Scots will likely closely vote No today. However all is not lost. There has to be more power for the Scottish Parliament. In that sense Alex Salmond has won.

Salmond: Och aye, the wurst we can dae is gie yon 

David Cameron a wee scare fur his job and get 

mair devolution concessions frae him!

Scottish independence 3

by Tom Thorne

Today the Scots vote for their independence or to stay in Great Britain. Yesterday I began a review of all polls taken since the start of September concerning this issue. About 4.5 million Scots are voting as I write this article.

The polls indicate that the No side will win this referendum. It will be quite close but they will take it according to 15 polling organizations that I reviewed. The No side up to the present moment expressed anxieties that the referendum would go to the Yes side.

Traditionally the Highlands are voting Yes by a four percent margin coming in about 55 percent. Glasgow with 20 percent of the voters will go Yes. The rest of the country is below 50 percent + 1 to win. Therefore pollsters are calling a close victory for the No side.

Undecided voters through all the polls stay at about 10 percent. It is unlikely that all of these people will go to either camp. If this vote splits like the rest of the country then it will not appreciably change the outcome.

16 year olds are allowed to vote in this referendum. There is not enough of them in Scotland’s aging demographic to appreciably change the results because they will likely split almost evenly. Notions that 16 year olds are more radical than their parents is usually a pipe dream.

97 percent of Scots able to vote (4.5 million out of 5 million population) are registered to vote so if they all turn out there will be a huge vote to tabulate and count. Look to Friday morning for the results.

Will there be a swing one way or the other? Well to this point the polls taken for weeks and months have been increasing slightly for the Yes but not enough to win. When people enter the polling booth they may swing but it is unlikely.

Therefore I am calling a No vote win. The result will be close enough that Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond can claim a better deal for Scotland and hold Prime Minister David Cameron to his devolution promises made this week to stem the Yes vote.

If there is a Yes vote then David Cameron is gone as Prime Minister. No wonder he was out in the final week stumping for the No side.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

Scottish independence is a fight against Westminster's social and economic agendas. Is it too late?

Available from Totally Graphics on Amazon.com.

Scottish independence 2

by Tom Thorne

Scotland has a population of 5.5 million people at this time in history. There are more people of Scottish origin living outside of Scotland today than in the auld sod itself. I am one of them. I have distant Munro and Crawford cousins in Australia and still have relatives in Scotland as well. 

One of my correspondents in family history is related to me in the 18th Century Argyll Glenaray and lives in New Zealand. When I think about this diaspora and its influence in the world I can only say that it is very influential throughout the old British Empire. 

In Australia my relatives descend from Neil Crawford who at age 17, in 1839 landed in South Australia and founded a huge Crawford dynasty. Neil is the son of my five times great aunt Grizell Munro (1793-1880) and her husband Alexander Crawford. If Neil had stayed in Scotland he would have always remained a landless tenant farm labourer like his father. In Australia his descendants are now all professionals and farmers with their own land.

In 1890 my great grandmother’s sister Agnes Munro (1855-1945) left Scotland with her husband James Broadfoot. Once they were in Australia, James who was a skilled Mariner became a ship’s captain and started a shipping business. By the 1920’s he had five ships working the Australian East Coast. Today their descendants live throughout Australia. 

In 2001 the book How the Scots Invented  the Modern World by Arthur Herman was published. The subtitle of this book was even more egotistical than its title, it reads “The True Story of How Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It”.*

I was naturally delighted in the prospect that the country of my origins could be so influential. This book did not rely on Scotland’s military skills demonstrated so well by Wallace and the Bruce to make its points. It didn’t stress the poverty and wretched conditions of the 18th Century Scots as the Industrial Revolution changed Scottish life. 

Instead this book relied on documenting Scotland’s intellectual skills, inventiveness and in particular how the modern university was given birth in Scotland and exported throughout the English Language World. It is a book that records Scottish innovation, skills and frankly panache.

