Jeremy Bowen on the 90s Bosnian/Serb war

 Bowen: "I well remember the UN Peacekeeping Mission and its Protection Force in Bosnia which was meant to help the humanitarian effort and to calm things down but it had such a puny mandate, it just had to sit back and watch the Serbs, in particular, ride roughshod over what they were trying to do."

Donald Trump

DONALD TRUMP: Last night's meeting with joint US/UK passport holder, George Conyne

Such a fascinating, interesting, outrageous, jaw-dropping, eccentric, subject ripe for satire - is the USA President - putting the cat amongst the pigeons and probably envious of Putin's power and authority!

It seems that Congress is much more important than the President and the Federal government.  He never mentioned that the House of Representatives and the Senate are bodies within Congress.  I had to look that up after I got home!  I now know a new word - 'bicameral', thanks to Wikipedia!

Trump pontificates, can get ignored but claims a victory anyway and the public is often none the wiser!

I felt the American speaker was, understandably, representing America and so felt unable to be self-critical over US led/NATO foreign policy since 1945.  For decades, the USA and Canada have taken, in their millions, the refugees, the outcasts and the riff-raff of the world.  But no more under Trump.

The speaker never once mentioned the UN.  This century, in particular, the US/UK have done their own thing without waiting for the authority of resolutions from the General Assembly or the Security Council over attacking Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.  Under Trump, the UN is going to be further ignored, sidelined and dismissed, following the hostility, arrogance and sheer rudeness towards Antonio Guterres and the UN.

Joe Biden did show he had learnt the lesson of the catastrophe for those two nations when he counselled Netanyahu not to overreact after the 7.10.23 atrocity.  Yet the man, foolishly, did.

NATO encroaching on Russian borders was never mentioned.  I asked a question: 'If NATO had been disbanded soon after the Warsaw Pact, would that have made today's war more or less likely?'  George thought it wouldn't have made any difference.  I would have thought less likely, having read the Sixsmiths' book, below.

My own thoughts: Trump is all bombast and bluster but still gets his way on many things - Executive Orders.

Strange, creepy man that must be the most unsuitable person imaginable to be President of the most powerful and richest country in the world.  I wouldn't want any woman in my family anywhere near the man.  A man of dubious morals.

Yet, he says he wants to end the killings in Ukraine and Palestine.  A good thing but how can one man do that without all round good intent and vital concessions by all sides?

Good, I think, that he talks to Putin.  Or, is he an admirer of Putin that seems to be the case?  We all need to walk in the shoes of those who are not our natural friends/acquaintances, in order to understand where they are coming from.  And this self-examination is what Martin and Daniel Sixsmith do in their 2024 book, including the Russian history of internecine war for centuries (as everywhere else).  The title: 'Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War' - but we are not free of criticism, ourselves.

The following is written as someone who is a Quaker at heart  Hence, my criticism of centuries of the killers finishing off people of non-violence like me, in their never-ending futile wars:

I would have liked a little reflection on what our American friends, all from these shores and mainland Europe originally, have led us into.  We are the Global White Minority yet, since the Europeans initiated World War in two halves, we have seen this: wars in Korea, threatened over Formosa/Taiwan, SE Asia, lasting decades and slaughtering millions; as well as coups and destabilising governments around the world - like Chile and Cuba.  The UK fled Palestine in 1948 in the face of Jewish/Zionist terrorism to give us 77 years of more intermittent massacres by Western Christendom nations (and the other two Children of Abraham)!  Aggression was rewarded with territory gained, contrary to what our powerful nations tell other nations.  One rule for them ... !  The US and Germany are the top funders and suppliers of weapons and ammunition to kill, in 15 months, many tens of thousands of Gazans, Lebanese and West Bank Palestinians.  And they have always been the top suppliers of death-dealing products, for seven decades, to one side only.

