As there is a history of Type 2 Diabetes in my family, my HbA1c blood glucose level is annually tested and i have been told that there is a very good chance it will be coming my way with each passing birthday especially as my mother has been diabetic since her 50's and my brother has been on the drug Metformin for the past few years.
Knowing what could be in my very near future i have been reading the International Diabetes Federations (IDF) report and it is quite stunning that an estimated 415 million people are living with diabetes in the world, which is estimated to be 1 in 11 of the world’s adult population and expected to continue rising dramatically.
In America alone, more people die from diabetes every year than from AIDS and breast cancer combined and in the UK since 1996, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has risen from 1.4 million to 3.5 million rising to over 4 million when you count the many people likely to be living with undiagnosed diabetes which is 6% of the UK population or 1 in every 16 people having diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes.
The IDF currently states that the top countries with the highest amount of people with diabetes are China with 109 million, India who have 69 million diabetics, USA 29 million, Brazil 14 million and Russia 12 million and that diabetes is currently the fifth most common reason for death in the world.
In the UK it is currently estimated that around 10% of the NHS yearly budget is contributed to the treatment of diabetes which equates to £9 billion a year or £173 million a week.
As the secret to keeping diabetes at bay as long as possible is a low carb diet and as my HbA1C is alarmingly creeping a little higher each year as i age and is now at the stage where the doctor did the sucking his teeth thing and said i need to be checked more regularly, it is a pretty strong incentive to give my increasingly dicky liver, and the over-stretched NHS, a helping hand and cut back on a few things.
Saturday, 16 November 2019
America's Criminal Founding Fathers
We often have a little joke with our Australian pals that their country was founded by a bunch of criminals, Britain sending over 165,000 of our worst to the land down under between 1788 and 1868 but it wasn't only Australia who were the recipient of our murders, America took shiploads also.
Over 55,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America between 1718 and 1775, before we started sending them to Australia when the yanks got up-tight about Britain ruling over them.
Where Australians have reluctantly accepted their original less than law abiding population, most American have no idea that their country’s founding included a massive prison population which would eventually become known as the United States.
Thomas Jefferson tried to downplay the history of penal transportation to America, writing in 1786,
that even if British criminals had been sent, they 'were not sufficient in number' and were 'principally men eaten up with disease, they married seldom and propagated little'.
Some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice with Virginia and Pennsylvania so fed up with the practice of Britain dumping tens of thousands of it's undesirables on it that they both passed laws prohibiting it which the British Government ignored and continued to send over anyway.
Americans have a rather romantic ideas about how their country was founded, the Pilgrim Fathers and all that but along with the religious folk who left England due to it not being holy enough for them, its origins also has a good dash of the deplorables we didn't want here so if you live in Virginia or Pennsylvania, you may want to go check your family tree circa mid 18th Century.
Explains Wall Street though i guess.
Over 55,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America between 1718 and 1775, before we started sending them to Australia when the yanks got up-tight about Britain ruling over them.
Where Australians have reluctantly accepted their original less than law abiding population, most American have no idea that their country’s founding included a massive prison population which would eventually become known as the United States.
Thomas Jefferson tried to downplay the history of penal transportation to America, writing in 1786,
that even if British criminals had been sent, they 'were not sufficient in number' and were 'principally men eaten up with disease, they married seldom and propagated little'.
Some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice with Virginia and Pennsylvania so fed up with the practice of Britain dumping tens of thousands of it's undesirables on it that they both passed laws prohibiting it which the British Government ignored and continued to send over anyway.
Americans have a rather romantic ideas about how their country was founded, the Pilgrim Fathers and all that but along with the religious folk who left England due to it not being holy enough for them, its origins also has a good dash of the deplorables we didn't want here so if you live in Virginia or Pennsylvania, you may want to go check your family tree circa mid 18th Century.
Explains Wall Street though i guess.
The Prince Andrew Interview
Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut and just let people think you are are a sleazy, slimeball rather than open your mouth and confirm it but obviously whoever is advising Prince Andrew didn't think so which is why he has given an interview discussing his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
In the BBC interview, he has given his explanation of his continued friendship with a convicted sex offender even after he was released from prison for sexual offences with a minor and it has already been described as a 'catastrophic error'.