I think that this disproportional influence of an even smaller population than there is today is profound. Today Scots are looking for a new time in the Information Age when their intellectual skills can experience a renaissance escaping the considerable right wing politics of London and southern England and the poverty that it still generates in larger cities such as Glasgow.

In a London centred universe Scotland has challenged with this referendum the right of “The City” to control their affairs. They have shaken the roots of the United Kingdom and how it has evolved into a business centred meritocracy ruled by a London parliamentary coalition of right wing politics that relies on trickle down economics as the alleged answer to everything. In many ways Britain for the moment is caught in the same right wing notions as we experience in Harper’s Canada.

The Scots have had enough of the effects of this kind of David Cameron politics. The truth is that other less advantaged areas of Britain are also looking to Scotland to innovate and build new more equitable relationships with Westminster. This is not a referendum to separate as much as it is a process to define a new Britain. Again as they did in the 18th Century the Scots are leading the way with their cultural bias which is always to be straight forward and tell it like it is.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

* How The Scots Invented The Modern World, The true story of how Western Europe's poorest nation created our world and everything in it., Arthur Herman, Three Rivers Press, A Division of Random House, New York, ISBN 0-609-80999-7, Published 2001.

Scottish independence is a restoration of nationhood and not a withdrawal from Great Britain.

Scottish independence 

by Tom Thorne

I have made two trips to the auld sod in recent memory. The first one was in 2007 and it was a general tour that took my wife and I to see the Highlands, the ancient stone rings on the Hebrides at Callanish and also the neolithic sites on Orkney.  Then in 2013  I went on a three week research trip to places where my Munro family originated in Argyllshire and later lived in Dumbartonshire. 

On the first trip as we came south to Edinburgh and Glasgow we stopped at Inverness and the nearby site of The Battle of Culloden where in 1746 the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was brutally routed by The Duke of Cumberland’s forces.

The bleak battlefield at Culloden left its mark on me since it is also the burial ground of the carnage unleashed in that battle. Here Scottish attempts at self determination 40 years after union with the rest of Britain were dashed. Here Scots tried to restore the Stuart monarchy for all of Britain.  

The aftermath of the battle was punitive and nothing short of ethnic and cultural cleansing as the defeated were hunted down and killed and their homes burned and pillaged by the victors. They were not allowed the wear kilts or tartans and could not have any arms. Prince Charles Edward Stuart hid for months until his loyal followers managed to get him away to France. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat was hunted down taken to London and beheaded for his alleged and largely unproved part in the “rebellion”.

Hundreds of rebellion prisoners were transported to Australia and America or rotted literally in prison ships waiting to sail in English ports. Prisoners were also hanged by lot. If you picked a hanging ticket out of a hat you were strung up. One in ten faced this fate. The aftermath of Culloden was horrific and to this day leaves a stain on the history of the United Kingdom. The price of the United Kingdom in the middle 18th Century has a very bloody origin.

Long before the Union in 1707 Scotland was an independent country with its own monarchy. Admittedly the aristocrats of Scotland were widely intermarried with the aristocrats of England and as a result of these unions much of Scotland was property of English lords. The Scots played England against France continually in a bid to remain independent but often when the chips were down Scottish aristocrats sided with England in self interest or played a duplicitous role in the politics of the British Isles.

Scotland, after the reign of Elizabeth I, provided King James the First of England the Sixth of Scotland. His reign was followed by the calamity of Charles I but later his son became Charles II for the restoration after the rule of Cromwell. And so there has been continual links with England and Scotland for centuries and those links have always been tenuous and fragile when faced with the real politic of English-Scottish relations. 

During the late 18th Century and early 19th Century Scots were cleared from their lands held often by aristocrats who lived in England. The land held by the people from their clan chiefs was taken and turned over to mass sheep farming. The people went to new towns to learn how to fish or take up a trade. Many found this impossible to do and without any economic base for their future left Scotland for Canada, United States and Australia in droves.

