Tag: News

Had the Covid Flues

Well I was not expecting my next post to be after a visit to the pub on a night out, I normally steer clear of social media or at least Facebook after having a drink of Guinness but what the heck its Monday night and I am now home now and have Tuesday off work too woo who.

I also did not know it at the time but my last heart opening post about relationships was written while I had Covid-19, well it just goes to show what I open up about when illnesses is at my door, hell it was almost like a confession. I knew I was feeling unwell, cold and hot sweats and completely lost the ability to sleep.

Yep caught it

But it was not until my test came back as positive that I knew I had covid-19 I was unable to speak and concentrate so stayed at home and could not work but when I finally though that I had better test myself to see what was going on and whether I should leave the house is when it came back with a positive result of the covid kind.

I must admit I am lucky I had it mildly it still beat the crap out of me for a few days but I never worried that I was not going to be ok. I have been immunity jabbed up when asked to by my doctor and have my next booster and flue jab next month so doing everything I am supposed too.

It is kind of strange to know I have now had it but very grateful for the scientific advancements many deny or take for granted that have potentially saved my life. It’s been a couple of weeks after having had it and I still get tired which my boss has noticed too, hence the couple of days off this week.

I am feeling ok in myself but a little tired at times which is not particularly unusual so all in all I very grateful for having come out the other side.

The Doors – Break on Through (To the other side)

I could also talk about the UK government but then again unless you already know what is going on you probably would not believe me about what the feck is going on. Good old British constitutional democracy at its finest where the party in government gets to do to what the hell it likes so long as the people in parliament keep on voting to allow it to happen. We had a Prime Minster she fecked up by damaging the economy and promising loads of money to the rich and scrapping taxes after the debt fest that is covid-19 and then resigned within about a month of her leadership (shortest term ever as PM in UK) .

Her party with the most MP’s decided then that they were going to invent a new system of electing a new Prime Minister and so they voted for a new leader of the conservative party who, hay presto becomes leader of Britain or Prime Minister tomorrow with out a citizens vote or right to vote cast. So longs as the majority party in the house of commons agree then they can do what the feck they like.

Oh well roll on the next election when they let us have one!

Is Trump above the law or is the noose tigtening around his neck?

There is an unprecedented legal case taking place in the USA at present against former President Trump. What the consequences are for him and for the political system of the USA is really yet to play out but it does feel that something huge is potentially about to happen and the politcal phrase if you give someone enough rope they will ultimately hang themselves appears to be relating to Trump at present.

Documents siezed from Donald Trumps home

President Trumps legal team are yet again trying to reinvent the rule book of what they can or can’t do by admitting that he did have secret documents and that this is perfectly normal. Well what is normal for trump is not normal for anyone else.

The Republican Party claims to be the party of laws and order so what happens when Trump the poster boy breaks the law of land in the land he aspires to be president again this has consequences. Being popular amongst the people of the states is no defence in the eyes of the law. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham threatens that there will be riots on the street if they try to prosecute Trump for mishandling classified information. So that implies that the rule of law does not apply to Trump.

It is a sad state of affairs in the USA that many people treat their political parties like Europeans treat their football teams, they are deeply faithful to them and believe they must compete to win and nothing but their own team matters and you would never consider supporting the opposition they are the enemy. Though when you put political values into such a context of only supporting one side and considering the opposition to be a traitor to your camp and values this is a toxic way to vote.

It would be more ethical and moral to be voting on who will help the people (or choosing to vote for who will not). It would be more inspiring to be voting for who will help the future of the planet (or who must turn a blind eye to that). But instead people want to aspire to vote for team trump and his lies, misinformation and trash talk while he tries to make himself above your laws.

21st Century War

To look into the global suffering of the world would be a very dark place to try and gain any insight from or find any truths concerning what had led to wars and what are the long term consequences for us all.

Truths are often taught or indoctrinated from the winners and learned by those who are left behind, concerning global events and across world history. I have been looking at a variety of sources in order to attempt to gain an insight concerning what was going on in the world prior to the invasion of Ukraine from a perspective of wars of the 21st century. There do appear to be parallels between the western war on terror post 9/11 with oil and gas grabs and Putin’s allegation of his needs to invade Ukraine.

Many people seem to state these days that care equally about the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq as they do about the people of Ukraine but the international community and our media outlets do not care so much for the people of Palestine as it does for the people of Ukraine. Though I don’t think the bombing and murdering of one nation over the bombing and murdering of another nation is a competition and when one power occupies another or attempts to do so we should see one occupier as less wrong or of less importance than another. Two wrongs do not find a right.

