Scotland is an economically advanced society, rich in resources and human capital. We have the material resources of land, sea, oil (90% of UK sources are legally in Scottish waters), gas, substantial fresh-water supplies, and a handsome natural and built environment. Eamonn Gallagher, former EU ambassador to the United Nations has commented on Scotland's significance:
"As one of Europe's most energy-rich nations, with a significant proportion of its wind, wave and tidal power, not to mention industrial expertise, Scotland is already a strategic asset….Scotland also has the EU's most important oil and gas reserves."
Read more here
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Timeline to Scottish independence
20th century
| Year | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1929 | The Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland unite. | |
| 1934 | Scottish National Party founded. | |
| 1938 | The Empire Exhibition, Scotland 1938 is held at Bellahouston Park, Glasgow. | |
| 1941 | The Clydebank Blitz (13–15 March). | |
| 1943 | Creation of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board to bring electricity to all parts of the Highlands and Islands. | |
| 1945 | First Scottish Nationalist MP is elected. | |
| 1947 | Nationalisation of the railways – the Scottish Region of British Railways is created. | |
| The first Edinburgh International Festival is held. | ||
| 1950 | The Stone of Destiny is removed from Westminster Abbey. | |
| 1957 | Scottish Television starts broadcasting. | |
| 1968 | The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland permits the ordination of women as ministers. | |
| 1975 | Local government reorganisation (replacing Counties and Burghs for administrative purposes with Regions and Districts). | |
| 1978 | Launch of BBC Radio Scotland. | |
| 1979 | Referendum to create a Scottish Assembly fails to meet the required majority. | |
| 1988 | Terrorists blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives, including 11 residents of the town. | |
| 1994 | Local government reorganisation (replacing the Regions and Districts with single-tier councils). | |
| 1996 | The Stone of Destiny is permanently returned to Scotland, to be housed in Edinburgh Castle. | |
| 1997 | Newly elected Labour UK Government under the leadership of Scots-born Prime Minister Tony Blair legislates for a referendum on a devolvedScottish Parliament which is passed by a large majority. | |
| 1999 | A Scottish Parliament sits for the first time in 272 years. Donald Dewar of the Scottish Labour Party elected as First Minister and forms Scottish Executive in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats. |
[edit]21st century
| Year | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Opening of the new Scottish Parliament Building. | |
| 2007 | The Scottish National Party become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament and forms a minority government. | |
| 2011 | The Scottish National Party under Alex Salmond gain an overall majority of the Scottish Parliament. | |
| 2014 | Scotland is set to have a referendum on national independence. |
[edit]
Friday, January 25, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Citizens Initiated Referenda in NZ
Under the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, non-binding referendums can be held on any subject. There are seven steps in the process. These steps are:
- A referendum proposal is submitted to the Clerk of the House of Representatives.
- The Clerk advertises the proposed question. The Act allows 28 days for submissions and three months in total for the determination of the final wording of the question.
- The Clerk, after consulting with the promoter and any other person, determines the final wording of the question.
- The organiser gathers the signatures of at least ten percent of registered electors and delivers the petition to the Clerk within 12 months of the publication of the determination. The petition lapses if it is not delivered within this time.
- The petition is checked for compliance. If all is correct the Speaker presents the petition to the House of Representatives. If there are insufficient signatures, the Clerk certifies that the petition has lapsed. The promoter may re-submit the petition with additional signatures within two months of certification that it has lapsed.
- The Governor-General sets a date for the referendum within one month from the date of presentation. The referendum must be held within a year of the date of presentation unless 75% of all members of the House vote to defer it.
- The referendum is held and the result is declared. The result is indicative only and is not binding on the Government.
- Source here
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state. Not all declarations of independence are successful and result in independence for these regions.
Such declarations are typically made without the consent of the associated state or union, and hence are sometimes called unilateral declarations of independence (UDIs), particularly by those who question the declarations' validity.