Now the Scots are to vote on an restoring their independence this week. The links as always with England and the rest of Britain are there as they have always been since the time of William The Conqueror in the 11th Century. During the 12th and 13th Centuries the Scots tried to take back their country from Norman fiefdom status with many uprisings such as Sir William Wallace executed so well followed by Robert Bruce. Ultimately the power in the south prevailed either by warfare or finally by The Act of Union in 1707 which benefitted the landed aristocrats more than the people.

What will change in this relationship if the Scots vote yes?  History tells us that the tight relationships between the English and Scots are still there. Maybe a yes vote will tell the rest of Britain that the Scots want a more equitable deal than they have experienced for many centuries. A no vote is really for the historic status quo brought about by the Act of Union. I suspect that the yes vote will be a close winner because Scots realize that they must assert themselves against a top down Conservative England that has developed under David Cameron. If Scots reflect on their history with England they may vote with their heart to actively get changes and to wake up an England that takes them for granted. 

Quebec separatists who see this referendum as useful for their cause should reflect that Quebec has never been a country with its own government like Scotland. They have only been a colony of France that was abandoned in a treaty after an 18th Century war between Britain and France. Their status is not the same as the Scots. The Scots have a clear claim to nationhood if they are willing to pay the price. 

© Copyright 2014 Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond both fight 

off  Excedrin headaches as they contemplate the Scottish Independence vote this Thursday.

2013 Hyundai Sonata fire that gutted the car gets a forensic report six months after the date of loss. The report says fire cause undetermined.

The fire gutted interior of the 2013 Hyundai Sonata.

Update: 

2013 Hyundai Sonata fire. Fire expert says cause of the fire is undetermined. 

by Tom Thorne

A fire forensic report concerning the 2013 Hyundai Sonata fire done by professional engineer, Brian D. James states “The origin of the fire is located within the rear seating area of the passenger compartment.  All burn patterns are consistent with this as an area fire origin” this report was submitted to the driver’s insurance company on 16 June 2014 almost six months after the incident.

Mr James preliminarily examined the car on 22 January 2014 two days after the date of loss which was 20 January 2014. A further examination was conducted on 15 April 2014. This  time the car was  “destructively examined and the various circuits and components were examined within the vehicle and associated to the area fire origin.” 

The 15 April examination was conducted “with other parties” present. Who these other parties were is not recorded in the report. The car was fitted with seat heaters and the report states “did not show any remnants of seat heaters or wiring components”. Because these components could not be located  Mr. James concludes that there are “no indications of any failures”.

However there is evidence that there was a seat heater under the back seat because Mr. James reports “that the seat heater fuse was open, however, the could be the result of the fire spread and or the fire spread to the forward seat heaters”. The ambiguity of these statements enables Mr. James to say “that the cause of the fire is undetermined”.

There was some concern that the “aftermarket anti corrosion module” may have been the cause. That is ruled out by this report since there was “no evidence of malfunction”. The report rules out any gas line or gas origins for the fire since it is clear that the fire started in the passenger compartment back seat. The drivers destroyed lap top computer is also ruled out as a cause of the fire.

If the cause of the fire is undetermined the fire patterns do indicate that it started in the passenger back seat. The real problem now is whether or not Hyundai is negligent in their engineering, design of components or in their manufacturing. This report is ambiguous enough to provide a defence against any alleged Hyundai negligence. 

This case is perhaps complicated by the fact that the car was a dealer demonstrator before the sale to the driver. Assessing any liabilities to Hyundai now could involve a second party namely Hyundai’s local Belleville, Ontario dealership.

The purchasers and the specific driver of this Hyundai Sonata are really between a rock and a hard place. If an expert witness like Mr. James says the cause of the fire is unknown but he does say it started in the back seat. Without any direct connection to a failed or malfunctioning component in this Hyundai Sonata it could be difficult to make a serious case.

It may be sufficient to ignore this report as inconclusive and to really state the obvious in any legal claim. Hyundai is accountable for all the component parts making up the entire car. The fact that there was a fire and its burn patterns clearly shows it started in the components of the car, then a suit could go forward indicating negligence in the manufacturing of such a car. It is obvious even in the ambiguity of this report that a manufactured part of the car caused of the fire. 

