Wings Over Scotland

Tannadice Boy – bye, bye !

There are people contributing here who do not recognise that a community has built up, the only common factor in that community being that the members have been reading, or contributing, to WOS since the early days.

I have had many ‘eyeballs’ with Wingers over the past seven years, at rallies and get-togethers all over Scotland, from Aberdeen to Ayr, from Galashiels to Helensburgh. We even had women coming to the WOS stall (particularly at Edinburgh and Glasgow rallies), asking for “Proud Lurker” badges.

I suppose it’s a heritage/legacy thing. That community exists and will exist for a while, even if Rev Stu decides to shut the doors.

Ronnie Anderson is the guy who has gazillions of contact details so Wingers can get in touch with each other.

I don’t see Wingers retreating into the woodwork. There are a lot of WOS flags out there (I had mine at Glasgow on Saturday). The ethos of WOS will carry on, as long as Wingers are there to support it.

I said to my son on Saturday, “That’s the last march for me ’till the spring” (the climate in Glasgow was atrocious).

Hopefully, the spirit of the WOS community will come out of hibernation around March/April next year, and we’ll all have ‘eyeballs’ wherever the Friends of WOS stall sets up.

Keep the faith!

@BDDT 12:52pm
That’s fine. I am talking Gordon Wilson days. When WOS hadn’t been created. When nobody voted SNP. When it was dangerous to be associated with the SNP. Can I contribute to WOS now? Or is it a new thing like lurkers and new badges?. I am from Fintry you should know what that means. We never give up. Dundee lost today but they are in a better position now.I welcome your contribution.

@Brian Doonthetoon 1:43pm
Goodness me. That’s too close for comfort. Finavon Street. But lots of good guys doing well out of that street. Brian Cox was from the posh part of Fintry. From memory Finlarig?. A posher!. Yes Dundee teams are a whirlwind but I think both will stay up.

I’m sure the Westminster Government would prefer negotiating a Referendum with a lame and impotent SNP where Westminster dictates the franchise and leads the indoctrination, rather than open up the Pandora’s box of fallacies and Unwritten Conventions which the SSRG approach will show to an International / UN audience, don’t hold any water.

That’s the only way the SNP will ever get a referendum, and who are we kidding to have that scenario masquerading as democracy?

” I know a lot of business-oriented people and have never met one who talked in terms of increasing the population in order to profit from more customers. As I said, lol… ”

Hatuey . I’m done arguing with people , here and anywhere else , but what I find ” bizarre ” is your interpretation of my comment .

LOL . Indeed .

I too know a lot of business-oriented people and most of them couldn’t give a fuck about anything other than making more money to spend on bigger , newer , better toys and gadgets .

I never said such people talk about ” increasing the population in order to profit from more customers. ” , but they’re sure as hell quite happy about the prospect and couldn’t care less about the impact on local people and their communities or the implications of dramatic demographic changes for the prospect of Independence

Was trying to remember if there was any voting restrictions on the EU referendum,

being a referendum i assume it was open to all residents of UK,

and not just limited to UK citizens.

@ Dan 8:49am

Your link prompts me to post the fundraiser link below. I actually thought this had been resolved and that the university had backed down over this lassie’s right state her opinions. I never thought in 2014 that within a few years donating to fundraisers would become more about defending rights and malicious prosecutions than putting Scotland on the map through independence. It’s on the map right enough, but, for all the wrong reasons.

link to lisakeogh.uk

`This meant EU citizens were excluded`

even if they had lived in UK for years they were excluded in a referendum ?

is that normal in a referendum,

i know it happens in National elections,

but to limit the voting franchise in a referendum,

jeezo basterts.

@ BDTT and Tannadice Boy: Dundee football teams “will both stay up”.

Have you no heart? What about we Ross County supporters? Or is there another candidate for the drop?

@sarah,

`Have you no heart?`

dinnae mention hearts 🙂

Hatuey

Fair enough .

Just wonder though why Scotland would have to RELY on imported labour and why suppressing wages at the lower end of the employment market is good for the economy .

Good for employers maybe .

Is historic low wages in the UK not at least part of reason why the German model of high wage/high productivity/quality has proven vastly superior ?

….I too know a lot of business-oriented people and most of them couldn’t give a fuck about anything other than making more money to spend on bigger , newer , better toys and gadgets .

I ran my own business for 20 years, and I’m sorry to say, I don’t hold Scotland’s business community in very high regard at all. However, the grievous things I believe are wrong with Scottish businesses are not their fault. To a very large extent, they are just dealing with the rather grubby chips they’ve been dealt.

I believe I have, or at least had, a good perspective from which to judge, because I had friends running their businesses in the English Midlands, and near Bristol, and I have to say I was deeply, deeply envious how supportive their support services actually were, and actually tried to help businesses stay afloat.

My first introduction to Scottish Enterprise for example, was to arrange a meeting where I could see what support there might be to help get my business up and running… if I decided to go for it. The response from Scottish Enterprise was for them to jump straight on the phone to my employer with all the juicy gossip of a new competitor arriving on his doorstep. Eye watering disbelief I know, but I swear it happened. Worse still, in my years of experience since, I have no reason to hold the “professionalism” of Scottish Enterprise in any higher regard.

Local Authorities in my experience are extremely hostile to small businesses, jealous for their pals to have first shout on any contracts going, and I’m pretty sure attend the same school of professionalism as Scottish Enterprise.

Instead of using their myriad of rules and regulations to build an assault course for any sucker stupid enough to set up a business in their locality, a Local Authority should be going out of it’s way to brief that new business, even take it under it’s wing for a few weeks / months and make sure it’s name is appearing where it should be appearing, and it’s eligibility for contract work is properly and honestly assessed.

