The first photo is of the Isle of Arran taken from the seafront at Prestwick. The sky has been cropped.
Here is another shot with the sky cropped, this one showing the village of Mauchline with Arran about 30 miles in the distance. You can tell from the shadow pattern on Arran that this photo was taken a few hours earlier than the one above.
The third photograph is of the Wallace Tower in Ayr High Street.
Three people were arrested for drugs offences at Scotland’s first cannabis cafe, police said last night.If the Conservatives had any gumption, they would be explaining that governments have no right to tell people what they can and can't do with their own bodies. As well as being right, such a stance might actually get the Tories some support from the younger generation as well as from the many older folk who realise that the war on drugs is a total nonsense. But no, what we get is this:The arrest of the two men and a woman for possession of cannabis at the Purple Haze Cafe coincided with the reclassification of the drug, from class B to class C, which came into force yesterday.
Annabel Goldie, the Tories’ justice spokeswoman, said the government’s mixed messages had given a green light to those who think that they are above the law.Unsurprisingly, the full force of the law was ready for this dire threat to civilisation:
He (a police spokesman) added that officers had been maintaining a presence outside the cafe and had warned customers they could be arrested if seen with any illegal substances.Well, it's less hassle than catching burglars I suppose.
To answer my question at the top of this post, the Scottish Socialists are speaking for freedom!
Last night, an SSP spokesman said police should not be "wasting their time" prosecuting cannabis users. "We have to stop criminalising people for what after all is a victimless crime," he said.A victimless crime indeed. It's such a pity that the comrades can't follow the logic of this argument, which inevitably leads to a demand for laissez-faire capitalism. Perhaps I should send the SSP a copy of Socialism by Ludwig von Mises. The dust jacket of this wonderful book announces:
Here is at once the purest, intellectually most powerful and most uncompromising statement of the extreme anti-collectivist case.It's quite simple really: Our bodies should be free, our commerce should be free, our lives should be free. As long as we don't initiate force or fraud we should be free to do what we damn well want.
The Rev Peter Hadden thought he was being a Good Samaritan by trying to help an American family whose car was being towed away on George Street.But he was appalled when an Enforcer allegedly told him to "f*** off" and mind his own business. Now the 54-year-old minister, who was not wearing his dog collar at the time of the incident, is preparing to make an official complaint about the Enforcer’s behaviour and swearing.
He said today: "I feel his actions came very close to starting a fight, and he has done this city’s reputation abroad no good at all.
Furthermore:
And despite the pay-and-display sticker on the window, Enforcers called for the tow-truck to remove the car.How very differently things are done elsewhere. About 20 years ago I was driving a rented car along a motorway in Italy. This was at a time when the country was plagued with a series of terrorist bombings. Suddenly, all the traffic was diverted on to a slip road at the end of which was a police checkpoint. These guys did not appear to be your friendly neighbourhood cops: they were heavily armed and roughly ordered each driver to get out for frisking and questioning. An officer yelled at me in Italian. I replied, "Non Italiano, Io Scozzesi", or words to that effect. The cop broke into a large grin and replied, "Aha, Io Napolitano", gave me a big hug and sent me on my way without further ado!To make matters worse, the hire car contained their passports and tickets for a flight home that evening.
Parking wardens have a difficult job to do but some leeway should be given to tourists, especially those with planes to catch.
We are ready:
Directors of Network Rail are understandably concerned about the possibility of facing charges of corporate manslaughter in the event of someone being killed or injured while wandering on the railway. Meanwhile, the Scottish government has legislated in favour of a right toThe problem hasn't gone away:trespassroam, including, presumably, across railway tracks.
The escalating argument over the threatened closure of hundreds of public footpaths across railway lines has landed on ministers’ desks after a clash between a government environmental agency and a rail company.The Railway is maintaining its stance:Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Network Rail have fallen out over the advice walkers should be given on crossing railways.
Network Rail’s position, however, was backed by Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate (HMRI), part of the government’s Health and Safety Executive. “There is no ‘right to roam’ on railway lines, including over private level crossings,” said a spokeswoman.I wonder if that is the legal position in Scotland. It probably is the case in England. Of course, there shouldn't be any "right to roam" over anyone's property. The Marxists used to talk about the "contradictions" of capitalism. There aren't any of course, but Scottish socialism is a veritable showcase of contradictions.
