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Good morning. From the redwoods

How did the cycling in amongst them work out?

It turned out “the cycling” was a kind of pedalled individual mini e-train thingummy along the old Skunkrail timber train tracks. Cheesy and touristy but fun - and it delivered me right into the heart of a lovely redwood grove (hence the pics)

But honestly these redwood forests just get more and more spectacular - every time you’ve seen the ultimate they outdo themselves. Laced with mist, exploding with light, cedar-scented visions of the sublime, with some nice coffee stops

I’m off to another now. Jedediah Smith on the Cali Oregon border. Said to be maybe the best. I can’t see how it can be better than stuff I’ve already gasped at. It let’s have a go….

Without a dog for scale, they are just a few trees as might be found in any British park.

Evening, P.B.

My relative-in-law quite upset today. A large family tour of impeccably liberal, anti-Netanyahu relatives of my wife went on a large family tour to north-east London for retrace the roots and steps of their Jewish ancestors.
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All was going well, and a lovely family day out in the autumn sun, until a passer-by, possibly from Somalia or somewhere in the same region, overhead that the group was Jewish. He started swearing and threatening the whole group, and screaming at them to stop bombing the Palestinians, in between spitting on them. Two of the group were very liberal healthcare workers who calmed him down, from both a professional and political point of view, before he got violent.

Family day partially ruined. The hatred out there is still very raw and real, particularly after two years of the conflict.

I guess in the coming months the IDF troops will sit around drinking coffee, while an international force takes their place on the battlefield trying to destroy Hamas.

I'm sure when an international force made up largely of Muslims from countries opposed to Hamas are killing Hamas fighters the Gaza mob will find a way to blame it on "the Jews" and be out protesting every weekend as usual.

There does appear to be a total lack of celebration from the people who have spent the last two years banging on about “Peace”, now that an actual deal for peace has been agreed.

I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.

Just catching up with PB over last couple of days and I feel incredible strongly about this issue that Big G NorthWales brought up. Its a bloody disgrace that the A9 and the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen remain such dangerous roads, add to that the amount of pregnant women who have to travel both roads to give birth when in labour in all weathers. That is now on the awful and incompetent SNP Government of the last eighteen years, most of whom don't live anywhere near these areas!!

FPT.
Big_G_NorthWales said:

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We have travelled from Llandudno to Lossiemouth countless times and use the M6, M74, then to Perth, A9 to Aviemore, then on to Elgin and Lossiemouth
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Occasionally we have gone via Edinburgh and the M90 but the first route is our preferred choice

The lack of dualling the A9 to Inverness is disgraceful and it remains one of the most dangerous roads in UK
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The A9 should have been duelled years ago, and it would have saved so many lives, ditto the awful A96. I came from Aviemore and most locals living along the full length of both routes all know the notorious accident blackspots, there is a horrible junction leading onto the A9 outside Aviemore and one leading onto the A96 from Aberdeenshire that we rarely use for good reason, seriously heart in mouth!! I sadly know people who have lost their lives on these roads.

For me the roads are a prime example of how the Scottish government is all mouth and no trousers. Yes, the odd big project gets built - the A90(notM) Aberdeen Western Peripheral as an example. But the rest? Nothing but excuses.

The A9 is the road that so many foreign tourists judge us on - and its lethal. As is the A96 - both in the lunatic open sections and as traffic is dragged through the centre of Keith and Elgin and Nairn and Forres.

Why aren't they done? Its the fault of the English of course - because in Scotland anything good is the SNP and anything bad is Westminster.

I have another more local example - the Toll of Birness A90 / A952 junction north of Ellon. 3 miles onto the first single carriageway section of the road you have a fork. The A952 branches off and is the busy direct route to Fraserburgh, with the A90 sweeping off the other way heading for Peterhead then Fraserburgh.

A roundabout - with or without a 3 mile dualled section - has been endlessly talked about. Primarily because of all the fatal accidents. I Do Not use the A952 south during the day to avoid the junction.

Why isn't it done? Because Aberdeenshire council isn't run by the SNP who say its a council not a government issue. And then the government won't fund it or the council either.

And so people continue to die.

It doesn't really go through Forres. That section is fine.