We have seen centuries of control and domination over the Global Black Majority by the Global White Minority.  I see it as Grab, Brag, Occupy - our slogan for many centuries as we have gone around the world with the best of all possible intentions to give them the blessings of traditional Christian culture together with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is not just the Christian Right who have supported imperialism, slavery to the bitter end, capital and corporal punishment, too, and the many fruitless wars to banish Communism and Fatah/Hamas.  Never achieved.

There was no concession, no acknowledgement that it was Russia that ended the Cold War and that we had no right to claim it as our victory and, to rub it in as our triumph.  No fairness seen in admitting that without Russia we could never have won both halves of that catastrophic World War.  And they lost between 20 and 30 million of their people in the Second World War, alone.  Both our European Napoleon and European Hitler, in two successive centuries, invaded Russia with their armies.

I am open to correction and a more balanced, sober analysis!

These costs are different from reports presented to the WMCA Board

The latest cost estimates are: Phase 1 (Wednesbury to Dudley) £393.5m; Phase 2a (Dudley to Waterfront Merry Hill) £227m; and Phase 2b (Waterfront Merry Hill to Merry Hill) £33.6m.

The last phase - phase 2c, from Merry Hill to Brierley Hill town centre - was last estimated to cost £30m but is now not considered for future funding. The Department for Transport is expected to ask for a re-examination of the business case.

The Rich West has the lot. Time to share

WALK IN PUTIN'S SHOES

Is it acceptable for Trump/Vance to work with Putin to address the imbalance of the centuries of White Western World domination?

Will American isolationism lead to Russia, China, N Korea and the Rest getting above their station, redressing the power imbalance and doing us  down in the West?

Can Trump/Vance be the referees in the ring to bring about a more balanced sharing of world power, so that it is a more equal sharing between the West and the Rest?

The West/NATO must address Climate concerns of the South/Rest, pay for Climate damage already done to the Rest ...

John Major: We are moving into a more dangerous world; on 16 Feb 2025

Peace through strength by increasing.  The art of the deal: NATO is obsolete, Trump said.

Nov 1989 Berlin Wall came down, opening up of E Europe, the crumbling of the Soviet Union that was "the most tragic event of the 20th century", Putin called it.

Kathy Ashton, "this transantlantic bond", was EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

George HW Bush worked with Major.  Succeed in Ukraine and they'll soon be seen elsewhere ... intolerant right.

Form of Presidency I haven't seen.  Made concessions to Russia.  If Russia wins, China and S Korea will take note.  Lectures Europe on free speech.

USA, in the past has taken on board her international responsibility.  If she retreats to isolation she leaves the door open to China and Russia to supplement her place in the world.

Debunking the Myth that Anti-Zionism is Antisemitic

I am becoming increasingly uneasy with the media's coverage of Israel's activities in the Gaza Strip. Even the Guardian has oversimplified this complex issue, failing to distinguish between Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism and this is a confusion Netanyahu's government has used to hide behind and deflect criticism of it's actions in order to buy time to continue it's military campaign.

I recently re-read Peter Beinart's excellent Long Read - "Debunking the Myth that Anti-Zionism is Antisemitic", first published in 2019, and now even more relevant. Beinart points out that many of the same Jewish leaders who call national self-determinism a universal right are happy to deny it to Palestinians. Allowing those threatened by Antisemitism to define Antisemitism is problematic in so far as that in many countries Jewish leaders act as both defenders of local Jewish interests and also as defenders of the Israeli government which wants to define Anti-Zionism as bigotry because by doing so it aids Israel in killing off the two-state solution.

Beinart rightly concludes that Antisemitism isn't wrong because it is wrong to denigrate and dehumanise Jews but because it is wrong to denigrate and dehumanise anyone: which means,  ultimately, that any effort to fight Antisemitism that contributes to the denigration of Palestinians isn't a fight against Antisemitism at all.

Maybe you should consider republishing Beinart's article as he makes the point far more effectively than my paraphrasing.

John Rushton 

£1 BILLION to convert 100 years successful railway to 10 Km tramway!

