PrairiePundit

  Olivia Murray: Stupidity is increasingly state-sanctioned. Since 2000, the Scottish government has felled around 1,700 trees  on a daily basis , all to make way for “green” initiatives. Leave it to the government and their leftist abettors to harp on the “destruction of the environment” then chop down literal trees to create barren wastelands—all to make room for obtrusive, industrial, inanimate behemoths that obliterate all sorts of animal populations, and create massive amounts of environmental pollution (in production, maintenance, and disposal). According to an  article  by Frank Bergman and posted to Slay News yesterday, the Scottish government’s scheme of systematic deforestation was implemented to “meet the goals” of the climate agenda. Is that not one of the most ludicrous and asinine things you’ve ever heard? Or perhaps, the move  is  right in line with the climate agenda, because the goal  isn’t  environmentalism... but rather com...

Seeker: A company in Scotland on Thursday announced it set the world record for producing electricity from the natural undulation of the ocean in the latest advance for a clean power source that’s still in its infancy. Tidal power uses massive, submerged turbines that function as underwater windmills to produce electricity, pivoting into the current and spinning as the tide goes in and out. The technology takes advantage of the daily shift in sea levels caused by the gravitational pull of the moon, sun, and rotation of Earth, which can make tidal energy more predictable than wind or solar. Because water is over 800 times more dense than air, tidal energy rotors can also be significantly more compact than those used for wind turbines, which have diameters up to 300 feet. The company, Atlantis Resources Limited, produced over 700 megawatt hours in August at its flagship underwater MeyGen production site, located in the Pentland Firth, a strait that separates the Orkney Islands fr...

NY Times: Appeal to Dwindling Core Proves Costly for Labour Party in Britain Ed Miliband, who built a campaign strategy of taxation of the rich and added social spending, resigned as the head of Labour after the party’s defeat in elections. This appears to be bad news for Democrats in the US as the old style liberalism that Hillary Clinton is pushing is losing favor.   The pollsters overestimated its appeal and were as wrong as the politicians who pushed it.  Their lost also reflects how Scotland which had become the base of the party has become more estranged from Britain.  If Scotland becomes a liberal enclave it will only shrink its economy more.

NY Times: Scottish Independence Movement’s Wager on Energy Could Prove Risky Ownership of North Sea energy assets, and control of the taxes they produce, have been a rallying cry for Scottish nationalism — but rising costs and fluctuating prices make projecting future revenues difficult. What makes it even more risky is that the proponents are looking to establish a leftist government that will suck the energy money dry instead of investing in future resources.  Governments of states with large mineral resources can pick the Venezuelan model wasting the revenue on socialist programs or the Texas model which leads to wider prosperity through small government and letting people keep more of the money they earn.   The greedy government model will lead to failure. Some of my ancestors were Scots who first left for Northern Ireland and then migrated to the US where many achieved prosperity.  At the time they left Scotland the culture there was not amenable to wealth p...

BBC: Residents of the Perthshire village of Dull are due to hear this week whether efforts to forge ties with the US town of Boring have been successful. Officials in Oregon are set to vote on whether the two places should become "sister communities". If the vote is passed, the community council in Dull insists it could have real benefits for the Scottish village. They intend to mark the "exciting" new partnership with a road sign and a street party. ...  The question maybe whether anyone will bother to vote.

Scotsman on Sunday: THE residents of Foula, Scotland’s most remote inhabited island which achieved a remarkable first by becoming 100 per cent self-sufficient with renewable energy, are now forced to endure black-outs. An all-night black-out has had to be brought into force for the 22 homes on the isolated Shetland community, because of teething problems in the island’s £1.5 million hydro and solar power schemes. Foula’s three wind turbines have been out of action since Christmas, when 100mph winds damaged the blades of one of the turbines. Now islanders are back to relying on costly diesel generator until the faults can be rectified. Two years ago the islanders, who live 20 miles from the Shetland mainland, were awarded £200,000 in funding from the Big Lottery Fund towards their combination of wind, solar and hydro power, enabling Foula to become the first Shetland community to become self-sufficient in energy. The final phase was completed last October. But it has been...

Scotsman: Illegal beavers can stay on the Tay but only for three years UP TO 100 rogue beavers living illegally on the River Tay have been granted a three-year reprieve from the Scottish Government following a consultation on their future.  

Scotsman on Sunday: AN INDEPENDENT Scotland committed to banishing nuclear warheads from Faslane would impose disarmament on the whole of the UK, a leading defence expert declares today. In an article for  Scotland on Sunday , William Walker, professor of international relations at St Andrews University, says the SNP policy of removing Trident from Scotland after independence would “amount to a promise to shut down the UK’s nuclear deterrent and enforce its disarmament”.  As a result, an independent Scots government might have to compromise on removing the weapons or leave the UK without a nuclear shield. This is because nowhere else in the UK is suitable to house both the submarines and missiles at a realistic cost, he says.  Currently, the naval base at Faslane provides a home for Britain’s four Trident submarines - the UK’s sole nuclear deterrent - while Coulport on Loch Long is home to their warheads and missiles.  SNP policy, come independence, i...

Max Benitz writes about his experience as a new author in the company of soldiers. ... There are heart-stopping (and heart-breaking) moments, but most of my time out there was spent watching the Scots Guards try to get around the insurgency and to the Afghan people. They protected roads, upgraded mosques and built schools. Nearly every step was taken with a uniformed Afghan partner alongside – their resilience once Nato leaves will be one factor in how history judges this conflict.  ... It is a long piece but gives some flavor of the taste of battle for the Scot guard in a counterinsurgency operation.