Virginia Roberts alleges when she was 17, she was 'coerced into having sex with the Prince' but he shrugs and states that he 'had no recollection of meeting her' despite the now famous photograph of him standing in a hotel room with his arm around her.
When asked why he decided to stay at the house of a convicted sex offender, Prince Andrew said that: 'It was a convenient place to stay' and he continued the friendship as it felt 'the honourable and right thing to do'.
Roberts has said that while the prince denies the claims, 'he knows the truth and I know the truth' and obviously the Royals were hoping that by giving a full interview regarding the situation he finds himself in it would draw a line under the scandal, but it is having the opposite effect and just leading to more uncomfortable questions for the Prince.
In the BBC interview, he has given his explanation of his continued friendship with a convicted sex offender even after he was released from prison for sexual offences with a minor and it has already been described as a 'catastrophic error'.
Virginia Roberts alleges when she was 17, she was 'coerced into having sex with the Prince' but he shrugs and states that he 'had no recollection of meeting her' despite the now famous photograph of him standing in a hotel room with his arm around her.
When asked why he decided to stay at the house of a convicted sex offender, Prince Andrew said that: 'It was a convenient place to stay' and he continued the friendship as it felt 'the honourable and right thing to do'.
Roberts has said that while the prince denies the claims, 'he knows the truth and I know the truth' and obviously the Royals were hoping that by giving a full interview regarding the situation he finds himself in it would draw a line under the scandal, but it is having the opposite effect and just leading to more uncomfortable questions for the Prince.
Another Reason Not To Vote Conservative
Hitler, Mussolini, George W Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump, we all know where right wing Governments lead us and it isn't pretty and this current manifestation of the Conservative Party have been the most right wing in my lifetime so it isn't surprising that extreme right wingers such as Nigel Farage and now Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson are throwing their support behind Boris Johnson.
In any age, getting the thumbs up from the likes of UKIP and now the Brexit Party Farage and English Defence League founder Yaxley-Lennon should be an alarm bell that you have gone catastrophically wrong somewhere but even after swathes of more moderate Conservatives left the party citing the rise of the more extreme factions in their numbers, the Conservatives seem unconcerned.
His colleagues are calling on Boris Johnson to reject the endorsement of both the far-right activists but the Prime Minister has refused to comment so if anyone is still wondering whether to vote Tory, here is everything you need to know about the modern Conservative party and the nasty, racist, fascists that their views are closely aligned with.
In any age, getting the thumbs up from the likes of UKIP and now the Brexit Party Farage and English Defence League founder Yaxley-Lennon should be an alarm bell that you have gone catastrophically wrong somewhere but even after swathes of more moderate Conservatives left the party citing the rise of the more extreme factions in their numbers, the Conservatives seem unconcerned.
His colleagues are calling on Boris Johnson to reject the endorsement of both the far-right activists but the Prime Minister has refused to comment so if anyone is still wondering whether to vote Tory, here is everything you need to know about the modern Conservative party and the nasty, racist, fascists that their views are closely aligned with.
Friday, 15 November 2019
America's Billionaires Getting Worried
Somehow getting myself on Bernie Sanders email list, i have been privy to what is going on over there in the United States in the build up to the Election in 2020 and what is going on is that the billionaires and super-rich are panicking that he and his left wing ilk are gunning for their bank accounts.
Citi, an Investment Banking Company, have issued a letter to their more wealthy customers warning that there may be a 'a war on wealth' coming and the rich are being seen as 'a cash cow for re-distributional policies' after the idea of a wealth tax was floated by Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to pay for a much-needed reinforcement of the country’s social safety net.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, so explains Sanders, is so opposed to the idea of wealth taxes and increased regulation that he jumped into the presidential race last month and there was a video of a hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman sniffling at the 'the vilification of billionaires which makes no sense to me' and explaining that 'billionaires have made the world a better place'.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein suggested taking aim at billionaires was 'discrimination' and several big Democrat donors are threatening to remove their support if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren gain the nomination.
Warren said recently that she didn't think that she didn't think billionaires should exist but as they do it shows that the trickle down and the overwhelming debts of the common people is actually more proof of a trickle up.
America's billionaires then are not feeling the love of the people and that is only a good thing because they shouldn't.