No external component or after  market anti corrosion device can be blamed. The Lithium battery of the lap top lying on the backseat didn’t overheat and therefore set the car on fire. Hyundai’s components somewhere in this car started the fire.

It is not normal that a car barely a year old should close down all its systems and then  ignite in the backseat. Hyundai Canada or at least their local dealer should have taken the car to a heated garage early in this forensic process, and read out its computer systems. Perhaps that action could provide clues about why a fire starts spontaneously. 

Hyundai and the insurance company left the car in a wrecking yard. It was subject to to the wiles of a long and severe Canadian winter from 22 January to 15 April 2014. The engine compartment was completely intact so computer connection was possible. Only the interior of the car was gutted by fire.

The question is when will Hyundai Canada or the head office in Korea step up to the plate and acknowledge that this kind of spontaneous fire needs attention both for after sale customers and their car buying public in general. Their customer relations department simply gave excuses for their lack of action for almost six months as their email correspondence with the driver attests.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

The Hanoski case remains in limbo at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kingston. When will we know its costs and ramifications?

Where the rubber hits the road.

The Joe Hanoski Case: 

Some questions still need answers. If the civil suit launched by Joe Hanoski is settled what has it cost the Diocese of Kingston? 

by Tom Thorne

One of the most read set of articles on this blog are the Joe Hanoski series that I wrote in 2012. These articles concern an alleged sexual abuse of Joe Hanoski by Father Paul Hamilton.  Another priest, Father Michael Reed is also mentioned in the Hanoski civil suit.  Both Fathers Hamilton and Reed remain on the books of the Diocese of Kingston at this time.

Even after two years these stories continue to be accessed all the time. There is a pent up interest concerning the outcome of this civil case and at the moment we do not know that outcome because it can be settled out of court. Silence by both Joe Hanoski and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kingston Ontario can be a provision of the settlement agreement. If that is true then this case remains an enigma.

In the case of retired priest Rene Labelle, also of the Kingston Roman Catholic Diocese, criminal charges were laid by the police and Crown and by January 2014, and after a very public trial offering details of the sexual assault, interference and exploitation Labelle was sentenced to 16 months in jail to be followed by 30 months of probation and counselling. A very public process. Currently Father Labelle is still listed as a priest by the Diocese of Kingston, in care of the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Kingston, Ontario.

The Joe Hanoski case is very different. Hanoski brought a civil suit rather than a criminal charge against father Paul Hamilton. The action was also registered against theRoman Catholic  Diocese of Kingston. Also mentioned in this case was Father Michael Reed. Father Hamilton was abruptly removed eight years before this suit was launched and sat in a limbo for almost a decade with no charges and no action on the part of the police or the Crown that I am aware of. Father Michael Reed was removed from his parish when Hanoski launched his civil suit.

Currently Father Paul Hamilton remains on the books of the Archdiocese of Kingston. He seems to remain in limbo at the Catholic Pastoral Centre. Father Michael Reed at the moment can be reached according to the Diocese website, through Blessed Sacrament Parish in Amherstview, Ontario where the pastor is Father Stan Alanen. A look at the parish website reveals no mention of Father Reed. Why is he listed at this parish in the Diocese website list of priests? Does he have duties at this parish? 

It seems that the Diocese of Kingston uses the Catholic Pastoral Centre as a place where priests languish when they are taken from their parishes. It also seems that when charges cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court alleged victims resort to a civil action to get justice.

As a member of a parish that is part of the Diocese of Kingston the silence about the Hanoski civil suit is irritating. Either the case is sitting in some kind of legal logjam or it is settled. If the civil suit was settled, then funds from the Diocese of Kingston or from some insurance company were used to get a settlement. 

