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Blackivar

Listed below are comments made by Blackivar between Wednesday, 26th November 2008 and Thursday, 26th November 2009.

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Talking drink 5:58pm on 26 Nov 2009 I'd also add alcohol is cheap in France.

The same 2l of strong cider that is being cited as creating problems costs around 90p in a French supermarket. A bottle of wine can be as little as £1.50.

And yet, the French aren't causing staggering out the doors blind drunk at closing time, aren't fighting in the streets (except in Paris, but nothing unusual there) and aren't vomiting in shop fronts.

And why aren't they? Because the people in this country have a problem when it comes to alcohol. And it's not new.

There was concern over the gin palaces in Victorian times (admittedly that was more of an English problem, here it was whisky) with the same claims drinking was destroying society and there were worries workers in armament factories would turn up drunk in the thirties (hence closing times).

What needs to change is the attitude to being drunk. It's become glorified and idolised. In America, and I can't believe I am using them as a favourable comparison, if you get drunk most people look upon you with disdain, here it's cheers all round. That has to change.
Talking drink 5:28pm on 26 Nov 2009 I can understand the the thinking behind minimum pricing; make strong alcohol more expensive and less people will buy it.

But sadly this thinking is too simplistic.

If it were that simple why then do students regularly get drunk despite being on a limited budget - it's because they always find a way to afford booze.

Strong cider may become slightly more expensive but they'll still buy it because it'll do the job faster and cheaper than beer or wine.

At the moment a 2litre of bottle of strong cider (6%abv) costs around £2 and has nine units. That's roughly 20p a unit, doubling that won't hurt sales much.

£4 for guaranteed memory loss as opposed to two pints (if you're lucky) at the pub will still win.

I still can't fathom why people buy buckfast, you can't even cook with it, but sales of it won't change much either, nor will 20/20 and all that other paintstripper that passes as booze. As people still seem to want one outcome - to get drunk.

And this still won't stop those who go out on Friday or Saturday night and get hammered on Tennants or Carling, and yes I know licencees claim these people are drunk before they arrive but in that case, why are they being served? That's an offence.

As said above we already have numerous laws surrounding drinking and the sale of alcohol, it's about time they were used.

Start cracking down on underage drinking and sales to under-agers, crackdown on drinking in public places and landlords could actually stop serving drunks and kick them out when they've had too many.

And maybe the police and courts could make being charged with breach of the peace actually mean something.

And if people turn up at A+E drunk too often, send on mandatory alcohol counseling, failing that, bring in laws that fine them or put them in the cells for a spell.
Glasgow North East by-election 1:32pm on 13 Nov 2009 On a previous point 4,000 people out of work is not a majority of people unemployed.

There are 60,000 people of working age in the constituency.

There are only 2.2% of people of working age making claims according to the ONS.

see http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/14/unemployment-and-employment-statistics-economics
Glasgow North East by-election 1:29pm on 13 Nov 2009 #147 U14094468

"Remember also that a great many people who voted Bain will voye Yes in an independence referendum !!"

No offense, but how can you assume this?

You might as well add many who have voted SNP in the past only did so as a protest against Labour and will vote no in a vote on independence.

I see you too can be, what's the phrase you posters think yourselves so witty in using, oh yes, "Glencambly".
Glasgow North East by-election 09:23am on 13 Nov 2009 #106 angel allen

"It would have been astounding if the benefit claimants who make up the majority of the population of this constituency had voted for a party other than the one who gives them their free handouts."

Thanks, however, a majority of the people who live in this constituency actually do work and believe it or not have a good education, but cheers for assuming we are all claiming benefits and didn't get much further than primary school.
Glasgow North East by-election 09:17am on 13 Nov 2009 What? Where are the posters patronising the residents of Glasgow North East with their "the good people" statements now?

Wait, I get it, they are only the good people of Glasgow North East if they vote SNP, if they vote Labour they are "turkeys voting for christmas", "poorly-educated habitual Labour voter[s]" and "would vote for a dead donkey."

Nice attitude there. Clearly, we should do away with democracy as the majority don't accept your opinions.

How about, people voted Labour because, and I know this may seem incomprehensible to some of you, the SNP are anathema to them?

Or that Labour weren't the only ones being held accountable in this election the SNP were too, and they were found lacking.

Labour ran an effective campaign, they knocked on my door several times, the conservatives came round once which I enjoyed, (I really wanted them to do better, oh well) but the SNP were nowhere to be seen.

I only saw them a couple of times on Duke Street and only when the cameras where present, after that they scarpered.

And despite the sycophancy being displayed for Kerr, he did not come across well to the public. Bain successfully played the local man card, regardless of its accuracy, and I'm sure many responded to it.

Also, I think next to the conservatives he killed the most trees, I could fuel a power station with the number of leaflets put through my door.

