Fossil fuels: take today; gone tomorrow!

No one has a clue when oil will plateau and peak or, be too expensive to pump up and refine. For me - and all deep greens - it is obvious that our species is living dangerously and foolishly in expanding its numbers and activities (to 50% more people by the second half of the century!) when we are so utterly dependant on oil and gas. Totally dependant on fossil fuels that are finite and screw up the planet's climates for the worst when they are burnt, as decades of scientific research from around the world has proved and, without exception!

The complacency of Peter Odell, Austin Williams and of all non-greens, is utter folly, utter stupidity with their insistence on ever rising growth in numbers and in our material standard of living when the planet cannot expand in line with our ever greedy and unsustainable demands upon it! 'Live ever more richly to hasten the exhaustion of those finite riches', is their foolish cry! They are so welded to their motors, wedded to growth and their ephemeral riches that they think money and oil grow on trees!

When our wealth is dependant on irreplaceable resources, our supposed wealth creation is, in fact, poverty creation! Take today; gone tomorrow - simple but, unacknowledged by our sincere but misguided growth obsessed non-greens!

'The Forsaken Promise'

Dear friend

I have just read the blurb on my wife's DVD, 'The Forsaken Promise'. I was astonished that you are still living in the 1920s or 1930s or 1940s! Have you not heard that the promise was fulfilled in 1948 when three Israeli terrorist gangs forced the hand of the UK government to give you the land of Palestine as the home for the Jews? Have you not got the wrong end of the stick, here?

The scandal you should be highlighting is this. Such was our government's partiality and incompetence that they gave land to the Jews but made no provision for the Palestinians! This has led to sixty years of refugee camps, expulsions of Palestinians and, daily humiliation and injustices for Palestinians at the hands of our good friends and allies, the Israelis! And, a never ending war of attrition and killings; and, our very own Western, Judaeo-Christian outpost in the heart of the Arab Middle East! Talk about provocation! Even worse, our very well military funded and supported Israelis are the regional super-power, too to keep the Arabs in order and, some Arab nations on side.

In addition, to rub the Arabs noses well and truly in the dirt, our Judaeo-Christian lands of the free and the brave interfere, invade and occupy land that the Arabs see as holy, Muslim lands. To have the infidel in so many lands of the Middle East, for them is, truly a red rag to a bull! Yet, we don't care a toss, do we? We know best and these Arab nations had better accept our Judaeo-Christian democracy and McDonald's - from Afghanistan in the east to Lebanon in the west; from Syria in the north to Egypt in the south!

In addition, the evangelicals see our control, our hegemony in the Middle East as a wonderful opportunity to spread the Gospel of salvation to the misguided adherents of the false religion of Islam! No wonder we are all so hated that they want to kill the lot of us - white faced, democratic, Jewish/Christian people. I am ashamed of my Anglo-American-Israeli axis of so well-meaning but deluded and aggressive people!

With every good wish for a less violent and just and sustainable planet of non-interfering nations.

Marking 60 years over six days!

It was brilliant to have my friends from the Stourbridge Green Network at my home in Halesowen for one of our meetings on the eve of my birthday. We ate and drunk well and had a discussion on the extent to which science should be the final arbiter. Our guest for the night was an academic who soon got stuck into the cakes; next, required a cheese sandwich and who left the hot tap in the bathroom running full on - twice! And, this, at a super-energy conscious, green meeting, too!

Day two was a fabulous meal at Halesowen College at their training restaurant. It was more tipsy than either of us was expecting because it was a Robbie Burns night celebration rather than mine! We were served with an alcoholic punch on arrival; we ordered a glass of wine each, only to find that a second glass was thrown in for free; the haggis had to be toasted with a glass of whisky and, finally, more alcohol in the liquer with the coffee! A genuine looking Scotsman serenaded us, twice with a bagpipe full of Scottish tunes over the course of the evening. Just as well we had walked from home!

Day three demanded a bus ride with Deryn's magnificent birthday cake for the team at work. Such was my consumption of food and alcohol, I needed no breakfast and I certainly wasn't going to take the car! On the bus I was still under the influence and, to such an extent, that to avoid being sick on the bus, I had to get out a mile early and walk the rest of the way! What a wimp I am!

Day four, Friday marked the journey, after work to Esgair Wen, a beautiful white Welsh cottage in the back of beyond in the great expanse of rarely visited hills between Devil's Bridge and Rhayader. Becky gave us a lovely meal in Aberystwyth where we also met Jon, who had come from Manchester by train.

