• Today on MD’s Journal (Scotland)…

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    Mark Dowe: 'Sky News Community Blog'

    Twitter: MarkDowe2009

    Scottish Government: 'Consultation Documents'

    Re-Live: Channel 4 News Video Coverage

    The Saturday Essay for 05/12 considers whether John Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old Ukrainian, should stand trial for Nazi war crimes because of age. Mr. Demjanjuk is accused of being a rank-and-file prison guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, and is alleged he was an accomplice in the murder of Jews at the concentration camp. Click on the ‘Saturday Essay’ Tab for commentary. [pub. 05/12].

    Book Review on Patrick Hennessey’s highly credible new book, “The Junior Officers' Reading Club”, which focuses upon frontline military action in Afghanistan. [pub. 26/11]

  • (Weekly) Most Read…

    The most read/clicked journals over the last 7-days, to Thursday, 03 December, 2009.

    -- Most viewed article (only) in last 7-days, hits in brackets:

    1. Iran: 'Nuclear expansion raises tensions' (1,612)

    2. -INTENTIONALLY BLANK-

    3. Scotland: '2009 is Year of Homecoming'

    4. Ethics: 'The moral principles associated with climate change'

    5. Can a 'surge' work in Afghanistan, like it did in Iraq?’

    -- 'Most Read' excludes works on religion, including Sunday Teaching & Lessons.

  • On the radar…

    1. Sunday Teaching & Lessons: 'A word in season'

    2. Book Review: Patrick Hennessey's 'The Junior Officers' Reading Club'

    3. Pakistan and al-Qaeda terrorism

    4. NHS IT systems

    5. DNA Britain

    6. Saturday Essay

    7. Climate Change: 'British Lessons'

    8. Modern Sociological Studies & Methods

    9. MD Gym/Fitness Surgery

    EDITOR'S NOTE:

    The writer reserves the right to publish any e-mails received where those mailings relate to subject matters on this site.

    © Mark Dowe 2007-2009: all rights protected

  • Hot Press…

    Barack Obama unveiled his long-awaited decision on troop levels in Afghanistan. An extra 30,000 American soldiers will be deployed to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This is a lower number than requested by General Stanley McChrystal, the commander on the ground, but Mr Obama called on other countries to make up some of the difference. He set a tentative date of mid-2011 to start pulling American troops out of Afghanistan. [03/12]

    The European Union’s Lisbon treaty came into force amid a row over jobs in the European Commission. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy called the British the “big losers” after Michel Barnier, a former French foreign minister, was put in charge of the single market, including financial services. [03/12]

    Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, released the draft of a European security treaty that could, in effect, let Russia veto future NATO expansion. NATO members reacted with silence. [03/12]

    A militant Islamist group based in the north Caucasus claimed responsibility for two bombs that derailed the Moscow to St Petersburg express, killing 26 people. This was Russia’s worst terrorist attack outside the north Caucasus for five years. [03/12]

    Just days after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, scolded Iran for its nuclear activities, the Islamic Republic announced that it would build another ten uranium-enrichment plants; the Iranians said they might start building some of them within two months. Western countries trying to curb Iran’s nuclear plans pressed China and Russia to intensify economic sanctions against Iran. [03/12]

    Asif Zardari, Pakistan’s president, handed control of the country’s nuclear weapons to the prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani. The move was seen as a sop to the president’s critics, as an amnesty protecting him and others from possible prosecution on corruption charges expired. It has little impact on the management of the nuclear arsenal. [03/12]

    Barack Obama delighted environmentalists by deciding that he would, after all, attend the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month (he had already scheduled a trip to Oslo to pick up the Nobel peace prize). Mr Obama will offer provisional cuts to the United States’ emissions of an initial 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. Congress, which is stalled on a similar proposal, would need to agree. China is sending Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, to Copenhagen, where he is expected to pledge to reduce China’s “carbon intensity”. [26/11]

    There was some good news on AIDS. A UN report said the rate of new HIV infections is down by 17% compared with 2001, and the death rate from the disease has dropped by 10% over the past five years. The ubiquity of antiviral drugs is one important reason for the improvement. [26/11]

    Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said he would suspend building Jewish settlements on the West Bank for ten months in a bid to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinians. But his offer excluded East Jerusalem, “natural growth” in existing settlements and buildings already under construction. Not good enough, said the Palestinians. [26/11]

    Not for the first time, it was reported that an agreement was near that would see the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, captured by the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas three years ago, in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. [26/11]

    A new report on Iran’s nuclear work by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear guardian, doubted Iran’s claim that a newly discovered uranium-enrichment plant being built inside a mountain near Qom is a recent, stand-alone civilian site. Building started five years earlier than Iran claims, so inspectors worry that there could be other hidden sites to support this one. [19/11]

    Radovan Karadzic entered the dock for the first time at his war-crimes trial in The Hague. Previously the former Bosnian Serb leader, who is defending himself, had refused to appear as he does not accept the court’s legitimacy. [05/11]

    The prosecution opened its case against Radovan Karadzic at the start of his trial for war crimes before a tribunal in The Hague. The former Bosnian Serb leader stands accused on 11 charges, including genocide for the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men at Srebrenica in 1995. He outraged his alleged victims by refusing to leave custody and attend the proceedings. [29/10]

    A majority of countries on the UN’s Human Rights Council voted for a resolution to send its Goldstone report on the Gaza war to the UN Security Council for possible referral to the International Criminal Court. The United States and five other countries voted against the resolution, which was critical of Israel. Unusually, Britain and France withheld from voting. [23/10]

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  • Scotland Snippet …

    Edinburgh Courant:

    – Newspaper first published 14 February 1705. It was both edited and printed by James Watson (d. 1722), who had produced the Edinburgh Gazette 5 years earlier. [03/09]

    Cutty Sark: Clipper ship built at Dumbarton in 1869, used initially for the tea trade with China and then for the Australian wool trade. Her name is that of the young witch in Robert Burns’ poem Tam O’Shanter. Later, the ship had been restored and placed in dry dock at Greenwich, and since 1957 has been open to the public. [23/08]

    Beinn Ghlas Mountain, a Munro (1103m/3619ft) on the shoulder of Ben Lawers, near Loch Tay. The Beinn Ghlas wind farm was opened in 1999. [30/07]

    Black Watch – Gaelic: Am Freiceadean Dubh*

    Raised as 6 independent companies of infantry in 1725 to maintain order in the Highlands after the Jacobite rising of 1715. In 1739 these were combined into the 43rd Regiment of Foot, renumbered 42nd in 1751.

    Its dark tartan and original role gave it its name; its motto is ‘Wha daur meddle wi’ me’. It has served in most British campaigns and is now known as the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment). It recruits from east central Scotland.

    * Dowe = Black Dubh [21/07]

    Turnberry – Golfing and beach resort in Ayrshire, 9km north of Girvan, and the home to this year’s Open Golf Championship.

    The 5-star Turnberry Hotel, built from 1904 for the Glasgow and South Western Railway by James Miller, is often reckoned to be the best in Scotland.

    Turnberry now incorporates the Colin Montgomery Golf Academy.

    Turnberry Castle, fragments of which remain, is alleged to be the birthplace of Robert I, and was a centre for his campaigns. Turnberry lighthouse is built over it. [17/07]

  • Promise of Morning…

    The Windowsill of Heaven:

    Every morning lean your arms awhile upon the windowsill of heaven and gaze upon the Lord.

    Then, with the vision in your heart, turn strong to meet your day.

  • Intelligence Briefing…

    1. Strategy for fighting the Taliban:

    Briefing: ‘A strategy against the Taliban’

    2. Could a tsunami really hit Britain; consider the evidence:

    Could a tsunami happen in Britain?

    3. NATO: How is it meant to move forward:

    NATO: 'A way forward?'

    4. Any other ways for governments to act other than taking banks over?

    Nationalisation isn’t the only option

    5. UK Anti-Terrorism: 'Contest Two Strategy'

    Home Office & Contest Two

    6. Resistance among local communities increases against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

    Afghanistan: 'Taleban objectives?'