Citi, an Investment Banking Company, have issued a letter to their more wealthy customers warning that there may be a 'a war on wealth' coming and the rich are being seen as 'a cash cow for re-distributional policies' after the idea of a wealth tax was floated by Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to pay for a much-needed reinforcement of the country’s social safety net.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, so explains Sanders, is so opposed to the idea of wealth taxes and increased regulation that he jumped into the presidential race last month and there was a video of a hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman sniffling at the 'the vilification of billionaires which makes no sense to me' and explaining that 'billionaires have made the world a better place'.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein suggested taking aim at billionaires was 'discrimination' and several big Democrat donors are threatening to remove their support if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren gain the nomination.
Warren said recently that she didn't think that she didn't think billionaires should exist but as they do it shows that the trickle down and the overwhelming debts of the common people is actually more proof of a trickle up.
America's billionaires then are not feeling the love of the people and that is only a good thing because they shouldn't.
Vaping Differences In Europe And US
Interesting developments i the World of Vaping with America taking a very different view to that of the Europeans.
While America announced a nationwide ban on flavoured vaping products which has led to its largest manufacturer, Juul Laboratories, laying off 650 workers, European public health bodies have continued with it's existing view that despite 39 deaths in the USA from vaping, it is a safer alternative to smoking tobacco.
The US ruling came after the government's health protection agency suggested there the deaths were due to lung injury among people who have vaped although almost all of the vapers used an oil called Vitamin E acetate which contains THC.
Public Health England have reissued guidance that states using e-cigarettes is at least 95% safer than smoking traditional tobacco products and point to the tighter regulation of vaping equipment in Europe than in the US including the ban on the use of THC and Vitamin E acetate oil in e-cigarettes which it argues, means that e-cigarettes in Europe are probably safer than their American counterparts.
What the ban does mean is that fewer Americans will switch from tobacco which will lead to more smoking and many thousands more cigarette related deaths which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently stands at 480,000 per year and 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.
Ironic then that the ban which is aimed to protect after 39 deaths, could lead to a massive increase in deaths overall and that 39 deaths led quickly to a ban of flavoured nicotine but tens of thousands of gun deaths each year for decades... and nothing.
While America announced a nationwide ban on flavoured vaping products which has led to its largest manufacturer, Juul Laboratories, laying off 650 workers, European public health bodies have continued with it's existing view that despite 39 deaths in the USA from vaping, it is a safer alternative to smoking tobacco.
The US ruling came after the government's health protection agency suggested there the deaths were due to lung injury among people who have vaped although almost all of the vapers used an oil called Vitamin E acetate which contains THC.
Public Health England have reissued guidance that states using e-cigarettes is at least 95% safer than smoking traditional tobacco products and point to the tighter regulation of vaping equipment in Europe than in the US including the ban on the use of THC and Vitamin E acetate oil in e-cigarettes which it argues, means that e-cigarettes in Europe are probably safer than their American counterparts.
What the ban does mean is that fewer Americans will switch from tobacco which will lead to more smoking and many thousands more cigarette related deaths which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently stands at 480,000 per year and 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.
Ironic then that the ban which is aimed to protect after 39 deaths, could lead to a massive increase in deaths overall and that 39 deaths led quickly to a ban of flavoured nicotine but tens of thousands of gun deaths each year for decades... and nothing.
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
Not Liking The Party Arrangements
The Lib Dems, Greens and few of the other minor parties supporting Remain have come to an arrangement to step down and not put forward candidates in some cities to prevent the remain vote being split.
The Brexit Party and Conservatives have come to the same arrangement to prevent the Leave Vote being split and although the verdict is split on just how effective these plans will be, i don't like them at all.
In my mind, all parties should put forward a candidate and the public pick the one they think will be most effective, to try and 'force' people into voting for someone they wouldn't have done otherwise stinks to me.
As a remainer i would love to see the Lib Dems triumph and bring a screeching halt to the Brexit debacle but if they do it will be a hollow victory as they would have won by gaining the votes that would have rightly gone to other parties.
Brexit is also only one part of a myriad of considerations, the next Government will be there for five years so if the Conservatives win, they will force through Brexit but then they will also continue the mind-numbingly awful right-wing policies which have so blighted the nation for the past decade, the austerity, the cuts, the privatisation, the running down of the NHS and the poisonous immigration policies.
