Tag: News

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

We should be as mad as hell!

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” declared the longtime news anchor Howard Beale in the 1975 film classic Network. In the picture, people everywhere toss open their windows and repeat the catchphrase with a barbaric yap. They rush to the streets in maddening throng to air their grievances.

Quite fitting for our own time even though it’s from 1975.

With my own Prime Minister or so called leader of Britain Boris Johnson having had a birthday party, which he did not remember having or going to and then after remembering that he did actually have it and attend then deciding it was not after all a party! In the meantime he is trying to spread out the time it will take to admit what the hell was going on and what he has actually done or not done, that by the time the truth is finally out there we might not be so mad with him anymore as we have had to move on to the next bit of drama or TV rating fodder that we are following instead.

Leader of Britain – Boris Johnson

The present piece of TV rating global drama is the potential invasion of Ukraine by the new age Tsar Putin – the man is a power hungry monster, who will only be happy when the blood sweat and tears of other members of humanity, suffer and surrender at his throne. He really wants to make people suffer whether it’s by interfering and spreading disinformation in democratic countries or poisoning or imprisoning potential political threats in his own country. I used to just think he was a Russian mafia man but he has far greater ambition than to be the local god father of mother Russia.

European powers very much rely presently on Russian gas for fuel and energy of homes and businesses and if he flexes his muscles to cause a confrontation in Ukraine just to prove a point and invade a sovereign nation it will be a line in the sand that once crossed can never be taken back.

Invasion of the page snatcher!

Fuel activist is furious after ‘woke trolls’ list his home as a petrol station

At the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic there was for some very strange reason a run on buying toilet paper and just the mention of the run on toilet paper and potential shortages due to panic buying made people buy even more causing even more shortages. Well to add fuel to the fire this time its petrol stations on the shortage list for a number of economic and headline grabbing reasons.

While not owning a car and being fortunate enough not to have a relative or friend needing life saving medication or nursing treatment at this particular moment in time this so called crisis has not affected me yet. I did a food shop with Sainsbury’s and for a change even managed to get everything that I wanted and needed too.

I thought to myself on the way home today that those that can profit from such times as these will thrive and those that can’t will suffer, such is the way of things. Although to suffer through no fault of your own in such times hardly feels fair or just.

Today is a good day

Today is a good day to have a Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine injection.

Today is a good day to finally let myself out of my home after having been told to shield since  Tuesday.

Today is a good day to walk to the doctor’s surgery in town and meet and que with other residents of Exeter waiting to have their injection.

Today is a good day to wait patiently inline and be directed and assisted  by the volunteers, nurses and GP’s working tirelessly to save lives.

Today is a good day for the sun to shine on my brief foray around Exeter.

Today is a good day to have a National Health Service and be grateful for it.

I hope you have a good day today too.

James – All the Colours of You

WW2 bomb detonated in Exeter

A 400m cordon was set up before the bomb – which was 1,000kg heavy, around 2.5m in length, and would have fallen from a Nazi bomber in 1942 – was detonated at about 6.10pm on Saturday 27th February. I could hear the explosion from my house which sounded like a firework going off when they detonated it. Social media in Exeter went a bit crazy as well with reports of what was happening from peoples homes at the time of the detonation.

One friend commented on his FaceBook site about the bomb going off, only to have people that did not know what was happening jump on him, saying that there were no bombs in Exeter and they certanly were not being detonated that night (little did they know).

The news that the bomb had been discovered at first broke on Friday 25th February it was found on a buidling site probably for new student accomodation as that is what most buildings sites are for in Exeter or so the locals would have you believe, this site was just by the university. My boss was one the people that had to go on site throughout the weekend and other staff were also called upon to assist during the weekend.

The video below is an edit of a classic 1960’s film scene called the Italian Job with Michel Cain and the actual expolsion in Exeter edited together.

It was a bloody big explosion on site with many properties being damaged close by. Though fortunaly no one was injured and properties are being checked for damage and people being provided ongoing support.

More than 2,600 households and University of Exeter halls of residence were evacuated after the device was found on Glenthorne Road on Friday.

Police declared a major incident and put up an initial 100m (330ft) cordon, extended to 400m (1,310ft).