Day five was a wonderful 8 hour walk with Becky, Tim and Jon whose presence made, for me, easily the best present from these three youngsters. They loyally followed me up hill and down - and just about kept up with me! We explored the hills, the wind farm, the forest and the streams and rivers at the back of Esgair Wen; and even jogged along one green track that was downhill on our way to the stunning deep gorge of the Afon Rheidol at Parson's Bridge. The last 1.75 hrs and six miles from Devil's Bridge was a character-building road walk back to the cottage when we found we couldn't get a signal to summon up a car to come and get us! However, it was under the stars - and some clouds.

Linda's fabulous meal was one of my favourites - shepherd's pie - and a once in a blue moon discussion on population, resources and the future of humanity. Phrases used were, 'Necessity is the mother of invention' (when the oil tap runs dry); the young are hypocrites in knowing the facts but behaving like everyone else; and, only the good Lord can sort this one out (my paraphrases!) I was in a minority of precisely one. Let's all hope I am wrong!

Will Hay in 'Oh Mr Porter' rounded off the evening that was not as funny as when I first saw it - and, now I have a box of the films!

Day six photos are on the blog of our sedate walk through Coed Hafod and the final narrow footbridges of the two days; footbridges over roaring rivers and ravines. I counted five notable footbridges yesterday and two more were in this wood. Linda and I had a quick meal at 'The Clive', north of Ludlow, on the way back. Esgair Wen sleeps seven and is of a very high standard. Strongly recommended. All electric and warm and comfortable.

HOPE 08 or an eco-HOPE 08?

I've mentioned to my Linda my concern that as only one church leader - our own at Hasbury Christian Fellowship - saw 'An Inconvenient Truth', was there any scope for this threat to our way of life to be included in this year's programme of or, part of an event in, HOPE 08? It was ironic that the meeting planning HOPE 08 clashed with the showing of the film!

At the heart of Christian teaching is the belief that we have to face up to our inconvenient and uncomfortable realities and sins. Then, and only then can there be repentance, the solution in Christ be presented and hope for the future be an abiding reality.

'An Inconvenient Truth' does present, starkly and frighteningly the overwhelming scientific evidence over these last thirty years of totally unvarying, verifiable and, conclusive evidence from 2,500 climate scientists from over 130 countries. If we all - Christian believers and the rest - can't face up to uncomfortable home truths, there really is no hope for us. Yet, the film goes beyond this and does present the hopeful ways forward that can slow climate change and mitigate its worst effects.

Any chance of the film, or scenes from it, being included in the HOPE 08 programme or, be part of an evening in that programme? Or, if not this particular film, then the DVD from Christian Ecology Link, that is part of its Operation Noah campaign?

We each, individually - and regardless of what everyone else does or does not do - should behave not just ethically but also ecologically, I think, shouldn't we? Salvation and stewardship are core realities in Christian teaching. In other words, it means behaving as though we are saved from sin (ethically) and behaving as stewards of the earth (ecologically); a planet that we have to pass on when we die, still fit to support life. This is not happening at the moment from all the reports I hear when listening to Radio 4 News and the BBC current affairs programmes!

After thirty years of knowing and doing nothing, we are still in denial and still drifting in the good ship 'Oikumene' rudderless and clueless and bereft of Captain Jesus to lead and to guide!

Angelic Brits with our democracy, our success, our peaceful ways!

"90 years after some women in Britain gained the vote - why are there still so few women in Parliament? Westminster lags behind Rwanda, Pakistan and even Afghanistan on that - so what can be done to give women a bigger say in the mother of Parliaments? Debating the issue are the Conservative MP Theresa May and the veteran Labour MP, Gwyneth Dunwoody."

(from the Radio 4 website trailing 'The World this Weekend' on Sunday 10 Feb '08)

And, we reckon that these nations have got a hell of a lot to learn from us, in the West! And, we still cheekily refer to our Parliament as the mother of Parliaments! And, we reckon we are a cut above the rest! And, we behave as though our civilisation, our Christianity and our culture needs exporting to the benighted nations of the world who don't know how to do things properly, like our American/W European nations do!