The public have to be a bit more cleverer than just voting on one policy, whichever way you lean, but by restricting the parties we can vote for to push us towards one in particular is not very democratic and very narrow minded.
The Brexit Party and Conservatives have come to the same arrangement to prevent the Leave Vote being split and although the verdict is split on just how effective these plans will be, i don't like them at all.
In my mind, all parties should put forward a candidate and the public pick the one they think will be most effective, to try and 'force' people into voting for someone they wouldn't have done otherwise stinks to me.
As a remainer i would love to see the Lib Dems triumph and bring a screeching halt to the Brexit debacle but if they do it will be a hollow victory as they would have won by gaining the votes that would have rightly gone to other parties.
Brexit is also only one part of a myriad of considerations, the next Government will be there for five years so if the Conservatives win, they will force through Brexit but then they will also continue the mind-numbingly awful right-wing policies which have so blighted the nation for the past decade, the austerity, the cuts, the privatisation, the running down of the NHS and the poisonous immigration policies.
The public have to be a bit more cleverer than just voting on one policy, whichever way you lean, but by restricting the parties we can vote for to push us towards one in particular is not very democratic and very narrow minded.
What Is Remembrance Sunday For?
My grandad and his friends never spoke about their time in World War 2 but him and many others did return converted pacifists and they refused to attend the remembrance days, saying why would they want to remember such horror.
I do understand Remembrance Sunday, i always saw it as a chilling reminder of what cruelty man is capable of and a powerful reminder of later generations of what they went through and for it to never happen again.
I refuse to watch War Films or do anything to support the military and even actively try to turn young men and women against enlisting, a counterweight against the people using war as a patriotic rallying cry to sacrifice for crown and country, to wear a poppy and even romanticise war in the many war films and TV series.
Whereas Remembrance Day was primarily to remember the veterens of the first and second World Wars, it has also become a remembrance of the awful recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars which were started for reasons other than those stated against the will of the United Nations and the vast majority of the World.
As the last of the veterans from the two great wars leave us, maybe it is time to stop the remembering because it no longer seems to be about the muck and bullets, the families torn apart and the broken young minds and bodies of our grandfathers, forever haunted by what they saw and more about wallowing in old triumphs.
The warnings have not been heeded, wars continue apace and the awful death tolls go on increasing and if the people involved refused to remember it, what exactly is the point?
I do understand Remembrance Sunday, i always saw it as a chilling reminder of what cruelty man is capable of and a powerful reminder of later generations of what they went through and for it to never happen again.
I refuse to watch War Films or do anything to support the military and even actively try to turn young men and women against enlisting, a counterweight against the people using war as a patriotic rallying cry to sacrifice for crown and country, to wear a poppy and even romanticise war in the many war films and TV series.
Whereas Remembrance Day was primarily to remember the veterens of the first and second World Wars, it has also become a remembrance of the awful recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars which were started for reasons other than those stated against the will of the United Nations and the vast majority of the World.
As the last of the veterans from the two great wars leave us, maybe it is time to stop the remembering because it no longer seems to be about the muck and bullets, the families torn apart and the broken young minds and bodies of our grandfathers, forever haunted by what they saw and more about wallowing in old triumphs.
The warnings have not been heeded, wars continue apace and the awful death tolls go on increasing and if the people involved refused to remember it, what exactly is the point?
War...What Is It Good For?
'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children' - Dwight D. Eisenhower
I don't know who wrote the definition of what exactly a war is but apparently it is an active conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
In the Book 'What Every Person Should Know About War', the author Chris Hedges has come up with some amazing statistics which should shame us all, such as of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or 8% of recorded human history.
At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century and estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from half a million to 1 billion.
The combined armed forces of the world includes 21.3 million people with China the largest with 2.4 million, the America with 1.4 million, India 1.3 million, North Korea 1 million, and Russia 900,000.
Of the 21.3 million military personnel, 97% are male.
The Worldwide military spending is estimated to have reached $1.7 trillion in 2017, the top five biggest spenders were the United States $610 billion, China $228 billion, Russia $69.4 billion, Saudi Arabia $67.6 billion and India $66.3 billion, which accounted for 60% of global military spending.
