Post-Truth... Post-Expert??

There was an interesting debate on Radio 4 this morning between Michael Gove and Stephanie Flanders on the role of experts in determining policy, reporting on trends and generally advising on all things.

The problem with so-called "expert opinion" is it's just that: an opinion. However, if that opinion suits a media agenda is is jumped upon and reiterated as fact ad nauseum. Despite a mandate for fairness, the BBC are one of the worst culprits, offering no counter argument to whatever claim they are making.But they are no worse than Sky, Fox, CNN, RT or any other news channel.

Doing this is essentially biased reporting and at worst no better than propaganda.

I've watched TV news since I was a kid and the most startling change in my lifetime is the introduction of news processed as drama and the increase of biased viewpoints. Way back when, news was factual with very little overt bias. Any bias was easily identified by an opposing viewpoint and a reasoned brain filtering the outlandish claims from the facts.

I've already noted the issue with Brexit: because the BBC are biased against Brexit (and I suppose their fat subsidies from the EU) they report everything bad as "because of Brexit" and anything good as "despite Brexit". So much so I see Guido has started a #DespiteBrexit hashtag on his website. So called experts are wheeled in front of cameras and microphones to decry leave voters, to prophesy doom and gloom, to the exclusion of the opposing viewpoint. Well, only to expose people with an opposite viewpoint as loonies, cranks or people not to be taken seriously.

The other problem for "experts" is their dire warnings of doom don't occur. Which is what happens with opinions and theories. They are a viewpoint, they are extrapolations of what MAY happen in the future.

Their opinions and theories have no more weight than any other but are touted as absolute truth..

The same goes for any other. Global warming is gospel according to the BBC, the science is settled, with absolutely no physical evidence. It's all heresay, statistical, with no proven mechanism, no proof that increased CO2 drives global warming, let alone man made CO2 is the main influence. It could be that the globe warming is a totally natural process and the increase of CO2 is driven by the warming rather than the other way round. But no science is being done to prove that hypothesis, there's no money in it. Science is very much made to fit the model. You'll never hear that viewpoint taken seriously on any mainstream media.

The phrase post-truth has emerged this year to describe the rise of populism, the rejection of the elitist version of reality reported to us as absolute truth. It's supposed to be an unhealthy thing. But it's plain that the media and elites are just as bad at offering lies as truth.

Getting back to the point, the problem isn't "experts" per se, it's the media's attempt to process opinion as fact, theories as proof, without opposition. Telling us what we should believe, rather than reporting both sides of the story and allowing us to weigh either side of the argument and divine the truth for ourselves.

Germany's terrorism Problem.

It's widely accepted that Germany has allowed close to 2 million migrants into the country thanks to Angela Merkel's poor choice of words and political viewpoint.

Whatever her motives, whether it was to show that Germany was still left of centre, to show they still hadn't embraced any right of centre thinking, I'm not sure.

But what I am sure of, is that she seriously undermined the security of Germany by employing the policy she has.

We can accept that the majority of the migrants we saw streaming across Europe's borders were male and of fighting age. Not that the females are without suspicion. There have been a few cases now of extremist brides turning impressionable young Muslim males into extremists.

So, lets say 0.1 percent of those 2 million are extremists (0.1 percent for those unable to quickly do the maths is 1 terrorist for every 1000 genuine refugee or asylum seeker. Seems a fair estimate given the number of fighting age males that streamed across Europe's borders over the past couple of years). That's 2000 people the Germany authorities have to identify AND then continue to monitor. That's quite a task for the internal security services. Given that you'd probably need a team of 12(*) or more people to monitor each suspect 24/7, that's a lot of manpower that I assume the German authorities just don't have. Just think, paying for at least 24000 people to monitor extremists and that's only the ones imported in the past couple of years. And that's only the surveillance teams. You then need to factor in the analysts, handlers, management, etc. The back-room people that coordinate everything.


Sure, both France and Germany have had terrorists before, but not in the numbers created here. A group of 50 people is relatively easy to surveil, but when it runs to thousands or tens of thousands across Europe it starts to turn into a massive logistical exercise. So massive it's probably beyond our current internal security services.

