I have included 21 links to the websites that I frequently refer to that happen to be relevant to my work as a gospel preaching, community activist, watchman on the wall, and which I have found helpful in the recent past. The truth is that most of my research these days, much of it reflected in my writings and blogs, is not done by reading books (much as I value reading books) but on the Internet. I have made it a condition websites I mention are free, yet noting there is good stuff out there that needs to be paid for. Some links I don’t refer to directly but I access the websites pointed to even so. This is a major update to something I produced four years ago. A number of websites I accessed then, I no longer do so, and I have found new regularly visited websites since, some not around four years ago. To maintain the audit trail, so to speak, I include what I had four years ago in a blog article titled: “My old links“. Besides my own interests changing and new discoveries, my reasons for dropping some websites and adding new ones is that in recent days I have been woken up to the reality that mainstream media lies or hides truth that matters and social media censors those offering views that do not fit the official narrative. As for news sources, I am still working on this. I have yet to find one that I regularly check out, a sad reflection on the times we live in, as well as showing where my current interests lie. However, there are a number of alternative news sources I visit and I have included some under one umbrella.

John Barber 21/03/2022

Alternative News: UKColumn is one recently discovered source I occasionally check out and is one of the more solid alternative news resources, and one not linked to vilified conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and Charlie Ward, who might also be referred to (see below), notably for its alternative take on the “Corona pandemic”, vaccine passports and most recently the war in Ukraine. I have hopes for GB News still, with Nigel Farage and some honest journalists on board. Across the Pond, the Drudge Report has sadly gone off the boil and Fox News has been compromised, although Tucker Carlson is still good for truthful reporting. I also find Steve Bannon’s War Room helpful and the Epoch Times offers a lot of good stuff. When it comes to associating news and modern day prophecy, I have found Richard’s Watch and Elijah Streams (albeit with some reservations) particularly helpful. Most recently, I have come across the Mel K  show and the deliberations of Clay Clark (accessible on Bitchute) and Remnant-TV.com, fronted by a devout Catholic, all giving a take on news mainstream sources omit.

The BBC website contains many strings to its bow. Besides being able to keep up to date with its  coverage of world news (albeit less trust worthy than I had once thought) and a wide range of sports, I find here I can watch or listen to TV or radio, live and archived. I don’t watch much TV and if I do it is usually from my desktop linked to the Internet. I listen to radio more, usually Radio 4, and while doing other things. regularly listen to the Archers and Test Match Special podcasts. I have found myself listening to past episodes of programs like “Desert Island Discs” and “In Our Time”, and occasionally radio drama, which is usually good. Sadly, one of my epiphany moments since my last update is I found I can no longer trust the BBC for unbiased and comprehensive news coverage.

Biblegateway is simply the best for providing a free online Bible (in most of the versions commonly used today) and Bible aids. As a preacher, I find this an indispensable resource e.g. word searches, and there are other resources e.g. commentaries and dictionaries that make life so much easier. I often read the Bible while listening to it being read same time. A recently discovered example of a free audio Internet Bible is the King James Version Audio Bible.

Bitchute is a more recent alternative to YouTube but one that does not censor and invariably contains pertinent stuff relating to the culture wars and Covid-19 that YouTube will not host.

The Charlie Ward Show – Dr Charlie is a new Age, syncretic, Gnostic that uses his platform to push his prejudices but I love this guy, who brings in interesting guests that have helped to wake me up to what the evil cabal that run the world, and wishes to enslave and depopulate it, are up to, as well as news of those who resist.

Christian Concern is a great resource for alerting me to developments in our culture that ought to concern Christians, especially around culture war issues that we must not ignore. Other informative Christian sites that I find helpful are: Christian Institute, CARE and Evangelical Alliance, although I’m helped by getting weekly what’s new type of bulletins from these organisations.

