“If it’s not on the BBC or in The Times, it didn’t happen”. This is no longer hyperbole, it’s the plain truth. Let me ask you this: before this morning, did you know about the devastating floods in Pakistan? If you did then you must have been listening to al Jazeera which reported on this catastrophe on August 25th (link). This report was followed by on in The Times of India on August 27th (link). There were reports in the WaPo (paywalled) on the 26th of August (here and here). It took the BBC two more days to slot in a report (link), picked up by the Guardian, reporting yesterday (link), and finally The Times, observing that ‘relief is arriving’ (link, paywalled).
I would hope that the other UK papers have now found space for their own little report, hidden somewhere in the bowels of their online editions, but the news aggregator run by the BigTech company we love to hate only shows that yes, this morning, the BBC and SKY are reporting on this flood catastrophe but the rest of our MSM aren’t mentioned. Frankly, I’m not going to waste more time on searching the interwebz in order to be fair to our esteemed MSM. If it’s not on their front pages, it cannot matter to them and is therefore unimportant to us, correct? This morning’s compilation of the print edition’s front pages shows that only the Guardian has this flood on theirs (link, scroll down a bit).
One would have thought that a flood covering 1/3rd of a country (link), an area as big as the UK, might have been somewhat important, especially for the ‘climate extreme’ warriors – but no. It has apparently not even occurred to our MSM that the huge number of nearly 2 million people of Pakistani origin might have been interested. It’s all so very far away, innit, and “we” have our own concerns, such as inflation, energy price rises, Truss or Sunak, and yon war in the Ukraine. Well, our intrepid TV reporters are now, finally, ‘on the case’, swamping the airwaves.
I’ve not watched those Telly News, but am certain that they will explain this flood with ‘climate change’. The reason for my assessment is that, unsurprisingly, the Guardian, having had a bit of a head start, has already decided that it must have been ‘climate change’ which caused this disaster:
“The climate crisis is the prime suspect for the devastating scale of flooding in Pakistan, which has killed more than 1,000 people and affected 30 million. But the catastrophe, still unfolding, is most likely the result of a lethal combination of factors including the vulnerability of poor citizens, steep mountainous slopes in some regions, the unexpected destruction of embankments and dams, and some natural climate variation.” (link)
‘Some natural climate variations’ refers to the monsoon rainfalls which apparently were stronger this year than in the preceding years. I’ve not seen reports of similar floods in India, which is not exempt from those monsoons. Left out of the picture is the political situation in Pakistan where shortly after the SMO in the Ukraine Mr Imran Khan was ‘deposed’ with the help of the USA because he wasn’t going to toe the line of ‘we hate Russia’. Their current PM is full on Washington’s line. Unless Biden is prepared to hand over a lot of $$$ to help out, this attitude may well shift against both the USA and the current PM.
Back here in Blighty, I expect that the green lobby and the still sitting Net Zero PM will utilise this catastrophe to exhort us further to accept those obscene energy prices because they are now double-good: freeze to stand against Putin and freeze to prevent such devastating floods from occurring! I wonder how much money La Truss will promise to hand out. Will it be more than that already spent on the ukrainian war?
I leave you with a rather devastating economic analysis regarding the energy crisis If you thought that pubs going to the wall, having to close, was not sufficiently bad, read this article: “Will Europe Go Down to Defeat Before Ukraine?”. They document details of factory closures thanks to sanctions. Don’t sit back because this is about Europe, i.e. the EU, not about us. We are even more affected because we rely on imports for all those things.
Don’t expect our politicians, our Mandarins, our industry bosses and MSM editors to come up with a solution. Yes, they are now talking about fracking, about more nuclear power stations, more offshore bird shredders. This is all very well but won’t affect the energy situation this winter nor next winter nor in 2024 or 2025 because those things must be built. That will take time, resources and building material. It does make those politicians look good though when they suddenly talk approvingly about such projects. That, after all, is all that matters.