Source Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
BUREAUCRAT SPEAK
24/7; Sweatshop approach to labour.
Benchmark; A standard either impossible to attain or easily attained depending on whether you get to set the benchmark.
Best practice; The CEO/Minister’s way of doing things
Big picture; A way of defending the indefensible by implying there is a strategy involved and it is not simply a stuff up.
Blue Sky; An overly optimistic view, usually accompanied by the phrase Green Fields, denoting little or no chance of a screw up but inevitably ending in a dark day.
Bottom line; The amount of profit that determines your bonus. Every piece of policy and planning is therefore focussed on achieving bottom line and therefore bonus – even at the longer-term risk of destroying the company/SOE. Example: Kordia
Brainstorm; Picking someone else’s brain, stealing the idea and representing it as your own because you have no real idea what to do otherwise.
Business model; How the company/SOE should be run but never is.
Churn; You get this if you run 24/7, it usually denotes the number of people fired, quit, made redundant, died or disappeared from your labour force which also, inevitably, leads to churn in your audience.
Client focus: Sucking up, see Do Lunch.
Core business; The difficult and boring bit otherwise known as broadcasting which is nowhere near as good as some harebrained blue skies green fields opportunity which means you cannot be judged by measurable results.
Cross functional; Making your problem everyone else’s problem.
Customer focussed/ client focussed; Sucking up for business.
Do lunch; A good way of remaining client focussed (and then unfocussed).
Excom; A senior management committee comprised mainly of people who have never worked in the productive side of the business.
Empower; You empower someone by dumping your crap on them to sort out.
Fast track; Ram it through before anyone can object.
Feedback; Criticism disguised as constructive advice.
Future proof; Cover your arse.
Game plan; Hopefully a way of achieving the Big Picture or, at the very least, the pretence of a strategy.
Green Fields; No-one’s tried it before so we can make a killing and, even if we don’t, because no-one’s tried it before success cannot be truly measured and we can’t be criticised for failing.
Heads Up; Really means “heads down, duck, there’s a pile of crap coming our way”.
Incentivise; Bribe (see bonus).
Interface; The bit of he business you have grease up to make sure you get what you want.
It’s a journey; We’ve stuffed up, failed to achieve a target and have no idea where we’re headed, therefore we’ll never set a deadline for completion or someone will find out we’re screwed.
Key Messages; A PR term denoting the nature and the order of lies to be told to the gutter press so as to put the best possible spin on yet another screw up.
Knowledge Base; Brains that can be picked so as to later present the ideas as your own.
Let’s take a moment; Take a big cup of ‘Shut the Fuck Up!’
Leverage; A gun to the head or a way of extracting unforeseen cash/policy from some improbable plan.
Low hanging fruit; Easily achieved financial savings, e.g. stopping cab chits, removing he building’s pot plants and making the staff drink instant coffee.
Matrix; A meaningless word used to complicate a simple set of relationships affecting your business.
Mindset; Dangerous independent thought, therefore used most in the context of “changing mindset”.
Monetise; A way of screwing a buck out of something that is usually not inclined to surrender a dollar.
Moving forward; Putting past stuff ups behind you and concentrating on a mysterious future point at which everything miraculously comes right. Also known as The Clark School of Problem Management.
No-brainer; Don’t think about it, just do it, you’ll never spot the inevitable downside anyway.
No Surprises; A policy that means you tell the CEO of anything that could cause effluent and a fan to connect, the CEO tells the chairman and the chairman tells the minister so that the government can take cover.
Optimise; Milk it.
Organisational Review; Redundancies and budget cuts.
Out of the loop; Worst place to be, no-one telling you anything. The only benefit is you can’t be blamed if anything goes wrong.
Paradigm; A word used to explain a complex business/political situation no-one anticipated and everyone is now groping to understand.
Pro-active; Dumping your crap on someone before they dump their crap on you.