Tory MSP Ted Brocklebank writes that:
At least the Tories have now pledged to take Britain out of the CFP when it returns to government at Westminster. The SNP‘s similar policy is unachievable, given that it will never be in power at Westminster and that its goal of an independent Scotland seems unlikely to happen.That's all very well Mr Brocklebank, but please answer this question:
What happens when the EU says "No"? If the only way to repatriate our fishing grounds is to leave the EU, will you favour that policy?The voters would like to know.
Now, Stonehaven's hit the news big time:
It has gone down in history as the town that invented the deep-fried Mars bar and the fountain pen, but now it appears a windswept Scottish coastal town is no less than the cradle of civilisation.On my visit to the town I noticed that Stonehaven contains lots of sandstone buildings, as its name would indicate and indeed just like most places in Scotland. But those stones are almost as old as Sir Michael Jagger:Scientists have been left slack-jawed with wonder at the discovery that life as we know it began in Stonehaven after a fossil picked up in the town last year was confirmed as the oldest air-breathing creature ever discovered.
The millipede is less than 1cm long but lived around 420 million years ago, when Aberdeenshire was part of a giant continent spanning the equator.
At this time (when the millipede was alive and kicking), Stonehaven is believed to have been part of a giant continent known as Larussia or the Old Red Sandstone Continent, which incorporated parts of modern-day Europe, Siberia and North America.In the printed version of Scotland on Sunday we learn that:
When the fossil was created 420 million years ago the two land areas that eventually make up Britain lay south of the equator!Does that mean that we Scots are really Australians? Maybe only those of us who've been around as long as the millipede. Pass me a tin of Fosters.
Surely the President is less of a spendthrift than the previous Democrat incumbent.
Not so:
The conservative Club for Growth estimates that the Bush administration has increased domestic discretionary spending by 8.2 percent, compared with 2.5 percent during the Clinton years.It's not going to be easy to sort out the ballooning deficit:
Indeed, balancing the budget by 2013 would require steps as drastic as raising individual and corporate income taxes by 27 percent, eliminating Medicare entirely, or cutting Social Security benefits by 60 percent, according to the Committee for Economic Development, the Concord Coalition, and the Center of Budget and Policy PrioritiesAsian Central banks are funding much of the deficit, with an increasing amount of this lending coming from China. Oil producers are starting to talk about being paid in Euros or even gold. The dollar is falling.
Many individuals max out on their credit cards. Politicians are not immune from this behaviour. I have a nasty feeling that this will all end in tears.
Sir Sean Connery, the best-known Freeman of the City of Edinburgh, has signed up to market our national drink:
After years of being wooed by various distillers, Scotland’s most famous actor has agreed to front a major campaign for Dewar’s, the world’s fourth-largest whisky brand.Sir Sean played hard to get:It is the first time Sir Sean has agreed to promote his country’s most illustrious export, with the deal reported to have cost the brand more than $1 million.
Neil Boyd, the global brand director of the Aberfeldy-based company, ... said it had taken 18 months of negotiations to make the promotion happen.I have no doubt that Dewar's will find the $1m to be money well-spent, but hope that 007 got every cent from them that he could.
The only legitimate function of the state is to protect citizens against those who initiate force or fraud. That means the provision of the armed services to protect us from external aggressors, the operation of local police forces to protect us from domestic aggressors, and a court system to try those accused of aggression and punish those found guilty.Some libertarians go further and argue that no functions of the state are "legitimate", including defence services. I have ordered my copy of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's new book, which examines this position:
With eleven chapters by top libertarian scholars on all aspects of defense, this book edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe represents an ambitious attempt to extend the idea of free enterprise to the provision of security services. It argues that "national defense" as provided by government is a myth not unlike the myth of socialism itself. Defense services are more viably privatized and replaced by the market provision of security.I do find myself to be very impressed with the arguments that I have read so far in favour of a completely Anarcho-Capitalist society, but it's fair to say that it's not about to occur in the immediate future! In the meantime defence services are provided by the state, and it's making a lousy job of it:
Yesterday, Lieutenant Colonel James Cowan, the commanding officer of the Black Watch, one of the regiments in the thick of the fighting, told The Scotsman that the shortage of equipment in the Gulf was due to the government’s unwillingness to commit to war until all possible alternatives had been explored, while the regiment’s quartermaster during the conflict criticised the shortage of nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) protection suits and equipment.Yes, "criminal" is the correct word. Whatever else emerges from the Hutton Report, it is obvious that Messrs Blair and Hoon have been utterly derelict in their duty to our military personnel. If for no other reason, Blair and Hoon should go, hanging their heads in shame.Despite government assertions that the purpose of the war was to remove Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, British units were sent to the Gulf without enough NBC protection suits to go round, without equipment to decontaminate vehicles after an attack, and with unusable detection equipment intended to provide early warning of an attack.