I have also been reading articles on the natural resourses wealth of Ukraine and why these are strategic recourses that Putin desires and ones he thinks will provide him with tactical advantages in the future. The invasion of Ukraine and the plan to undertake such an invasion was not the first act of war in the 21st century.

Unfortunately the US and UK are not innocent in these land grab incidents, or oil and gas grabbing and occupying incidents, which appear to have emboldened Putin into thinking I could do something similar to that and have potentially got us into the mess where we collectively all are today.

Sadly the world’s economies are hugely addicted to oil and gas that is pumped out of the planet and our thirst for these resources that we need like a vampire nation feeding on the blood of oil and gas in order to sustain our modern form of existence means that we we have the potential to purchase oil from any regime at any cost to our society and biosphere. Like a junkie that does not know it has a problem or has an inability to reflect or count the cost of its addiction or know when or even if it can stop we continue to inject oil into the veins of our global mechanical, industrial economies. We claim that by doing so we sustain life and the economy, whilst in reality putting it all at risk.

Although ultimately Putin might see the actions and historic shaping of the globe as some of his reasons and justifications to invade Ukraine but only he is the one that acts on his impulse to inflict the horror of war on the Ukrainian people.

When the US and UK invaded Iraq it was seen as regime change and though the initial conflict was won swiftly the long-term war and casualties inflicted on the country if Iraq cost many lives. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But the terrorist attacks in the United States changed forever the lives of Iraqis.

In their aftermath, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, swiftly deposing the Taliban regime that had been sheltering Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terror network blamed for the attacks. Only some 20 years later to leave Afghanistan knowing it could not successfully occupy the land allowing the Taliban to retake power there.

President George W. Bush identified Iraq along with Iran and North Korea, as part of an “axis of evil” and asserting that its brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, was armed with weapons of mass destruction and had ties to al-Qaida. No evidence of either of it ascertains were ever found and no trials have ever taken place concerning crimes against humanity for the actions and consequences of the war in Iraq. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has spurred a decades of war, which has had consequences that reverberate across the region and the world to this day.

6 Step Disinformation Guide

Don’t Get Swept Away by Falsehoods about War in Ukraine

The invasion of Ukraine opened the floodgates to disinformation. Follow our 6 step guide to protect yourself and avoid being swept away by untrustworthy news stories.

by Eleanor Brooks –  https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/disinformation-guide/44093

Disinformation is playing an outsized role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there is mounting evidence that Russians are being deliberately misled by their government and state-controlled media outlets.

Disinformation poses a major threat to democractic societies in peacetime as well. Conflicting versions of events muddies the water, which makes it difficult for people to know the truth about what is happening. Without an accurate picture, it is harder for citizens to speak out and make their voices heard about issues which matter to them. Disinformation can also distort public debate, threatening free and fair elections.

What is disinformation?

Disinformation is false information that is shared with the intention of misleading people. The sharer of the “news” knows that it is false and intends to deceive their audience. Unlike misinformation (misleading, inaccurate or completely false information that is shared without the person knowing it is incorrect), the sharing of disinformation isn’t done in good faith. Rather, it is a deliberate intention to create division and stir up fear by knowingly spreading content that is incorrect.

6-Step Disinformation Guide

Conspiracy theories have become more sophisticated as of late, so in order to be alert to disinformation it is essential that you adopt a critical mindset to all the online content you consume. Before sharing anything, take a pause and go through this checklist.

1. Know your author

As a first step you should consider, who is the author?

Is the author regarded as credible? Is this person simply stating their opinion or sharing anecdotal evidence? You should be extra cautious about information circulated on social media, messaging apps and messaging boards.

Just because someone has a high follower count or a verified account on social media, it doesn’t necessarily mean their content is trustworthy. You should be particularly wary of accounts that have recently joined the platform.

2. Know your outlet

On which platform or outlet did you find the information? Consider the trustworthiness of the outlet you are using and verify the information against other sources.

3. Verify the evidence

Is the claim supported by reliable evidence? Look closely at the evidence that is offered – do the details match the current story e.g. location, weather, setting? Watch out for repurposed content from an older news article or an entirely different event.

4. Crosscheck images and videos

If you have a hunch that the evidence provided is dodgy, listen to your instinct. There are plenty of tools and strategies available to verify whether an image or video is legitimate.

·Check to see if an image has been photoshopped: by checking an image’s metadata you can see if it has been doctored. Use EXIF tools on your smartphone such as the app ExifWizard

·Reverse image search – take a screenshot and search for the image using Google’s reverse image tool, or other similar tools such as Tineye.com or the Google extensionRevEye

· Use an Amnesty International tool which verifies YouTube videos

5. Check your facts!

If a story seems fishy to you, there are plenty of trustworthy fact-checking websites who debunk conspiracy theories and misinformation.