Finally, here are a couple of bonus questions: how many of those flooded-out Pakistanis will end up here in the UK, expecting more handouts? How are we going to pay for them? Answers on a postcard …
Indeed the media report their pet subjects while ignoring (partly or wholly) huge news events , eg the Pakistan floods. Another huge item that is never reported is the imminent collapse of our currency along with others which will be catastrophic since most people don’t know about it and are totally unprepared. (Alastair McLeod of Goldmoney thinks this will occur within 2 years). The EU states particularly are in humungeous financial trouble as readers of this site are aware. IMHO I think that when the crash comes, there will be a long term cyber blackout plus probably a power outage ; nothing will work and no services. If there is food in the shops or any shops open, only people with cash will be able to buy it. There will be mayhem, looting and pillaging as law and order break down. It will be a race against time for our globalist enemies and puppet government to introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency enslaving us all, before the mayhem that they’ve engineered goes on too long and engulfs them . But Alastair McLeod thinks they might face obstacles . So there is a ray of hope that , to replace the present fiat currency , we just might end up with a gold backed currency?
“So there is a ray of hope that, to replace the present fiat currency, we might just end up with a gold backed currency”
Damn! Damn! Damn! And there I was thinking things may be getting desperate enough for those who claim to be on the centre Right of politics to join the challenger parties.
Why damn? I think there is more need than ever to ensure that the rotten old parties that got us in this mess are consigned to the dustbin of history. All the more need for an alternative conservative party to steer things in the way we want them to go.
With respect Mary, how bad do things have to get before those who are continually ranting and raving about the terminal rottenness (terminal is the correct term) of the Tory party and start doing something positive by joining the centre Right parties available? Why the prevarication? I don’t know if there was a Carry On film entitled Carry on Moaning but that about sums up the fence sitting commentators on ID who are not members of a centre Right challenger party.
I have NO interest and NO sympathy for FLOODS in Pakistan. (At least ‘they’ can not blame that on Britain’s past colonial history, can they?)
What does worry me is that the U.K. quite simply CAN NOT AFFORD, Overseas Aid, Immigration, or Carbon Neutral.
In former times, before covid, our MSM would have been full of reports, with photos and videos, about the misery – and calls for ‘us’ to help, with account numbers where to donate.
i found it fascinating that the whole thing, going on for days now, wasn’t even on the radar of the mighty BBC until Sunday evening.
Now why would that be so?
Because the MSM have been too preoccupied with three things: The Truss&Sunak show, that war in the Ukraine, and lately the energy ‘crisis’ and inflation. They weren’t reporting news as they happened, as should be their duty. They are only interested in keeping us all in a permanent state of fear.
Btw – did you hear about that upheaval in Iraq? The BBC had a brief note last evening, here. Now it’s gone from their page into their archive. Well, why would “we” be interested in Iraq … and anyway, this can’t be blamed n’climate crisis’, so why bother …
That’s what I mean when i lambast our MSM for dereliction of duty: not providing news which ought to be of concern.
It’s a flood plain to flooding is normal and to be expected.
Off topic – Trump, always good for a chuckle.
The head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Tim Thibault, was removed forcibly from his office by other FBI agents last Friday.
More than a dozen FBI agents have come forward as whistleblowers and are talking to members of Congress and prosecutors re Thibault.
He’s the punter that ordered Russian Agent Trump’s house to be turned over.
He’s also the punter who intervened on behalf of the criminal H Clinton, plus H Biden’s computer cover up and . . .
https://sonar21.com/the-start-of-the-unraveling-of-the-trump-mar-a-lago-raid/
The FBI do seem to have more than their share of bad apples.
And talking of STAPLES – I was in TessyCohen’s yesterday. They have put up the price of popcorn! Life and living is getting to be mega expensive for the basics these days.
I did say it was off topic.
I read about that too Biscotte. I find it easier and cheaper to have your own popcorn machine.
Belief in Climate Change Alarmism appears to correlate with social class. The more middle class you are the more likely you are to believe that the planet must be saved no matter the cost – to people and to pushing down the agenda actually worthwhile environmental projects such as cleaning up the oceans.