Afghanistan is definitely a failed nation, we think; while our nation is a successful nation, of course! Invasion, occupation and war must put this failed nation right. Why don't they appreciate us and thank us? We can't help a few men, women and children getting killed by our brave boys in the process. Funny, how we are always on the side of the angels and the others, like the ungrateful Muslim extremist who are fighting the hated occupiers of their countries - us - are on the side of the devils!

I see all this as plain, white, supremacy. Arrogance and intolerance, too. But, then, some see tolerating evil - like the nations in our self-chosen axis of evil - as evil!

Angelic Brits with our democracy, our success, our peaceful ways. The other side is oh, so uncivilised, so full of terrorists and extremists!

Rowan Williams supports Muslims - good on him!

I am delighted with Rowan Williams so courageously supporting Islam in one area. Since 10/7 - the 7 October 2001 - that began the War of Terrorism led by the two Christian leaders of the Free World, Islam has had it in the neck from the Christian West. Christian believers have NOT been noted for their conscientious stand in facing courts martial rather than obeying their leaders calls to go out and fight Muslims to bring Western democracy to the less than 'successful' Middle Eastern Muslim nations!

Dr Williams has always opposed the War of Terrorism and that is in line, I think with the teaching of Christ, if not the teaching and practice of the Lord God in the Old Testament.

"I have to confess I am terribly upset by the frenzied treatment that is currently being dished out to the Archbishop of Canterbury, mostly by people who haven't taken the trouble to understand what he is trying to say. There is something rather sinister about a culture that judges before it seeks to understand." Rev Dr Giles Fraser, St Mary's, Putney, London. Sermon on 10 February 2008.

Necessity is the mother of invention

One member of the group at my 60th birthday weekend (photos opposite), came up with this saying to explain that we have nothing to worry about over our limited reserves of fossil fuels. Science and technology will come to our rescue as oil, gas and coal finally become too expensive to be worth exploiting. There will be hydrogen and nuclear to save us. But, hydrogen has to be made and that uses energy. Nuclear fission uses finite resources, too so cannot be the ultimate solution - unless, after all these decades of trying, nuclear fusion is perfected.

It seems that oil is more important as a chemical building block for our five hundred everyday objects around the home and office and in town and country. It is needed for even carpets! I don't think we should be burning, very wastefully, the oil - or gas, for that matter - to turn into electricity. For every $100 barrel of oil that is turned into electricity, two barrels go up the chimney of the power station! Even oil man and Texan, George W Bush admits that Western societies are addicted to oil but does nothing to even slow the rising and prodigious burning of the stuff. The President might well have said, "We need oil to survive as a nation, just like fish need water for their survival."

Our one off, never to be repeated, geological inheritance that took 300 million years to form is being foolishly blown in the Western and Christian and white man's thoughtless dash to blow the lot in just 300 years! What is the matter with the white races with their many centuries of the Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs at their heart that see them as the peak of creation with the right to exploit this inheritance? This bonanza has gone to our heads and we've been unable to cope with this cornucopia of riches. These nations, alone, are responsible. Now, many other countries are wanting to do the same to even more quickly exhaust the remaining reserves!

The double whammy is that as we all burn the oil and gas and burn down the tropical rain forests, we also screw up, good and proper the climates of the world - to nicely further worsen our long term prospects! And, then, there are going to be 50% more of us on this tiny planet to do yet more of this stupid burning and consuming. The lot of us are the horror species not the human species on this earth, I think!

And, to think that the discovery of first coal (in about 1750) and then oil, followed by gas is an invention! Not even we humans in our arrogance and supreme intelligence can invent something so versatile, invaluable and precious as oil, gas and coal. How can we humans invent more oil when it took Nature 300 million years? Yet, on that evening, I alone was appalled by the complacency that was shown in using that saying to lull everyone into a false sense of security over our prodigality and greed in running through the black gold in the twinkling of an eye - relative to the geological time scale.

Our misguided faith in science and technology to bale us out of our folly and our reliance on the 'solution' of economic expansion from a diminishing capital resource base is like the 'Any Questions' questioner who said, "Our behaviour is like the smoker who keeps smoking confident in the knowledge there will be a cure for cancer - to allow him to keep smoking!"

Cyclists help to keep the monster behind the wheel!

I don't always stop at red lights when on the bike. Years ago I used to get off and push the bike across, as a pedestrian, when it was safe. In more recent years, I feel it is safer and quicker to go across on red without walking with the bike. I also feel it is my reward and my prerogative for sacrificially and nobly leaving the car at home and for taking the bike to free up the road network for motorists who don't have my thoughtfulness, consideration and altruism!