The UK Tax set up is also a disgrace, with a ludicrous “fine now, discuss later” philosophy which allows a well paid civil servant in a cushy job to bring down untold hardship and misery on a business owner who knows his own business backwards, but struggles with his book keeping or cash flow. Just imagine if the fine they imposed was actually spent of helping that poor sod get his books sorted out and back on the rails rather than compounding his problems with yet more burden on his cash flow, grovelling time at the bank, and crushed credit ratings.

You will find too, that ALL of the above organisations have a partner in crime in the Court System, which rubber stamps warrants and judgements on nothing more than a nod of head from the Council or Government Department.

You think we’re in trouble because the Court System wants to do away with Juries? I’ve got to tell you in my experience the Court System has already dispensed with it’s reliance upon evidence. Warrants, sequestration, seizures can and are handed down to wreck the lives and businesses based upon contrived and false assertions from some faceless civil servant, with or without the knowledge or involvement of the poor sod who has fallen foul of their system. Such a pity again that Government Department’s vigour and enthusiasm didn’t extend to helping the business rather than grinding it into the dust.

The costs on businesses are prohibitive too. Nine times out of ten a new business will need to find property, alter that property, probably change the use of that property, and advertise his presence in that property, thus incurring thousands of pounds in costs and weeks of delay before he’s opened his door to his first customer.

But, but, but, we’ll 0% charge his rates! Oh yeah. Whoopty-do.

I’m telling you folks, Scotland is a HOSTILE place to set up your own business, where you will find precious little in the way of help, and what help there is will come at a price, and only then if your face fits.

I take it people know my views and aspirations for Scottish Independence, but despite such prejudices I hold, I have to say that England’s attitudes towards Entrepreneurship and small businesses are light years ahead of Scotland. Scotland is weird. It has a kind on business cringe for want of a better description. It will suffer prejudice, discrimination, costs and ruination with such stoicism you wonder how there are ANY businesses left. Every business feels it’s them against the big bad world, and the sad bit is, they’ve pretty much got that bit exactly right.

To a lesser extent, believe it not, I would say the same about housing. Housing, like business, faces a babtism of fire just getting started with ludicrous land prices, ludicrous planning and Building Warrant costs, and hurdle after hurdle put in their way.

Take for example the building regulations for U-values. Now ok, yes, I get the message that new property needs to be thermally efficient, I get that! But at the same time, generation after generation of us grew up in stone built tenements or cottages with single glazing and no electricity. Heads up people, Scotland is failing dismally to provide enough of these high quality modern homes which poor people or young families can get access to.

I’m NOT advocating that poor people be housed in unheated shanty towns, but there MUST be a better way to bring Scotland’s vacant stone properties back into use. By all means, insulate them to the extent you can, but don’t forget there are five or six generations of people who somehow fought off the polar bears and hypothermia to raise a family in those very properties.

GET THE PEOPLE HOMES TO LIVE IN, and then start worrying about improvements.

If I wanted to encapsulate all of the above into one bubble, Scotland needs to make it much easier for Scotland’s people to help themselves. Don’t clobber them with costs and permissions, and standards which only rich people can afford. When people are so constrained by poverty or lack of opportunity, you’ve got to be flexible and let the people help themselves, because otherwise, you are just creating a burden which consumes everything thrown at it, but is discouraged from using it’s own enterprise. You make trying pointless, when trying is what should be rewarded.

Find a way to make Planning Permission and Building Warrants Fees token payments rather that £1000’s. Let people put their money into the business, not the Council coffers. Take your money out the business later, once it’s running, making money, in profit, not floundering on the beach gasping for breath.

When I first started my business my council tax for the business was higher than my fist incomes,
So had to change premises,
This eventually increased beyond early earning as well, and especially if you rented a unit from the council as well,
And paying the normal house tax as well.
Meanwhile my polish friends living in Scotland at that time were surprised I payed the full blown charges as they did not,
They had so much help up the ladder they bought their council house and had a very luxurious life in comparison,
They have recently moved back to Poland and sold up their Scottish council house.
I eventually diversified to stay afloat.
However my partner had a trade, and was time served and qualified, after 40 years had to sequester his business after 2008 crash, with no help.
A lot needs to be done to alien Scottish businesses, rather than an ideology of if your face fits.
Or where you come from.

@ Scot Finlayson: 🙂

@ Derek

TBH these days it’s not difficult being an eco-warrior accruing a high points score.
Other serious players who have the power to seriously compete against me haven’t got their A game shit together.
Take yon loon Biden at COP26. He is President of a country that is still currently selling Dodge Ram pickups with a 6.2 litre supercharged V8 Hemi putting out 700hp. And Jeep are making the Wrangler Rubicon with the same engine but without a supercharger but putting out 470hp.
As an individual that even saves and grinds down my egg shells to feed to the worms in my compost heap, which is then added to my kail yard to enhance yield, I get the distinct impression that some aren’t really making much of an effort…

As the Tory Environment minister George Eustice, desperately tries to downplay the the latest Tory sleaze at Westminster the Owen Paterson debacle, it has come to light that every Tory Treasurer in the past seven years has been bumped up to the undemocratic, unelected House of Lords after contributing £3 million quid to the party’s coffers.

Of course in reality you don’t even need to contribute that much to worm your way into the HoL gravy train, such as in the case of Malcolm Offord, the Tory completely and utterly rejected by the Scottish electorate at the last Scottish elections in May, only to be bumped up to the HoL by the English PM, and into the anti-Scotland Office in the process, where this rejected Tory has a say on Scotland.

Breeks

Not had much experience – thankfully – with local councils in the way you have but it certainly sounds like a vale of tears for anyone trying to set-up or maintain their own business , and I do recognise that nitpicking and punitive mentality that seems to pervade many Scottish authorities .