Honest confusion over costs or, simply, downright misleading/dishonest information?

Dear friends - please explain this discrepancy I have found.

You are putting it about in the media that building the tramway from Flood Street to Merry Hill SC - to act as a great inducement for Dudley shoppers to go there instead - is £295 m for 4 Kms.  I have found different figures, below.  Which is correct?  SHOULD YOU BE GETTING YOUR FACTS RIGHT?

​

​EVIDENCE:

FROM: https://governance.wmca.org.uk/documents/s20364/Wednesbury%20Brierley%20Hill%20Metro%20Extension%20Phase2.pdf

" ... on the delivery of the Metro extension Phase 2b totalling £261.4m for 1 Km.

Phase 2b (Waterfront Merry Hill to Merry Hill) £33.6m.  Why this difference?  Which is correct?  £261.4 or £33.6 m?

The latest cost estimates are: Phase 1 (Wednesbury to Dudley) £393.5m (from RAIL magazine, dated 7 August 2024)  Nearly the same as the £400 m from November 2024.  So, fair enough.

Phase 1: Wednesbury to Flood St., Dudley

Phase 2a: Flood St, Dudley to Waterfront Business Park

Phase 2b: Waterfront to Merry Hill Shopping Centre

Phase 2c: Merry Hill Shopping Centre to Brierley Hill Town Centre

(FROM para 12.4 on page 8)

"Since rewriting and submitting the FBC and the SAF appraisal in May 2024 it is noted in this report the total projected cost of Phase 2a, 2b of the WBHE project remains at £654.9m."   END OF QUOTE from para 12.12 on page 8.

Phase 2a (Dudley to Waterfront Merry Hill) £227m; plus 2b cost of £33.6 m = £260.6 for 2a and 2b (from RAIL magazine, 7.8.24)

WHY THE COLOSSAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN £654.9 m and £260.6 m?  Which is correct?

Source: Rising costs put West Midlands Metro extensions under threat https://search.app/53Q8HsRAAHyziU847 

or,   https://www.railmagazine.com/news/2024/08/06/rising-costs-put-west-midlands-metro-extensions-under-threat

£655 m for 4 Kms (£164m/Km) is SCANDALOUS - and, to destroy a former, principal mainline railway (that should have been brought back into use by the year 2000 CE)!

For another £261.4 million for only a maximum ONE KILOMETRE (1 Km) of the route from Waterfront to Merry Hill, is SCANDALOUS!  And it is deepening the catastrophic Climate emergency instead of urgent mitigation, which is still not seen (apart from my solar-powered house which is a warm home at est £191/year from the latest bill - in reality a little more).

THEREFORE: £400 million for 6 Kms of Phase 1    5.3 Kms on railway

                    £655 million for 4 Kms of Phase 2    1.86 Kms on railway

SAY: 7 Kms out of the 10 Kms on a former principal mainline railway.

10 Kms of tramway, 70% on a former mainline railway, "of national strategic significance", needed for freight after the 2040s at the earliest, yet still costing over ONE BILLION POUNDS!

And must be built because:

"Light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."  Tom Magrath, Centro's Passenger Services Director, letter to self, dated 18 September 2000.  Yes, 24 years ago and trams must still be built in order to get the trains back - TRAINS THAT HAD BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL FOR 100 YEARS.  How stupid is that?!!

Charging EVs

It's always good to write to your local council/authority and to your MP, also better MP's have very accessible surgeries and let them know that you need to charge your electric car. Try to get your neighbour to write too, it worked for me.

It is terribly sobering to see what influence the fossil monopolists have over car manufacturing. 

Tesla became such a success because they understood that charging points were needed, however far you drove you needed to charge, so the charging network grew and so the car sales. Better still the first Tesla's could re-fuel for free!! 

NOW it's anyone's guess why no other manufacturer did the same bolt move...

