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          Is it time tae think again about Flower of Scotland?

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          Glasgow Loves EU campaigners brave wind and rain to keep a light on for Scotland

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          Scottish elections: young people more likely to vote if they started at 16 – new study

          Healthcare word seen in a scrabble

          “Leave no one behind” – the Health Foundation’s report into health inequalities in Scotland 2023.

          Sign saying NHS Greater Galsgow & Clyde in front of a hospital building

          Concern over patients waiting in corridors for free beds at Glasgow Superhospital

          A row of tall houses on the left, with parked cars in front on the side of the street

          Saving Scotland’s tenements

          Ben Nevis. Forground has green shrubbery, then background a mountain with two tops. Blue sky with a few streaky clouds

          Exploring the Highest Mountain in the British Isles: A Guide to Ben Nevis

          Image via Steller Systems, a potential candidate.

          Cancelling future frigates could be final nail in the coffin for the UK

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          Image Malcom Laverty

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          Saving Scotland’s tenements

          A large red researcgh vessel in the sea with ice sheets all around it on the water.

          Rosyth shipyard attracts UK Government contract to maintain fleet of scientific research vessels

          large posts saying 'Glasgow Airport Business Park' on the left and right of a road leading away from the main road in the front. . On that road leading away building with walls almost entirely existing of windows.

          Why doing business in Scotland may be better for your corporate wellbeing

          A mountain of spools forming a tree on the left, a sandy area to the right and a row of houses at the back. mountains in the distance on the right

          The Ullapool Giving Tree

          Electric off-roader heralds return of vehicle mass-production in Scotland after 40 years

          Photo Mtaylor848, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

          Christmas cheer for Tesco if grim reading for the political classes

          Ferguson Marine will weather the storm

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          Police Scotland not investigating Scottish government over ferry contract criminality

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            The Ethiopia Medical Project (EMP)

            Healthcare word seen in a scrabble

            “Leave no one behind” – the Health Foundation’s report into health inequalities in Scotland 2023.

            Sign saying NHS Greater Galsgow & Clyde in front of a hospital building

            Concern over patients waiting in corridors for free beds at Glasgow Superhospital

            A hospital corridor with trolleys on the sides.

            Glasgow hospitals halt non-urgent operations due to pressure

            Two more unions reject Scottish Government NHS pay offer

            GMB union reject Scottish Government pay offer to NHS staff

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              Fire threats in the Scottish countryside

              Wood stove at the foot of the bed in the Danish Blue room at Pig Hill Inn, Cold Spring, New York. Printed with permission and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

              When smoke gets in your eyes

              Opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 in Egypt. Photo courtesy of the UNFCCC

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              Don’t be afraid, but humanity could be the seed of the universe

              Is it arrogant to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe, and if we are should the universe be worried?

              Ashley BlackbyAshley Black
              30-08-2022 08:00
              in Opinion, Science & Tech
              Stars forming in the Carina Nebula about 8,500 light-years from Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA taken from the James Webb Space Telescope

              Stars forming in the Carina Nebula about 8,500 light-years from Earth. Photo courtesy of NASA taken from the James Webb Space Telescope

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              We’re fascinated with Mars and beyond. Truth be told we really hope our planetary probes find something not unlike Mr. Spock, Luke Skywalker or E.T. It may take more than a few months or a couple of our mortal lifetimes, then again it might never come to pass, but it is naive not to believe that somewhere beyond our Sun’s gravitational influence other forms of life exist.

              Perhaps at this very moment a celestial neighbour, looking in the direction of our own star system, is asking a friend, “Ever wonder if there’s life out there, eh, Bob?”

              With respect to NASA, Star Trek, Steven Spielberg and the good inhabitants of the Orion Nebula, belief in an extra-terrestrial presence is theological, not unlike one’s faith in a particular God, the (1st or 2nd) coming of a Progeny with evangelical predictions of a catastrophic homecoming. Both theological and extra-terrestrial theories seek revelation, communication, salvation and (sadly) vindication.

              If Star Trek’s assimilating Borg or Klingon warriors come knocking, all bets are off. Resistance would be futile; and likewise for a theological visitation? If it’s a spiritual deity that makes an appearance I, for one, can only hope, ironically pray, that the occasional reference in the Christian Bible to a “merciful God” isn’t just column-space fodder or New Testament feel-good sidebars.

