Blogs on SaltireNation
http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/kevin-bridges?day=11-08-2010&per...
my bday is the 12th,dunoo how long tickets will last,wee journey 2 the burgh 2 c him sounds good.thoughts any1?
The other night I was watching tv in the living room when I had the feeling of someone watching me.
Every side of the flat that has a window (north, east and west) now has CCTV that can look in... magic.
In a week where I had derogatory comments about Scottish people removed from CNET and had taken part in the National Conversation event, the icing on the cake was that the English Defence League (off shoot of the Nazi BNP) was heading to Glasgow to spout their racial pish about Muslims.
Never one to miss an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone I decide to catch up with Eddy and make an an appearance at the Anti-EDL protest that was being organised by Scotland United to support ethnic minorities.
To be honest that wasn't the reason I wanted to attend, I was more concerned about why these English clowns were coming to Glasgow, I don't give a fuck what they do in their own country but don't bring your shit to mine.
Anyway, after getting off the bus the first thing we were greeted by was a police helicopter hovering about the centre of Glasgow. It turned out to be keeping an eye on the 80 or so EDL Protesters who had their protest rejected by Glasgow Council and had been hemmed in by the police.
The news reports and protest planning request before hand had said about 500 Nazi supporters would be attending, they didn't get anywhere close to it.
We arrived at Glasgow Green to see a thousand or so folk gathered listening to the guest speakers including Nicola Sturgeon, Tommy Sheridan and Annabell Goldie all jumping on the fuck you EDL band wagon.
After the speakers had finished the protest marched through Glasgow, a fairly impressive show of support, 1000 folk chanting anti BNP and some anti establishment abuse (from the Socialist sections) escorted by hundreds of police.
It was all pretty easy going, folk walking with their kids and trying to sing along with the chants.
There was however one incident, after the march turned off Argyle Street heading towards George Square, one of the EDL\BNP supporters walking along the pavement (who hadn't been rounded up and detained at Sauchiehall Street) started chanting about supporting the BNP. (lol) I couldn't believe it, the hundred or so people that could hear him all started to slow down until they came to a stop, all in a kind of disbelief.
After a few seconds they turned to him and started advancing towards him, the only thing to his credit was that he only took a few steps back as the 50 or so closest protesters charged him. Luckily the protesters at the front closest to him stopped a few feet from him and held the rest back as the crowd behind started shouting and chanting 'there's more of us than there are of you' (lol).
Me and Eddy were in the thick of it, shouted inaudible abuse, if it hadn't of been for the police dragging him down an alley (never to be seen again hopefully) we would have been caught up in a mobbing.
After he disappeared everyone simply turned and continued towards Georges Square as if it had never happened, a peaceful protest right enough.
By the time we got to Georges Square I felt I had done what I set out to do, make sure these English clowns knew that they weren't welcome in Scotland.
A rare productive day, it's just a shame we never got to see the majority of the EDL (who after being surround in Sauchiehall Street were told to leave Glasgow) and that Scotland got humped 3-0 by Wales.
A few weeks back I was on a bit of a rampage with the whole Scottish Independence topic after a die hard SNP supporter said that 'Scotland needs England'.
Enraged, I decide to see where we were with the whole 'National Conversation', the government's attempt to get feedback from the nation on where Scotland should be heading.
I ended up over at www.anationalconversation.com where I found there was a debate being held at Ayr Academy by MSP John Swinney, perfect I thought, somewhere to find some answers.
I arrived to see the majority of the 100 people were old folk, I think this was probably down to the piss poor advertising of the event as opposed to no one wanting to attend.
The format turned out to be a Q and A session for the hour long event, the majority of questions coming from local Councillors trying to promote their own causes to the Finance Minister.
The one decent point made from the audience was about 'Quantitative Easing' (give or take the Bank of England printing money) and why the money was going to banks instead of local authorities, a great point that received a round of applause but completely off topic and pointless since Mr Swinney has absolutely no control of the Scottish economy.
On topic there was a question about how Scotland would handle Scots abroad since we won't have any embassies for people to go to. The thing about that was the person asking mentioned that the embassies were owned by the Queen meaning that a separation from Westminister wouldn't have any effect on the embassies so therefore answering her own question. Mr Swinney was quick to say that the separation from the English government was not a separation from the Queen and the rest of the monarchy.
