Ghostrider

I think the strength could vary a bit. Remember my grandfather telling a story about when he was in his teens or so and the auld eens had one, it was past use for humans so somebody just poured it away outside. The handful of ducks they had at the time came running, thinking they were being fed, and drank as much of it as they could salvage.....and spent a chunk of the day totally pissed. Whenever they tried to waddle off there was a manic flapping of wings and webbed feet going in all directions, then they just bellied up again looking very confused.

The EU is a poor partner to have for energy security, seeing as they're as much a conduit for Chinese energy, and up until earlier this year, were for Russian energy, as they are a producer. Defence, yeah, well, its an arguable point whether mutterings about an 'EU Army' was the final straw when added to all the Yank military shenanigans in Europe that convinced Putin it was time to do a bit of sabre rattling.
Twice in just over 200 years Russia has been invaded, once by the French and once by the Germans, is it any wonder that when the two get in cahoots and start appearing to be organising an army, that ole Russki gets a bit miffed and puts on an attempted show of strength with a sacrificial neighbour. Unwise, probably, but surprising, no.
The UK lacked labour pre-EU, the so-called hospitality industry was rattling full of Philippinos back in the day, as was the NHS, along with an ever increasing number of Indian Doctors. EU labour just filled a gap that was caused by the EU preventing those nationalities working in the UK any longer. We don't necessarily need to source people from the EU, there are numerous nations worldwide who have crowds of people who'd give their right arm to be able to come here and work, even for half the posted salary, we just need to facilitate capable people to come here, their nationality is irrelevant.

The EU is a poor partner to have for energy security, seeing as they're as much a conduit for Chinese energy, and up until earlier this year, were for Russian energy, as they are a producer. Defence, yeah, well, its an arguable point whether mutterings about an 'EU Army' was the final straw when added to all the Yank military shenanigans in Europe that convinced Putin it was time to do a bit of sabre rattling.
Twice in just over 200 years Russia has been invaded, once by the French and once by the Germans, is it any wonder that when the two get in cahoots and start appearing to be organising an army, that ole Russki gets a bit miffed and puts on an attempted show of strength with a sacrificial neighbour. Unwise, probably, but surprising, no.
The UK lacked labour pre-EU, the so-called hospitality industry was rattling full of Philippinos back in the day, as was the NHS, along with an ever increasing number of Indian Doctors. EU labour just filled a gap that was caused by the EU preventing those nationalities working in the UK any longer. We don't necessarily need to source people from the EU, there are numerous nations worldwide who have crowds of people who'd give their right arm to be able to come here and work, even for half the posted salary, we just need to facilitate capable people to come here, their nationality is irrelevant.

Copyright is a thorny issue with those pics.....
As George says, where copyright is known, the copyright holder can transfer it to the Museum. Simple. Problems start to arise when the copyright holder isn't known. To get around this, the story I've been told, is that as the image displayed on their site and any copy anyone may obtain from the Museum is from the Museum's scan of an original negative/copy/print, it is their own scan they claim copyright on rather than the original. How kosher it is for that to be done when the original copyright holder isn't known, is open to debate.....but likely something they can get away with without any real risk of challenge.
Actual example. The collection contains two images we have in a family collection of old photos, which were around long before the Museum, let alone the photo collection was ever dreamed off.
Did a long dead family member take them - Don't know. Do we hold the only original copies - Don't know. How did the Museum obtain the prints/negatives they were scanned from - Don't know.
What is known is that back in the 70's a neighbour borrowed a number of photos from our collection to have copies made for their own collection. Which we were fine with. Then years later that same neighbour allowed the Museum take copies of some photos from their collection.
Were the two photos in question ones we loaned to that neighbour to take copies for their own use - Don't know, the family members who loaned them are long gone. If they were, did that neighbour in turn allow the Museum to take copies of their copies - Don't know, that neighbour died before the Museum published their collection online.
Obviously there's every possibility the Museum could have obtained the negatives/prints they scanned from another source and its all very legit, but it just illustrates how sketchy things can get very quickly.

