read the comments. Also take a look at "Huffs Blog" which has 32 contemporary and useful comments, especially from Indie... and many very interesting news links.

Curiouser and curiouser....