All in all there wasn't much else said of value, a lot of people didn't really ask questions on topic and one person that did sounded as if he had just came out of Lockside after watching Braveheart. (lol)
OK, so that's pretty unfair, I never asked a question since everyone else seemed to be away on their own tangents and that Mr Swinney probably wouldn't have been able to answer it there and then.
So I decided half way through the event to contact My Swinney directly with the question...
'In an independent Scotland, would our annual budget be more or less than the current amount we receive from the UK treasury via the Barnett formula?'
AND
'Can you breakdown an independent Scotland's budget, naming the incomes and forecasted amounts?'
I've emailed him the questions so I'll post back when I receive an answer.
As for this 'National Conversation', well first of all it wasn't a conversation, once someone had asked their question and Mr Swinney had answered it wasn't returned to, surely there has to be a dialogue for it to be a conversation.
The event was terribly organised, I only found out about it on the Friday by accident and never received a reply to my request for a seat, I just turned up and was lucky that there were 20 or so seats left.
Bottom line? The National Conversation isn't working, I'm worried that we might fuck this up, everything else is falling into place (Tories winning election down south will give SNP support and the SNP hopefully getting their Independence referendum through the Scottish Parliament) but if we don't build up enough support and continue the independence momentum we might be left with England controlling us for the next 300 years from the shadows courtesy of the Calmann report.
We need to get our fingers out.
After spending 5 days trying to get a bit of smoke and generally raging about not getting any, I came across an article on CNET called 'What does Google Suggest suggest about the state of humanity?' that I found mildly entertaining until I reached the last part...
Google suggests:
1: '...for a man in Scotland to marry his widow's sister?'
2: '...to marry your cousin?'
3: '...to shoot pigeons?'
4: '...to own a monkey in the UK?'
Explanation: Scots are pigeon-hating perverts, but want to own monkeys, probably to fetch them fried food. No wonder we built a giant wall to keep them out of England.
I was already pissed off but the 'explanation' (both the attack and the 'we built a giant wall to keep them out of England.') part seemed to be the straw the broke the camels back.
2 minutes after reading it I was on the authors blog looking at the picture below, 'what a fuckwit' I thought.
Anyway, I thought that this was a bit outrageous from one of the biggest websites so I emailed his editor. I was debating whether this was petty or not(and still am) but after visiting his blog I decided fuck it, it's a good way to vent.
To whom it may concern,
Would you like to comment on the derogatory comments about Scottish people made by your blogger Nate Lanxon in his article 'What does Google Suggest suggest about the state of humanity?' found at http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49304156,00.htm ?
"Explanation: Scots are pigeon-hating perverts, but want to own monkeys, probably to fetch them fried food. No wonder we built a giant wall to keep them out of England."
I would like to direct you to the following Wikipedia entries for your information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech#United_Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits, by its Part 3, expressions of racial hatred. "Racial hatred" is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group's colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. Section 18 of the Act says:
A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
Offences under Part 3 carry a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment or a fine or both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian's_Wall
Hadrian's Wall (Latin: Vallum Aelium, Italian: Vallo di Adriano) is a stone or turf and timber fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England.
As I am sure you will agree, his article is inflammatory at least (illegal at worst) and is inaccurate, is this the standard that is to be expect of CNET? Does CNET condone this?
I await your response before deciding on the my next course of action.
AM.
So a few days passed and finally managed to get a bit of smoke so had completely chilled out by the time I received a reply....
Hi Andy
Thanks for your email. I’m the editorial director at CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET UK, and I’m writing to you because [the UK Editor] is away for the next two weeks. We will get back to you with a full answer and in the meantime have removed those specific lines of text within the article you refer to.
Tony
A day later followed by....
Hi Andy
We’ve been taking a close look at the blog post and we sincerely apologise if it caused you any offence.
While we strongly deny any allegations of incitement to racial hatred, the section you brought to our attention has been taken down from the Crave blog, as previously stated, and we have reiterated to the CNET UK writers the high standards that we expect of them, and reminded them of what is and isn’t appropriate, even in pieces intended to be humorous. CNET does not condone any form of racial abuse whatsoever, and we apologise if this was how Nate’s comments were construed – this was not our intention in any way. Nate himself is upset to have caused you any offence – and, for it’s worth, I can tell you he and CNET aren’t anti-Scotland.
Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.
Tony
lol, good result I thought.
If this had been on some random idiots blog then I would have probably let it go, maybe posted some sort of abuse but since it was CNET I decided to vent my anger at them.
The moral of the story? Best that I keep smoking to keep my rage down.