I fear all this is going to be significantly exacerbated by new Climate related strictures and specs – red tape extended by green tape – ultimately falling hardest of those who can least afford the costs of rules made by those who can afford it

Sarah 11:33pm
So I also have a soft spot for The Coonty as my wife’s cousins are season ticket holders there. Somebody has to go down and I am not going to incur the wrath of wingers by suggesting a team. I am not that brave.

Barack Obama spoke today at the COP26 conference, this is the man who as POTUS holds the unenviable record as POTUS longest at war, his entire two tenures as POTUS to be precise, of which I’m sure left an immense carbon footprint as well as a huge pile of dead innocent bodies.

Yet this warhawk, speaks at COP26 of the danger to island communities posed to them by climate change. Obama obviously doesn’t care that much for island communities or he would’ve handed back the Chagos island to the people that the English government, menaced, threatened, killed their livestock and eventually evicted them by force from their island home, to allow a US airbase to move in.

As the utterly oppressed Palestinians see their COP26 delegates denied a visa to attend the climate conference, the Israeli PM has rejected the re-opening of the US diplomatic mission in Jerusalem for the Palestinian people, the mission has acted for years as a embassy to the Palestinians, it was closed by President Trump.

Israelis don’t want the mission to re-open as it could be seen as a challenge to the sovereignty of Jerusalem, in which Israel sees the city as Israeli. However East Jerusalem has always been seen as Palestinian, and in 1948, the UN gave Jerusalem International City status via General Assembly Resolution 194. Nevertheless, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on 28 October 2009 that Jerusalem must be the capital of both Israel and Palestine.

The occupying oppressive apartheid military force known as Israel wants the Mission moved to Ramallah in the West Bank, the Palestinians have rightly rejected this idea as it undermines their claim to Jerusalem, specifically East Jerusalem.

Robbo – not a squeak from the 1.6% party.

@ Breeks 8.06am , The reason I posted the SNP MP’S response was to do a wording comparison for anyone else who received a response from their SNP MP re the SSRG proposals , as there has been no replies to my post it is obvious that either no one was interested enough to contact their SNP MP or they had done so but never received a reply as so so often happens

You and others will be aware that group responses to certain enquiries or questions are usually provided by the heed orifice to ensure that no one goes off the reservation as we can’t possibly rely on these troughers to stick to the message from the Messiah

I also sent him another email last night indicating that I agreed and supported his stated FACT that Scots are indeed SOVEREIGN and only LEND their sovereignty to our elected representatives .

I informed him that I also agreed with his assertion that our independence will be won by a free and fair vote at the ballot box to encourage acceptance from countries internationally but I strongly disagreed with his narrowing the options to a referendum , as a plebiscite election had the same validity and authority as a referendum with the whole electorate in SCOTLAND having the free and fair ability to vote for independence even the unionist parties and their supporters had the free and fair opportunity to vote against independence if that was their preference
That free and fair ballot would also be acceptable to the international community as it encompassed all voters in SCOTLAND

I await his response (sarcasm)

@RoS 5.34 pm

Unlike the SNP, Alba is a democratic party. If there is a proposal to withdraw Alba MPs from Westminster and/or adopt a Sinn Feinn style abstentionist policy then it should be up to the membership to decide.

For the record I think it’s a good idea and would support it if there was such a vote. I see no merit in legitimising the Westminster parliament.

@Sarah 6:10pm
It would appear New Rangers haven’t learn the lessons of the past. An unsustainable financial position but hey ho it will be their problem. Aye the Staggies and the Cup Final against Dundee United. Cost me over 200 hundred picking up the dinner bill for the cousins after the game. We were on different sides of Hampden but met after the game to settle up. A real family final that was. No trouble or angst on the streets at all.

@Andy Ellis – 7 November, 2021 at 4:11 pm

Apologies for my late reply. Under the terms of my release license, my internet access is strictly timed and monitored.

I don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to deal with all of your points, besides, shouting at each other from our respective silos is futile. But one of your statements really stood out. In a class of its own in fact:

“I find it particularly telling you or anyone else who really believes in democracy would be defending the Hungarian or Polish populist governments.”

So not only do you believe in the myth of Progressivism, you don’t believe that democratically elected governments should pursue the policies on which they were mandated to govern by the voters.

I see our woke virtue signalling councilors have been painting zebra crossing all the colours of the transcult rainbow,

this gets them points from Stonewall,

turns out guide dogs for the partially sighted and blind were not consulted in the rush for white privillaged councilors to be fricken virtuous,

guide dogs have not been given Stonewall training in gender fluency,

it seems the partially sighted and bind are possibly transphobic if they get run down on a rainbow crossing that the driver or guide dog don`t recognise as a pedestrian crossing.

An
Police criticised over raid on Glasgow squat housing Cop26 activists
Officers accused of trying to break into Baile Hoose with battering ram and entering rooms with batons drawn

Police van outside house
One activist said police had their batons drawn as they entered rooms, to the distress of many occupants. Photograph: handout
Jessica Murray and Severin Carrell
Mon 8 Nov 2021 16.24 GMT

The occupants of a disused building in Glasgow that was reopened to offer emergency accommodation for climate activists have accused police of trying to break into the site with a battering ram early on Monday morning.

The activists at Baile Hoose, a former homeless shelter in the Tradeston district, said up to 20 officers from the Metropolitan police and Welsh forces mounted the raid at 3am, claiming to be acting under orders from Scottish police.

The activists said Police Scotland officers arrived soon afterwards and “calmed the situation. [It] was only then that the Met and Welsh police backed off.”