Relationship/ Partnership; A cunning combination of behaviour involving sucking up to coalition partners and ensuring they carry some of the cost.
Result driven; You’re fired if the poll ratings don’t go up.
Re-visit; We got it wrong again and now have to go back and fix it.
Refer Up; A policy whereby underlings attempt to escape responsibility for their actions by passing decisions up the corporate food chain. Eventually the policy of No Surprises takes over and the government is warned to take cover.
Robust; Something so tough no-one can see the flaws in it until too late.
Run it up the flagpole; Seriously suggesting something you want but implying you don’t really care just in case everyone thinks it’s a dumb idea.
Solution; A word seldom used in management as it is too categorical. Usually found only in the phrase “there is no quick solution”, meaning there is no such thing as a solution.
Speed to market; A panicked rush to get something on air or on sale because we have nothing else.
Stakeholder; Interfering busybodies who foolishly believe they have an interest in your business and could stuff you up.
Step Change; What we’re doing is not working and we need to think up another dumb idea.
Strategic fit; What I want.
Synergy; I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.
Take that off line; As in “let’s take that off-line”, which really means “shut the fuck up, I’ll sort you out later”. See ‘Let’s take a moment.’
Take that on board; Accepting someone else’s idea but hoping they’ll forget about it and then you can do nothing.
Thinking outside the box/outside the square; Having an original idea that the CEO/Minister later can claim as his own.
Ticks in boxes; The annoying details that have to be done to slip it past the board.
Touch base; I’ll call you when I think the time is right.
Turnaround; Hauling arse out of the crap.
User friendly; Something so simple even a board member could know how to do it.
Win-Win; A mythical situation where your partners are supposed to do as well as you do.
Value proposition; Where’s the buck in this?
Benchmark; A standard either impossible to attain or easily attained depending on whether you get to set the benchmark.
Best practice; The CEO/Minister’s way of doing things
Big picture; A way of defending the indefensible by implying there is a strategy involved and it is not simply a stuff up.
Blue Sky; An overly optimistic view, usually accompanied by the phrase Green Fields, denoting little or no chance of a screw up but inevitably ending in a dark day.
Bottom line; The amount of profit that determines your bonus. Every piece of policy and planning is therefore focussed on achieving bottom line and therefore bonus – even at the longer-term risk of destroying the company/SOE. Example: Kordia
Brainstorm; Picking someone else’s brain, stealing the idea and representing it as your own because you have no real idea what to do otherwise.
Business model; How the company/SOE should be run but never is.
Churn; You get this if you run 24/7, it usually denotes the number of people fired, quit, made redundant, died or disappeared from your labour force which also, inevitably, leads to churn in your audience.
Client focus: Sucking up, see Do Lunch.
Core business; The difficult and boring bit otherwise known as broadcasting which is nowhere near as good as some harebrained blue skies green fields opportunity which means you cannot be judged by measurable results.
Cross functional; Making your problem everyone else’s problem.
Customer focussed/ client focussed; Sucking up for business.
Do lunch; A good way of remaining client focussed (and then unfocussed).
Excom; A senior management committee comprised mainly of people who have never worked in the productive side of the business.
Empower; You empower someone by dumping your crap on them to sort out.
Fast track; Ram it through before anyone can object.
Feedback; Criticism disguised as constructive advice.
Future proof; Cover your arse.
Game plan; Hopefully a way of achieving the Big Picture or, at the very least, the pretence of a strategy.
Green Fields; No-one’s tried it before so we can make a killing and, even if we don’t, because no-one’s tried it before success cannot be truly measured and we can’t be criticised for failing.
Heads Up; Really means “heads down, duck, there’s a pile of crap coming our way”.
Incentivise; Bribe (see bonus).
Interface; The bit of he business you have grease up to make sure you get what you want.
It’s a journey; We’ve stuffed up, failed to achieve a target and have no idea where we’re headed, therefore we’ll never set a deadline for completion or someone will find out we’re screwed.