If you look at the spread of digital photography or better mobile phones... these did not get any subsidies, no state program. In order for people to buy mobile phones a network needed to be built from scratch and within 20 years anybody can phone or check the internet from nearly everywhere... and the state even makes some money by auction the rights....I was hoping/dreaming that the same would happen for an EV charging network BUT HEY somebody wants to sell the last bit of oil ... In Germany on huge agricultural areas rapeseed plants were planted to be used in Diesel up to 10%... never mind that even a Diesel engine has only an efficiency of some 35% ... electric 90% and the most efficient 97% electric motor was built some 5 years without the use of rare earth... so yes we are all being held hostage by a very powerful minority! The discredit, delay tactic combined with a flood of irrelevant info works so far.

Anyhow, note that the energy transition is unstoppable and even Mr. Burns will get it at some stage.

Some irony here that means ... !

I'm reading ex BBC, Martin Sixsmith: 'Putin and the Return of History - How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War'. I am astonished by the triumphalism, arrogance, gloating, the stupidity, complete lack of even sympathy, let alone empathy, by my side towards Russia. USA is the leading culprit but with, always, the guilty silence of every UK government. In fact, active support under Labour since 9/11. How can I possibly vote for ANY of these useless politicians?

From the river to the sea Palestine will be the Riviera of the World for Israelis, Americans and Europeans - but not for the rest. We're the Rulers of the globe and we can do what the hell we like. Turn everywhere into hell, not just Gaza!

MY CRUSADE TO RIGHT A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM to right!

MY CRUSADE TO RIGHT A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM to right!

Since the 1980s, I've been taking an interest in the idiocy of rebuilding the tram network on the railway network, only twenty years after our wise and sagacious leaders had totally wiped out the first electric tram network, much preferring air-polluting diesel buses.

Three mainline railways were chosen to be turned into tramways.  In 2016, I heard that the Bristol to Brum railway line via Kings Heath and Moseley was no longer destined for trams.  Ever since, they have been rebuilding the three railway stations needed to reinstate a half-hour commuter, diesel train service.  SUCCESS - albeit rather slow over nine years - and nothing has changed!

However, very few are interested and I remain isolated!  Hence, this e-mail campaign by individuals to SELECT, COPY, PASTE this in blue:

I am prepared to pay every person £10, by bank transfer, as my reward to them for sending this suggestion to TfWM/WMCA :

OFFER ENDS 31 March 2025

You declared a Climate Emergency in 2019.

Therefore, for reasons of Climate Justice and social justice, divert the £6.1 billion for trams to be spent by 2032 AND, redeploy the huge workforce from Metro tram expansion to URGENTLY insulating, solar powering and making highly energy efficient EVERY home of the poorest in the region.

And, incentivising car commuters to free up the road network for essential vehicle users by extending Fare-Free Public Transport from my OAP age group to EVERYONE.

DON'T REPLACE BUSES AND TRAINS WITH TRAMS - make buses and trains irresistible!

SEND to customerservices@tfwm.org.uk  and  customerservices@wmca.org.uk

FORWARDING to me the proof of the emails being sent with sort code and account number gets you my reward!

You kindly said you agreed with me ...

4 February 2025

You kindly said you agreed with me over bus franchising.

Therefore, dear Bob, please act with Ian Courts, Patrick Harley and Paul Bradley of Dudley, Garry Perry and Rose Martin of Walsall, and Robert Alden and Timothy Huxtable of Brum to oppose bus franchising.  My reasons:

