@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot
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thecommongreen

@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot

Head of Policy and Research -
@Common_Weal
.
Wrote a book - http://tinyurl.com/AllofOurFutures
Used to play with lasers.
All of Us First.

Contact: craig@common.scot

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thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

I often say that as a staff member of a progressive and pro-Scottish independence think-tank my full time paid job would, in some countries, be illegal and result in severe sanctions.

Sounds like extremist UK is undermining its own values to try to come for folk like me.

thecommongreen, to random
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The definition of "legitimate target" is not "whoever happens to be under our bomb"

thecommongreen, to random
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Note to Journalists

If the politician says "This conflict should be conducted according to international law"

Your next question should be "Do you believe that international law is being upheld?"

Followed by
"Should those who breach these international laws be prosecuted?"

Anything less is giving the politician cover to excuse, ignore or support war crimes and crimes against humanity.

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

The UK is not a country of rich people. It's a rich country where the vast majority of the people have been deliberately impoverished to line the pockets of a very few, very rich people.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/24/more-than-1-million-uk-children-experienced-destitution-last-year-study-finds

thecommongreen, to random
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Thing is, I had been planning to write about a completely different breakdown of Scottish local democracy and policy-making this week.

Strained Councils shouldn't be turning "participatory budgeting" into a kind of "Public Service Hunger Games".

https://commonweal.scot/not-local-democracy/

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

Political Lesson: If you're going to pull a policy out of the "we need to announce something at conference" drawer, it might be a good idea to read it first.

https://dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/leaked-document-shows-humza-yousaf-31233192

thecommongreen, to random
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Today in "Carbon Capture still doesn't work" news

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/the-great-cash-for-carbon-hustle

thecommongreen,
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

@simon_brooke is quite correct to describe "offsetting" as the indulgences of our time.

Carbon capture schemes should be restricted to true negative drawdowns, not "offsetting" present and future emissions"

garius, to Cats
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

To mark feral cat day, Napoleon will be spending all his time with a duvet, to show how satisfied he is not to be one anymore.

thecommongreen,
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@garius One of ours (front) was a stray/feral who moved in of his own accord.

I have never seen relief like a cat who spent at least a year sleeping on a pile of junk outside, finding a home, jumping on a sofa and feeling a soft sheepskin rug under his paws for the first time either in a long time or possibly ever. He's never left our house for more than about six hours since.

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

An overly reductionist headline IMO. It's a nuanced judgement that, as far as I can parse, stated that the court cannot create new law (that's Parliament's job) and marriage itself isn't a constitutional institution therefore its lack for LGBT folk isn't unconstitutional.

BUT the legal and cultural rights and equalities stemming from marriage ARE a constitutional matter and they've instructed the government to ensure that these equalities are met by whichever means.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-top-court-declines-allow-same-sex-marriages-2023-10-17

simon_brooke, to random
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot avatar

I've been clearing sawdust out of the sawmill yard this afternoon, and meditating idly on the wildly incorrect inferences some future archaeologist might make from the inscription "DO NOT OPERATE WITHOUT GUARDS."

Guards, it's well known, were a military specialism typically protecting the residences of the elite; while to operate was to carry out a surgical procedure. But why should military personnel be required?

thecommongreen,
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

@simon_brooke I'm also concerned about the inscription beside it warning against allowing the servants to approach with the penalty for breach being some kind of mutilative corporal punishment.

Putting things together, this was obviously a machine used by a strongly hierarchical society that employed fear-based coercion to maintain discipline.

The machine itself likely has religious significance.

thecommongreen, to random
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SNP conference votes unanimously to bring Scottish energy into public ownership via a mix of nationalisation and local public ownership schemes.

thecommongreen, to Energy
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Today marks another chance for SNP members to reaffirm their party's commitment to public ownership of energy.

I explored various methods of doing this within devolved competence in this week's @common_weal Policy Podcast.

https://commonweal.scot/podcast/the-common-weal-policy-podcast-episode-187/

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

Anti-science waffle from the Energy Sec.

"But when pressed on what makes a new licence acceptable, Gray pointed to technology in carbon capture and storage, and the electrification of offshore platforms."

Carbon capture doesn't work and "electrifying the rigs" is only "Net Zero" if you pretend that they don't extract oil.

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,neil-gray-im-not-opposed-to-new-oil-and-gas-developments

thecommongreen,
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My questions to Gray:

How many oil workers in Scotland were Justly Transitioned this year?

At present projections, how long will it take to transition the entire sector?

thecommongreen, to random
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Lisa Cameron - my own MP at the moment - has quit the SNP and joined the Conservatives.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23850245.snp-mp-dr-lisa-cameron-quits-party-joins-conservatives/

thecommongreen, to random
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New Policy Podcast

This week, it's just me behind the mic, bringing you an "extended edition" of a presentation I gave to XR Inverness at the weekend on how Scotland can bring our energy sector into public ownership.

https://commonweal.scot/podcast/the-common-weal-policy-podcast-episode-187/

thecommongreen, to random
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I was going to say something like "Has Britain crossed the 'some war crimes are OK' line?" but for several years now the UK Government has been trying to make it illegal to prosecute war crimes committed by British soldiers and UK Politics has ensured that it's pretty much impossible to become UK PM without gleefully boasting of your "right" to order millions of civilian deaths in a first strike nuclear war.

thecommongreen, to UKpolitics
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

Delegates at the UK Labour conference voted overwhelmingly to reaffirm the party's commitment to public ownership of railways and the energy industry.

Asked if the party would follow the vote, shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: "No."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67056005

thecommongreen,
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

(Since this is getting some traction it is, of course, worth remembering that this is not the first instance of a motion passing overwhelmingly at a political party's conference only for leadership to reject it within hours of the vote...)

thecommongreen,
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@adaliabooks "Corbyn wanted it" is also a significant negative point from Starmer's POV.

thecommongreen,
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@onepict @adaliabooks For my part and as possibly hinted in my username Environmental issues are high up my list. I used to be a member of the Scottish Greens though I'm now firmly in the realm of cross- and non-party politics. I find the policies I like and form coalitions of the willing around them regardless of party and even if today's allies are tomorrow's opponents or vice versa. I'd like us to move more towards collegiate politics and voting for people, not parties. Perhaps some day.

thecommongreen, to random
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It's a big policy day for
@common_weal today.

Time for the indy movement to set out in a new direction.

Read our new paper on a strategy to revitalise the indy campaign.

https://commonweal.scot/policies/direction/

thecommongreen, to random
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

My article in this week's Common Weal Newsletter.

Rosebank will fail on all of its purported "benefits". It won't help the climate, it won't help UK energy security and the jobs it supports will mostly be Norwegian.

https://commonweal.scot/not-zero-why-rosebank-wont-help/

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Reddit blocks opting out of personalized ads, starts paying users

Like it or not, Reddit wants to "improve ad performance."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/reddit-blocks-opting-out-of-personalized-ads-starts-paying-users/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

thecommongreen,
@thecommongreen@mastodon.scot avatar

@arstechnica It shall be interesting to see how they try to make this one GDPR compliant...

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