While both men said it was important to keep complaints about other equipment shortages in perspective, they said that future problems could be avoided by a return to a system where essential items were held in stockpiles, rather than being purchased at the last minute.
Other senior military figures went even further, calling the failure to supply soldiers with adequate NBC gear "criminal".
ALMOST a third of all city council staff retiring from work do so because of ill-health, costing the local authority millions of pounds.Just why do local council workers retire early at a rate that is fifteen times that in the private sector? Naturally, the trade unions have an answer:An average of 30 per cent of retirements from the city council over the past seven years were on medical grounds compared to just two per cent in the private sector.
Union leaders claim the figures are a damning indictment of the pressures being put on workers because of understaffing.Utter rubbish. The "pressures" in the public sector bear no resemblance to those faced by private businesses. How many in the public sector have to worry about keeping customers satisfied every hour of every day, knowing that failure in this task means that you're out of a job? How many government accountants lie awake at night worrying whether they'll be able to meet the payroll next day? Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
It's nonsense for the unions to speak of "shortage of staff and resource problems" - Scotland's public sector is one of the most bloated in the western world.
We are told that we need "more rigorous (medical) examinations", "inquiries" and, wait for it, "health and safety and well-being strategies". No we don't. We need a huge clear out of staff employed by Edinburgh City Council. Anything useful that they do should be privatised.
It could be worse though. The national figure for council medical retirals is 55%!
First, there is now a link to Storm ID, Edinburgh's leading web design company.
Then I have enabled readers to see the latest gold information from Kitco, which is one of the world’s premier retailers of precious metals.
The chart purports to give the price of gold in terms of US Dollars but what it really does is to show the price of Federal Reserve Notes in terms of real money. See here for further explanations!
The SNP and Welsh Nationalist Plaid Cymru have joined forces to demand the same access to the Hutton Report as the main opposition parties at Westminster.Of course the Nationalists should see the Hutton Report at the same time as the Tories and LibDems. Needless to say I don't think that Tony Blair should see a copy before any opposition members.Last week, it emerged that Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, will receive a copy of the report 24 hours before it is made public.
The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats attacked the move after they were told they would receive it only six hours before its publication.
Now the SNP and Plaid Cymru have written to the Prime Minister demanding the same access to the Hutton Report as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
Television, as usual, was the first to register the subtle changes. Dancing troupes began wearing military outfits: khaki bikinis or mini-skirts made up of stars-and-stripes. In another toe-curling show, a group of girls danced dolefully in burqas before the band struck up Yankee Doodle and they stripped off to the all-Italian sequin underwear.I wonder if Mr Kilroy-Silk speaks Italian ......
Yesterday, there was another letter from Andrew Duffin and today sees one from Neil Craig. (the third letter down)
I was also pleased to read this letter which recommends "a touch of market economics" (Adam Smith style) to resolve the university funding crisis. Then there's another letter from the redoubtable Dr Flood in Dumfries who demolishes a recent attempt to explain away the failure of some of Scotland's poorest performing schools.