Key Messages; A PR term denoting the nature and the order of lies to be told to the gutter press so as to put the best possible spin on yet another screw up.
Knowledge Base; Brains that can be picked so as to later present the ideas as your own.
Let’s take a moment; Take a big cup of ‘Shut the Fuck Up!’
Leverage; A gun to the head or a way of extracting unforeseen cash/policy from some improbable plan.
Low hanging fruit; Easily achieved financial savings, e.g. stopping cab chits, removing he building’s pot plants and making the staff drink instant coffee.
Matrix; A meaningless word used to complicate a simple set of relationships affecting your business.
Mindset; Dangerous independent thought, therefore used most in the context of “changing mindset”.
Monetise; A way of screwing a buck out of something that is usually not inclined to surrender a dollar.
Moving forward; Putting past stuff ups behind you and concentrating on a mysterious future point at which everything miraculously comes right. Also known as The Clark School of Problem Management.
No-brainer; Don’t think about it, just do it, you’ll never spot the inevitable downside anyway.
No Surprises; A policy that means you tell the CEO of anything that could cause effluent and a fan to connect, the CEO tells the chairman and the chairman tells the minister so that the government can take cover.
Optimise; Milk it.
Organisational Review; Redundancies and budget cuts.
Out of the loop; Worst place to be, no-one telling you anything. The only benefit is you can’t be blamed if anything goes wrong.
Paradigm; A word used to explain a complex business/political situation no-one anticipated and everyone is now groping to understand.
Pro-active; Dumping your crap on someone before they dump their crap on you.
Relationship/ Partnership; A cunning combination of behaviour involving sucking up to coalition partners and ensuring they carry some of the cost.
Result driven; You’re fired if the poll ratings don’t go up.
Re-visit; We got it wrong again and now have to go back and fix it.
Refer Up; A policy whereby underlings attempt to escape responsibility for their actions by passing decisions up the corporate food chain. Eventually the policy of No Surprises takes over and the government is warned to take cover.
Robust; Something so tough no-one can see the flaws in it until too late.
Run it up the flagpole; Seriously suggesting something you want but implying you don’t really care just in case everyone thinks it’s a dumb idea.
Solution; A word seldom used in management as it is too categorical. Usually found only in the phrase “there is no quick solution”, meaning there is no such thing as a solution.
Speed to market; A panicked rush to get something on air or on sale because we have nothing else.
Stakeholder; Interfering busybodies who foolishly believe they have an interest in your business and could stuff you up.
Step Change; What we’re doing is not working and we need to think up another dumb idea.
Strategic fit; What I want.
Synergy; I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.
Take that off line; As in “let’s take that off-line”, which really means “shut the fuck up, I’ll sort you out later”. See ‘Let’s take a moment.’
Take that on board; Accepting someone else’s idea but hoping they’ll forget about it and then you can do nothing.
Thinking outside the box/outside the square; Having an original idea that the CEO/Minister later can claim as his own.
Ticks in boxes; The annoying details that have to be done to slip it past the board.
Touch base; I’ll call you when I think the time is right.
Turnaround; Hauling arse out of the crap.
User friendly; Something so simple even a board member could know how to do it.
Win-Win; A mythical situation where your partners are supposed to do as well as you do.
Value proposition; Where’s the buck in this?
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Something for everyone in Italy's record 215 political logos
ROME (Reuters) - From right-wing gays of the "Black Rose" movement, to parties seeking to dump the euro, to the "Ordinary Guy Front", there is something for everyone in the dazzling array of groups seeking to contest Italy's elections.
The Interior Ministry, which will oversee the February 24-25 vote, has received a record 215 logos from parties, movements, associations, local and special interest groups of all sizes and colours - anyone who wants to be put on posters or ballot slips.