I'm pretty impressed so far with the Speech Recognition built into Windows 7 but for some reason the Speech Recognition Reference Card was missing so I thought I'd post it here for those hunting through Google for it.
Working with text
| To do this | Say this |
|---|---|
| Insert a new line in the document | New line |
| Insert a new paragraph in the document | New paragraph |
| Insert a tab | Tab |
|
Insert the literal word for the next command; for example, you can insert the word "comma" instead of the punctuation mark |
Literal word |
| Insert the numeral form of a number | Numeral number |
| Put the cursor before a specific word | Go to word |
| Put the cursor after a specific word | Go after word |
| Do not insert a space before the next word | No space |
| Go to the start of the sentence that the cursor is in | Go to start of sentence |
| Go to the start of the paragraph the cursor is in | Go to start of paragraph |
| Go to the start of the document | Go to start of document |
| Go to the end of the sentence that the cursor is in | Go to end of sentence |
| Go to the end of the paragraph the cursor is in | Go to end of paragraph |
| Go to the end of the current document | Go to end of document |
| Select the word in the current document | Select word |
| Select the word range in the current document |
Select word range; Select word through word |
| Select all text in the current document | Select all |
|
Select the 1-20 words before the location of the cursor |
Select previous 1-20 words; Select previous 10 words |
|
Select the 1-20 words after the location of the cursor |
Select next 1-20 words; Select next 10 words |
| Select the last text you dictated | Select that |
| Clear the selection on the screen | Clear selection |
| Capitalize the first letter of the word | Caps word |
| Capitalize all the letters of the word | All caps word |
| Make all the letters in the word lowercase | No caps word |
|
Change the next number of words to uppercase |
Change next number of words to uppercase |
|
Change the next number of words to lowercase |
Change next number of words to lowercase |
| Delete the previous sentence | Delete previous sentence |
| Delete the next sentence | Delete next sentence |
| Delete the previous paragraph | Delete previous paragraph |
| Delete the next paragraph | Delete next paragraph |
| Delete the selected or last dictated text | Delete that |
Pressing keyboard keys
| To do this | Say this |
|---|---|
| Press any key on the keyboard |
Press keyboard key; Press a; Press capital b; Press SHIFT plus a; Press CTRL plus a |
| Press certain keyboard keys without saying "Press" first |
Delete; Backspace; Enter; Page Up; Page down; Home; End; Tab |
Punctuation marks and special characters
| To make this appear | Say this |
|---|---|
| , | Comma |
| ; | Semicolon |
| . | Period; Dot; Full stop; Decimal point |
| : | Colon |
| “ | Open double quote; Open quote; Open inverted commas |
| ” | Close double quote; Close quote; Close inverted commas |
| ‘ | apostrophe |
| ‘ | Open single quote |
| ’ | Close single quote |
| > | Greater than sign |
| < | Less than sign |
| / | Forward slash |
| \ | Backslash |
| ~ | Tilde |
| @ | At sign |
| ! | Exclamation mark; Exclamation point |
| ? | Question mark |
| # | Number sign; Pound sign; Hash sign |
| $ | Dollar sign |
| % | Percent sign |
|
^ |
Caret |
| ( | Open parenthesis; Open paren |
| ) | Close parenthesis; Close paren |
| _ | Underscore |
| - | Hyphen; Minus sign; Dash |
| – | En dash |
| — | Em dash; Double dash |
| = | Equal sign |
| + | Plus sign |
| { | Open brace; Open curly bracket |
| } | Close brace; Close curly bracket |
| [ | Open bracket; Open square bracket |
| ] | Close bracket; Close square bracket |
| | | Vertical bar |
 |
Press smiley face |
 |
Press frowny face |
 |
Press winky face |
| ™ | Trademark sign |
| ¾ | Three quarter sign |
| ¼ | One quarter sign |
| ½ | One half sign |
| £ | Pound sterling sign; pound; pound sign |
| & | Ampersand; and sign |
| * | asterisk |
| // | Double slash |
|
` |
Back quote |
| < | Open angle bracket |
| > | Close angle bracket |
| ± | Plus or minus sign |
| « | Open angle quote |
| » | Close angle quote |
| × | Multiplication sign |
| ÷ | Division sign |
| ¢ | Cent sign |
| ¥ | Yen sign |
| § | Section sign |
| © | Copyright sign |
| ® | Registered sign, Registered trademark sign |
| ° | Degree sign |
| ¶ | Paragraph sign |
| … | Ellipsis; Dot dot dot |
| ƒ | Function sign |
Working with common controls
| To do this | Say this |
|---|---|
| Click any item by saying its name |
File; Edit; View; Save; bold |
| Click any item |