The Most Free:The rankings are based on an analysis of economic freedoms in each country as explained in this press release:Hong Kong (1st)
Singapore (2nd)
New Zealand (3rd)
Luxembourg (4th)
Ireland (5th)
Estonia (6th)
United Kingdom (7th)
Denmark (8th)
Switzerland (9th)
United States (10th)The Least Free:
Tajikistan (146th)
Venezuela (147th)
Iran (148th)
Uzbekistan (149th)
Turkmenistan (150th)
Burma (151st)
Laos (151st)
Zimbabwe (153rd)
Libya (154th)
North Korea (155th)
The Index, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, has long documented that the nations with the most economic freedom are also the most prosperous. Those with the best scores in the 10 categories measured-trade policy, fiscal burden of government, government intervention in the economy, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking and finance, wages and prices, property rights, regulation and informal (or black) market activity-enjoy higher standards of living and higher per capita incomes.The United Kingdom is well placed at number 7 - ahead of the United States, which is in tenth position. Gordon Brown hasn't yet managed to destroy the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s. I imagine that the US suffers from the machinations of the legally backed victimocracy lobby that have resulted in so much of America's manufacturing industry fleeing to Asia.
What though of Scotland?
Most of the categories examined by Heritage are reserved to Westminster, but not all. Scotland's devolved government has increased the fiscal burden on business (business rates), attacked property rights (land "reform") and just loves regulating anything that moves (planning laws, etc., etc., ad nauseam)
It seems highly likely that a separate Scotland would be placed well below the UK ranking and even further below that of Ireland - the country that the Scottish Nationalists wish us to emulate. If we want Scotland to be economically successful we need to slash regulations, bureaucracy and taxation. We also need to recognise property rights. Why shouldn't we aim to be number one? After all, Hong Kong was a Scottish invention.
Many Labour high fliers have sacrificed facial hair in the name of naked ambition.But perhaps a terrible error has been made. Here's the latest from India:
POLICE in northern India are being paid an extra 30 rupees (36p) a month to grow a moustache to give them more authority.Grow it back, Mandy. You'll be back in the cabinet in no time.Mayank Jain, a police superintendent in Madhya Pradesh, said police with moustaches were treated more seriously, but that shape and style would be monitored to ensure they did not look mean.
Judith Gillespie, the development manager of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said teachers should not be working in the state system if they send their children to private schools.Here is one of those reactions:Her comments, which echo those made recently by an Edinburgh headteacher, will strike a chord with many in the profession but have prompted an angry reaction from union leaders and politicians.
David Eaglesham, the general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said: "I’ve seldom heard such garbage. Life is about making choices, which car you want, where you live and what you do for a living. I think it’s despicable to say that teachers should not have a decision in their children’s future.In today's Scotsman Gillian Bowditch writes about this row and starts off by defending the teachers who chose private education for their own children:"You are getting into the area of social engineering. It’s serfdom.
At the heart of the argument is a dangerous assumption that those employed by the state owe total allegiance to the state.Those were my own first thoughts on this matter. I then began to have doubts, as did Ms Bowditch:The presumption is that if you work for the system, you have to support it whole-heartedly. If this totalitarian philosophy is taken one step further, no state employee - doctors, nurses or civil servants - would be allowed to choose an independent school for their child.
It may be galling for parents who have little option but to send their children to a failing school, to watch teachers opt to educate their own children elsewhere. But private education is not a morally reprehensible choice - for teachers or for anyone else.
It is too easy, however, simply to dismiss Wood and Gillespie’s arguments as unreconstructed Marxism, as outmoded as the class war. If you work for the state you must swear fealty to the state may be a dangerous philosophy, but it is one which is frequently advanced by New Labour, despite its hubris about choice and decentralisation.Just so. New Labour wants the masses, including government employees, to be completely beholden to the state. Exceptions can be made for the Neuearbeitspartei’s own henchmen, or rather henchpersons, as Gillian Bowditch notes:
It is different for politicians. Diane Abbott has a duty to send her child to a state school because she has been elected on the basis of an ideology which opposes private education.Many other NuLab politicians are perpetrating such a fraud, including the Great Leader himself.By choosing the independent sector she is perpetrating a fraud on the electorate. Politicians are responsible for education policy; teachers are responsible only for doing the best job they can within the parameters set by government.
Back to those state school teachers again. I don't blame then for wanting the best for their own children. But if they use private education I don't see how they can belong to trade unions or vote for political parties that oppose private education. By speaking out in favour of private education teachers can protect themselves from the criticisms of the likes of Ms Gillespie, and indeed myself.