1. It now appears that TfWM/WMCA had already got cracking with bus franchising even before our excellent Andy Street only very narrowly lost. I voted for him everytime (in 2017/21/24).  Andy told me he was against bus franchising and wanted to stick with the perfectly satisfactory Enhanced Bus Partnership with the private bus operators.  Did Andy authorise the work to start on bus franchising?  I don't think so.
2. Therefore, fairly elected Andy was being overruled, just as he was ignored over his request for an independent review to be studied and written into Metro costs and delivery and, with so many mishaps.  It was never written, I believe.
3. You already have public control of bus services through the Enhanced Bus Partnership.
4. You don't need to spend, literally tens of millions as you are doing, with all the preparatory work to get franchising.
5. TfWM/WMCA can act to cut fares to boost passenger numbers without franchising, as we saw at Christmas for that one week under Richard Parker.  Therefore, that is all that matters.  "Stuff their mouths with gold", as we saw in 1948 with the GPs being won over to support the new NHS.  Do that with the franchising money being put to much better use to cut bus fares.  Or, even better, to bring in Fare-Free Public Transport as my age group has had for years.  In my case from age 60 years.
6. Dudley's attempt at a commercial operation - Brook's Bar and Bistro - lost the council £1 million.  It is now closed.
7. With franchising, I understand, there are financial risks if things don't work out.  Don't go for commercial ventures, please.  Leave it to the private sector to take the financial risks, not the council taxpayer.
8. Please re-read what I earlier sent you and which you liked.

With every good wish

MY OWN CRUSADE TO RIGHT A SOLUTION, LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM to right!

Very many thanks for this link.  How right YOU and he was:  "Henry Kissinger warned NATO not to expand to the East"

You wrote, "What's needed is a bit of imagination!"  YES, John.  It needs a little thought, the very ordinary mind of a Russian chess player and empathy to work out that many Russians would be very unhappy at the serious imbalance between the West and Russia, from the ever eastwards march of the American led West taking over former USSR satellite states.

I have now started reading my second Robert Harris novel, 'An Officer and a Spy', about the Dreyfus affair at the end of the 19th century that further convinced Herzl that he was right over Zionism and the urgency of making a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.

"Theodor Herzl was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, lawyer, writer, playwright and political activist who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state."  Wikipedia

The novel shows how one wrong can never be righted with more wrongs.  It encourages more wrongs.

In fact, don't do an obvious wrong in the first place!  It has led to a second century of killings far worse than the first century.  The last century being noted for the massacres of both Jews and Muslims/Arabs/Palestinians.  The wrong of the Ultimate Solution never worked and led to more wrongs to this very day.  A Solution that was never a solution and has simply heaped wrongs, problems, injustices one after the other in a downward spiral of horrors.

MY CRUSADE TO RIGHT A SOLUTION LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM to right!

Since the 1980s, I've been taking an interest in the idiocy of rebuilding the tram network on the railway network, only twenty years after the idiots in charge had totally wiped out the first electric tram network, much preferring air polluting diesel buses.

Three mainline railways were chosen to be turned into tramways.  In 2016, I heard that the Bristol to Brum railway line via Kings Heath and Moseley was no longer destined for trams.  Ever since, they have been rebuilding the three railway stations needed to reinstate a half hour commuter, diesel train service.  SUCCESS!

However, still no-one is interested and I remain isolated!  Hence, this e-mail campaign by individuals to SELECT, COPY, PASTE this in blue:

I am prepared to pay every person £10, by bank transfer, as my reward to them for sending this suggestion to TfWM/WMCA :

You have declared a Climate Emergency in 2019.

Therefore, for reasons of Climate Justice and social justice, divert the £6.1 billion for trams to be spent by 2032 AND, redeploy the huge workforce from Metro tram expansion to URGENTLY insulating, solar powering and making highly energy efficient EVERY council home of the poorest in the region.

And, incentivising car commuters to free up the road network for essential vehicle users by extending Fare-Free Public Transport from my OAP age group to EVERYONE.

DON'T REPLACE BUSES AND TRAINS WITH TRAMS - make buses and trains irresistible!

SEND to customerservices@tfwm.org.uk  and  customerservices@wmca.org.uk

FORWARDING to me the proof of the emails being sent with sort code and account number gets you my reward!

We rule the world or are we stewards?

"Either WE get our numbers and our activities into harmony with the powers of the earth to support life; or, collapsing ecosystems will do the job for us."

Introduction to a GP Manifesto from the 1980s.

QUESTIONS

What does it mean by "numbers"?

