sjdean on the blog

I've talking to a lot of people recently about taking responsibility. For all my life, I've done nothing but take responsibility where I needed to it. If I did something wrong, said something wrong, acted badly, it was my fault. I'm the one who did it. No one drove me to it. I think these people talk more about taking responsibility for your life, that when faced with toxic situations, instead of wallowing in abusive relationships, you're the only one who can do anything about it. You're the one who has to leave. You're the one who has to find the confidence and ego. It has a hard thing to do when you're surrounded by people telling you how crap you are. It would be nice to have grown up in a supportive environment and being given the encouragement to break free. What strikes me about people who talk about responsibility, is their total hypocrisy. They caused the problem and are now expected me to take responsibility for the damage that they've caused. I

One of the mantras in the Church, is to stop, and ask, What Would Jesus Do. The Death of George Floyd was tragic and a total abuse of police power. It needs a full investigation and an independent and multifaceted enquiry that will prevent things like this happening again. The officer has been arrested and charged and we hope that he has been charged with the right crime. As far as I am concerned Floyd was in the custody of the officer, the officer and his companions had a duty of care towards Floyd. Instead they treated him like a piece of meat. The after effects however has seen people rioting and looting, I have seen women punched, assaulted and abused by dangerous thugs - black and white. The justification for this, is often "Black Lives Matter". They do. But so does every life. My life matters. Your life matters. The BLM crowd will say that responding with "All Lives Matter" is to shift focus away from BLM. They come out with such statements as would yo

The world seems to have gone insane. We have the CoronaVirus, Covid-19 and the world is in total panic and meltdown the likes of which has never been seen. The scale of the panic, does not seem to be justified based on the numbers alone. There's something more we're not being told, there's something being engineered here, and Im not sure what. Let's clear up any misapprehension however. It is serious. It is a virus. It kills. However the problem is, is that we have to look at it in context. Seasonal Flu, every year, causes between 291,000 to 646,000 deaths world wide. So far, we're upto 8,000 deaths world wide., or approximately 2%. We have completely destroyed the world economy for something that has so far, caused 2% of the deaths that a good year of Flu causes. We can argue that the extraordinary measures being taken is reducing the number of cases and the number of deaths. That may well be. However I would still like to see some extrapolated data to see

The UK Government has decided to ban the sale of new diesel, petrol and even hybrid vehicles from 2035. But in our attempt to show off our green credentials, will it really solve anything? The technology and practicality in electric cars are still too far behind what they should be, that Im not sure we should be setting an arbitrary cut off point of 2035. That should be an ambition, not a target. One size, doesn't fit all. Unless you can afford a £70k on a Tesla, then for many people, Electric vehicles are simply too impractical. We enjoy holidays on Coast, yet many second hand electric vehicles have appalling range - for only nine hours of charging, you too can travel 120 miles! Then there's space requirements. What if you're an avid camper, someone who plays in a band or simply needs an SUV to transport equipment? The roads are already congested, simply moving to electric, isn't going to improve congestion. Local authorities want to get Petrol and Diesel cars ou