In conversation with friends, colleagues and relatives, I do try and encourage these committed car addicts to, at least, let the cyclists go first, to be especially careful at roundabouts and to keep to this hierarchy:

• Motorists give way to cyclist and walkers.
• Cyclist must give way to walkers.
• Cyclists should be treated more as walkers than motorists. Two use human power and reduce NHS costs; one is taking our dwindling oil reserves and contributing to ever higher oil prices and rising global temperatures. What the carbon polluters take today, none of us will have tomorrow.

Motorists are a major part of the problem; cyclists are a major part of the solution. Cyclists are the true patriots who are preserving the nation's wealth, slowing the liquidising of our assets, and slowing the devastating effects of human induced, climate change. We are the true friend of the motorists. Motorists should be saluting us in grateful acknowledgement of our noble efforts, on their behalf, to keep that little more oil in the ground to enable them to keep driving that little bit longer!

I will forgo the salute if they only give me a wide berth and, like me, try to cut their car use before they are forced to do so by circumstances - later this century, I would think.

Eco-home of curves and tower, cedar and sedum - and indoor well!

Stourbridge Green Network visit to Prickley Top. Very cold and wet Sunday with 8 others. Remarkable tower with fabulous spiral staircase that I have long coveted for my own 'eco-castle'. Actually, Oliver and Sue's is the castle and my abode is the gate house! Grand design of spacious high lounge ceiling taking a 14 feet high panoramic window, overlooked by the master bedroom as part of the balcony. A wood burning stove gives focus in the lounge. Film studio coloured lights must give a warm and delightful effect at night. The lounge and dining hall ceiling slopes down to the kitchen down wooden steps. The kitchen has fetching pink floor, fridge and kitchen table with red seating. The dining hall has stainless steel table on wheels and six transparent plastic seats that are in perfect keeping with the modern design of the whole.

Underfloor Calor gas heating; two solar water heating panels and a sedum (not a grass) roof! The building is encased in cedar that, after two years, has mellowed to the intended grey appearance. The cedar is non maintenance. The spiral staircase comes out to the very private balcony and sun trap.

A further bedroom with en suite is in the main body of the house with two or three further cosy rooms. The office is at the opposite end of the house from the spacious lounge and dining hall. The design of curves in two planes for the lounge and dining hall shows the house up to its very best advantage from the commanding SW aspect. The great lounge window overlooks the beautiful and rolling Worcestershire countryside of orchard, hill and woodland.

With a building like this, compromise is unavoidable. Thus, the solar panels could not be ideally placed to avoid some shadow from the sun at the beginning and end of the day; and, the freezer and condensing boiler are not heating living space.

Yet, easily a home fit for the TV programme, 'Grand Designs' but, Sue and Oliver declined to pursue an initial show of interest by the programme makers.

British Legion respond to poppycock!

Dear Frances

It seems as though you are growing your business on the US/UK's
longstanding predilection for warfare around the globe. Should you not be
a little more ethical and outspoken about our love for bringing freedom and
democracy down the barrel of a gun and, condemn rather than condone our
crimes of aggression?

All your servicemen have been injured or died on foreign battlefields and
certainly not defending our own homeland, since 1945.

Could you not start talking a little about the innocent blood we are
responsible for?

Tim

From: fhoy@britishlegion.org.uk on 03/11/2006 14:02:32

Afternoon Tim,

Thanks for your message. You absolutely have a right to your opinions, and
it seems you have strong opinions around the idea of what the poppy
represents to you. Thanks again for sending this through.

Frances Hoy, Head of PR and Campaigns
Corporate Communications Department
The Royal British Legion
48 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JY
Tel: 020 7973 7385 Mob: 07990 774 390

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Weller [mailto:Tim_Weller@birmingham.gov.uk]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 1:49 PM
To: Frances Hoy
Subject: Is this poppycock?

In my lunch hour:

Summary: The red poppy should remember the much innocent blood shed around
the world by our fallen heroes. And, a most unequal volume of blood it is
too!

But, we overlook that on Remembrance Sunday, because we don't like to be
reminded of all our invasions and bombings of other countries since the
2WW.