Is God in charge or is it life support systems?

What does it mean, "the powers of the earth"?

What are ecosystems?

Where does nature come into all of this?

Is the idea of stewardship found in the Bible?

Or is a steward a servant to a master?

What do they mean by ecosystems collapsing?

Does all this put too much responsibility on us humans when God is in charge and in full control, anyway?

Does net zero have anything to do with stewardship or, even discipleship?

What does net zero mean, anyway?

Or, should we just leave all net Zero actions to government.

How can we reach net zero?

• Reduce emissions

  By reducing our use of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas, and by switching to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. 
• Remove emissions

  By planting trees, which absorb CO2 and release oxygen. Other methods include carbon capture and storage. 

Examples of net zero commitments

• The UK government has a target to reach net zero emissions by 2050. 
• The International Energy Agency has stated that a rapid shift away from fossil fuels is needed to achieve net zero. 

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

From the bestselling author of FATHERLAND, a gripping historical thriller in which the hunter becomes the hunted. January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying ‘Death to the Jew!’ The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army’s youngest colonel and put in command of ‘the Statistical Section’ – the shadowy intelligence unit that tracked down Dreyfus. The spy, meanwhile, is given a punishment of medieval cruelty: Dreyfus is shipped off to a lifetime of solitary confinement on Devil’s Island – unable to speak to anyone, not even his guards, his case seems closed forever. But gradually Picquart comes to believe there is something rotten at the heart of the Statistical Section. When he discovers another German spy operating on French soil, his superiors are oddly reluctant to pursue it. Despite official warnings, Picquart persists, and soon the officer and the spy are in the same predicament… Narrated by Picquart, An Officer and a Spy is a compelling recreation of a scandal that became the most famous miscarriage of justice in history. Compelling, too, are the echoes for our modern world: an intelligence agency gone rogue, justice corrupted in the name of national security, a newspaper witch-hunt of a persecuted minority, and the age-old instinct of those in power to cover-up their crimes.

Our own Riviera on British Shores - Indulged and Entitled

Indulged and entitled; greatly advantaged and blessed by:

A temperate climate conducive to working ourselves to an early grave - from child workers to some of the most appalling work conditions ever seen!

Coal, iron ore and abundant other resources boosted our comfort, to sell our products and enrich ourselves - really the owners.

Our island nation gave us a seafaring advantage over other nations.  It enabled us to explore the globe, to engage in piracy under Elizabeth 1 against upstart nations like Spain.

Our sailors, vessels, our experience of piracy and exploring other lands led to claiming them for our monarchs ruling on behalf of the one and only God.

Well, after all, we were the biggest and most powerful Empire God's humanity has ever seen - so far, over 500 years, as now we are part of the American Superpower.

The inhabitants of our newly claimed lands must have blessed their lucky stars at being discovered by our brave sailors and soldiers.

But even greater good fortune was to come their way.  We soon exported the pagan natives to our new colonies in America and the Caribbean.  They worked for free to ensure that profits in abundance came to the British landed gentry.

Somehow, the upper-crust British aristocrats of the 1914 Parliament took us to world war to defend  a Bosnian-Serb nationalist that had assassinated the heir and his wife to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

Only we British public school types could have been so sharp and intelligent to land ourselves on the wrong, guilty side!

And fancy taking us to war over the killing of an up and coming Emperor and his wife.  It took all the skill and nous of our upstanding military and politicians to turn a local crime into a global war.

Well, actually fears and paranoia, alliances and treaties and the dreaded European empire rivalries based on their Bible, as in our Coronation ceremony.

These wars demanded the exploitation of oil and coal.  But, perhaps because of them, we grew rich beyond measure and, on the back of unwaged, captured and treated as less than human, these chattels, these objects always and constantly subject to coercion, force and violence.

Dear Fran and XR advisor Jonathon Porritt

Thanks for your reply that means I don't need to come to the general meeting tomorrow but, certainly, in future.  However, I am still very concerned that XR is failing to argue with the decision makers that it is urgent to take Climate Compliant Actions.