And that's what I mean by low-hanging fruit - dualled bypasses of Elgin, Nairn and Keith must be the biggest priorities - even more than the A9. The benefit-cost ratio is much better and we have to be realistic about the enormous cost and time for fully dialling both roads.

I've only used the A9 north of Perth a handful of times - but if this is an example of how Edinburgh spends that lovely Barnett formula bounty I'd say it's doing quite well. Fast and efficient - you rarely drop below 50mph, so well engineered is it for trucks; anything which slows the trafgic down like right turns and local access separated out - with passing opportunities every ten minutes or so - yet proportionate to the relatively light amount of traffic which uses it.
But maybe I've just been lucky.

Careful, you’ll have your PB SNPbad certification withdrawn.

I’m assuming that the supporters on here of Unionist parties will expect them to do really well next May, with this issue at the centre of their manifestos. After all the electorate has a short memory and will have forgotten that it was the same parties imposing the expensive luxury trinket of trams on Edinburgh that has been a major factor in delaying the dualling of the A9.

Hmm. My recollection, as a very regular user of the A9 and A96, is repeated promises to dual both roads. Happens before every election. They don't say "because the trams cost so much, we won't be dualling - perhaps they should have?

The local papers are full of reports of accidents and fatalities.

Whether that will have electoral consequences come next May, no idea. Perhaps not. The split in the Unionist vote, in any event, very likely to lead to SNP holding many constituencies on a reduced vote share and their MSP return holding up very efficiently. John Swinney is certainly looking more chipper than he was a few months ago.

What Scottish voters need is a centre right pro independence party. Tartan Tories if you like. Many Scots are pro independence but only vote for the SNP as, apart from the Greens, they are the only pro independence party. I am one of them. I vote for them through gritted teeth as, though I disagree with many of their urban central belt based policies, at least they stand up for Scotland, and don’t continually trash the country and her people.

Who are these people who are doing the continual trashing of the country and her people? Curious.

Sarwar, Jackie Baillie, DRoss, Russell Findlay, Rachel Hamilton, Annie Wells, to name a few.

I think you will find they are all as patriotically Scottish as you. Suspect they just also take a little pride in being British, and don't share the view that independence is the answer to Scotland's challenges.

If they are trashing Scotland's people, as you suggest, they are trashing themselves, which is a strange thing to do.

Poor souls must feel a bit lonely.



https://x.com/ScotCen/status/1976217537357508818

Interestingly the last efflorescence of Brit love was around 2014, perhaps you guys need another referendum to encourage another flowering of yoonery.

No 55%
Yes 45%

Thank goodness we voted for continuing membership of the EU, lower energy & food prices and economic & political stability. Bullet dodged!

Those higher food prices in full:

Not an especial fan of the IFS (ever since they criticised an Osborne budget for cutting benefits, when said change would be less employment benefit due to more people being in work...) but here's a BBC ramble about the still far-off Budget, based on IFS views:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2n08n15w2o

"...while £6bn could be raised from the abolition of relief on inheritance tax for main homes. "

That would be courageous, in the Yes, (Prime) Minister sense.

What were they asked to do - identify the most politically stupid tax increase possible?

Now I can see them doing it but only if you were going to implement every political stupid tax increase possible see which ones caused the most outcry and revoking the 1/2 that created the most outcry but it's a stupid idea.

This hunt for the magic tax that doesn't feel like a tax is a bit ridiculous. The tax burden increasing will lead to less money in the economy, and less economic activity - period. They tried to do this with their employers only NI increase and it was a disaster.

Yes but - and the but is overlooked. Tax is part of the total economy. Take one example.

Let us suppose that we paid directly for children to go to school and state funding didn't exist. Then your local schools would very obviously be part of the local business/commercial economy just like the local corner shop is. The staff of the school would be paid for the same reason that the staff in the local shops are paid - as part of the total business economy. (Ignore the fact that this would be a terrible idea, which is why we don't do it).

Schools funded by taxation are part of the local economy as well. The funding model is different, but the ultmate sources of the funding are exactly the same, in totality, as how it would be if state funded schools did not exist.

So increasing taxation does not, of itself, though of course it can when badly done, lead to less money in the economy and less economic activity.

Which is why western countries with higher tax burdens than us are not all economic basket cases.