MH17 Malayasia Flight Goes Down in Ukraine

Accident.
Innocent bystander.
Deliberate.
False Flag.

All of the above may be true or there may be other options to consider. Either way, someone or some group is responsible.

This has to be the clearest example of recent years on why independent news is vital.

My wife is Russian and regularly watches Russian news, but (as far as I am aware) Putin controls a lot of the news media outlets and therefore is taking Russia's innocent stance in this issue of blame.

I on the otherhand get my news sources from various outlets before making my own decisions. I like to think my opinions are not biased but collected and formed from various sources before taking a stance on the truth.

10 Weeks to Go Before Facebook is Gone from my Life

More of a mental reminder than anything else, but today marks the 10 week countdown to when I close my Facebook account for good.

Ive saved all the photo graphs and posts I want. Shortly I will be sending a post which requests people contact mobile and email addresses so those who I want to stay in touch with, and who want to stay in touch with me can.

Who the What Are How?

Phones 4U used to send me emails on a weekly basis advertising their new phone deals. Which has to be mostly a pointless endeavour as they only every come once I have already renewed my contract...

They recently sent me this as part of their O2 promotion, which is sad as Im with Orange/EE.
Doubly sad is the fact that I have no idea who these two men are as neither of them is mentioned in any of their promotional literature...

World Cup 2014

Congratulations are in order for England who've lost two of their opening two games but can still qualify!

Shower Thoughts from Reddit

I make no apologies for stealing this from Reddit.

Scooby-Doo taught us that the real monsters always turn out to be humans.

And I'm looking at you religion for creating imaginary demons to frightened of, when its the priests and vicars we need fear the most.

Twitter Begging Me to Follow Anyone

I've continued to shave friends, likes and follows on Facebook and have now done the same with Twitter. When I logged in this morning, I was met with a list of half a dozen people I should follow. I cant remove this list until I increase my Twitter follows. It would appear that Twitter needs a minimum number of people for you to follow for it to feel safe you will spread the word.

As I mentioned previously, I only follow 3 friends and my local community Twitter feed which reposts local messages of humour and importance.

Twitter Slimmed and Facebook Reduced

Ive eliminate 90% of my Twitter feeds keeping only those few friends I want and contact with my local council/community.

In other words on Twitter I'm connecting with those around me so I can enact change.

And Facebook just continues to shrink to nothing. I had heard about a variant of FB which is designed just for couples or families....but why share that on a cloud database?

The Great Unfollowing Begins

Just a quick message to say that this is day 2 of my unfollowing efforts on Facebook. I'm seeing less updates and less newfeeds and becoming less dependent on FB. I have already extended this to Twitter.

Rik Mayall

Im sincerely sad that Rik Mayall has finally passed away.  After his cona after a quad bike accident I genuinely did not expect him to survive. But somehow he did survive even though everyone around him expected the worst. So I've viewed every day he's been alive as a bonus. So while I'm sad I'm not as devastated as much as I should be.

I first encountered his comedy whilst watching Saturday Night Live (the UK version) and his strange character Kevin Turvey. But it was characters such as Rik from The Young Ones and finally Bottom that everyone loved him for.

I still admire his character of Colin Grigson, the bass player for spoof band Bad News. He won't be forgotten as Lord Flasheart.

Opening Statement

This is my blog that I will be using to voice my concerns about all sorts of subjects and topics.
I am an atheist, meaning I do not have a faith or belief that a god or gods exist, either now or at any time in the past. I have 3 daughters all of whom I am bringing up to be both skeptical and curious, to find out the answers for themselves rather than being spoonfed the thoughts of the day.

There are a lot of things wrong in the world, and this is where I hope to give voice to them.

I have often thought about abandoning Facebook, and I have made the decision that no matter how useful it claims to be, there are far better forms of communication than through a corporate noticeboard that masquerades as a social website. The practicality of Facebook is that it is as far from a social site as one could imagine. I had thought about several ways FB could be improved, maybe you receive more updates from people local to you rather than halfway across the world. Or maybe it refused to give you news on a distant relative or friend until you had made physical contact with them. A phone call or a meeting.

Twitter is no different, and I run hot and cold on that site as well, so as my countdown to Facebook closure gets closer to 31/08/2014, I am also contemplating Twitter cancellation as well.

There are so many things I want to write about and Facebook both presents me with a forum to say these things, but also makes my deepest fears and questions public for friends and family to see.

A semi-anonymous blog here gives me the chance to explore ideas further. I thank you for reading this.