For me, the red poppy is a symbol of military might is right, where we are
remembering only our war dead of the 20th century and this. Even worse,
remembering our fallen heroes when, in actual fact, in the 2WW and in
everyone of our wars since, our dead soldiers, airman and sailors had
killed many times more of the other side, including women and children than
those who got killed amongst our armed forces and civilians!

The red poppy should be remembering all our war crimes of aggression and
the shocking bloodshed we have inflicted in fighting for our vital
strategic interests around the world - but it does not!

Palestine/Israel War of the 1940s
Korea and other Far Eastern wars in the 40s and 50s Suez War in 1956 that
killed many times more Egyptians than our dead soldiers Vietnam War (and
attacks on Cambodia and Laos) from 1959 to 1975 - 3 to 4 millions
slaughtered by our side and our WMD according to Encarta. UK continued
arms trading with America during the Vietnam War; we supported our foremost
ally and failed to express any disapproval for the genocide of the
Vietnamese by our side, apart from refusing to send troops to join in the
killing - only because we were fully engaged elsewhere in SE Asia fighting
evil, godless Communism. Actually, of course, killing innocent men, women
and children that we labelled as Communists.

Falklands War in 1982 of mainly Argentineans dead, especially the Belgrano
sailors from our war crime then. Lord Carrington (Foreign Secretary at the
time) said in 2006 on BBC Radio 4: " It was a very chancy business to get
them (the islands) back and now one doesn't realise how chancy it was.
The Chiefs of Staff said that they thought it would be almost impossible to
do."

Gulf War in 1991after we had armed Saddam Hussein for two decades, that
included supplying him with WMD! The highway of death, that was our doing,
showed no mercy on a defeated army of retreating Iraqi conscripts.

War of Terrorism (that includes Israel's attack on Lebanon in July/August
2006) that started on 7 October 2001 has slaughtered hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians, Lebanese, Afghans and Iraqis - and, 3,000 USA, UK and
Israeli soldiers and airmen.

Poppycock?
Is the blood of the poppy only the blood of our fallen heroes or, also, the
vastly greater numbers of fallen victims they were responsible for around the world?
Were these men, women and children of foreign lands, with a different
colour skin from us, asked if they wished to perish to leave their land
enjoying the blessing of western democracy, western values and true
civilisation?

Unusual mix of nuclear and nature in her wildness

Walk with Colin and Ian from CemlynBay, Anglesey. From Bryn Aber Ho to tiny church of St Rhwydrus and we turned back at Hen Borth beach. Very windy; near high tide when we arrived and plenty of white water on the 'flat' rocks. Views of Wylfa Nuclear Power Sta, lagoon, shingle ridge between sea and lagoon, very high brick wall built as a bird refuge round Bryn Aber Ho and massives of sea spray driven inland by the powerful wind with flecks of dirty foam like snow blowing around and on the ground!

Inertia, apathy, in denial ...

... and carry on regardless with your fingers crossed!

"Humankind is having a negative impact on almost every aspect of the earth's environment and is heading towards catastrophe unless urgent action is taken. The Global Environment Outlook has been compiled by hundreds of scientists from around the world. It concludes we are living way beyond our environmental means and if this continues the survival of humankind could be in doubt." Radio 4, 6pm News, 25 October 2007

Has anyone done anything like my quality of life improvements, below to acknowledge the above realities?

1. Driving a smaller car than you could afford or, limiting yourself to one car per couple or family or, making the motor last longer by repair rather than replacing.
2. Reducing your hypermobility when it comes to both work and holidays. My holidays are in a 12 year old car that doubles up as my superb hotel on wheels. When it's my five star hotel it is zero fossil fuel use 'cos the central heating comes from my layers of clothing and down filled sleeping bag!
3. For work, when I thought for so long that, as an essential car user, I could not possibly do without the motor, I have proved that my HPV (human powered vehicle) is just as good, with little or no loss of productivity - and 20p/mile danger money, on official council council business, from all you cycle blind drivers!
4. Banning the tumble drier and using the fresh air or the warmth of the house.
5. Giving up the dish washer for manual washing up - that I have now returned to!
6. Walking or cycling short distances instead of jumping in the carbon polluter.
7. Only boiling the water needed at any one time.
8. Reducing the time when the shower is burning up the energy and the planet's wealth.
9. Spending less - especially at Christmas!
10. Forgoing electric heating, for gas; forget the plane and use the train.
11. Condoms to cut your family size and to cut catastrophic climate change, instead of blaming immigration! 3m growth in UK population with zero migration or, 10m growth with immigration over 25 years, said the statisticians this week. Source: Evan Davis on 'Today', 26 Oct 2007
12. Back all that up by refusing to vote for the political parties that still peddle their live it up now and pay later economics; and, that so love engaging in war fighting on foreign (was Communist but is now Muslim) soil.