    7. Iran and its covert nuclear projects.

    Intelligence Briefing: 'Iranian politics and its covert nuclear projects'

  • Noticeboard …

    modus operandi:

    Servo pia quod vacuus duco sumptus

    (Serve honestly and without counting the cost)

    "Software and technology in the right hands"

    On Journalism J.M. Barrie (1860-1937) said:

    ... "The printing-press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, one sometimes forgets which.

    Watch or listen to BBC programmes within the last 7-days:

    BBC i-Player

    "The pen is mightier than the sword"

    ... is a metonymic adage coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play 'Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy'.

    The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, French clergyman, noble, and statesman.

  • RSS Home News

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    • Nuclear proliferation: An Iranian nuclear bomb, or the bombing of Iran? December 3, 2009
      After years of fruitless diplomacy, Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power. The options are grimA SECRET uranium-enrichment plant is discovered, built in a mountainside on a well-defended military compound outside the city of Qom. It is a clear breach of nuclear safeguards agreements and promises made when Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferat […]
    • The repercussions of Dubai: Dishdashed December 3, 2009
      The first of three articles on Dubai’s debt crisis looks at the international reaction. Markets seem to have got over the shock, but there are still disturbing lessons“IT CAME FROM THE DESERT” was an early computer game in which townsfolk were subject to a surprise attack by an army of giant ants. The announcement of a debt standstill on No […]
    • Gulf financial centres: Hub thumping December 3, 2009
      Dubai is not the only place in the Gulf to make money or to lose itIN A Dubai branch of Nando’s, a restaurant serving flame-grilled chicken, a sign informs customers that “Our neighbours are rich in oil. Not us.” That may reassure the restaurant’s cholesterol-conscious patrons, but it is ruining the appetite of Dubai’s creditors […]
    • Gulf geopolitics: Come-uppance but little contagion December 3, 2009
      The rest of the region has not, so far, been badly hit by Dubai’s troublesGERMANS may think they invented Schadenfreude, but Arabs have an ancient and precise term for the same thing. Shamata, that twinge of joy for someone else’s sorrow, is what much of the world seems to feel about Dubai’s financial fall to earth. Even the emirate’s […]
    • The Panama Canal: A plan to unlock prosperity December 3, 2009
      Ten years ago this month Panama took possession of the canal that bears its name. It has high hopes for a $5.25 billion expansion of the waterwayCAPTAIN HARIDAS PILLAY looks down anxiously from the bridge. He brings his ship through here every month, but it is always a tense, careful manoeuvre. The MV Perseus Leader inches into the Miraflores lock on the Pan […]
    • Pakistan's crises: Front line against the Taliban November 26, 2009
      Fighting this hydra-headed enemy is only the most obvious of the many deep problems afflicting PakistanABDUL MALIK’S anti-aircraft gun, stationed on the flat roof of his house in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), still points towards the Taliban. Just 20km (12 miles) south of Peshawar, NWFP’s teeming capital, the militants hav […]
    • Media: A world of hits November 26, 2009
      Ever-increasing choice was supposed to mean the end of the blockbuster. It has had the opposite effectNOVEMBER 20th saw the return of an old phenomenon: the sold-out cinema. “New Moon”, a tale of vampires, werewolves and the women who love them, earned more in a single day at the American box office than any film in history. The record may not st […]
    • America's fiscal deficit: Stemming the tide November 19, 2009
      Unprecedented levels of government debt may require radical solutions STUDENTS at National Defence University in Washington, DC, were recently given a model of the economy and told to fix the budget. To get the federal debt down, they jacked up taxes and slashed spending. The economy promptly tanked, sending the debt to higher levels than before. The lesson: […]
    • The pros and cons of VAT: A last resort November 19, 2009
      Its advantages are oversold, but it is gaining adherentsLIBERALS oppose a value-added tax because it falls more heavily on the poor. Conservatives oppose it because it is a money machine. Larry Summers, Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, once predicted that America would get a VAT when the two sides reversed positions. That moment may be approachin […]
    • Monsanto: The parable of the sower November 19, 2009
      The debate over whether Monsanto is a corporate sinner or saintFEW companies excite such extreme emotions as Monsanto. To its critics, the agricultural giant is a corporate hybrid of Victor Frankenstein and Ebenezer Scrooge, using science to create foods that threaten the health of both people and the planet, and intellectual-property laws to squeeze every l […]