Copyright is a thorny issue with those pics.....
As George says, where copyright is known, the copyright holder can transfer it to the Museum. Simple. Problems start to arise when the copyright holder isn't known. To get around this, the story I've been told, is that as the image displayed on their site and any copy anyone may obtain from the Museum is from the Museum's scan of an original negative/copy/print, it is their own scan they claim copyright on rather than the original. How kosher it is for that to be done when the original copyright holder isn't known, is open to debate.....but likely something they can get away with without any real risk of challenge.
Actual example. The collection contains two images we have in a family collection of old photos, which were around long before the Museum, let alone the photo collection was ever dreamed off.
Did a long dead family member take them - Don't know. Do we hold the only original copies - Don't know. How did the Museum obtain the prints/negatives they were scanned from - Don't know.
What is known is that back in the 70's a neighbour borrowed a number of photos from our collection to have copies made for their own collection. Which we were fine with. Then years later that same neighbour allowed the Museum take copies of some photos from their collection.
Were the two photos in question ones we loaned to that neighbour to take copies for their own use - Don't know, the family members who loaned them are long gone. If they were, did that neighbour in turn allow the Museum to take copies of their copies - Don't know, that neighbour died before the Museum published their collection online.
Obviously there's every possibility the Museum could have obtained the negatives/prints they scanned from another source and its all very legit, but it just illustrates how sketchy things can get very quickly.

^ Scotland can do anything they please, on one condition. That, in the event of Scotland holding a referendum, and the result is in support of Scottish Independence,  that they then give Shetland and/or Shetland and Orkney the opportunity to hold a referendum to decide whether Shetland and/or Orkney goes with Scotland as an independent country, stays with the UK, or something else.
Exactly the same reasons pro-independence campaigners cite as being the 'problem' with Scotland being part of the UK exist for Shetland being part of an independent Scotland.
Shetland is approx equally physically distant from Edinburgh as Edinburgh is from London, and while Westminster is generally run by those from south of Watford, Scotland is run by Central Belt Socialists. We are neither, so are 'outsiders' to both.
If the Scots are willing to let us have that referendum, they can do what they please with what's between John o' Groats and Hadrian's wall, I really don't care about what goes on there. However, if they're not willing to agree to a referendum for us, then we should be blocking their's at any opportunity on the grounds they're hypocrites.
I won't argue about what Westminster may or may not have done post 2014 that has affected Scotland's relationship with the Union, need a crystal ball and all that. However, had the Nat's 'independence' proposals in the run up to the last referendum been genuine plans for independence, some of us 'No' voters might have been tempted to go with 'Yes' instead. Independence is wholly incompatible with sharing/retaining the Monarchy of another separate nation, and it is financial suicide to share/retain a common currency with another separate nation, especially when the currency remains 100% within the control of the other separate nation. At very best that's 'Devolution Max', not independence.
Regardless of whether Scottish Independence would be a good or bad thing, that 'mis-selling' of what they were asking people to vote for was more than enough to make some of us drop it like it was red hot and acquire an eternal deep suspicion and distrust of the people trying to sell it.
 

It may not be going to go away, but is it going anyplace either. The last twice, the Nats, the main and loudest proponents for Indie have only been able to legitimately claim an overall majority by selling out and getting in bed with the Greens. Hardly a resounding endorsement of their flagship policy.
Dissention for the union/indie has always existed as long as the union has been in existence, just not enough to force it's dissolution, and that doesn't seem to be growing of declining with time. The only change has been a bunch of wannabe central belt socialist who've hijacked it as a potential easy ride to personal glory and blaring about it from a bullhorn these last two or three decades.