Here, we have eleven 'do something' actions; and, one occasional vote (or abstention) to change the politicians and to be part of the solution. Best not to wait for the politicians to act but, to be your own politician and to act yourself!

From alpha to omega for the meaning of life!

Live more simply so that future generations - and poorer nations - can simply live!

Live so that others may live (all religious faiths and political parties could try non-violence as an alternative to their present aggression).

Try leaving the planet in as good a heart as when you were born into it.

Retrench your lifestyle to postpone ecocide!

Economic and population growth means ecological disaster is, in effect, what the UN report, at the top, has stated this week.

We are the problem, not the solution!

THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR - the war that started a century of wars by the West

We were talking about the origins of the World War in two halves at Llanrug. Here is a fuller explanation from the history according to me!

The 20th century was the most violent, destructive and horrific in the history of humanity, it seems to me. But we can't blame the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists or the blacks. It has to be us - the Christians and the whites, in my opinion!

It was British imperialist attitudes that led to us joining the other nations of W Europe in 1914.

There was and still is a culture of warfare, after centuries of attacks and invasions by us on our neighbours in Europe and around the world. There were seven wars with France, alone, in 290 years! The 1914-18 war was simply the greatest, the best, the most violent by that time.

A great world power like ourselves can do nothing but go to war to prove its might to all and sundry.

The Great War was about protecting and extending our Empire from more recent upstarts like Germany.

We Brits love our war fighting or hard power (Tony Blair's phrases). We were tripping over each other to get on out there, thinking it would all be over by Christmas, 1914.

That war and its aftermath led, inevitably to dealing with the unfinished business of 1918/19 that brought such injustice that one of our own European men, Hitler came to dominate Germany and, who clearly, had to be dealt with. But we can't blame the foreigner, or even the blacks or the Arabs for Hitler! Hitler was a manifestation of our own violent past - and present.

Then, the second half of the century saw yet more killings by the mighty victors in 1945 - killings of the inhabitants of SE Asia, directly and of the people of the Middle East with our Western manufactured weapons (and the Russians)! Apparently, the USA has bombed nineteen countries since our '45 victory. Our friend and our ally in the Middle East is Israel whom we arm to the teeth to represent our interests against the Arab nations. With her, we are responsible for the wholesale collateral damage in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the rich nations induced climate change that brings famine and flood, drought and fire.

I think we slid into the war to end all wars¹ for all the reasons previously mentioned plus, it was due to our re-armament to keep up with German re-armament. There was also a mistaken belief, it seems, that we were obliged to keep to our alliance - one is attacked and the others in the alliance come to that nation's help. In fact, according to my brother in law, Tony Verduyn – the barrister and historian - we could have broken away from the alliance, not declare war and could have been neutral. On the other hand, it seems to me, our ships could have been attacked, anyway until we were forced to retaliate and declare war against the country sinking our shipping. This was how the US was brought into both world wars - in 1917 and 1941or 42, I think were the dates.

It was the mindset of the time (1914) that failed to put the brakes on the slide towards war, once more in W Europe. There was, in no way a sufficient abhorrence of war fighting amongst countries like ourselves. We all too readily took to violence, as in past centuries. This was the mindset in 1914, when war was second nature to both politicians and people - as it still seems to be today if and when it's going to be miles from our shores!

Some weeks went past after the shooting in Sarajevo before the nations started the warfare. Hence, the slide, the drift, the inevitability of it all, with none of the UK politicians of 1914 realising the horrific consequences of their far too relaxed stance towards launching yet another war! 100 years on, we are still seeing the consequences of how victors in war fighting, like ourselves, have their aggression reinforced to the detriment of countries who are chosen to be our enemies.

NOTES:

¹ Our so sincere and well intentioned phrase, of course, but in reality, more self-delusion and hypocrisy!

The fool has said in his heart ...

... there is no over-consumption, no over-population and no runaway greenhouse effect! There is widespread complacency, scepticism, even denial over all three!