Anyway, let Bain enjoy it, he's got a few months before it happens all over again.
Anything to declare? 3:11pm on 09 Nov 2009 So far the only people to have bothered to come to my door have been Labour canvassers.

I listened to them and told them why as yet Labour haven't convinced me to vote for them.

However, that doesn't mean the SNP are going to convince me to vote for them.

I would like to vote for an independent, sadly, those on offer are a dissappointing lot.

Strangely, I have seen the SNP out on Duke Street on several occasions, usually with Nicola Sturgeon in tow.

They appear to be there while the camera's on them and then minutes later they are gone.
Turning up the heat 12:22pm on 25 Jun 2009 NCA999 you prove my point very well about the "lies" we are told everyday.

You state as fact:

"Global Warming is taking place
Global Warming is harmful to us if allowed to continue
Global Warming is being contributed to by human behaviour
Global Warming can be mitigated by changes in human behaviour"

To your first point - "Global Warming is taking place" - Is it really?

In actual fact global temperatures have been falling since 1998. Indeed, since then the troposhere -0.774 degrees centigrade, this is a similar drop to the so-called evidence that prompted claims of global warming. Indeed, today's temperature are little above 1979.

So, global Warming is harmful to us if allowed to continue - is it? What evidence do you have for this?

If rising temperatures are so terrible, how can you explain that during mid-Pliocene period, which experienced the most extreme warming over the past 3.3 million years with global average temperatures of 2.5°C, life thrived, indeed it saw the emergence of the first hominins.

"Global Warming is being contributed to by human behaviour" - can you prove this?

If you are going to cite CO2 production as the reason behind global warming then perhaps you can explain why increases in CO2 in the atmosphere lag behind changes in temperature? It appears the fundamental premise that CO2 causes warming is simply not supported by the paleo record, in every case a temperature preceeds a increase in CO2 - not the reverse! For example during the Roman Empire - Co2 production through human activity increase by around 50% - global temperatures fell and continued to do so up until 900AD - despite the growth in human population and thier activities.

"Global Warming can be mitigated by changes in human behaviour" - You can't even show how we are causing it, how do you know changing what we do will solve the "problem"?

This is what is wrong with this debate, there is none. We are constantly told "facts" and clearly very few of them hold water.

For a brief summary of the actual facts see: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/temperature_and_co2_change_briefing.html
Turning up the heat 7:01pm on 24 Jun 2009 If there ever was a perfect example of politicians jumping on the over-hyped band wagon then man-man global warming is surely it.

This legislation is a joke.

I can't believe how many usually right thinking people have committed themselves to this as yet purely speculative theory that CO2 is going to wipe out the planet.

Everyday we get told the same thing.

"Carbon dioxide is causing global warming, and it has reached record-high levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past decade."

"Carbon dioxide is produced mostly from burning of coal, petro-chemicals and other fossil fuels, it is a gas that traps heat that otherwise would radiate into space."

"Global temperatures increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) during the 20th century, and international panels of scientists sponsored by world governments have concluded that most of the warming probably was due to greenhouse gases."

Sadly this is all rubbish.

CO2 is not the major greenhouse gas (water vapour is followed by methane - curiously the easiest of these to tax is CO2.)

Carbon dioxide accounts for less than ten percent of the greenhouse effect, as carbon dioxide's ability to absorb heat is quite limited.

Only about 0.03 percent of the Earth's atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide (nitrogen, oxygen, and argon constitute about 78 percent, 20 percent, and 0.93 percent of the atmosphere, respectively)

The sun, which you may remember is not a gas, is primarily to "blame" for global warming -- and plays a very key role in global temperature variations as well.

Most of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not come from the burning of fossil fuels. Only about 14 percent of it does - 40% comes from volcanoes.

As for the oft cited the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we should note that the IPCC report itself (the part written by scientists) reached no consensus on climate change. What did reach a conclusion was an IPCC "summary for policymakers" prepared by political appointees. Most reporters quote only the summary, being either too lazy or too undereducated to understand the actual report. This does not explain, however, why reporters don't more frequently interview scientists who helped prepare it - scientists such as IPCC participant Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT, who says the IPCC report is typically "presented as a consensus that involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists... and none of them was asked if they agreed with anything in the report except for the one or two pages they worked on." Lindzen also draws a sharp distinction between the scientists' document and its politicized summary: "the document itself is informative; the summary is not.

Interestingly in response, more than 700 international scientists have made clear their dissent over man-made global warming claims.

There are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

See http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/

Additionally, more than 30,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earths atmosphere and disruption of the Earths climate.

See http://www.petitionproject.org

But no, why let evidence or lack thereof get in the way of a headline grabbing policy.

And no I am not a labourite, I just don't like being lied to and taxed for no reason, especially when the proposal are based on conjectures that are no more scientific than creationism.
Slainte mhath 5:16pm on 26 Nov 2008 frankly_francophone

For a self confessed francophone I'm surprised that you use the American spelling of organise.

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