Two different dinners with two sets of friends in Cork – a small sample I know – brought home the point. One couple is lower middle class. The man is a (very) socially conservative catholic in despair at the changes in the country he grew up in, but the wife is influenced by her progressive, fashionable daughter to the point of buying an electric car. Three days later she took it back to exchange for a petrol driven car. Her daughter was horrified, but was told “bugger the planet”.
The other couple, professionals and very well off, were full on save the planet as the highest moral duty. This quite shocked me. When they came to London after Brexit they were sympathetic despite him being an FT reader and of the Irish Times (equivalent to the New York Times these days). She is a profesional historian at UCC. They now really, really believed we are in a climate emergency. I was also taken aback at their belief that Brexit had engendered – horror of horrors – rampant English nationalism and that Brexit was a “disaster”. We have known each other for decades so robust debate without fracturing the relationship was possible – just. But, the change in them was pronounced. Surely, they of all people, did not believe everything they read in the news papers? It seems they do. I came away with that “Houston, we have a problem” feeling. Fintan O’Toole, virulent anti-English columnist for the Irish Times, was winning. Fortunately, Pakistan’s floods came too late to feature in my discussions with friends.
The class based correlation reflects, I suspect, that only the atheist, decadent middle class has the luxury of moral calling. With the fate of the world no longer in God’s hands, the extreme pride and arrogance of the educated middle class fills the void left by religion. It’s either that or vaccine damage is affecting brains as well as hearts. Houston, we really do have a problem.
Off normal topics, but a personal moan.
The shallowness of the media never fails to impress. Jack Longland used to introduce the radio programme My Word – and my word how times have changed – as “a word game played by people whose business is words.”
We hear that the Launch of the latest moon rocket, Artemis, has FAILED; elsewhere that it has been CANCELLED. Well, no!
The engines have to be heated before lift off but pre-flight checks revealed that one engine was not warming as it should, so the launch was postponed until the fault can be identified and remedied and a new flight window scheduled.
It was a test that could not be performed at an earlier stage, so it was only found late in the day. A launch is not simply stick the rocket in the ground, ‘light the blue touch paper and stand clear’. It is a long sequence of events leading up to ‘Go’. Far from failing, clearly those systems worked; a problem was detected by planned checks and the launch delayed accordingly. But in today’s world of deliberately engineered ignorance, that’s a failure, rather than a success for the process.
If journalists are not people whose business is words, who are? Yet none seems able to distinguish the far from subtle differences between failed, cancelled and postponed, in their daily endeavour for headlines and someone to put down or something to decry.
Having been an engineer in similar but smaller scale endeavours, and knowing the processes and rigours and safety protocols of programmes taking years to come to fruition, the only failure I see is the media failure to contextualise and eagerness to knock for a quick headline.
I am the first to criticise NASA when they stray off their raison d’etre, into green crappery, despite their own satellite imaging showing the Earth greening from rising CO2. But on their day job they seem to be getting it right.
PoS- total agreement.
Reading many engineering docs in my job and commenting upon them, I notice there is a word that seems to have dropped out of the British vocab altogether.
SHALL (not to be confused with will).
P.O’S. Yes, totally agree. Mind you, it sometimes gives me a feeling of superiority, when I see how hopeless the modern ‘word smiths’ are to myself who never considered earning my living that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDaqNgOsw6M
Nothing here we didn’t know, but the bigger picture is that YouTube has relaxed its rules.
How many of those flooded-out Pakistanis will end up here in the UK?
Just what we needed; more taxi drivers.
And child rapists! Phil O
PoS- each with loadsah children, wives, mothers, aunties, . . . and Uncle Tom Cobbly an’all . . .
Is there any group, country, faction or bloated inefficient . . . that in this time of financial meltdown (once) Great Britain will not fund in preference to its own people?
The middle income earners favorite ‘newspaper’ is though running a story about how a radio presenter ‘purchased’ an Audi Convertible that once belonged to Dianna.
BigN- the last one I saw was a ford escort(?) turbo previously owned by Princess Dianna – a couple of days ago.