For years, it seems that I have been the only environmentalist who has positively engaged with the decision makers at my own Dudley Council and at the WMCA.  I have got nowhere, I know but, for me it is the only way to get action on their self-declared Climate Emergency.  I am pleading that the active citizens and environmentalists of XR to join me in writing and speaking to the senior directors and council leaders via Customer Services (emails above).

Bob Whitehead and his eleven Action Points from the W Mids Climate Coalition is showing what can be done.

 Action Points - 2024 version.pdf

FoE has written their action plan:

 ClimateActionPlan DudleyD1.pdf

XR is the leading organisation for raising the profile of the Climate Catastrophe that is unfolding around the world.

XR Brum must now, please, join me in engaging with the WMCA Top People to work towards:

AN ETHICAL AND ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY

• STOP further work on Metro and Sprint expansion.
• STOP further work on spending tens of millions for totally unnecessary bus franchising.  Stick with using the money saved to do very many more rewards for car commuters leaving their cars at home by using FREE bus fares.  Mayor Richard Parker started at Christmas with his evening free bus initiative.  He must be encouraged to do very much more with the money saved from stopping what I'm suggesting, above.
• STOP the destruction of former railway lines in both urban and rural locations.  Re-open them for uses from trains to cycling/walking/horse riders.  Not for buildings of all kinds!
• START spending on moving every low income household out of gas and updating their homes to be highly insulated, energy efficient and using solar/batteries in their homes.  My wife and I have converted our home from gas central heating to battery/solar, local heating with infrared space heating and with instant electric hot water heaters, with no hot water storage.
• Many tower cranes in Brum centre reflect construction from demolished buildings = WASTE of resources and unnecessary GHG emissions.
• START building smaller, highly insulated, 100% electric, solar powered/battery homes with passive solar built in.
• START strictly enforcing every speed limit to save oil, rather than stopping oil.
• MOVE AWAY - with rewards and penalties - from very wasteful car commuting to free up road space for essential vehicle users.
   Bus and businesses at the centre of a virtuous circle
  
  

Does any of this get any support from anyone?  PLEASE REPLY!!

Black Country Cycle-Walkway - UK's first active travel route neglected

A long neglected, existing cycle-walkway, never maintained over the southern section in Dudley borough but no longer a mudway, north from Dudley's boundary. The South Staffordshire and Wolverhampton's sections were free of mud, in August 2024, when I last cycled it. Tim Weller

Robert Harris on the origins of the 1914 calamity

Thanks so much for your excellent engagement and with your knowledge deployed to this debate:-

Who is to blame for the 1914 catastrophe that saw the 1917 nonsensical Balfour Declaration and the even greater catastrophe of the 1940s leading to the ongoing massacres in Israel/Palestine, to this very day?

Having only recently discovered the delights of Robert Harris and his most recent entertaining novel, I’m now reliant on him, too, for my history!  

“Whenever a crowd is running one way, it's my instinct to run the other. It's just part of my contrariness, I think.”  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/robert-harris-interview-officer-spy

This has echoes of the London crowds, hardly discouraged by Churchill and his thrill at the prospect of war, being so fervently in favour of war in Europe in the hot summer of 1914.  Indeed, thinking the war would all be over by Christmas so, ‘We’d better get in quick’! Page 70 has the Cabinet horror of Winston craftily suggesting, “how can we, with any honour, remain neutral?”

Harris has Asquith saying “that a general European war would be a calamity.  Our immediate policy is equally obvious: to strain every sinew to prevent it”.  But he never did!  He was too distracted and thinking that: “A large part of his job was arithmetic.” (p 70)   What a wonderful joke.  A truer word is never said but spoken in jest.  This, for the leader of the most powerful empire in the world.  Harris hit it on the head!