One witness to the raid said at least one of the liaison officers from Police Scotland appeared to be shocked at their colleagues’ conduct, and also said that an officer described it as “totally unacceptable” policing. Another activist said police had their batons drawn as they entered rooms, to the distress of many occupants.

A spokesperson for Police Scotland confirmed that officers went to the building. “Around 3am on Monday 8 November, officers attended at a property on Centre Street, Glasgow, following concerns for the safety and security of those using the building. Officers will continue to engage with those currently in the property,” she said.

A Baile Hoose spokesperson disputed that explanation. She said they had been occupying the building since 3 November and that the Scottish fire and rescue service had already inspected it, giving them advice about fire safety and battery-operated fire alarms, which were now installed.

The activists squatted in the building after it emerged that hundreds of Cop26 delegates, including indigenous leaders, were unable to find accommodation for the summit. There were unconfirmed reports of some indigenous activists sleeping rough.

“Baile Hoose has provided a safe home and meals for hundreds of activists during this summit,” a spokesperson said. “There have been a lot of people who have travelled here from all over the world and the country, and quite often people from marginalised communities are not getting their voices heard.”

Glasgow city council, which owns the building, said it had asked the activists to leave last week because it was concerned about the safety of its water supply and the possibility that the building could contain asbestos.

Anybody heard about this?

I read the typing about Germany/Turkey.

I had the best Haddock and chips in a pub called ‘The Maltman’ on Renfield Street, on Saturday, before joining the march.
Directly opposite was a food shop, and their sign included the sign, an R in a circle, immediately following the words “German Doner Kebab”, denoting a registered trade mark.
I remarked to my son, “How can they register the words “Doner Kebab” as a registered trade mark? It’s a generic foodstuff.”
He replied that it is probably the whole name, ie “German Doner Kebab” that is registered.
He then went into the story of the number of Turks who have emigrate to Germany over the past couple of decades, hence “German Doner Kebabs”.
Onnyhoo, if you’re ever in Dundee and fancy a kebab, check out Corfu Kebabs, just along from the bus station in Seagate.
They are one of the few (if not the only) kebab providers in Dundee who construct their own doners. The rest tend to buy them pre-constructed from the well-known butchers in Dundee so they all taste the same, unlike Corfu’s offering, which is bra’ and distinctive.

Brian Doonthetoon says:
8 November, 2021 at 8:54 pm

I had the best Haddock and chips in a pub called ‘The Maltman’ on Renfield Street, on Saturday, before joining the march.

—

Eating a fish supper from the Blue Lagoon while stood under the Hielanman’s Umbrella not good enough for the tourists these days? *smiley emoji*

FYI, if you want to ‘sit-in’ when next in La Weege, I recommend the Coronation on the Gallowgate just past the Tron. The best chipp/er/y in the toon. Even Leonardo DiCaprio would wait for his order…apparently he was in Jaconneli’s (Hairymill) last week, placed an order but didn’t go back for it. It’s my local, so can safely say he didn’t miss anything.

Hi Brian.

If I was in the Maltman, I’d have 2 main courses…Am no paying £5.99 for a fish finger piece unless it comes with chips n beans.

I’m off to put the chip pan on now…

Scott says:
8 November, 2021 at 9:34 pm

“the Coronation on the Gallowgate”

Seconded. Probably my favourite chippy; I’ve never struggled to finish it. Some places are too batter-y, some too soggy, but the Coronation’s just so.

You’ll not be surprised to hear that Auntie is keeping quiet on the alleged fraud at HIE and Sturgeons publisher.

Memory holed.

Hugh Jarse @2:31

“You’ll not be surprised to hear that Auntie is keeping quiet on the alleged fraud at HIE and Sturgeons publisher.”

Who’d have thought that the BritNat Brainwashing Channel, and indeed the rest of the pro-Union MSM, would circle the wagons to protect the political career of someone who should, in theory, be the most clear and present danger to the continuance of the British State.

As Betty Windsor might say to SNP members:

“I’m afraid your friend Sturgeon is really…

…my friend Sturgeon”.

“By a 3-1 margin, the Scottish public think women’s sporting events should be reserved for athletes who were born biologically female”

link to scotgoespop.blogspot.com

link to scotgoespop.blogspot.com

I am truly stunned that it’s anything like 3-1. Is it a typo for 30-1?

Where the hell is the “sport” in a biological male out performing a biological female? For that matter, what self respecting sportsman would actually want to? What kind of inadequacy do these biological males suffer from that this kind of “victory” over women competitors means anything besides discrediting “women’s” sport as a farce, and shaming it’s governing body for allowing it?

Jesus H, when I was a lad, the world of rugby was vexed to it’s core about the unfair advantage which undercover professionalism gave certain teams when playing in an amateur sport. That’s right, being paid to play versus doing it for nothing was considered cheating.

For women’s rugby to embrace male bodied players is farcical, just farcical, and people, (hint, women), are going to end up disillusioned at best and get physically hurt, some of them seriously hurt.

This is so obvious it pains me. What the fk is wrong with people? Are brains everywhere suffering some kind of malfunction?

“What the fk is wrong with people? Are brains everywhere suffering some kind of malfunction?”

They’re behaving rationally in an insane context. When people are fearful they go into ‘survival mode’, society becomes atomised, and governments can get away with almost anything.

You don’t concern yourself with the arrangement of deckchairs when the ship’s sinking.

The pandemic, climate change, the imminent collapse of the economy, possible war with China, Brexit, etc., etc. They’ve got us all going around like frightened and headless chickens.

In the old days we worried about World War III. Today there’s a bunch of life-threatening things to worry about and a million people eager to explain why we are all fucked — after you hit the subscribe button, of course.