That is what people mean when they say allowing masses of immigrants into countries undermines security. The fact that they have arrived in European countries in millions means it only takes a fraction of a percent of those people to be extremists to overwhelm the security services.

Only in a Police state could those people be  properly surveilled. Just park that idea and continue to watch events. I mean, what better way to bring about a Police state than to create a security problem that makes people actually ask for more security and less freedom.

Anyway, hopefully the miserable Merkel will get the boot this year and someone with a more sensible view on immigration and the problems it causes with open borders gets into power in Germany.

I did hear the other day that a few countries in Europe are now coming to the opinion that Shengen and the open border policy is an issue and are asking for it to be suspended. It's interesting because that was one of the things that David Cameron asked for two years ago and failed to get from the EU commission. One of the things that would have kept the UK in the EU.

It's also interesting that the very people promoting an open, integrated united Europe are the very people that have triggered it's destruction. Failing to take a pragmatic viewpoint and allow flexibility to deal with the immigration crisis, their very dogmatic and inflexible response has effectively killed the European Union.


(*) 12 is probably the minimum team number (2 mobile, 2 fixed, in 3 8 hour shifts), with a high chance of detection. If you want to be as covert as possible, then the team size grows in order to make sure there are enough face changes when tailing a suspect. The same face tailing a suspect for 8 hours has a very high chance of being recognised as a tail. Yes, teams can be assigned to different suspects on different days, but the lower the number, the higher the chance of a regular, familiar face being picked up by the target and team changes also rely on targets being in the same area, which again increases the chances of recognition and detection. Of course every time the team number grows, the amount is multiplied by the number of targets.

It quite quickly becomes impossible to monitor all suspects 24/7, so then you start to prioritise targets, which is where the "lone wolf" types can successfully slip through the net. A low priority target can suddenly decide today is the day and cause havoc because they weren't up at the top of the risk table.

The risk assessment of each targets then boils down to "have they contacted anyone higher up the list or a known organiser recently, possibly plotting an event?" In essence that's the only way you can find them. You can't factor in changes in physical behaviour, because they are not under surveillance. The reliance is on electronic intelligence, which is why every western nation wants to hold everyone's data indefinitely, so if someone previously unknown or low risk does pop up on the radar by carrying out an attack, their communications can be wound back and contacts confirmed. Then a network is established by backtracking and finding out which other people contacted the suspects contacts. In effect identifying the hubs or organisers in the network.

Way too late of course to stop the event that just occurred, but probably just enough to stop a fair number of other attacks. 

Of course if the suspects go dark electronically and use cold war old school spycraft, the authorities are fubared. Unless resources are majorly beefed up which then tends towards the Police state style security where everyone is either a suspect or an informant. Just like the good ol' GDR. Oh, back round to Mrs Merkel then...

Castro Death Output Provides Political Bellweather for BBC output Bias.

If ever there was a bellweather for the BBC's political leanings, it has to be the reporting of the death of Fidel Castro.

A huge section on the web page, with a picture of Castro taking up almost half the page.

Not content with eulogizing a dictator, they had several "experts" and others from the looney left on the news channel tripping over themselves to express how big a socialist icon he was.

I think Castro was a bit more radical than socialist, but when you're as far left as the BBC and their Kensington Kremlinista champagne socialists, a few summary executions, the impoverishment of a nation and almost causing a nuclear war just fade into the background I guess.

I'm working class, come from "up North" and I'm still not as lefty as these idiots. It's great when you have enough independent wealth to afford to be a trot, or someone else is paying for it like the Unions or Local Councils. But those of us true working class people know what deluded morons they all are.

Something really needs to be done to bring the BBC back to providing balanced reporting.

Mind you it would be nice if they would stop trying to make every bit of news into a drama and actually report factual news. Rather than have a trail of bleeding heart stories, or some gormless bystander doing the reporter's job for them, or having "are you affected by this news? Please email....." messages.

Am I getting old? Is it just me that's sick and tired of the lack of actual facts in the news?