DutchEnery

Does anyone ever think t he political world is a bit of a sham ? For instance, the continuing hype about nuclear war. There are many films, mostly American, that portray nuclear war and its aftermath. Then there is the idea that the West, i.e America of course, has to have the most up-to-date weapon systems costing billions of dollars every year. But of what are they, or we, afraid of? There was the Soviet Union, now just Russia, and that nation has been continually projected as the ‘baddie’. Now, there is some truth in that from a political view, but I am beginning to see that it is just a sham! Russia has never been a nation that in any way could have threatened the free Western nations with a military escapade! Western soldiers, even conscripts, do have a exacting training regime plus up-to-date weaponry. The British armed forces, though smallish compared to the million or so Russians, would very quickly decimate the opposing army.  This view is strengthened today by seeing wha...

Sometimes interesting journalism reaches our eyes. One of such did on last Thursday in the Sun newspaper. An article by Piers Morgan. Piers is well-known for having upright strong views. Nothing wrong with that because it engenders a proper debate. Well, at least it should. But unfortunately, here in the UK, debate about gender issues is virtually impossible. Let me put here some of the things Piers said: We have allowed a bunch of purple-headed, ring-nosed, humour-devoid, permanently howling woke fascists to bully and shame us (i.e the rest of us ‘normal’ people) into believing their insane views are the only ones to be tolerated . Oh yes, that’s putting it mildly! If I put down my own views the computer on which you would read it would burst into flames. As Piers said: By kowtowing to this vile, censorious, cancel culture mob, we have created a society fearful to defend even the most basic principles and values of a free and open democracy. Yes, exactly right! We are in danger of...

Sometimes I get a bit flustered, not because I won the Lottery but thinking about the cost of living. We hear day in, day out the news about the cost of heating our homes, that we also must buy new lights of a much lower wattage. And spend thousands on triple glazing. Just for starters. So, yes it would make anyone get flustered! Then we have to listen to the garbled messages from politicians about these issues whilst knowing they have voted themselves some increases in allowances. Free this and free that. Well, OK it is what it is. It might not be quite fair but who wants to disagree? For one I want to disagree because when I was young my parents always said if you want fairness make sure you are a fair person. Do the things that are fair and deal with others in a fair manner. But there is a thought in me about hearing about these very high costs of living, hearing about the difficulties of people to make ends meet and how the social allowances are never enough. But somet...

From time to time, as readers will know as I have mentioned it before, I read some of the Internet chat programs and their many contributions. Most of it is absolute rubbish and more or less based on hearsay and fake news. It is difficult to pick out fake news because it is incessant and as we know what Mr Goebbels said during WW2, tell people often enough your lies, they will begin to believe them. So, it was interesting to read an article by a Canadian lady of possible Russian descent, Ms Nickell. This was on a Quora platform discussing facts – “Truth about Russia” with as subheading- “We challenge Kremlin’s propaganda”. The article was basically about dictators and why people followed them. Not just dictators like Hitler or Stalin but also people like business supremos. In fact anyone who aspired to lead an organisation, even a charity. The question asked was - how and what was necessary to attain the top of the pile? She wrote – “Tyrants or would-be dictators manipulate and intimid...

It was gratifying to learn as reported in WalesOnline that the leader of the RhonddaCyno n Taf Council, Mr Morgan has an opinion on global warming. This because of the enormous amount of rain that has fallen on the council area over the past few days. He sort of said this was terrible and we should watch out for floods and the like. No, really? It defies common sense that a councillor cannot see the link between development and the weather warmin g and why that should be . RhonddaCynonTaf has not so long ago issued a LDP (Local Development Plan) for my area. Whilst the area due to haphazard development on steep hillsides already suffers run-off problems, this plan would increase the problem quite significantly. So here we have a council leader who simply does not seem to know what he is talking about. Or if he does know, he is simply ‘ slotting in’ with the fears of the general population. Sort of ‘I know of your problems, I commiserate’. The normal gobblydigook. What the good cou...