@ Breeks at 10.00: I too am horrified at the Scot goes pop %ages. It should be 100% against men in women’s sport.

Hatuey’s and Confused’s links to unionist “newspapers” archived.

Express
link to archive.md

Guardian
link to archive.md

I’m sure our resident Alba guru Mr Ellis will know this, but others may not, Alba MP Kenny MacAskill has launched a scathing attack on the spineless and gutless SNP MP’s.

The reason for the attack, Joanna Cherry and Dougie Chapman aside, is that the SNP MP’s allowed the secondary legislation revoke date (4th of November) on stopping making Holyrood a designated site on national security grounds, pass without even a whimper against it.

The move to stop the sovereign people of Scotland protesting outside OUR parliament by the (SPCB) Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body was even opposed at a debate in September at a SNP conference, yet SNP MPs sat silent like little obedient children ( Chapman and Cherry aside) as the the revoke date ran out.

The SNP are not only NOT the party of independence now, they are also actively trying to suppress the voice of the people especially those for Scottish independence and those who want to demonstrate outside their own parliament.

I know this won’t invoke passion in many folk, but it does in me the Scottish Battlefield Trust has called for the stopping of building on Scottish battlefields, already sites such as Culloden and Prestonpans have had developments partially built on them, and what’s more the Scottish parliament has rejected a plea for greater protection for them.

This has piqued the interest of the builders, with the likes of Falkirk, Dunbar, Ancrum Moor and Harlaw in Aberdeen all historical battlefields coming onto their radar for development.

These are important historical sites in Scottish history in my opinion, on which some of these fields we saw historical turning points that were significant to the people of Scotland, it would be a travesty in my opinion if they were turned into housing schemes.

Robert Graham says:
9 November, 2021 at 1:52 pm

I don’t want to interrupt all you people discussing really important stuff but

Ethylene Oxide

Anyone know what it’s used for ?

Well amongst many things it’s used in the production of Anti Freeze it’s also used to sterilise the swabs that is being stuck up people’s noses in order to perform a test for the plague

Banned in the EU because it’s widely known as a major cause of cancer it is a poisonous substance and yet it’s being pushed out like free sweets

Still trust your government ?
—
A wee bit more than you based on this attempted hatchet-job.

Ethylene oxide is banned in food production in EU, not banned outright.

At the levels used to sterilise test kits, Ethylene Oxide poses little risk to health, and always abide by COSHH when using and storing it.

Disinformation is Misinformation, ya cheeky basturt.

One for fans of Pink.

link to whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com

Its interesting to note that as we are in the middle of the COP26 on climate change which sees the real need to reduce our CO2 emissions, that the DRAX power plant in Yorkshire is the UK greatest emitter of CO2 gases.

This supposed “Green” energy plant has had millions of tons of its emissions taken off the books, it burns wood pellets, produced from pristine carbon capturing forests in Estonia, which are chopped down and exported to the UK. Last year DRAX received £832 million in subsidies from the UK government, and an extra £258 million pounds in carbon tax breaks.

Yes trees are replanted once the others are cut down, however it takes decades for the replanted trees to reach the carbon capture stage that the cut down trees had already reached.

Republicofscotland says:
9 November, 2021 at 2:17 pm

I know this won’t invoke passion in many folk

—

The whole of Scotland has been a battlefield at some point, so where do you draw the lines? Derby? [I’d happily just annexe Cumbria & Northumbria if I was King]

As for land use, we need to reclaim fertile land and grow more food as a priority, the corollary being that town planners should stock up on pencils and coffee.

eg Glasgow’s trees need better companions…compulsory purchase of all the bought hooses to start the ball rolling, there’s plenty of dreich areas with outbreaks of sun crying out for new blood. The whole of Dumfries & Galloway is one such place.

Also, move the submarines to the Falklands and get the waters put to better use, including a tunnel system under them connecting Argyll to civilisation. Making them from recycled plastic rather than concrete should be viable.

[Close GLA and build a theme park and get Prestwick & Machrihanish boosted? spaceports should be left to other countries. Scottish airspace would have restrictions placed on it on the whim of somebody fancying launching something…weather dependent.]

Yes trees are replanted once the others are cut down, however it takes decades for the replanted trees to reach the carbon capture stage that the cut down trees had already reached.

Not disagreeing exactly, , and it came as a surprise to me, but the best trees for taking CO2 out the atmosphere are the horrible forestry commission pine forests for the simple reason they grow fast and thus take a lot of CO2 out the atmosphere, and do it faster than mature Rain Forest.

A slow growing hardwood will take more CO2 out in the long run, but compare the bulk of a 30 year old pine versus a 30 year old hardwood. All that Carbon has come from the atmosphere.

The downside of the familiar pine forest is that the trees are packed so tight, there’s no light getting to the forest floor, so the biodiversity is much reduced.

It’s been a few years since I was read up on it, but the best method for getting CO2 turned into organic matter was through algae, and people were trying to develop fast growing algae’s which could also be turned into bio-diesel. The algae could also be grown on the vertical sides of buildings, speculating that we’d be seeing urban farming because the algae would grown wherever there was sunlight and water.

The big damage from felling virgin rainforest is simply that all that tonnage of carbon is no longer fixed as a living tree, and it’s finding it’s way back into the atmosphere while there are fewer trees to photosynthesise it all back out again.

The carbon capture graph of new forestry is always very steep in the beginning because the trees grow so fast in the early years, but it slows down as the trees mature and grow more slowly. The forest then changes it’s roll from rapid carbon capture as a new forest to photosynthesis as a mature forest.

“The whole of Scotland has been a battlefield at some point, so where do you draw the lines?”

Scott.