Hardly ironclad, maybe barely brown wrapping paper clad at best. You're assuming that the electorate deemed Scottish Independence and holding another referendum for it was something they deemed important enough that it was a deal breaker when deciding whom they gave their vote to. There's an equal chance that the electorate didn't give a stuff one way of the other for Independence and a referendum and voted the way they did for other reasons entirely, and the outcome of who got elected would have been no different if independence and a referendum hadn't been in anyone's manifesto.
The same mandate to hold a referendum existed last time they had one, and the outcome didn't exactly go the way those who wanted one hoped or predicted. We shall see, come 2023, *if* the threatened referendum actually materialises, a week is a long time in politics let alone 15+ months.......
Things have moved on a bit for sure, no argument there, however I'd say public opinion now has far less stomach for independence than at the last referendum, but who knows. This close to the last one though, is always going to attract accusations of 'Keep on voting until you vote the *right* way'.
If Nikki is relying on 'Boris hate' to give her extra oomph, she'd best also keep a wadder ee on the more obvious too. The Nats are a one trick pony party, were it not for independence they have nothing in their policies to distinguish or elevate the fro any other Socialist outfit, and keeping on chasing independence while making no progress towards it has only a limited shelf life, which is running short now. she needs to win a referendum, and relatively soon, or she and her party are history.
So, suppose she has her referendum, and wins this time. What then? Unless Westminster recognises and accepts the result, which they may or may not do, nothing changes. She could declare UDI, or go whinging to the UN, neither of which is going to have any odds in her lifetime, or she could station her military along her border......Ahhh.....that's maybe not that easy for her.

Hardly ironclad, maybe barely brown wrapping paper clad at best. You're assuming that the electorate deemed Scottish Independence and holding another referendum for it was something they deemed important enough that it was a deal breaker when deciding whom they gave their vote to. There's an equal chance that the electorate didn't give a stuff one way of the other for Independence and a referendum and voted the way they did for other reasons entirely, and the outcome of who got elected would have been no different if independence and a referendum hadn't been in anyone's manifesto.
The same mandate to hold a referendum existed last time they had one, and the outcome didn't exactly go the way those who wanted one hoped or predicted. We shall see, come 2023, *if* the threatened referendum actually materialises, a week is a long time in politics let alone 15+ months.......
Things have moved on a bit for sure, no argument there, however I'd say public opinion now has far less stomach for independence than at the last referendum, but who knows. This close to the last one though, is always going to attract accusations of 'Keep on voting until you vote the *right* way'.
If Nikki is relying on 'Boris hate' to give her extra oomph, she'd best also keep a wadder ee on the more obvious too. The Nats are a one trick pony party, were it not for independence they have nothing in their policies to distinguish or elevate the fro any other Socialist outfit, and keeping on chasing independence while making no progress towards it has only a limited shelf life, which is running short now. she needs to win a referendum, and relatively soon, or she and her party are history.
So, suppose she has her referendum, and wins this time. What then? Unless Westminster recognises and accepts the result, which they may or may not do, nothing changes. She could declare UDI, or go whinging to the UN, neither of which is going to have any odds in her lifetime, or she could station her military along her border......Ahhh.....that's maybe not that easy for her.

I can't say I've noticed Arfski claiming to be an epidemiologist or anything else medically qualified/experienced for that matter, so who knows where they got their opinion from or whether or not it has any credibility beyond anyone else's.
Regardless where an opinion comes from, the old maxim 'don't believe everything you read/hear' is usually worth considering.
Demonstrable, provable facts, which seem to be becoming increasingly rare in the 'science' of today, are one thing to bandy about. Opinions, as someone allegedly said, are like a-ss-oles, everybody has one, and the only one that really matters to anyone is their own.
 

Er......How about don't be a hypocrite, and apply your first sentence to the remainder of your paragraph.
That, and some advice, you probably won't take, but whatever. Addressing people with made up and meaningless, but implied derogatory names, just because their OPINION differs from your own, isn't usually condusive to establishing a mutually respectful and productive debate. Just sayin......

Er......How about don't be a hypocrite, and apply your first sentence to the remainder of your paragraph.
That, and some advice, you probably won't take, but whatever. Addressing people with made up and meaningless, but implied derogatory names, just because their OPINION differs from your own, isn't usually condusive to establishing a mutually respectful and productive debate. Just sayin......