Bomb disposal experts used 400 tonnes of sand to create an enclosing “box” before it was made safe at 18:12 GMT.

About 1,400 students were evacuated from 12 halls of residence after the explosive was found by builders on private land next to the Streatham campus at about 09:20 GMT on Friday.

The bomb evacuation zone in Exeter Pictured above

Police said bomb disposal crews “worked through the night to establish a walled mitigation structure” and they had been expecting “a big bang” to be heard “quite a distance across Exeter” during the operation to make it safe.

Any residents who have been directly affected who are in need of support should phone the helpline on 01392 265000. The line is open form 9am to 5pm.

If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well

Or Money for nothing and contracts millions given to friends and party donors for free.

I normally don’t get my news from Facebook but today a meme was doing the rounds about the lack of news on an important story.

Matt Hancock the UK Health Minister has been found guilty of not disclosing NHS contracts to the UK public. Now at first you might think well he had a lot of other stuff to do, with say saving the population and all that. But the more you dig into the news (or lack of news item the worse it gets).

The Government unlawfully failed to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts, the High Court has ruled.

There looks to be a battle at the heart of government to not give money to local councils and health services for fear of waste and not trusting them to do the jobs they are they are there to do. Or for fear of them doing such a good job they might end up asking for even more money or powedr and control.

Prior to the pandemic we have been force fed for many years the lie that spending money on public health, local government and public service should be cut back, year on year for it is never affordable or practical to spend money on others and not really needed and civilisation itself might even collapse and our capitalist way of life grind to a halt if we try in any way what so ever to fairly fund government services with tax payers money.

Then a real crisis comes along in the shape of the pandemic, which results in a very real scenario of civilisations being put to the test and grinding to a halt and suddenly were all bloody socialist regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, spending money as a left-winger, centralists or even right-winger on life saving society enhancing services and treatments is now seen as a normal way to do  business..

Dyslexic diabetic

So since last Thursday that is what I can be boxed off and defined simply as a dyslexic diabetic and to be honest I have been called worse.

I really wanted to put something down on here but at the same time I wanted to absorb the new diagnosis of being a diabetic first and begin to try to understand more on what that definitional and diagnosis now means to me. I have been being tested for it for years and kept on coming back as negative and not having it but blood suger levels slowly increasing year after year and I knew my time would come. My brother had it and so did my Grandfather. My mum has it and so does my Grandmother.

The mental health medication I take also increases my chance of putting on weight and developing diabetes and it seems lockdown and my desire and ability to increase the amount of cakes I have been eating also increased hugely my chance of being diagnoses with diabetes this year, plus the sedentary lifestyle with working at home more and just not having many places to go or reasons to go to them, my chances of getting diabetes this year along with my blood sugar levels just sky rocketed up, up and away.  

It was like I was playing Russian roulette with a gun that had as many bullets in it as it had chambers to fire them out from.

Prior to the diagnosis I really was kidding myself that my health was ok, my diet was ok and my lack of exercise would change. I still don’t know if I am kidding myself but I am trying to get my head around this and make changes that will enhance my health. I have been for so long focused and dedicated to looking after my mental health, holding down a job and keeping a roof over my head that I really did feel there was not much time left to look after my physical health or pretty much do anything else and I am still not sure if this is true now.

So now I have had a wakeup call and if I want to have a good quality of life, I do have to make some lifelong changes to my diet and improve my physical health. I’m pissed off this has happened I see life like a big beautiful, messy and  complicated picture that paints a thousand words or life like a potential journey to a thousand places in a thousand worlds.

world keeps on a spinning

When some new negative words or views are added to my already complicated llfe bubble, one of those words being diabetes and the second being diagnosis it just feels like what was already a struggle to live as a life just got a little harder and it sucks right now.   

First Aid Kit – Silver Lining

Although I am already feeling much better now than when I had first heard the what felt like inevitable news and am beginning to get my head around it now somewhat more and implement some positive changes for myself.

I have signed up to get advice, be educated by and taught more about diabetes by a diabetes mentor of sorts, through our lovely National Health Service and I have stated keeping a photo diary of everything I eat and drink now for the diabetes dietician to mull over and tell me what I am doing right or wrong.