              Are we the only intelligent life in the universe or its Forrest Gump?

              What if Arthur C. Clark was wrong in 2001: A Space Odyssey? What if a one-eyed one-horn flyin’ purple people eater from beyond the orbiting rock synonymous with Mickey Mouse’s dog didn’t leave a monolith to nurture our species from the first organic molecules to what we have become today? “Imagine”, as John Lennon wrote, “there is no Heaven, above us only sky.” What if the Terrans of Earth are a unique sentient and the only intelligent life form throughout the entire galaxy? Frightening thought, eh? The alternative would be that intelligent life flourishes throughout the universe and we’re the Milky Way’s equivalent of Forrest Gump.

              What does this tell us about humans and our evolutionary march through millennia?

              From 5,000 BC, when the earliest cities of Mesopotamia first appeared, to modern day wars, starvation, terror and “what’s in it for me” governments and special interest groups, humanity has had seven millennia to get it right. We had the ability to crawl out of the primal ooze and develop the species, to bear witness to self-revelation, enhance global health, promote education and encourage the desire to be what one want to achieve, to make art, history, philosophy, and justice the cornerstones of our existence. To bask in moral salvation, equality, respect and empathy.

              So, Forrest, how are we doing so far?

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              byDr Richard Milne
              1 August 2022

              How far we have come as a species is light years from “fascinating”

              After 7,000 years, not everyone has decent shelter. Not all regions of the planet produce or process enough food to ensure our species’ children don’t go to bed hungry. Education is more or less accessible – albeit more so in affluent countries or nation-states with resources needed by the aforementioned affluent first world groups. The tunnel vision types will point to the Internet and say it has opened doors to information and knowledge for all – not to mention disinformation and bad grammar – and brings the people of Earth a tiny-bit closer, thanks to WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, email and www.xxx.com. Oh, goody, we can communicate electronically with strangers while naked and starving.

              The precious few with government or private health plans receive transplant organs, sometimes from dead people. In the UK the Office for National Statistics tells me I’m going to make it to 87. So, we’re living longer; for what? If I’m tired and bored with life having recently retired, what am I going to do for the next 20 years? Billions of people do not have pension plans that allow then to travel to warmer climates in the winter, play golf or ‘enjoy our golden years’. They didn’t have the opportunity, like many politicians and already wealthy board members to vote for their own pension plans. Humanity has been to the Moon and can start the minivan, open the garage door or change channels with a wireless remote. Hot damn!! Or, as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock would say: “Fascinating.”

              Read the newspaper, watch the evening news, listen to the All-news stations all the time. What we are living is light years from fascinating!

              It’s time we got it right

              Since the time of early Man, we continue to quarrel over bits of land, whether it is the West Bank or Canadian native land claims. When Jesus and Mohammed walked the Earth, children went to bed hungry, just as they do today in Ethiopia and Edinburgh. As it was in the time of the Pharaohs, no quarrel or expense is spared to raise great armies or develop and deploy horrific weaponry to defend the realm, even if it results in innocents being used as cannon fodder.

              All the while the core fundamentals of human rights and decency – freedom of thought and speech, health care, education, clean environment, access to food and housing are constantly under threat and continually debated and debated to ad nauseam by the many. Meanwhile the few, the political masters and corporate giants have one agenda: the preservation and continuing financial betterment of the politico-bureaucratic-economic elite, and to encourage the masses to keep debating.

              It is arrogant to assume other intelligent species are not beyond our star system.

              It is arrogant to assume humanity has made great strides since the cities of Mesopotamia flourished.

              It is frightening to fathom that our species, alone, might be the seed carrier for sentient life throughout this galaxy. A troubling thought indeed.

              It is time we got it right.


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              Tags: AliensIntelligent lif in spacespace explorationuniverse
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              Ashley Black

              Ashley Black

              Ashley Black was born in Adana Turkey to a Canadian father and Scottish mother. She's a commercial pilot and has an MA Int'l Affairs from UC San Diego, Over a lifetime of "global tripping" Ashley currently advises several countries on aviation issues and has maintained a "base and home" in Scotland since 1990.

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