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  • RSS The Independent – Commentators RSS Feed

    • John Rentoul: Why aren't we shocked December 7, 2009
      I didn't comment on the report in Saturday's Daily Mail about six foolish people who have had medical qualifications and who think that David Kelly was murdered, because (a) it was in the Daily Mail, and there are only so many untrue stories in the Daily Mail that one can rebut; (b) it was the same story that has appeared in the Daily Mail several […]
    • John Rentoul: Will a third of Lib Dems vote Labour? December 7, 2009
      Anthony Wells at Polling Report asks number 189 of my Questions to Which the Answer is No.
    • Jane Merrick: The more money Blair makes, the cheaper he becomes December 7, 2009
      Listening to Tony Blair, as prime minister, making a speech was often a moving experience. His labour conference address of 2001, days after the 9/11 attacks; the short and staccato signing off in the Commons as he left office.
    • New world disorder: The age of uncertainty December 7, 2009
      How will the world remember this century's first decade, which is now drawing to an end? For once alliteration works well. The 'decade of disorder' perhaps, reflecting the fragmentation of power into what historians of the present call a multipolar world. Or how about the 'decade of drift', in which huge global problems went untackle […]
    • Kevin Anderson: Decision time... face the facts or give up December 7, 2009
      It is not possible to overestimate the global significance of the next two weeks of intense negotiation. Copenhagen is unprecedented; it is not an updated Kyoto and even Bretton Woods is little more than a footnote when compared to the magnitude and urgency of the challenge we now collectively face.
    • Andrew Buncombe: A sure way to lose hearts and minds December 7, 2009
      Why, one wonders, if the Indian Government wants to win over the hearts and minds of the people of Kashmir, does it act without bothering properly to think? In what the authorities in Delhi said was a move to hamper the activities of separatist militants still active here, the central Government recently banned pre-paid mobile phone connections in the state. […]
    • Barack Obama: Slowly but surely, America is emerging from this financial crisis December 7, 2009
      We've got to do more than manage our way through this crisis, because long before the recession hit, many of our communities were struggling even when the economy was doing relatively well. Plants were closing. Jobs were leaving, especially in manufacturing. For too many families and communities, the recession wasn't a new challenge; it's a pe […]
    • Philip Hensher: Days of the Library Stinker are numbered December 7, 2009
      Stuart Penman, 27, is a keen user of his local library in Wigston, Leicestershire. Unfortunately, he also pongs. Librarians this week took the unusual step of banning Mr Penman from their premises after receiving numerous complaints from fellow users. For a year, they have been remarking to each other in loud voices how nice it is to take a bath, to change y […]
    • Nicholas Lezard: Forgive Bercow his past indiscretions December 7, 2009
      To address every layer of farcical silliness which has been, and continues to be, thrown up by the John Bercow affair would take more space than either this paper has, or you and I have patience for. His stupid pieces about how to pick up women from decades ago, his wife's admission to smoking cannabis and the curiously strangled, yet of course wholly c […]
    • Jeremy Laurance: Transparency alone will not prevent deaths December 7, 2009
      The NHS is going through a torrid time. The death of baby Ebony Rose McCall-Comley means more bad headlines, only days after the shocking report on conditions at Basildon and Thurrock NHS Trust, the sacking of the chairman of Colchester NHS Trust and the sudden resignation of Baroness Young, chair of the NHS regulator, the Care Quality Commission.

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Military: ‘The Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland’…

Posted on July 3, 2009 by markdowe

BAND OF THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF SCOTLAND

 

1ST BATTALION SCOTS GUARDS

 

Scotland

Filed under: Music Selections, Scotland, military | Tagged: , , , ,

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