Sometimes you glean some interesting facts from that scourge of today, called the Internet. Like most things, the Internet has a good side but also a bad side. It goes along with what people want. Anyway, I read something interesting about fascist teaching. Mussolini, the dictator of Italy from the Twenties to WW2, according to him the foundation of fascist ideology is two things: 1. People are intelligent individually, but are hypnotized in a group. 2. To manipulate a group of people, don’t tell them the truth, tell them what they want to hear. This is rather interesting as I have thought very similar things, especially about point 1. I am a member of a political party and when I compare what I feel to what I hear, I must admit from time to time you will note a change of ideas. Take Independence. Independence of Wales. I just felt for a long time that Wales could not be independent, since there were no industries of note except coal and iron. Coal mines galore including wh...

Today’s Prime Minister’s Question Time once and for all showed that MPs have no idea what causes the NHS problems. According to many Conservatives there are no problems except the waiting lists and that is because of the Pandemic of two years ago. According to Labour MPs it is just the government’s inability to stump up more cash and satisfy the wage demands of the public workforce. The government’s or rather the Prime Minister, keeps mentioning 5,000 new nurses and loads more doctors. Yet it seems not to make any difference. Perhaps the PM ought to also look at how many nurses and doctors have left the NHS? I am certain that the number is quite high. The other thing never highlighted is the health situation of the population at large. It is quite obvious to anyone just walking the street that far too many are obese and way out of condition. This is also shown by the numbers now contracting Type 2 diabetes and other conditions such as cancers, heart disease and strokes. These are serio...

So, I just learned BT (British Telephone) is to ‘switch off’ its analogue landlines. All copper cables will be ‘ditched’ and replaced with digital signals. This obviously means everyone will need an Internet connection. Whilst I believe this is good, it does seem a bit like a money-making exercise. What will ISPs (Internet Service Providers) do because the income from landlines will disa p pear? Broadband deals will abound I think, either that or with mobile phones. It is a bit fuzzy at the moment but there are only two years to do some hard thinking and work so that what is called VoiP will work for everyone inclusive for old-age pensioners. In my area we still don’t have the fibre cables laid. The best you can get is FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) meaning you still have copper cables linking your system to the telephone exchange or nearest street cabinet , after which fibre cables are used. We could have satellite connection but that is pretty expensive and not very fast either. The ...

First of all, please accept my best wishes for a healthy and prosperous New Year! For myself it has started well. After waiting two years for a few moles to be removed from my back, it was done yesterday! Very professionally, the female surgeon also was quite the good looker and a pleasure to have her hands all over my back. Well, OK the hands had a scalpel in them but hey, we cannot have everything, can we? Even so, brilliant job and thank you NHS. But let me also put a few observations down. I do not think there is anything wrong with the NHS itself! For those readers abroad, by NHS I mean the National Health Service, or for me in Wales, the GIG (( Gwasanaeth Iechyd Gwladol) literally Service Health National). The Welsh put words in a strict order – verb, subject, object. The NHS as a body is under pressure, seemingly from mis-management by the administration (non-medical staff) and an ageing, and chronically unhealthy population. The general belief of this population, is that medica...

Very often now we hear about the state of the planet, like global warming, the melting icecaps and that’s just for starters. I suppose there is no point in denying that these things happen and are accelerating as well. So, our existence as humans will be in ever increasing danger. To be frank, as a species we might have come to the end of our tenure. I have been a fan of nature programs on TV, series like hosted by Steve Backshall, naturist and explorer. The last issue I watched was a ‘trip’ into the Suriname forest on an unexplored river. The other program was about a exploration of a fjord in the Arctic. All very interesting and informative. But permit me to make one observation - what about the pressures put upon the environment by such programs? It is not just Steve, because with him are a host of others. The accompanying film directors, cameramen, helicopters to place the crew where they started the exploration and the pick-up. The pressures on the environment itself, the campsit...