Well, surely the more notable battlefields deserve some sort of protection, afterall they are part of our history, a history that has been in the most part suppressed within this onesided union. Scots and their children should be able to visit these sites for as long as there is a Scotland in my opinion, to get a sense of what took place at these battles, some of which were crucial in Scottish history.

“eg Glasgow’s trees need better companions”

Glasgow is set to lose more than 30,000 of its wonderful trees due the disease Ash Dieback. Glasgow’s magnificent tree cover is a blessing on the city, along with its ninety-parks, and along with Glasgow Green, thought to be the among the first public park in Western Europe.

@ Dorothy 7.53pm from what I read it appeared that GCC initially approved the building being occupied as they are the owners of the building and alternative places to stay were totally unavailable , otherwise how did they gain access and if they FORCED entry surely that would have been mentioned and used to discredit the occupiers

IMO GCC is now in a worse state and more badly ran than when Tammany hall ran it (maybe not but it must be close) if the cooncillors are on a par with spears
I think the met and other forces have contempt for Scots polis and their sense of superiority as the chosen ones will not be stopped or challenged

«Save the planet» and hand over your civil rights.
link to bi.team
Do as Big Brother media tells you.
This is real 1984 stuff and ScotGov is up to its muzzled face in it.
VaxPass!

Twathater , absolutely.

@Ebok 6:25pm
A very good post from you. Natural justice shouldn’t depend on the colour of your representative. In the the part of Scotland we have relocated to both my representatives are SNP so that’s no representation. Unsustainable. I am reduced to asking my wife’s contacts in the Highlands about HIE and the book fiasco. We are making progress but isn’t that the job of an investigative journalist?. Still no response from GBNews. It happened, I saw it they can’t airbrush their programme.

“ Breeks 0916 am” . Same old same old Breeks my friend . When the time is right and it might not be too far away with the “ ongoing Tory/ Boris shambles “ then the 2nd eleven government will be called to “ rescue WESTMINSTER rule” . Just look out for the obvious signs of the state propaganda media ( subtlety to begin with ) propagating that pillar of the “ English establishment shining Knight Sir Keir” being ever so slightly being given positive propaganda on the state run tv , radio stations & of course the “ daily drug for the masses” our wonderful impartial newspapers.
Of course North of the border Sir Keir & his “ scotch lackie “ will be given “ favourable billing”

Sorry, forgot.
I dont twit, so can’t look at the thread. Not far down timeline

link to mobile.twitter.com

@Hugh Jarse 7:39pm
Police Scotland investigating?. The military wing of the SNP.
Her hubris will end her. She will only go when she is bang to rights. Your are behind the curve. GBNews had the information this morning but pulled out. If Andrew Neil was still there that wouldn’t have happened. Still concerned citizens are progressing. Watch this space.

It’s a start.
Should have paid more attention to inbox before my earlier post.

ALBA Scotland wide Day of Action
11.am Saturday 13th Nov
‘We have just taken delivery of the first batch of our Recruitment Leaflet and this along with a Women’s Leaflet will be distributed on Saturday.’

@Republic of Scotland 8;05pm
I am an ordinary Scots guy. Working class made good. And is spending his money on children and grandchildren. No taxation without representation etc. I have no idea who is keeping Sturgeon there. And it doesn’t matter to me. I expect and demand better. She will go and it will be evidence from the Scottish people and not Police Scotland that does it. So where does that leave them?. I saw what I saw today. GBNews running away from a story. And I watched it as someone tipped me off.

I knew COP26 was just misdirection, but I didn’t know what the evil plan (and there is always an “evil plan”) was going to be.

– I think this is it, couched in anodyne language; the opague, acronym heavy corporate shit-speak is designed to send you to sleep so you don’t ask what they are actually up to; a basic component seems to be even more powers for financial institutions over nation states.

link to mintpressnews.com

Don’t expect it to – save the planet, improve your life.

If you list the participants, these ARE the people who actually have the power (or are bagmen for those who do) – but to get them to “fix it”, it is not about letting them all get together and making up more rules for the rest of us, rather it should be – locking them together in a room and sharpening your favourite guillotine; the starters comprising car batteries, electrodes, electric drills and DIY dentistry sets.

– or you can act like a fanny, chaining yourself to a railing, while some fat cop cuts you free with an angle grinder … your mates will get it all on their phones; PURE FACEBOOK GOLD.

Little Greta might call all this more “blah blah blah”, but the phrase you should be thinking of is :

“now we gut him (us) like a fish …”

Quick browse of Scotland’s headlines: Douglas Ross, Fitba Referee and Part Time Politician is slagging off politicians for having two jobs, and Scotland’s FM is slagging off the Tories for corruption while her own book deal and publisher seemed to be mired in it’s own corruption.

link to twitter.com

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!

How apt that’s a Burns quote from To A Louse.

Maybe Scotland should make rampant hypocrisy a capital offence, and see if that can weed out these gobshitey waste of space politicians who so routinely humiliate our Nation, squander opportunity and paralyze effective government, and bring our politics into such disrepute.

Breeks says:
10 November, 2021 at 6:37 am

link to twitter.com

—

The quoted tweet is mince.

Ta RoS.
That explains so much.
This passed so many people by, including me.
The nepotism & endemic corruption of the unco guid writ large here.

Cheques & Balances.
UK PLC

‘Corruption’ should have been made Word of the year.
Maybe the Chumocracy will drag our sorry hordes of troughers down with them, or maybe the voter is so punch drunk from it all they see no difference, constitutionally.
Yes or No? Why care!

So Sturgeon chaired panel on the main stage at COP26 yesterday, her gigantic ego would have been sated on Tuesday, well almost, after talking about climate change and the effects of it, Sturgeon switched to gender equality.