Civil suits are not launched for esoteric reasons. There has to be a dollar value placed on the case. In addition, there are the legal costs for Hanoski’s lawyers and the lawyers for the Diocese of Kingston that have to be accounted for in any settlement.

In this case Hanoski sued for an alleged $3.5 million dollars.  There simply needs to be a transparent accounting of these costs by the Diocese including the legal costs on top of the settlement for defending the diocese’s liability for priests in this kind of trouble. 

© Copyright Tom Thorne 2014, All Rights Reserved.

Ontario Election: Voters will likely elect a Conservative minority choosing from the bland options before them. That means a replay of this election in two years.

Angela Horwath, Tim Hudak and Kathleen Wynne all want our vote 

without showing any real leadership for Ontario's future.

The Ontario Election: voting for the bland, the blander and most bland option. 

A move to the right is possible but only held in check by the NDP keeping a Conservative minority government on a short leash.

by Tom Thorne

On the eve of the 2014 Ontario Provincial Election it looks as if we are moving towards another minority government of some kind. The electorate may change from Liberal to Conservatives mostly for a change mainly because  Liberals have been in office for 11 years and they are looking tired.  

Many polls show a dead heat. This of course will leave Angela Horwath's New Democrats with the balance of power again whether the Liberals or Conservatives form the new government. That also means in two years or so we will probably return to the polls.

Kathleen Wynne is wearing the perceived negative excesses of her predecessor Dalton McGuinty. It's hard to escape gas plant scandals when the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) interview former premier McGuinty during the election. Wynne has to also wear the fact that she was a senior member of the McGinty cabinet. This situation is perceived as an election negative. It may be the reason why the electors change horses.

Tim Hudak on the other hand is seen as a right wing ideologue who no one really likes. Well spoken in an evangelical way, he has trouble doing math about his election program. Independent economic experts easily pull apart his Million Job plan and his 100,000 public sector job cuts. That makes his competence an issue. Just how he expects to carry out this simultaneous cut and growth plan is anyone's guess. He's short on detail and credibility. 

But Tim Hudak could come up the middle to become Ontario's new minority government premier despite his vagueness and penchant for right wing viewpoints. One thing is certain if he doesn't become premier this time his life as leader of the Ontario Conservatives is limited. In addition Ontarians may do their usual balancing act of electing a Liberal government when there is a right wing federal government in power.

Ontario is slipping economically. We are losing classic manufacturing jobs along with the Rust Belt  border US states. The economy is in some kind of transition. To what is a serious question that goes unanswered by all Ontario political parties.  

That transition seems to feature high educated youth unemployment or under employment. Manufacturing is becoming more automated and the need for well paying jobs is lessoned. Jobless recoveries are the new reality and Ontario companies are sitting on capital waiting for some sign that the economy can and will improve.

A major food processor Heinz can destroy the economic well being of Leamington and Essex County because they claim their costs are too high to operate profitably in Ontario we need to rethink our economic strategies. 

Heinz, after a 100 years in Ontario, is shifting their operations to low cost right wing US states who have destroyed unions with right to work legislation. There is no loyalty to any Ontario community when profits drop or multinational boards of directors make their decisions.

In my view Tim Hudak will implement similar labour policies in Ontario if he ever gets a majority.  He will make the argument that our labour costs are too high to compete in North America and the world and to implement his Million Jobs Plan he will need anti union legislation. Wages will have to drop as too many people look for too few jobs.

When we examine the 100,000 public sector job cuts Tim Hudak says much of this operation will be done by retirements and natural attrition. This remains troubling.  If someone retires it doesn't mean that the job they do is unnecessary. 

The wider public service involves organizations  from TVOntario to our hospitals and social services not just Queen's Park bureaucrats. A 100,000 wage earners taken out of the Ontario economy is guaranteed to become an economic downer. Shades of Mike Harris but this time on steroids.

So Ontario voters face a Liberal regime with 11 years in office and a tawdry reputation from the McGuinty years. The New Democrats are really only looking to realistically become the balance of power while irritating organized labour during the election. The Conservatives have gone much further to the right where trickle down economics, lower corporate taxes and less government is their mantra. 