Since the second World War, America has spent $16.23 trillion on the military and its supporting manufacturing base employs 3.5% of the U.S. labour force. In the same period America has spent $1.70 trillion on it's nations health care.
Between 1900 and 1990, 43 million soldiers died in wars but during the same period, 62 million civilians were killed and in the wars of the 1990s, civilian deaths constituted between 75% and 90% of all war deaths with more than 2 million children killed.
I don't know who wrote the definition of what exactly a war is but apparently it is an active conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
In the Book 'What Every Person Should Know About War', the author Chris Hedges has come up with some amazing statistics which should shame us all, such as of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or 8% of recorded human history.
At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century and estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from half a million to 1 billion.
The combined armed forces of the world includes 21.3 million people with China the largest with 2.4 million, the America with 1.4 million, India 1.3 million, North Korea 1 million, and Russia 900,000.
Of the 21.3 million military personnel, 97% are male.
The Worldwide military spending is estimated to have reached $1.7 trillion in 2017, the top five biggest spenders were the United States $610 billion, China $228 billion, Russia $69.4 billion, Saudi Arabia $67.6 billion and India $66.3 billion, which accounted for 60% of global military spending.
Since the second World War, America has spent $16.23 trillion on the military and its supporting manufacturing base employs 3.5% of the U.S. labour force. In the same period America has spent $1.70 trillion on it's nations health care.
Between 1900 and 1990, 43 million soldiers died in wars but during the same period, 62 million civilians were killed and in the wars of the 1990s, civilian deaths constituted between 75% and 90% of all war deaths with more than 2 million children killed.
The Moronic 2%
It may seem strange that 98% of the World Climate scientists insist that Climate Change is a growing and present danger but equal weight is given to the 2% who disagree, mostly by the people who have an interest in the denial of Climate Change and those useful idiots without the relevant amount of braincells to see what their own eyes are telling them.
Since i first heard about the oncoming disaster back in the 80s, the science has become vastly clearer and the warnings more stark as this decade is the first where we truly have seen the effects, scarily just the introduction with far worse still to come which our children and their children can thank us for later.
Climate change is a slow process, day after day, the ice melts a fraction more, the sea inches closer to shore and the carbon count slowly ticks upward but the story always remains much the same.
Facts and evidence based arguments have never been the strong point of deniers and it wasn't until the mid-2000's that the United Nations started to come together top demand action with only a few dissenters.
Climate protest is now a mass movement, with hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets demanding action and schoolchildren shaming their elders by going on strike.
The IPCC have given us just 12 years to reverse direction from a looming catastrophe but the climate deniers have taken a sudden lurch from denying it was ever happening to now saying it is too late do anything about it so why bother.
As i said, not the sharpest knives in the drawer as the forests burn, cities flood and draughts kill but finally people power is taking control and forcing Governments to take action.
It may be too late, all the signs are that we will miss that 12 year deadline and be looking at a devastating 3C or even cataclysmic 4c rise and future generations will ask why we never did anything when we had the chance and the fingers will be pointed at the morons in my generation and the tiny 2% of scientists who denied it was even happening.
Since i first heard about the oncoming disaster back in the 80s, the science has become vastly clearer and the warnings more stark as this decade is the first where we truly have seen the effects, scarily just the introduction with far worse still to come which our children and their children can thank us for later.
Climate change is a slow process, day after day, the ice melts a fraction more, the sea inches closer to shore and the carbon count slowly ticks upward but the story always remains much the same.
Facts and evidence based arguments have never been the strong point of deniers and it wasn't until the mid-2000's that the United Nations started to come together top demand action with only a few dissenters.
Climate protest is now a mass movement, with hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets demanding action and schoolchildren shaming their elders by going on strike.
The IPCC have given us just 12 years to reverse direction from a looming catastrophe but the climate deniers have taken a sudden lurch from denying it was ever happening to now saying it is too late do anything about it so why bother.
As i said, not the sharpest knives in the drawer as the forests burn, cities flood and draughts kill but finally people power is taking control and forcing Governments to take action.
It may be too late, all the signs are that we will miss that 12 year deadline and be looking at a devastating 3C or even cataclysmic 4c rise and future generations will ask why we never did anything when we had the chance and the fingers will be pointed at the morons in my generation and the tiny 2% of scientists who denied it was even happening.
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