Yesterday, I read a New York Times piece on Harris.  He was quoted as saying, “I re-read the Gospels before writing ‘Conclave’.  They are more revolutionary than Marx or Engels.”  EXACTLY!  The Magnificat and the Sermon on the Mount are both far, far too revolutionary for us poor humans to act on.  To try non-violence is utterly outrageous and unacceptable!

to Colin P re Putin

Even Russia is both proud and fearful of its past eg Western attacks by Napoleon and Hitler

Russian Pride in refusing to launch an all out nuclear attack on America when it's subs were being depth charged during the Cuban Missile confrontation, spoken about by both Michael Portillo and Bruce Kent.  Russia was simply following our lead in putting Jupiter missles near the Russian border - in Turkey.

Putrid is incensed by American/Western eastwards expansionism (Corbyn's concern). Our side failed to keep its verbal only undertakings over E Germany not being allowed Into NATO. But difficult to avoid with German unification!  

Our NATO/all things Western/American enthusiasts in Ukraine should have waited for the next General Election to oust their opponent Yanukovych.  Ukraine needed to walk a tightrope in not upsetting their neighbour, Putrid but probably impossible, I know.

These enormous military alliances, like NATO are playing with fire.  We should have disbanded it when the Warsaw Pact was disbanded in the 90s but American/Western power and arrogance meant that was out of the question.  We must always be the Top Dominating Dog, rather than working for equality and balance and peaceful co-existence, as we had with MAD.

DRILL BABY DRILL is also our mantra and addiction

I'm sending this Lunar Society correspondence to you as someone who has written to me about the need to save fossil fuels and, I would add, very fast, too.  Your understandable scepticism of the science of Climate is immaterial when you understand the urgency of opposing The Trump Chump who is desperate to "Drill, baby, drill."  And I'm sure you appreciate that oil is even more important for all the other uses we need it for, than to burn it all up for warmth and mobility.

Thus, my insistence that the destruction of the Roman road network, 1500 years ago; followed by the destruction of much of the waterways and one third of the railway network in more recent centuries, is so indicative of the folly of us humans.  We are in grave danger from this ecocidal behaviour that is rapidly converting carbon safely locked away in the ground for millennia, into CO2 in the atmosphere to change its chemical composition - and to our own detriment, today.

WE ARE ALREADY FERVENT TRUMP FANS WITH OUR OWN, 'Drill, baby, drill', definitely forever addiction:

We have a ready-built, principal mainline railway ...​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​​... , over the 120 Kms available.  We are quickly adding to all our problems when we convert it into a dog walkers' paradise of a cycle-walkway, followed by a Very Light Rail test track, fresh air and, now, the Dudley Tram on 5 Kms.  What we are doing in Dudley is as idiotic as Trump's accurate description of our behaviour:- "Drill, baby, drill."  With our tram extensions, we are already behaving exactly as Trump wants, without all his tariffs to force us!

​Hope you are keeping well.  Please write, as you wish, to customerservices@tfwm.org.uk​and customerservices@wmca.org.uk

This amazing Anglican Bishop is also not a pressure group, BUT ... !

Dear Jo - lovely to hear from you

You wrote to me, twelve days ago, thus:

"we are a lively and well-respected registered education charity (not a pressure group though it must be emphasised) as you know from some of the events you have attended as a guest."

The issues I have raised are of such serious consequence that I really do feel if individuals are unable to speak out, then they are implicated in the scandal I've uncovered, by their guilty silence.  Please take a leaf out of the copy book of this courageous Anglican Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, Jo - if only by acting as a private individual (outside of Lunar), as I do.

Even a well-respected, registered education charity, occasionally may need educating:- viz a ready-built, principal mainline railway, especially useful in bypassing rail congested Brum, is best not converted to cycle-walkway, tramway, test track and fresh air!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwaEuDeqM8

Bishop Mariann speaks directly to Donald Trump to wind up her thoughts.  A courageous woman - in speaking the mind of Christ, in my view and, telling dear Donald some home truths in a gracious way.

With every good wish and thanks for all your wonderful work with the Lunar Society.