Citing climate change and women’s rights, yes you read that correctly women’s rights, I wonder if US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was also in attendance, knows exactly where Sturgeon stands on women’s rights, especially the women of Scotland. Her witchfinder generals office aka the COPFS tried to hunt down Marion Millar, and women’s safe spaces are under threat via Sturgeon’s GRA bill.

Sturgeon is on a crusade to try and have the eyes of the world focus on her and to hear them say that she’s a progressive and forward thinking leader, the COP26 in Glasgow, has allowed her to showcase her own plan of action, which of course as we all know doesn’t include Scottish independence

The Albans getting a wee bit upset this morning.

BBC leaving Stonewall!! A BBC statement tweeted by Allie Hodgkins-Brown.

Sounds good.

It’s been a bit frustrating waiting on Alba to get the gloves off and get tore in but I think we have seen a much more combative approach from them lately; if we are to lose Wings and gain an Alba that attacks from a very similar standpoint as Wings, well, we are going to be okay… (gaining a daughter rather than losing a son, as they say)

All Alba needs to do right now is keep chipping and wait them out. There’s an inevitability about it, with more and more people becoming disillusioned and looking for a political party that’s serious about independence and honest.

The SNP’s decline and death as a political force will be much more sudden and dramatic than that of Scottish Labour. Unlike the other branch offices in Scotland, the SNP has nobody to turn to. BBC Scotland won’t be able to do a thing about it either, just as they were unable to save SLAB.

I hope to god Alba don’t advise us to vote SNP with first votes or anything else ever again. The SNP is the enemy of independence. Alba must burn the ships and commit to the fight ahead.

An excellent article on Iain Lawson’s blog from the SSRG, aimed at Sturgeon and other indy parties, showing them the route out of this rancid union that doesn’t include a flawed indyref.

link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com

A one on one meeting between Sturgeon and the UNSG, and I bet she didn’t mention Scottish independence and that Westminster is refusing to allow Scots their democratic right to vote on leaving this union.

Instead, I think Sturgeon would have been bigging up her own stock with the UNSG, trying to make a good impression in the hope of that when she’s finally found out as the charlatan and fraud that we know she is, that a cushy UN job awaits her when she flees Scotland.

link to archive.md

@ Breeks at 2.13: remember the Rev’s advice? “Don’t engage etc..”.

Those of us whose priority is explaining the truth about Scotland’s false position dating from 1707, and in many ways since 1603, must do what we can to bring about the restoration of independence. We mustn’t waste energy on educating those who WILL not see the truth. 🙂

Alec Lomax says:
10 November, 2021 at 12:19 pm

The Albans getting a wee bit upset this morning.

Aww, poor Damon.

Dan, being a scientifically minded sort, what’s your view on carbon capture? I see Robin Mcalpine is ruling it out but it is known that post-combustion CO2 scrubbers work and seem to have potential. I believe they have been using them on submarines for years.

It’s a wee shame that there isn’t a natural alternative party for those tired of wheeshting, indy genuine political types currently putting all their eggs in She/hers basket.

😉

Hatuey @7.01pm.

According to this carbon capture has been going on for a few years now.

“Today, there are 43 commercial large-scale carbon capture and storage facilities all over the world. Out of these, 18 are in operation and 16 are industrial.”

“According to the International Energy Agency, globally more than 30 million tons of CO2 is captured from large scale carbon capture, utilization, and storage facilities every year. Over 70 percent of this is done in North America. However, industrial facilities are capturing less than one percent of the CO2 that is required to meet the Paris agreement targets for 2040, says a 2018 report compiled by the Global CCS Institute.”

link to news.climate.columbia.edu

Breeks,

Voyager 1 is still operational and sending back data,
link to popsci.com

Perhaps there’s a greater chance of it getting to a nearby star than there is of Nicola declaring a new referendum, but where there’s life there’s hope.

Live long and prosper.

@ Hatuey at 7.01pm

Re. Carbon Capture. I guess my view is that even though the technology can be made to work, it still comes down to the overall viability of implementing it on a scale that actually makes a worthwhile benefit, or if efforts would be better utlised focusing on reducing humans’ carbon emissions in the first place.
The global trading modus of shipping massive amounts of products around the planet by air or sea freight is to me crazy when so many of those products could be grown or made locally and creating jobs here too.
I recently highlighted that over 100 wind turbine bases for an offshore windfarm east of Montrose are being made in China, and due to their size only 5 can fit on a vessel at a time to get to Scotland. So that’s over 20 ship journeys from China to Scotland.
Some bases were damaged on route and my pal was repairing them in Dundee.

Robin’s previous article kind of deals with this quandary in questioning humanity just following the same path of excessive consumption and relying on “tech” developments to sort all our ills.

link to robinmcalpine.org

link to robinmcalpine.org

“Point taken, Dan, about producing and buying locally”

For example, you can grow chillis under glass in Scotland, amongst other things.

I have kiwi fruit plants – grown outside – but the fruit is small and a bit bitter; could I make chutney with them?

That’s behind my kitchen window, in the summer.

Everything’s connected.

I agree with that 100%, but it isn’t enough.

The problem is in your typical human, you have a voracious consumer of resource across the whole, and unprecedented, full spectrum of all possible resource. They are also incredibly efficient consuming resource while paradoxically inefficient at the husbandry of that resource, with truly prolific and unsustainable consumption and waste production. We need to stop pretending otherwise.

You are not going to change the nature of a locust, nor it’s propensity to swarm periodically and cause utter devastation in it’s path. The best that you can hope for is that destruction is limited by the number of mouths creating it.