Facebook along with Twitter is a popular social networking site. I have a Twitter account but hardly use it as most of my friends and followers aren’t avid twitterers. I do have my own Facebook account that until recently I have found myself using this on a daily basis, and to notify friends of new blog posts on my website. It is useful for finding out what is going on in the world from a non mainstream media perspective, what some of my growing circle of “friends” are up to and are thinking and sometimes I have robust exchanges on some or other issue. Sadly Facebook is at the forefront of censoring stuff and shutting up conservative voices that its omniscient fact checkers object to and currently I am serving a partial ban. I should add another social media platform that is owned by Facebook and attracts similar criticism but one I have found to be very useful for “friends” communicating with each other – WhatsApp.

FreeBibleimages I am always on the look out for images I can freely use when writing, notable on Bible related themes. While far from complete, this website resource often fits the bill.

Freedictionary is just that – great when stuck for a word or when I have a posh word but need confirmation on spelling / meaning.

Google has been my preferred Internet search engine choice, ever since I began using the Internet, and for good reasons – the quality of the hits it provides. While not telepathic, more often than not it comes up trumps even for the most obscure and vaguely worded searches for information. My concern is its near monopoly position, it shutting out those whose views it deems as unacceptable and its complicity in spying on users. This has become more apparent in the four years since I edited this page and, while discovering other search engines e.g. Duckduckgo, I still use it. I was shocked but not surprised when searching out controversial stuff for this article to find that Google did not give me what I needed, yet I confess it remains the search engine I use most. I use this in conjunction with Firefox as opposed to other Internet Search Providers.

Info Wars is a website hosted by charismatic, conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, who is in the forefront of providing an alternative to mainstream media and presenting breaking news you might not get elsewhere, and if you can get past the rant, anger and waffle, often has something important to say, which often you can’t find out elsewhere or much later on. Unsurprisingly, Alex Jones is not popular with elements of the establishment. He does a four hour radio broadcast that can now be accessed from Bitchute, having been deplatformed from YouTube since I first wrote about Infowars.

Poetry Foundation is a great resource for finding out about poets and their poems. Most of my favorite poems are there.

SAVS is the website of an umbrella organisation for the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) in Southend and contains lots of up to date information to do with the local community.

Southend Borough Council offers something that these days is encouraged: electronic data sharing and provides lots of useful information and resources where the council are involved

Southend Echo is the newspaper I read daily to be kept in touch with local news. This website is the electronic version of some of it. You can subscribe to free daily updates.

Thinkexist is about quotations.There are some amazing quotations around about many different subjects from a whole variety of people, past and present. This website contains a lot of them.

Telegram is like Facebook but without the censorship. While I am using this media more often these days, people have not sufficiently rebelled to come off Facebook and chosen to use Telegram instead.

Wikipedia is sometimes wrong, shallow and misleading but other than that it is a great resource and normally comes in very handy for elaborating to sufficient depth on a huge variety of topics.

WordPress is where I went to produce this website. It is cheap (can even be free, although I pay a small sum to remove irritating adverts), easy to set up (although admittedly I needed the help of my then 15 year old son) and can easily be maintained. My own jrbpublications website is a good example of what can be done!

Youtube, as I understand it, is where anyone can post audio-visual clips on any subject under the sun, within reasonable limits, and all sorts of people, some I know, frequently do. I often visit this site to listen to the music I like (I usually find what I want) or to view or listen to footage on some event or other and/or hear people talk about things that interest them and offer their perspectives (especially when at variance to my own). One  venture was to watch past episodes of “Highway to Heaven” and “Howards Way”, two of my all time favorite television shows. It is also useful for catching up on debates e.g. ahead of political elections. I have also heard some inspirational preachers and Bible teachers as well as some I might be tempted to shoot. Sadly, a lot of good video coverage of a more controversial nature cannot be found on YouTube and is why you need to turn to platforms like Bitchute and Rumble to find these.

Zoom is, as many others have found, a tremendous boon to communication, which came into its own during Covid-19 lockdown, when people found they could not meet face to face. It enables teleconferencing, including sophisticated actions like sharing audio-visual and slide presentations. Whilst its basic offering is free, I have chosen to use the paid version because there are no restrictions.