Scotsman: ... In one, senior Foreign Office official Robert Dixon wrote to Foreign Secretary David Miliband in January 2009 that Muammar al-Gaddafi wanted Megrahi to return to Libya "at all costs". "Libyan officials and ministers have warned of dire consequences for the UK-Libya relationship and UK commercial operations in Libya in the event of Megrahi's death in custody," he wrote. "We believe Libya might seek to exact vengeance." ... Shamefully the Brits and the Scots gave into the threats and let the mass murderer go home to a hero's welcome. It is a decision that will live in infamy.

Scotsman: Libya: Hunt for Lockerbie bomber amid the chaos of Tripoli Hopefully he will be found and brought to justice along with those who helped him.

The Scotsman has the story, but unfortunately it does not describe the role played by the green energy sink hole investment.  Perhaps that is because Scotland also has seen higher unemployment since it made its own investment in "clean energy."

Scotsman: Green energy target ruining the landscape, warn experts Apparently going for 100 percent clean energy destroys the environment in ways that CO2 never could.

From the Scotsman: Lack of wind saw Scottish land-based turbines idle for four-fifths of 2010 This is one reason why I have argued that this form of energy is not very efficient.  It also costs significantly more than more efficient sources such as natural gas.

Nile Gardiner: For all his defiant talk today of dying as a “martyr”, you can be sure that Colonel Gaddafi is making feverish plans to flee Libya and live in exile in the lap of luxury in whatever despotic country that takes him – Cuba and Venezuela are early contenders. Clearly the Butcher of Tripoli’s days are numbered as Libya’s leader, and his regime may not even last the week. His security forces have already massacred hundreds of protesters in the past few days on the streets of the capital as well as Libya’s second city, Benghazi. In a final act of tyrannical desperation, he is now threatening to crush the protests “like Tiananmen.” If he gets out of Libya alive, Gaddafi should not be permitted to enjoy freedom abroad, and Washington can play a lead role in ensuring he doesn’t. The United States should make every effort to ensure that he faces justice for the mass murder of 189 Americans on board PanAm Flight 103, blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, an atroci...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife From the Scotsman: Salt the roads? Sugar works far better in big freeze, councils find Related articles Concerns over road salt shortage (autonetinsurance.co.uk) Roads at risk from lack of salt (confused.com) Quebec tries new mix to 'beet' slips and slides on winter roads (canada.com)

Image via Wikipedia The Scotsman on Sunday: POTHOLES could be left unrepaired or money taken from schools because winter road maintenance will cost £120 million more than was originally budgeted for, Scotland's councils warned yesterday. Ministers have offered only an extra £15 million to help plug the gap. Motorists are now faced with the grim prospect of non- trunk roads deteriorating even further because of a big increase in the repair backlog for a second winter. ... A spokesman said: "At the end of the winter, we anticipate the recent severe weather and the need to keep Scotland moving safely will mean councils will overspend in this area by some £60 million, with another similar amount spent on remedial works such as filling potholes and other such repairs. "Financing this additional work at a time of cuts means without more support, councils will either have to take the money from elsewhere - for instance, social work and schools budgets - or re...

Image via Wikipedia Scotsman: SCOTLAND'S wind farms are unable to cope with the freezing weather conditions – grinding to a halt at a time when electricity demand is at a peak, forcing the country to rely on power generated by French nuclear plants . Output from major wind farms fell to as low as 2.5 per cent of their potential generation capacity during the cold snap as power demand rose to close to the highest level yet recorded, new figures have revealed. ... It is another strike against wind energy at a time when others are also challenging its reliability in the crunch. Related articles Pickens Plan Gives Up on Wind Power (ecogeek.org) World's Biggest Wind Farm Gets US Funding, Coming to Oregon (treehugger.com) The cost of renewable energy (tfa.net) Wind farm revolts blamed for dramatic fall in planning approvals (telegraph.co.uk)

Image via Wikipedia Telegraph: Britain feared that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could “cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss”, unless the Lockerbie bomber was released, leaked WikiLeaks cables show. Sir Vincent Fean, the UK's ambassador to Tripoli at the time, also warned that continuing to hold Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi in a prison in Scotland could have “disastrous implications for British interests in Libya”. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 57, was jailed in 2001 for the atrocity which claimed 270 lives in 1988. He was freed on compassionate grounds in August 2009. The warnings were contained in secret communiqués sent from US embassy staff in Tripoli in August 2009, and produced in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. ... Like many of the disclosures, this one merely confirms suspicions of the rationale for what was otherwise an irrational act by the Brits to release a mass murderer on the specious grounds of "compassion". It also reflects a serious ...

Guardian: ... But the former UK justice secretary was involved in drawing up a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya. This was not used in the release of Megrahi, but senators are trying to establish whether a $900m (£590m) oil exploration deal signed by BP and Libya "directly or indirectly influenced" the decision to release Megrahi. Straw highlighted British unease about the senate investigation when he questioned whether it was right for a foreign legislature to question a British MP about decisions taken lawfully in the UK. In a statement, he said he had no problem in explaining the background to the prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. But he added: "Before coming to any decision as to whether to accept this invitation I shall be consulting Gordon Brown, as prime minister at the time, and seeking the advice of the Foreign Office. It is in my experience highly unusual for the legislature of one sovereign state to conduct an inquiry into...