The situation should never have arisen in the first place that businesses have relied on foreigners who were willing to work for peanuts to survive. Brexit has simply brought to a head an exploitation issue that's been quietly swept under the carpet for years.
The EU 'open borders' policy contained a 'loophole' that created the situation, Brexit has closed it and shown the situation for what it was. It shouldn't have ever been allowed to have been created in the first place, but it was, through Westminster's implementation of Brussels' edicts, and now the mess is going to have to be swept up.

Two very slim chances. 'Shetland Auctions', who are what the saleroom has evolved in to in the present have a Facebook page, it might be worth contacting them and see if they'd be willing to put a copy of the item details on a post of their page. Some of whats left of the regulars from the saleroom back in the day still keep up and check that page from time to time, it might ring a bell with somebody.
Likewise, it might be worth asking Darren Odie who has the collectables shop at the boddam of Church Road, he would sometimes buy at the saleroom to sell on, and might remember it *if* it was something that passed through his hands.

Nope, I think I'm reasonably safe from hackers. I'm skint already, and in any case anyone who would want to try and pretend to be me would have to be totally insane.
 

Certainly the more local the issue, the better the quality of information and debate that can be had.
Its the stuff where you have little knowledge of the issue, locality or who are or aren't the more reliable sources of info that thing get rapidly more murky. Classic example, the BLM 'riots' the other side of the pond a bit back, mainstream media was describing them as 'largely peaceful protests' at the same time as numerous photos of 'rioters' silhouetted against blazing vehicles and whole streets of smashed shop windows and looted shops were being posted on other sites. Ummmmm.........  Either there were an awful lot of fake photos, or if that was mainstream media definition of 'largely peaceful', I'd not be keen to meet their definition of 'largely violent'.

Certainly the more local the issue, the better the quality of information and debate that can be had.
Its the stuff where you have little knowledge of the issue, locality or who are or aren't the more reliable sources of info that thing get rapidly more murky. Classic example, the BLM 'riots' the other side of the pond a bit back, mainstream media was describing them as 'largely peaceful protests' at the same time as numerous photos of 'rioters' silhouetted against blazing vehicles and whole streets of smashed shop windows and looted shops were being posted on other sites. Ummmmm.........  Either there were an awful lot of fake photos, or if that was mainstream media definition of 'largely peaceful', I'd not be keen to meet their definition of 'largely violent'.

The situation should never have arisen in the first place that businesses have relied on foreigners who were willing to work for peanuts to survive. Brexit has simply brought to a head an exploitation issue that's been quietly swept under the carpet for years.
The EU 'open borders' policy contained a 'loophole' that created the situation, Brexit has closed it and shown the situation for what it was. It shouldn't have ever been allowed to have been created in the first place, but it was, through Westminster's implementation of Brussels' edicts, and now the mess is going to have to be swept up.

^ Price hikes occur all the time for any old excuse, in or out of the EU, always have. The NHS depletion began in the 70's while in the EU and has proceed apace until there's so little of the original left people have begun to notice more if even one little bit alters. With Little Lord Fauntleroy's ventriliquist dummy running the White House, American involvement won't be much for the next three years, the dummy don't like us much, nor the fact we have a pseudo capitalist mob in charge. Regardless the U.S. dummy and his supporting bunch of socialist freaks sticking their nose in is better than having Stalag Merkel and her lap dog One Micron's version of Socialism rolling over us.