• The scientific evidence can't possibly be right! We've lived like this for 250 years burning up our finite fossil fuels and, in the process, our quality of life and our length of life have both improved. We have flourished, thanks to fossil fuel exploitation!
• 2,500 scientists from 130 countries on the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change are plain wrong! I know best, so there!
• They can't possibly be right when their reports over the years have consistently maintained their conclusion that the major warming is due to human consumption and, hence, emissions of 200 greenhouse gases.
• It stands to reason, its obvious, that natural variations over the years in the world's climates and much solar activity are to blame for ice shelves disintegrating, glaciers retreating, and the many extreme weather events and disturbed weather patterns.
• What I think is right, so there! The scientists have got it wrong! I know best!

In fact, it is highly unlikely that, in the history of the earth, has it ever before seen such an enormous increase in greenhouse gases over such a very short time, relative to the geological time scale. It seems reasonable, therefore to assume that this will have a negative effect on life support systems. We sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Over habitation makes the planet uninhabitable.

We all live in the rich West so unsustainably; the more extravagantly you live, the more you are taking an unfair share of the earth's resources. Hence, we are all fools - and worse; we are stealing from the rest of the planet's population and our own descendants! Fools and thieves, no less!

Israeli Propaganda!

I don't like this misleading e-mail one little bit. Please do not pass it on!

It was the white, Christian, western Europeans who were responsible for the Jewish holocaust, not the Arab/Muslims. We killed tens, certainly, thousands of Arab/Muslims in the 1991 Gulf War and, again in this latest War of Terrorism since the 7 October 2001 that now amounts to hundreds of thousands of deaths from our (US/UK) unethical and illegal foreign policy.

We used Saddam Hussein as our surrogate to attack Iran from 1980 to 1988 when our Russian and Western weapons slaughtered one million young men in the Iran/Iraq War. Unlike ourselves, the West, Iran has not attacked another country for over 200 years. Yet, here we are having them as our latest enemy that we are planning to attack 'cos we assume that they are building (or just wanting) to build nuclear weapons! No evidence, mind you; just assumptions!

The e-mail is factually wrong. Russia was our ally throughout the 2nd WW. It was not just the "German and Russia (sic) peoples looking the other way!" The former BBC correspondent, Charles Wheeler has shown how Churchill and the War Cabinet were also anti-Semitic and looked the other way. They knew about the industrial killing of the Jews and others in Germany but, very nearly, did absolutely nothing to help. They were not even prepared to bomb the rail lines taking the victims to the concentration camps. We Brits invented the concentration camps, too! This was during the Boer War when over 20,000 women and children died in the appalling conditions that we allowed in those camps.

The Jews in Israel are the most heavily armed and protected nation in the Middle East and the only nation with WMD in the Middle East. Israel is our Western outpost in the Arab/Muslim Middle East. The US gives them $1.5bn of weaponry every year! It is absurd to think that the Jews there are ever going to be wiped off the face of the earth by Muslims. We are wiping the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Palestine and Lebanon off the map! This Jewish propaganda is all cock-eyed.

The Islamic extremists are simply defending their homelands from the United States of Aggression with its best buddy, the UK. We are the occupying force that the extremists/insurgents want shot of - and quite understandably so!

"The conquest of the world and the destruction of anyone who doesn't believe the way they do." For many centuries, the W European powers have been conquering the world and destroying the cultures and religions of the lands they discovered and claimed for their God and King, as well as killing the native populations. The white, Western nations have been supreme on this planet for many centuries. We still hold the upper hand and will never willingly relinquish it, will we? It is plain stupid/mischievous to put it about, as this e-mail does, that we would ever let the Arabs/Muslims conquer Israel or to drive her into the sea, let alone conquer the rest of the world! The rich, Western, white nations are the conquerors of the world and will remain so for as long as we can hang onto our power and wealth.

I think it is more the Chinese than the Arabs that the neo-Cons in the White House are fearful of. The Chinese, they think, might knock them off their powerful, pedagogic pedestal one day! The Muslims/Arabs are under the thumb of imperialistic America and its friends and the Muslim extremists can be imprisoned and tortured and killed, at will, by our forces.

I do commend the writings of blogger, climateextremist.blogspot.com, for sane, common sense on how we can all, as members of the one human family, get on better with each other. Read, 'Harnessing the Power of Belief ', dated October 2006.

