ArabiaTerra

Carmichael recently stated in the Shetland Times that we had nothing to worry about with Post Office privatisation because the universal tariff was guaranteed 'til 2020 or somesuch. I prefer the current situation, where it is guaranteed forever, myself.

Well yes I guess I think white people can say what they think is racist just as much as black, Asian and every other person can say what they think is racist. And remember there is plenty of white on white racism including perhaps even here in Shetland. Meanwhile if anyone really thinks that a toy that certainly was not meant to be racist in its origins is serious racisim then maybe they ought to ask a few sufferers what real racism is like. Which is not to say that lesser acts of racism should be overlooked completely. Just that they should be viewed in proportion. Anyway what about all the other "isms" we see on TV and in real life day to day?. Its nobody's place to tell anyone of any other race than their own what is or isn't racist to them, but by the same token some sort of controlling mechanism has to be in place to prevent anyone, whatever their race, from playing the race card on frivolous or duplicitous grounds. While I have the fullest sympathy for the victims of genuine racism, I have none for those who use the "victim" mentailty and go around looking for excuses to talk up to high heaven and manufacture "racist" "complaints" without a tangible verifiable reason to do so. There are too many folk who adopt the "I say its racist, so it must be so" attitude for personal reasons only, and then you get the whole PC and sensationalist rags mob running after them trying to appease them. Its crying wolf, and does nothing to counteract genuine racist situation, and in fact arguably is counterproductive as folk being forced to modify their behaviour/lifestyle for to all appearances spurious and the self-serving reasons of another, are more likely to rile against the whole thing and say "F**k 'em". Folk in general will be compliant with requests that are backed by proof and genuine reason, not so much when they see no purpose for it other than somebody looking for reasons to create a fuss for their own personal glory, and that's where an ever increasing proportion of "racist" rhetoric seems to reside these days. And how do you measure this racism? Where is the guidebook, the International Standard? What constitutes "real racism" as opposed to "frivolous or duplicitous" racism. Who decides? And that's the only standard that matters. The only standard that can matter. Racism will always be a subjective matter, never black or white (Groan), but when you have a clearly documented history of vicious, murderous, racism stretching back for centuries, the perpetrators of that racism don't get to tell the victims what is and isn't racist, and they should shut up and listen very carefully when the victims point out that something is racist.

Does anyone really think it's white peoples place to tell a black person what is and isn't racist?

Fine in Lerwick: http://www.speedtest.net/result/2947560522.png

The trouble is the Lachamps Event which occurred around 40,000 years ago. That's nearly 1000 years with the magnetic field at 25% or less with a corresponding huge increase in cosmic rays. The climate didn't even notice. No effect whatsoever. These guys have been pushing this "cosmic rays cause climate change" thing for about 15 years now and nobody is taking them seriously.

20 years ago? Closer to 30. And the headliners were Deacon Blue (before they got famous) and The Men They Couldn't Hang. I'm sure my sister has a program stashed somewhere. I'll see if she can find it and get a scan.

Reply to Koy's video above. First lie at 1:16. Global warming has stopped. :- No it hasn't. 2nd Lie at 3:14. Possible Discussion of impending mini ice-age. :- Not in any of the science I have read. 3rd Lie at 8:50. No accounting for Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCM's) in the body of Climate Science. :- There have been multiple scientific papers on this. The consensus is GCM's have no effect on climate. And then it gets ludicrous. Climate Change on Venus! We have close observations of Venus from the Magellan probe in the 90's for a few months and a few months observations this century and yet this is enough data to claim climate change is happening on Venus! We don't even have enough data to say what is normal on Venus. And the same goes for all the other planets mentioned. We don't have enough data on other planets to even begin to tell the difference between normal weather patterns and some sort of systemic, solar-system wide, change. 12:19 CO2 in the upper atmosphere cools. Yes it does, but the amount of CO2 and therefore the amount of cooling is so small it is drowned out by the larger effects of increasing CO2 in the lower atmosphere. The air is pretty thin up there. 12:52 And here is the conspiracy theory. Agenda 21, One world government, New World Order, blah, blah blah, feckin' blah. There's a reason the official Republican Party policy is against Agenda 21: It's to get the votes of the conspiracy nuts. Don't you ever get tired of being afraid, Koy?