·Snopes

·FactCheck.org

·Bellingcat

·Google Fact Check Tools: lists recent fact-checks by various online publications

6. Report it!

If you spot a fake story online, report it to the platform and send it to a fact-checking website. If one of your friends posted the story – send them this guide!

If you read something on social media, check to see if the same story is also published by larger, well-established news outlets. If you read a story in a politically extreme outlet, are other news outlets running the same story?

Emili Sande – Read All About It Pt. III

A Climate of fear & changing times for us all

Who would have thought just a few weeks ago that after having nearly tamed corona virus and with countries starting to try to implement a road map to mitigate climate catastrophe World War 3 was on the horizon and not just that but that we are only minutes away from a potential nuclear catastrophe like we had not been threatened with for over 50 years.   

Growing up when reading about potential problems for the future one threat that was talked about was the concept of climate change wars. This being a situation where nations and people would be increasingly fighting for ever decreasing resourses and when I look to Putin and how his actions in the Ukraine are unfolding that is exactly what this is a violent and deadly grab for resources on his own boarder in the name of reunification of Ukraine to Russia. People are calling him mad which he might well be. But he is also cold and calculated and has so much to lose if his war goes wrong for him that I fear what is still yet to come for Ukraine and the those next in Putins sights.

He will surely see the West’s sanctions and his now global status diminished to that of leader of a pariah state as an act of war and further evidence in his own mind that the west has always hated Russia and it does not matter what he does he just can’t win . His political judgements are increasingly looking like the actions of a gambler on a heavy losing streak risking it all and yet having still not hit rock bottom. There are very little factors in place to stop him from creating more devastation for Ukraine and the planet and continue to role his dice and inflict his decisions on others again and again and again.  

A leading academic called Harald Welzer , author of Climate Wars: Why People Will Be Killed in the 21st Century, stated back in November 2017 that “My belief is that we will see a renaissance of violent conflict in the 21st century, and that many of these conflicts will spring from climate change.”

A professor at the University of Flensburg in Germany, Welzer studies the cultural and political implications of climate change. His book, first published in 2012.

Twentieth-century wars were fought over land, religion, and economics. But Welzer argues that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over something quite different: climate change, and the shortages of water and food that will come from it.

“Ideology will always be a surface-level justification for conflict, But if you look deeply at the source of future conflicts, I think you’ll see a basic resource conflict at the bottom of it all.”

So with that in mind I don’t see Putin as just mad but I do see him as an incredibly dangerous individual with a large arsenal at his disposal and a lot to lose and nearly nothing left to gain. This is all very dark stuff that has been rattling around in my head for the last week. There are very few positive outcomes from this scenario should it have a hint of truth within it at all.

One of the biggest game changers for this conflict that has yet to state how it will act under the circumstances is that of China. China could embolden Russia to continue along a potentially catastrophic path or could be the peacemaker. Though Russia is on the brink of having lost global power and influence due to its invasion of Ukraine, China on the other hand is a powerful nation with more to gain from a thriving and more stable and peaceful world than it has to gain from one at nuclear war with itself. Putin might get to a point where he feels that he has nothing to lose by escalating a war to a nuclear crisis put China and President Xi Jinping will not be in such a hurry or have the belief and conviction concerning the necessity to set the world on fire.

China though having tried and failed to set out a coherent diplomatic position in the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is now attempting to position itself as a potential peacemaker to end the war.

That position has not entailed acknowledging that Russia has invaded Ukraine, let alone condemning it. But as China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in a call on 1 March, Beijing stood ready to support negotiations to reach a political settlement. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Kuleba said he was willing to move forward with talks and “looked forward to China’s mediation efforts for the ceasefire”. 

This horific real life story is in no way over and continues to unfold before our very eyes.

Putin The Antidemocratic President

I am not a Christian so do not believe there will one day be an anti-Christ, my father told me when I was young that many people believed that Hitler was the anti-Christ due to the amount of atrocities he had willingly committed and this to me seemed plausible.

One of my fears concerning anti-Christ theory’s is that they are constantly looking for one and accusing others that they are one and that we therefore are living in the end of days all the time. At the time of Jesus some of his believes then truly with all their hearts also belived that they to were living in the end times and 2000 years later the debate still rages on amongst people of strong religious beliefs across a whole spectrum of religions about when are they going to happen and who is the anti-christ or leader of evil.  So I hope and pray that there is no anti-christ and that Putin is therefore not one to.

Darth Putin

Putin is weaving us down his very dark path through time immemorial. He is building his legacy on the bones & bodies of the dead ordered at his command. The non-believer in the freedom of thought, action and expression of individuals. The denier of Sovereignty to states and denier of democratic rights of his own citizens as well as those of others, well he does not have my vote.