All manner of logos were displayed for public viewing on Monday in a long corridor in the ministry's ground floor: a red heart, a tramp carrying a sack with his belongings hanging from a stick on his back, a heavily made-up former porn star.
"Some of this is pure exhibitionism but still, it is part of democracy," said a ministry employee perusing the logos. He and his colleagues declined to give their names.
Read rest of article here
Monday, January 14, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
France's most prominent exiles
Tax policy rarely makes headlines in France, but the row between the country's best-known actor and the government has given the issue unusual prominence in recent weeks.
Gerard Depardieu's opposition to plans for a new 75% rate of income tax prompted him to announce last month that he was leaving the country. When Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called the move "shabby", the actor said he would tear up his French passport.
The row took a new twist last week, when Mr Depardieu applied for Russian citizenship, professing his love for a "great democracy". President Vladimir Putin gave him his new passport in person at the weekend.
The very public row between a larger-than-life personality and the Socialist government has put the issue of tax exiles to the fore.
Read more here
Monday, January 7, 2013
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Systems of democracy
Three Basic Types of Democracy
Any form of democracy tries in its own way to ascertain the will of the people and to bring public affairs into line with it. Theoretically this can be achieved by direct participation of all citizens (Direct Democracy) or by a body of elected representatives (Representative Democracy). Within the group of Representative Democracies the focus may be on a strong president (Presidental Democracy) or on a strong parliament (Parliamentary Democracy). As already mentioned, the question is not whether there exist some forms of direct participation or of representation but rather on how much importance they are given in a certain system.
The three systems here
Thursday, January 3, 2013
New Zealand 1853 to 1876
New provinces were formed by the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 (UK). This Act established the first six provinces of Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. Each province elected its own legislature known as a Provincial Council, and elected a Superintendent who was not a member of the council.The councils elected their speaker at their first meeting after elections. The Act also created a national General Assembly consisting of the Legislative Council appointed by the Governor and the directly elected House of Representatives. These provinces came into effect on 17 January 1853 and the regulations defining the boundaries of the provinces were gazetted on 28 February. Electoral regulations were gazetted on 5 March Elections were open to males 21 years or older who owned freehold property worth £50 a year. Elections were to be held every four years. The New Zealand Constitution Amendment Act 1857 provided for the appointment of a Deputy Superintendent.Read more here
Declarations of independence
- Between 1777 to 1791, Vermont was an independent republic
- Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836. It was a sovereign nation until 1846 when it joined the United States
- The California republic lasted 26 days in 1846 after breaking away from Mexico before it was annexed by the US
- In 1861, the Confederate States of America was declared, initially comprising South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina joined soon after, as did the Confederate Territory of Arizona. Factions from Missouri and Kentucky were also represented in the Confederacy. But Lincoln's Union Army achieved victory in 1865
- Hawaii was a kingdom from 1810 to 1893 and a republic from 1894 to 1898. It was then a US territory until it achieved statehood in 1959
- Source here
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Next-door Liechtenstein: familiar yet different
Keen to explore the miniature monarchy next door, our Switzerland-based contributor Catherine McLean slipped over the border to Liechtenstein this summer to see what makes the tiny principality tick.
Passing over a bridge, the Rhine river flowing below, it’s hard to tell that we have left Switzerland and are entering the tiny principality of Liechtenstein.
There are no border guards waiting to examine passports. The houses look the same, as does the mountainous landscape. People go shopping at the Coop supermarket chain, just like in Switzerland. Liechtenstein even uses the same currency: the Swiss franc.
But there are a few subtle differences as well. The licence plates are stylishly black, while the flags flying from houses and public buildings feature blue and red bands with a crown: no Swiss cross in sight. Liechtenstein has its own country code - 423 - for telephone calls. And they’ve had their own postage stamps for exactly 100 years.
Those hailing from Liechtenstein admit they have a lot of similarities with their Swiss neighbours. But they are nevertheless a breed of their own.
Read more here
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