^ What does Brexit have to do with fuel or food? The UK has gas, oil, coal and if worst comes to worst, still some trees, we produce most commonly consumed meats and a whole plethora of vegetables, and fish  And we managed to be self-sufficient in the the last time we had a little spat with Continentals.....
Any shortage of any of it is mismanagement by the fools in charge.
Of course, if you wanna eat nothing but unidentifiable, unpronouncable, inedible weird foreign dishes, that probably is a different matter.
Boris only got the job because he was the only fool stupid enough to take it on, the rest didn't even have the balls to try. Miracles were not expected, and we have not been disappointed.....
As the saying goes, 'You can lead a horse to water.......'Or in the case of Brexit, you can lead politicians to opportunities, but when you only have a very sorry looking bunch available to work with, what they do with them is unlikely to rank above 'poorly'.
If Brexit doesn't work, its the fault of the politicians who made it that way, Brexit in and of itself has no pre-determined course or consequences, it needs someone else to drive its every move. So if the French snails are turning up sour, or the Spanish pears are all mouldly, shout at the politicians, hang them from the yard arm, feed them to the lions along with a few christians, whatever. Its their doing, their's and nobody or nothing else's.
 
 

Folk can only vote for what's on the ballot. You either vote for whom you feel is the lesser evil, or you don't vote at all and risk other's votes will put in whom you judge to be the worst evil. Not having a Parliament/Government isn't an option, even if nobody voted a Parliament/Government would be appointed for us, one way pr another, even if it only was everything being dumped on the House of Lords instead. Them, we apparently can't get rid of (yet anyway) however bad they are or may become.
At least with the drunk, you can choose to refuse them their keys and leave them to stumble around until they find a ditch to sleep it off in.

I use the Sandwick Bakeshop for a) the bakery products  and b) the post office. While i'm there i tend to buy a few other items such as meat.
I see anything that endangers a and b as a threat to my lifestyle. I am also concerned that the owners might simply say say "muck it" and close.
If the Co-op have any empathy for the community they would try and do deal to guarantee the continuance of a and b.
 

Any country that requires you to 'show your papers' to go about your business is on a very steep and even slippery slope...... Just take a quick look at the US today for a preview of the future, they've had ID on demand to various degrees for years, and now their leaders are either crackpots or crackheads  if not both, regardless their political persuasion, forcing the country to live out a reality too freaky and scary for even a Stephen King tome.

Really!
I have good reason to conclude that those keeping tally are being rather economical with truth in making the statement I've highlighted in red.
99.99% may well have had at least one shot, I'm in no position to say either way, but 100% most certainly have not.
I hate Big Brother propaganda, wherever it rears its ugly head.
(Quote from SIBC headlines this morning).