His actions are not those of someone that wishes to protect others, but punish them from straying from his hell bent perception of the world. The strength of will of the people of Ukraine really shames Putin and all that he stands for.  

I thought you could not kill an ideal once born into this world. I now know thanks to Ukraine you can’t kill a nation that knows it has the right to exist.

From Russia with blood

It looks like the capital of Ukraine could be occupied this evening. Putin’s potential intensions and what his agenda really might be in the longterm for the world and for Ukraine is chilling and leaves me cold. Putin does not lay his cards on the table, but keeps them guarded close to his chest, if he were to reveal his true nature and agenda it would likely be chilling to his own citizens and also leave them cold too as well as the rest of the world.

What I believe about Putin is that he believes the cold war never ended, the Soviet Union should still exist and although the west thought it won the cold war and defeated Russian communism, he still wishes to reignite a spark of war across the continent of Europe and fight a cold war.

Putin has murdered and jailed political opponents, does not accept the rule of international law or accept peoples rights to govern themselves or the sovereignty of other nations and believes in the power of a totalitarian one man state of power over the power of the people.

He believes he can do what he can get away with and that his might is right and you don’t tell the truth in order to try to win a good argument or inflict your will on others. He has no respect for the international community or rule of law. I don’t think there is any way now of appeasing Putin and the only solution to stop his blooding of other nations and the citizens therein will be when he is removed from power. For someone that has cemented his own power base in such a way that he has it will not be easy to hold Putin accountable or to stop him in his tracks.    

 I just don’t see his thirst being quenched when and if Ukraine falls.  

Coldplay – Spies

Putin moves to war

A grim milestone in the history of Russia as a ‘special military operation’ or invasion by any over name unfolds live on the TV. Watching the UN security council live on TV which crazily Russia happens to be the ‘chair’ of the council at present allowing people to speak condemning it. Chairing a meeting about its own aggression and war mongering seems most bizarre.

It seems more likely now that Putin will invade a sovereign nation or is as I type is invading a sovereign nation live. The 23 February in Russia was Defender of the Fatherland Day, it should instead be known as the blooding of thy neighbour day.

Inflicting regime change on Ukraine a sovereign and democratically elected state, government and people is basically a way of Putin sticking up two fingers to the rest of the free world, while again blooding his hands with the blood of his neighbours.

I am not a Christian but am a god fearing man and Christianity and Christ teachs us all a great deal at times of peace as well as things to reflect at a time when you know that one man (Putin) has ordered the deaths and is off to war with others.

Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms

Tsar Putin – The Gas Father

As Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border and worries of the invasion grow, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to peddle a familiar Russian line about the conflict: that Ukraine belongs to Russia and that the two are “one people — a single whole.”

All men are created equal [but some are more equal than others]

Not only that but his peddling his hate for the west from his regurgitating of his view of the history of the world he also now extends his views into the perception that he is the enemy of the west and he is the righteous good guy in the unfolding history of the world. Democracy smocracy who cares if you have freedom of thought for your people, freedom to vote by your people, freedom of speech about people, when in the past you used to be the bad guys right you gave birth to slavery, Hitler and colonialism.

Russia on the other hand has in the past starved and murdered its own people under the leadership of past Tsars and Communist leaders in the name of power and progress. No one is innocent under the magnifying glass of a historian, whilst at the same time no one should be tard with the same brush and we should certainly not aspire to repeat the mistakes of the past. If Putin has no intentions of rights wrongs of the past it’s all about power it has only ever been about power and will always be about power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. -John Dalberg.

In reality, Ukraine has long been distinct from Russia, and Putin’s current mythologizing of the Russia-Ukraine relationship fits a pattern of falsehoods designed to reconstitute imperial glory, and more importantly, to shield Putin from the threat of democracy in former Soviet republics — and possibly in Russia itself.

Putin is not the only old fossil on the block as he has huge reserves of natural gas to play with and presently supplies 40% of the European market. The more he has a hissy fit and continues to turn the screw on anyone he deems fit to then the greater the power to inflict pain on others he can flex.

 Ukraine, for its part, is distinct from Russia in many ways and has been influenced by a number of different cultures, including by Central European countries in the west, and present-day Greece and Turkey in the south. Over the centuries Ukraine was also conquered by a number of different groups, including the Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Austrians, and Swedes, as well as, eventually, the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great.

 You would not see Britain reinterpreting its own history to reinvade Ireland simply because some people in Northern Ireland see themselves as British and end up starting World War 3 off the back of it. Well that is exactly the position Putin is putting the world in due to his beliefs and propaganda around the Ukraine.

Gabrielle Aplin – Light Up The Dark