STANDARD Life chief executive Iain Lumsden today quit after 36 years with the Edinburgh-based finance giant as the group announced a strategic review of its operations.I do hope that Standard Life survives as an independent entity - it is, I believe, Edinburgh's largest private sector employer. Standard's problems stem from remaining highly exposed to the stock market throughout the big declines of last year. I was a Standard Life policyholder until not too long ago. Being a student of the Austrian School of Economics, I switched out of the with-profits fund (linked to the stock market) into their cash fund at the end of 2001 and thus avoided the bonus cuts that followed. More recently I cashed in the policy. I cannot accept any responsibility for giving investment advice but I believe that the markets are still far too overvalued. Except for gold and silver of course.He stood down as the life and pensions firm admitted it may have to consider demutualisation to strengthen its financial position.
"If we become a public company, future payouts will go down by 10 per cent because we will have to pay dividends … The best way to understand our worth as a mutual is to realise we are worth 10 per cent more." - Iain Lumsden, 12 DecemberThat's extremely misleading. At present, all of the wealth owned by Standard Life is attributable to its current members - the policyholders. If Standard Life floats on the stock market dividends will indeed be payable to the shareholders but the first shareholders will be those very same members. No one can force them to sell their investment if they think that the capital value of the shares plus future dividends is worth more than the going stock market valuation.
And exactly what do you suggest we do with all the students who are "got rid of" because of disruptive behaviour? For some schools this would constitute 40-50% of their enrolment. Where do they go?and again:
No one seems to be able to answer my question - if ALL schools are privatised and therefore able to "get rid" of all children who are not willing to learn or behave appropriately, where will they go? Who will educate them? Will the private sector then set up special schools with special teachers with special salaries (and therefore at a very increased cost) to cater for this fast growing group of students, and if so will students be forced to attend them and who will pay, as these students generally come from the poorest homes?There are two things to consider here. First, should government be paying for education at all? Second, if so, should it run its own schools?
I make no bones about it: education should not be funded by government. The only legitimate function of the state is to protect citizens against those who initiate force or fraud. That means the provision of the armed services to protect us from external aggressors, the operation of local police forces to protect us from domestic aggressors, and a court system to try those accused of aggression and punish those found guilty. Whenever possible, criminals should make full restitution to their victims.
Everything else done by government should be privatised.
If most people want education to be funded by means of taxation, that's what will happen, even though I would argue that such provision is morally wrong and damaging for society. Government funding of education does not however require that schools be operated by the state. The provision of vouchers to be spent on private education is far preferable to the present system. And yes, private schools would be free to decide on which children they would teach. If the state wished to educate those children who cause disruption, then private schools could provide such services at a price. It is quite wrong that the majority of children (and their teachers) be terrorised by a mindless minority. When taxpayers are able to see the real financial costs of educating the troublemakers, there will be a justifiable outcry. We may then start asking questions like: Should education be compulsory? Answer: No - almost all children went to school when attendance was voluntary and not funded by government. Should the welfare state be abolished? Yes - it encourages the lack of responsibility shown by the parents of disruptive children. Should we get rid of the ludicrous minimum wage laws that keep young people from entering the workforce thus combining formal education with learning on the job: Obviously yes.
We won't solve the problem of disruptive children unless we re-examine the whole question of state education. Privatised education is making great strides throughout much of the world. Why shouldn't Scotland show the way here in the UK?
A Russian student refused entry to Scotland to study English was told by Whitehall officials she would have found the Scots accent difficult to understand.There were other reasons for refusing entry into the UK but the Foreign Office has refused to apologise for its remarks about "regional" accents. Full marks to John Swinney for ambushing Jack McConnell in the Scottish parliament. I wonder what would have happened if the Foreign Office had still been under Robin Cook, who himself has a "regional" accent.The extraordinary statement was made in documents sent to the un-named women by Foreign Office officials when they refused her entry to the UK last summer.
"You cannot satisfactorily explain why you have chosen to attend an English course in Scotland rather than your options of Oxford or Cambridge, where you should face less difficulty understanding a regional accent," officials stated.