Slow Learners - wrong to invade; slow to withdraw!

1. Our presence, I feel, in Iraq and Afghanistan is an irrelevance at best and a provocation at worst.
2. There is not nearly enough troops on the ground to stop the violence that, anyway, we initiated on the 19 March 2003. We were the criminal aggressors.
3. Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan continue our very long history of invading and occupying other countries around the world. The sooner we reverse this unethical foreign policy and get out the better, in my opinion.
4. 16 years of killing Vietnamese and her neighbours failed to prevent our defeat, then. So far, 6 years in Afghanistan and 4.5 years in Iraq has failed to reverse our failures and defeats in those countries.
5. Former BBC war correspondent, Martin Bell on Radio 4's, 'BH' on 2.9.07 said that nothing further can be accomplished in Iraq and we should leave. His exact words, "There is nothing left to do there(in Basra) that can be done ... Blame laying is in order in view of the depth of the catastrophe ... The troops cannot be risked anymore than they are being risked. They are merely an occupation force. They are being shot at. There is nothing left they can do."
   
6. LibDem foreign policy is for a timetable to be published for a phased withdrawal from Iraq. What do they say about Afghanistan?
7. "We could have stayed there for another six months ... and killed a lot of people in the process, but what would that have achieved?" Lt Col Patrick Sanders, Commanding Officer, Basra Palace, quoted in 'The Independent', 5 September 2007

Funky funeral service, plus ...

... karaoke with the lyrics in the hymn book!

Today, excellent funeral/thanksgiving service for Ray Smith (84) with the sound of the Glenn Miller Big Band accompanying the congregation in and out of the cemetery chapel! 'The King of Love' and 'Immortal Invisible God only wise' sung so lustily, too - at least, by me, to the permanent hearing impairment of the poor woman immediately in front of me! Best sing song I've had for a long time! Best Christian funeral I've been to. The best humanist funeral was in 2003 (Andy Verduyn).

10-10-20 Vision for green eyes!

I aim for 10/10/20 - no more than 10 units of elecy/day on average over the year for the four of us adults; at least 10 miles/litre for my diesel car (12 year old Astra); and, absolute max of 20C for the rooms we sit in. We all switch the gas heating off at 20C and, then no more fossil fuels until 16C is reached in our well insulated, middle of a block of four, home!

Can anyone else achieve that?

Yet another view of our 20th century history!

Centuries of violence and war fighting in W Europe led to World War, part one. That led to World War, part two that was unfinished business from the the unjust 1919 settlements. The World War, part two led to 60 years of war fighting by the '45 victors. We had our work cut out ousting left wing governments, presidents (even when elected) and, dictators; Communists we happily killed in genocide proportions for decades; and, now we are flexing our muscles in the Middle East to show the Muslims that the Christian West is in charge of the world and they are not going to get a look in! They accept our way of doing things or else! We decide when their dictators are our friends or our enemies!

We Brits always love our wars away from our shores!

THE WEST IS WEDDED AND WELDED TO WAR - led by the might is right US/UK!

Tony Blair is so well meaning in his warlike actions. He greatly respected Mgt Thatcher's premiership and she was a great fan of Churchill who authorised the overthrow of democratically elected Mosadeq in Iran in 1953 and supported our attack on Egypt in 1956 over the Suez Canal. This tradition of 60 years of warfare, of using the military on foreign soil, greatly helped our Anglo Catholic Tony to join conservative evangelical George W in launching the war of terrorism on 10/7 after the criminal act on 9/11! Bouncy, chuckly, irrepressible Tutu said 9/11 was a criminal act rather than an act of war. However, our Tony being well intentioned, charming, nice and such a superb speech maker is not good enough, me thinks. But it is for the Labour Party who adore him!

Tony is simply the latest in a long line of British PMs who love warfare or, war fighting as he prefers to call it. Churchill, even after our very necessary victory in 1945; Eden, with Egypt; Wilson in supporting the USA over Vietnam but without sending troops; Thatcher with the Falklands War and that unlikely victory for us Brits; Major with the 1991 war to oust Iraq from Kuwait; Blair with his wars until he came badly undone with his last attack on an independent, sovereign nation in March 2003.

Centuries of warfare amongst the W European nations and taking their wars abroad to win their empires around the world, culminated in the not so grand climax of the World War in two halves. That finally silenced their guns at each other and the EU was born with the Treaty of Rome.