If it is humanity’s innate nature to be a greedy, insatiable but profligate parasite on the planets resources, then the only way to curtail the damage being caused is to control the population numbers, to the extent the resource they plunder has a chance to recover and sustain it’s self.

I don’t know what the number is, nor how it can be achieved, but with a population of 7.5 billion of us, our planet is screaming out at us in it’s agony that, that number is much too high, and we are already impacting on the welfare and equilibrium of our planet at an unsustainable degree.

Either we radically modify our behaviour, to become something different from what we are with much greater empathy for our planet, and / or we radically address population expansion, and start living within the our means as a species. Otherwise, the only, and inescapable, conclusion is an unpleasant and uncomfortable downward spiral towards our own demise and extinction, and perhaps the rendering of all life on our planet forevermore unsustainable.

The planet can cope with an oil consuming, gas guzzling, toxic, pollution producing combustion engine belching out atmospheric pollutants 24 hours a day. It just cannot cope with 1.4 billion of them. We need to do some uncomfortable and profoundly draconian arithmetic before we pass the point of no return. Be afraid, because the numbers are huge.

If we don’t do it, the matter will be taken out of our hands. We might even already have reached the tipping point already. It won’t be a sudden single tipping point for everybody all at once, it will arrive like a cascade, wrecking the lives of the most vulnerable, but then wrecking the lives of those next to most vulnerable, then those standing beside the next to most vulnerable,.. The tipping point will spread through us like a fire or a contagion. It will displace people, create refugees fleeing famine they way we have become accustomed to seeing people flee war.

Y’all have a nice day now. 😉

Breeks, thinking like that and believing that in itself is counter-productive, justifies all sorts of crap, is paralysing, and is extremely unhelpful. I know because I’ve done it.

I get the impression people profit from that sort of nihilism. It’s probably good for “consumer confidence” or something. They’ve been scaring the shit out of every generation with stuff like this from the year dot.

People can change. Regardless of climate change, which will either unleash hell or it won’t, we need to re-calibrate our compasses and give emphasis to the sanctity and value of life in all forms. Make that the new “north”. That’s a good starting point.

COP could do that instead of being totally useless. Animal experimentation and intensive farming, for starters, should be phased out — not for environmental reasons but because they’re heinous.

We are all so distracted by the big miserable, intractable, climate picture that we don’t see and address the other much more manageable and solvable problems.

Hatuey says: at 10:03 am

“People can change.”

Hmm, well clearly not enough individuals are changing of their own volition, as that would mean they have to shake themselves free of the conditioning they have received to this point.
And that conditioning that influences how individuals live is basically a result of corporate power pushing their wares for their own gain rather than that of the planet.

Try keeping a stretch of our countryside clean for a year. You’ll soon find out that litter pickers are significantly outnumbered by those that lob their litter out of their cars.
Maybe the whole Covid debacle did highlight that forced impositions of change can be implemented on folk and to a degree tolerated by the masses.
Covid is of course a highly divisive matter, but would enforcing changes on certain “eco” issues be so controversial?
I am a live and let live kinda of entity, but would anybody really protest if the death penalty was brought in for folk that leave their dug’s shit on the pavement.

Now yes, I know, standards are different, progress and technology has advanced, blah, blah, blah…

But look at what I takes to build a modern house. All the machine work for foundations, services, drainage, roads and access, then the solum with it’s DPM’s, and insulation, the timber frame costing a five figure sum, all the insulation, then the cladding, the roof, the services, the painting, the finishes, skirtings, doors and facings… and all that “progress”. How many lorry and van loads of “stuff” is all that? And the cost!!! Holy Moly.

It evolved over a thousand years, but the Highland Blackhouse was built all over the Highlands and Islands by people who fed and dressed themselves, with next to no money, using NOTHING which wasn’t available locally. The stone and earth or peat for the walls came from the ground, no cement or mortar, the wall was capped with puddle clay and turf on top to keep the wall dry, the trusses for the roof were either hand me down timbers, driftwood from the beach, or whale ribs. Turf was laid over the purlins and roof structure, and a thatch of local Marram grass was pushed into the turf to shed the rain, and the thatch itself was held down against storm damage by old fishing nets weighted down.

This is history, but it isn’t ancient history, they were still building “new” blackhouses just 150 years ago. I recently saw a Tweet from somebody saying there were lots of houses on Tiree with black felt roofs… which judging by the photo, are “moderninsed’ blackhouses still being homes today.

By all accounts, the thatch didn’t wear well, and had to be repaired annually and redone every 5 years or so, but they managed somehow.

The point I’m making is that what we find acceptable is very much in our heads. We are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for, and so much of what we think is important is just an artificial veneer.

You see all those post apocalyptic movies and games where society is gone, and people emerge from their bunkers fighting in gangs for the last bottle of CocaCola or something daft, and they’re forced to venture into the unknown to find the nearest gun shop, but actually, you might just as easily crawl out your bunker, find a nice spot near a beach with running water and build yourself a Highland Blackhouse and give your family a dry roof over their heads for the next 100 years.

I’m not saying everybody drops everything, scrubs the Building Regulations and starts knocking down a farmers dyke to build a Blackhouse with it,… but we’re always told how green we are copying the Scandinavian models of timber framed housing… and then you look at the resilience and green credentials of a Scottish Blackhouse, and suddenly, you begin to appreciate it’s actually a beautiful and remarkable thing.

JAMES CHE
Vaccination has a eugenics motif, improving health, improving the species but at whose expense?
The «weak» the «unfit» and the genetically or «racially» inferior?
Gates is up to his neck in this. His father was an advocate of checking population growth by eugenic criteria. Gates has an unhealthy interest in Africa. He’s a buddy of Indian pm Narendra Modi too.
Colonialism never dies it just shifts the rationale.