Carlos

You could probably come up with something about lower centre of gravity, and more upper body strength being optimal for swinging axes too......

A thought..... Is it just me, or do Shetland folk maybe have legs a bit shorter than average for our height? With the BMI as dodgy as it is, and inch or 2 longer on the body and shorter on the leg would likely tip a fair number of folk over the "obese" borderline, enough to cover the 5% or so the study shows anyhow.

Interesting look at the differences between the science and the reporting http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/science/earth/29clim.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

Just a reminder this coming Sunday is Sportive day, in support of CLAN's campaign help raise funds for a new cancer support centre in Aberdeen.

Has there been many examples of this in the public sector? There's no recent stories that come to mind, and the public sector wage levels not set by national agreement are in the hands of local politicians, not the management....... unless you are thinking of quangos and other NGOs?

With the layout of Lerwick I suspect the cheapest way to get more town centre parking would just be to make Victoria pier 2 or 3 times as wide..... probably at least an order of magnitude cheaper than trying to carve out some huge cavern under the town. A few million should do it. Is that a project that should have priority for council money though? Given that there are always empty parking spaces near the town centre..... just maybe not as near as we have come to expect?

The account that I read said that the risk of setting the atmosphere on fire had been raised by some scientists, and while nobody on the Manhattan project thought that kind of chain reaction would happen, they had not been able to prove it 100%.

For the first atom bomb space-time was safe enough...........all they were worried about was setting the whole atmosphere on fire

It depends what you mean. ~ Are they spending more of the savings than they receive in interest at the moment? Yes. ~ Are they living off credit they cannot afford? No. In some ways that is what makes it difficult. In other local authorities you cannot build capital projects without convincing somebody to loan you the cash up front. Here you can - Double edged sword. However, if the councillors decided to take all the oil reserves to Las Vegas, put it on red 27, and lost..... we would not be worse off than the other 99% of local authorities...... just a lot worse off than we are now.

The SIC are one of the very few councils in the UK that are not in debt. They are overspending by their own financial plan though, and spending way way more that the annual rate support grant received from Hollyrood.

lots of money, but probably less in % terms than you spend to get planning permission on a house.......

Shetland Wheelers are organising a cycle sportive (basically a fun run on a bike) on 31st August, starting and finishing at the Tingwall hall. 2 routes to choose from, 12 1/2 miles or 36 1/2 miles, open to over 12s. Entry forms, sponsorship forms and more details on the Shetland Wheelers website http://shetlandwheelers.co.uk/

Should all those cafes/restaurants be expected to turn a profit, or is a degree of subsidy acceptable to have them in place for other benefits? As most of the venues hosting the cafes also run at a loss, would closing down the cafes to save £X increase the overall losses by £2X? Or should contracts be offered to private companies to run the cafes in the existing locations? What's the way forward?

yup, more important to be clear than to be "correct". The counter example for me is at the South Gremista roundabout, where if you are going north towards it, it's not particularly clear which lane traffic is in as it approaches the roundabout from the north. When somebody decides to go "right" across you without signalling...... not always easy to to see it in time.

Going north? The exit is a little more than 180 round the roundabout, so I suppose it depends how you look at it and is marginal as to whether you should signal or not.......but of course there is no "straight on" at a roundabout, only 1st, 2nd exit etc

Ah, stuff to throw in..... The peat could be moved and re-established if you spent enough money on it. It would cost a lot to do it to the best standards possible, and would not be easy. I don't think the environmental impact should be played down, but also that it should be weighed carefully against future long term benefits. Not so easy. Global warming models.... The resolution of changes that can be predicted are a lot rougher than some political groups would have you think, but if you want to know what to expect for big areas (Europe) then I think they are good enough to give us something to worry about. There are a lot of unknowns, but that in itself does not mean there is not useful information to be drawn from them. There is an argument about the contribution of natural and external variables, but nobody (on either side) has really been able to show anything solid for those either. An argument with a much firmer foundation is that whatever else may be causing global temperatures to rise, burning fossil fuels will not help things. Sea levels.... As far as I know, although Scotland is still rising after loosing it's ice age ice, Shetland is probably sinking slightly.... making another factor in any comparisons of tidal levels/effects of sea level change. I think an interesting thing to consider is just how seriously the insurance industry is taking climate change modelling/predictions. Not a group to throw their money away.......

I think that there seems to be a missing stage where projects should at least go through an assessment that they are acceptable under state aid regulations. Complaints would then only need to be investigated and projects held up where a specific new claim or evidence was presented. At the moment it seems like any complaint guarantees a delay. Of course for the overall good of all EU members, maybe we should ask for the same rigor in double checking state aid breaches in all government/council spending, just to be on the safe side?

The current speculation that's apparent in the oil prices are one of the things predicted for when oil production levels out...... if they are willing to gamble their money on it, does it mean the market has accepted the peak oil scenario? If that IS the future, then we do still have 50-70 years worth of oil left.... but current production will not be sustained, and the price of oil will go through the roof..... OF course the market might be wrong, in which case you can win big time by gambling against rising prices on the futures market...........

Lots of day by day inside detail from Millar and other Slipstream riders on their site - http://www.slipstreamsports.com/category/millar-diaries

The speed limits this year have been through the legal process..... advertised in the Shetland Times..... and I hear enforcement will be happening

Andrew Roche was the IOM guy here in 2005.... I think Cavendish was in the 2003 games......

Interesting theory. But I'm not sure the ombudsman would agree! Exaggerated to make a point of course, and I'd agree that if rules have not been followed regarding potential conflicts of interest then it should be followed up, but I have doubts that the kinds of 2nd and 3rd hand possible connections that have been brought up have much more ground than my own fiction.

Whereas anybody not related/connected in any way themselves or with anybody else who has anything to do with music/arts/media obviously has an interest in things that are not Mareel and should therefore declare an interest too?

Time trial tomorrow, a good chance for David Millar to do well, he was targeting a win and then holding the yellow jersey for a few days, but..... hard to see Cancellara not winning the time trial.......

Yeah, been 2 nice finishes so far, not easy to predict, I missed not having a prologue though, but cycling this year in general shows encouraging signs. Let's hope.