^ Boris and any list he may have is no more and no less culpable for the present situation than any other national/global 'interferer' and whatever they did or didn't do.
We are where we are due to global scaremongering creating hysteria, which the 'powers that be' have reacted to.
That would have been fine if anybody knew much of anything about the 'virus' in question, they didn't. They made it up as they went along changing their minds as often as their underwear......
Even if they'd known everything there was to know about the 'virus', that was only half the story, effective measures were needed to fight it, they didn't have that either. Unless for keeping a distance from other people and minimising transferrance from handling anything anyone else had handled, the rest were questionable at best, and a few possibly counter productive.
When this began those in power globally would have needed to ask themselves two questions, do we let this shoot through as quickly as its nature allows it to, then pick up the pieces. Or do we fight it and try to kill it off. They chose, for reasons best known to themselves, the latter, which was arguably foolhardy even on a good day, as with no knowledge of their adversary nor knowing if they had anything in their arsenal that could touch it, it was fighting fog.
As it turns out we've now put ourselves in one of the worst case scenarios, where a year plus of various measures have only managed to slow its progress and create a few small temporary pockets of containment here and there from time to time. Creating ideal conditions for the 'virus' to develop all sorts of variants and mutations, any one of which has the potential to come with a far more lethal twist in its tail than anyone's worst nightmares could dream up.
When it became apparent quite early on just how little the 'powers that be' understood the 'virus' and how little they had to fight it with, had they just stood back and let it do its thing, it would have most probably been rather messy and chaotic for a period, but if that been allowed to happen come now its very probable that life would have return to normal and the 'rona was nothing more than a bad memory from this time last year. Instead we're pretty much still where we were this time last year with the sword of Damocles still hovering.
We had a four month masked, hand sanatised lockdown last year, at the end of it the 'virus' was still infecting people. With a maximum off host survival of something like 28-30 days in ideal conditions, that means at the very least the 'virus' had been picked up and infected someone, who'd in turn deposited it elsewhere for someone else to pick up and be infected by it, at the very least on four seperate occasions/locations during that masked, hand sanatised lockdown. Hardly a resounding recommendation for its effectiveness, is it.
We have a so called 'vaccine', but it isn't. It 'might' reduce a persons chances of catching it, and it 'might' reduce their chances of suffering it so severely, and it 'might' reduce the chances of them passing it on....... but there seems little info available of the expected/possible percentage reduction(s) in each of the three areas. That's a pre-emptive treatment that might knock the sharp edges off the worse of it, if you're lucky, and kinda reminds me of the vitamin ads of the 60's and 70's which implied if you took them you'd be far more resilient against all the usual winter colds, flus and general sniffels, without actually providing any verifiable data to back it up.
We've been sitting on a tinderbox for over a year, and its not going to get any better as long as we keep on in the same direction. How long are we going to put up with the 'powers that be' running their scam or pretending to be knowledgable and 'in control', so that they can sit smugly patting themselves on the back, when the evidence all points everything they've said and done to having been wholly ineffective.
Last years lockdown and everything that went with it, was presumably an attempt to kill of the 'rona by depriving it of the hosts it needs for survival.......That didn't work.
The 'vaccine' given its shortcomings is unlikely to fare any better, and may well have the opposite effect it is intended to. Some folk who've had it are likely to develop a psychological 'increased invincibility' with everything that follows on from that.....
The 'rona has been here for over a year, and will remain until it runs it course naturally, as I said, if we'd let it do that when it arrived it in all probability would now be ancient history, instead we're prolonging the agony by slowing its course right down and it infecting a few here and a few there continuously for god knows how long in to the future. Meanwhile, until it has run its course as the population has achieved whatever herd imunity it is possible to achive, we're leaving ourselves wholly unprotected against any variant or mutation that happenes to develop as that time passes.
The original Spanish flu was no different than most other flus, it was the mutated version that was the widespread fatal version. The locations where the original flu had impacted worst ended up having the lowest number of fatalities in the end, as the fatal mutated version had great difficulty in establishing itself in such locations due to the levels of resistance in the populations given to them by having had the original version.
Its difficult to argue with history when the facts speak for themselves.
Its highly unlikely given what the 'rona is current medical science has the capability of creating a true and effective 'vaccine', they've had over a year to work on it, and what they're pushing is hardly impressive, or looking very likely to make any huge difference (unless to bank balances).
The art of minimising the total negative impact of anything, is usually to remove the active cause.  The 'rona has been here and active for well over a year, starving it of hosts via a lockdown didn't work, medical science has not been able to create anything that effectively denies it a host, so the only real choice left is herd immunity to deny it hosts.
We've been lucky so far that this has hung around so long and not mutated in to something far nastier, but that luck won't necessarily last. We can either continue as we are, with restrictions continuously being racked up and eased off, but never being removed for who knows how many years in to the future, all the while risking a mutation developing someplace that no measures is going to make any real difference to and does have a high fatality rate, or we can finally just let what is rip through, and be thankful a week, a month, a year, whatever in to the future that we did when a deadly mutant maybe does develop.
I'm not much for gambling, but if the bookie was taking bets, I'd put a tenner on the latter option being wisest.
The 'rona at the end of last year had an approx 3.5% fatality rate globally (likely less, given how 'rona deaths were classified), and there are reports doing the rounds that the average age of 'rona fatalities are 82. The UK Govt's own figures claim as many as 30% of those who contract it have no detectable symptoms......
In contrast, the bubonic plague, in its least fatal form has on average a 50% fatality rate (if untreated), and in its most fatal form, 100%.
Isn't it time for a little perspective, and a little less mass hysteria.