Click File; Click bold; Click Save; Click Close |
| Double-click any item |
Double-click Computer; Double-click Recycle Bin; Double-click Folder name |
| Right-click any item |
Right-click Computer; Right-click Recycle Bin; Right-click Folder name |
| Minimize all windows to show your desktop | Show Desktop |
| Click something you don’t know the name of |
Show numbers (Numbers will appear on the screen for every item in the active window) |
| Click a numbered item | 19 OK; 5 OK |
| Double-click a numbered item | Double-click 19; Double-click 5 |
| Right-click a numbered item | Right-click 19; Right-click 5 |
Working with windows and programs
| To do this | Say this |
|---|---|
| Open a program |
Open Paint; Open WordPad; Open program name |
| Switch to an open program |
Switch to Paint; Switch to WordPad; Switch to program name; Switch application |
| Close a program |
Close that; Close Paint; Close Documents; Close Internet Explorer (only works with the active window) |
| Restore |
Restore that; Restore Paint; Restore Internet Explorer (only works with the active window) |
| Minimize |
Minimize that; Minimize Paint; Minimize Internet Explorer (only works with the active window) |
| Maximize |
Maximize that; Maximize Paint; Maximize Internet Explorer (only works with the active window) |
| Cut | Cut that; Cut |
| Copy | Copy that; Copy |
| Paste | Paste |
| Delete | Delete that; Delete |
| Undo | Undo that; Scratch that; Undo |
| Scroll direction | Scroll up; Scroll down; Scroll right; Scroll left |
| Scroll an exact distance in pages | Scroll down 2 pages; Scroll up 10 pages |
| Scroll an exact distance in other units | Scroll up 5; Scroll down 7 |
| Go to a field in a form or a program |
Go to field name; Go to Subject; Go to Address; Go to Cc |
Clicking anywhere on the screen
| To do this | Say this |
|---|---|
| Show the mousegrid | Mousegrid |
|
Move the mouse pointer to the center of any mousegrid square |
number—or numbers—of the square; 1; 7; 9; 1, 7, 9 |
| Click any mousegrid square | Click number of the square |
| Select an item to drag with the mousegrid |
number—or numbers—of the square where the item appears; 3, 7, 9 (followed by) mark |
|
Select an area where you want to drag the item with the mousegrid |
number—or numbers—of the square where you want to drag; 4, 5, 6 (followed by) click |
The UK is currently the odd country out in Europe with other Governments either abolishing aviation taxation or cancelling planned introduction of tax. As to the Dutch experience, the NL APD only lasted a year – it did not apply to transfer pax or freight aircraft. It was removed after it became apparent that the net tax position was worse off with NL APD than without it – i.e. although NL APD raised revenue, it resulted in greater losses of revenue. Dutch travellers decided to depart Europe from Germany or France, not AMS. Balpa’s website describes it as follows:
The Dutch Experience
The Netherlands introduced an airport tax similar to APD in July 2008. However, it lasted only until July 2009 before the Government scrapped the scheme. The tax was €11.25 for short-haul passengers and €45 for long-haul passengers.
The decision to abolish the tax was taken after a campaign by the Dutch transport and travel industry. It showed the importance of Schiphol airport to the wider Dutch economy and the impact the Duty would have on the aviation sector.
The campaign consisted of petitions, lobbying politicians, media campaigns and the publication of academic research. The research found that:
1. There would be a decline of 10% of passengers using Dutch airports.
2. The number of in-bound tourists and business passengers would decrease by 2%, producing a loss of €83m income.
3. Airports would lose €90m/annum income.
4. The State would lose €100-€200m due to costs associated with unemployment with a total loss for the Dutch treasury of around €150-€280m/annum.
The Belgians and the Swedes never introduced their announced taxes and the Danes have removed their APD.
The Airport Operators Association is completing a study into the impact of APD on UK airports and routes. It will look at taxation sensitivities surrounding aviation but these results are not likely to be available until early September.
http://search.petitions.number10.gov.uk/kbroker/number10/petitions/searc...
if you agree click on link and find two petitions regarding UK aviation tax.
The more who sign the more attention can be brought to the matter.
A Union Flag flying from Wallace Tower, unbelievable. It might have something to do with Prestwick forces awarded freedom but still.