Truly a bland hokum election. None of the leaders have told us what they intend to do about the rising costs of electricity in Ontario.  Few exciting ideas have emerged from this campaign. There has been no real definition of how high technology information based economies develop and thrive. 

The status quo concerning youth unemployment and under employment is all we get. None of them have solutions to this social ill. There is nothing in this campaign that shows us a future we can get behind and vote for with any conviction.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Teens take the Internet for granted. They believe that it's their birthright. Why not? They have never known a world without it.

He is connected to the most powerful network 

that has ever existed just to interact with his friends.

Some thoughts about Internet use by pubescents and teenagers. 

My own grandchildren all have smart cell phones, iPads and some have portable computers. The oldest is 16 and the other seven are recent new teenagers and younger. It is a normal part of lives to use this networked technology. They don't know a world without it. It’s routine.

Students with smart phones and pads are constantly connected to the most complex two way broadband network that has ever existed. We know of no other experience like this in human history save the introductions of printing in the middle 16th Century which created an almost glacial change to society. 

This was followed by electric based broadcast radio and later TV which was faster in its socio-political impact when it brought the Vietnam and presidential assassinations into our living rooms. Now a two way broadband network can instantly stream video of a school dance indiscretion to the world.

Grade 7 and 8 pubescents are connected to this endless ever expanding network and use it to define their social norms with each other as they mature towards relationships. What they develop becomes networked social norms and values. In fact their growth towards adulthood may well be formed not only by direct human interaction but by these socially taut mediated network experiences. This is a phenomenon that needs a lot more study.

Children this age know the techniques but not the outcomes of these cyber techniques. I  know from my questions to them, that they understand the surface of this network but do not realize that the personal profiling that social media providers build about their users profiles them for life. They don't realize that future employers now see this trail of social interactions as fuel for their hiring decisions.

Instant tweets of bullying are compounded by these networked connections. It has created recent cyber bullying legislation as governments react to tragedies. This is the result of young impressionable teenagers first warning of a suicide and then actually doing it. And before they commit suicide they do a show on YouTube with cue cards expressing their angst.

Living a cyber life or a mediated life through the network can be dangerous. Selfies, comments all expressed in a short hand cyber language indicates that the medium is clearly the message as it redefines social interactions. To be negatively featured on Tweets and Facebook has had drastic outcomes. When bullying was confined to the school yard or neighbourhood it was manageable. Now that it posted on a network and it compounds literally at the speed of light and becomes unmanageable by anyone.

This is the first time in history that culture develops using a networked cyber techniques. The implications of this technology in the hands of impressionable sensitive kids is now being seen by the increase in suicides. 

School is now a real life drop in centre. Kids attend real school but remain connected to the internet. School becomes a convenient WiFi connection centre. Teachers are now using the internet with their tech savvy students to advance educational opportunities. The extent  that curricula is also integrated into the internet is growing and it to has implications to learning when it is cyber focused. Anything this network touches is transformed.

Certainly constant networking via cyber techniques will redefine culture.  This is normal for anyone born after 1985. Internet is "normal" to a pre millennium 20 somethings. Everyone born after 2000 does not know a world that is not networked. 

This change to society not only a first world phenomenon. Third world cell phone and now smart phone use is very large and also not expensive as I found out in 2010 on a visit to Egypt. 

Cell phones were everywhere even in remote areas at the bottom of the country on Lake Nasser. When the Arab Spring started in 2011 the Egyptian authorities tried to turn off the cell phone networks and the internet. Much of the protest of the Mubarak regime was fuelled by either cell phone networks or the internet social media.

Social change comes to our kids using powerful networks for their social interactions as much as socio-political change occurs when and where these technologies are available. You cannot have a broadband networks running 24/7 worldwide without creating changes to how humans interact with each other. What is personal  can quickly become viral and takes off on tangents never intended by the person who posted the information.

© Copyright 2014 Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.