Abba:

Don't you mean the Second Shetland Rock Festival?

I like it. (Took me ages to find the "sign in" button though.) Edit: Found the edit button now, too. Edit 2: Oh, yeah. The reason I was looking for the edit button. I notice the sign-up date is gone from below the avatar pic. Any particular reason for that?

Entering "replacing velux window blind cord" into the youtube search box brought up the above and many more videos. Hopefully one of them might be relevant.

Hardware buyers guide: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2013/08/22/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-august-2013/1

Short answer: It hasn't. Slightly longer answer: Global warming doesn't apply solely to air temperatures. It applies to the whole biosphere. This includes the oceans, the ice, the tundra, the hydrological cycle, etc. It can manifest itself in many different ways such as warmer oceans, melting ice, melting tundra, more evaporation and therefore heavier rainfall, stronger winds and probably a dozen other things I can't think of, offhand. just because one particular measurement of one small part of the totality of global warming has paused doesn't mean global warming has stopped. And anyway, the whole way this question is framed is flawed because it depends on selecting 1998 as your starting point. 1998 was a record breaking El-Nino year, the strongest ever recorded. If you don't start with 1998, then the so-called pause vanishes. This blog post goes into things in more detail: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/fifteen/

They're not going to slow down until Governments make them slow down, and as they've bought all the governments... We're screwed!

^^^^ I would be wary of trying to upgrade the Hard Drive. An 8 year old PC probably pre-dates the shift from IDE to SATA. IDE drives are quite thin on the ground these days. Edit: Just 3 on offer from DABS, at shocking prices for the capacity offered: http://www.dabs.com/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,internal-hard-drives/11154-52420000

It all depends on how much you're willing to spend. I recommend these guys if you're looking to buy new: http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ This is a good site for catching up on the current state of the hardware market: http://www.bit-tech.net/

^^^ I second the recommendation of CCleaner. A brilliant little program. http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2865435956.png Ok in Lwk.

Surely we live in a democracy. Why then would there not be a democratic election for governance of an independent Scotland? Also, the SNP (having achieved their goal) would, or should disband. Exactly! The issue of an independent Scotland is independent of the issue of Big Eck as leader of said country. I support independence but I'm a bit suspicious of Salmond. This suspicion will not stop me from voting for it though.

Well, lets see shall we? Hypocrite. Liar. Seems simple enough to me.

The amusing thing is that MJ posted just three examples of fraud by accountants and the total involved dwarfed the total amount from all the cases of benefit fraud you've posted added together. Numerous posters have provided statistics showing that tax avoidance and tax evasion by the rich outweigh the amount lost to benefit fraud by orders of magnitude, yet the tories, your party, concentrate almost all their efforts on the poor. Why? Buy a dictionary, look up the words "perspective" and "fairness". Learn the meanings. And when you've mastered them, look up the word "compassion" because you don't know the meaning of that, either.

Why are you lying? The crash was caused by the banks. Not the labour party. Are you really so completely devoid of evidence to support your ideological war on the poor that you have to resort to lying? Pathetic! The crash was global, not limited to the UK. Oh, and how is quoting Ed Balls any different to quoting the tory party website? A hypocrite as well as a liar.

I saw Big Country at Ingleston Market in 1986 on the Seer tour. One of the best gigs I've ever seen. Looking forward to this one.

Well? We're all still waiting...

You can keep track of changes in the oil price on the BBC News page: Go to BBC News - Home Click on the Business tab, then the Market Data -> Commodities and you'll get the graph of oil prices at the top. Change the graph x-axis to 12 months and you can see what's happening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/commodities/143908/twelve_month.stm ... and it looks like prices have been pretty steady for the last month or so at around $105/barrel after a fall from the winter high of around $115/barrel.