All the talents
Posted on
December 16, 2023 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
-
About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
-
Recent Posts
- 04-29
- 04-29
- 04-29
- 04-28
- 04-27
- 04-27
- 04-26
- 04-26
- 04-25
- 04-25
- 04-25
- 04-24
- 04-24
- 04-22
- 04-20
- 04-20
- 04-18
- 04-18
- 04-17
- 04-15
Wings Over ScotlandA tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
And you just know they’re thinking of removing the railway line and turning it into a bike path so the eco-tourists can enjoy the scenic beauty.
This toon tyoifies the lunacy of the Scottish Greens.
Truly it would not surprise me if the Greens wanted to dig up half of the A9 to u dual it for environmental reasons. They are that daft.
Hair shirt cave dwelling for us all if they have their way.
But one exception would have to be west end wine bar soirees for our captains if greenery. Of that there can be no compromise. That and a bit of collegiate How’s your father, wink wink with Joe Fitz Patrick and Patrick Fitz Joe
Pity General George Wade wasn’t alive. The A9 would have been built on time and not at Edinburgh prices.
A typical Friday afternoon in the classroom.
The brutal fact is we need an effective environmental party even more than the SNP. How desperately badly we have been served by both. The current system of politics sucks shit.
Coincidence that the same means of destruction has been used on both?
Everyone of us who has ‘skipped’ stones into the sea should be made to go back and collect them up.
It will help lower the sea level.
Or ….
We could kill more whales
Big Bird for FM!
Johnlm
No John, this is Scotland, not Big Bird – Statler and Waldorf job-sharing as FM is the way to go.
It could nt get any worse with pinky and perky green machine.
Sigh. A painful lesson for Scotland:
Do not ever, ever, let green/woke politicians (and SNP sleepers) anywhere near the reins of power. They are complete and utter nutters, living in a fantasy world of electric cars, bicycle lanes, bus gates and heat pumps. Hell-bent on destroying western civilization.
The green/woke politicians are just the useful idiots. The enablers. The real dark minds controlling the narrative and setting the green/woke agendas are those that stand to gain financially (billions) from this nonsense. Tax payers’ money – the plebs will pay for it. Note that neither the shadowy powers or their useful idiots will suffer. Those hypocrites will continue to wine and dine, and jet off around the world and drive top-of-the-range cars. It’s perfectly reasonable for them to have massive carbon footprints, but not the rest of us. No no no:
“Do as I say, not as I do!”.
A painful lesson for Scotland indeed.
JohnIm at 8.27am:
‘Big Bird for FM!’
You could be onto something, JohnIm. Having no idea who Big Bird was, I just had to consult the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia.
Apparently, a 2012 US presidential candidate “used Big Bird as an example of spending cuts he would make to reduce the federal budget deficit”.
Muppets guest starring at leadership programmes – it’s a no brainer.
Excellent.
I see the nuSNP have yet another fiscal black hole. Only, this one appears to be genuine. It’s from the dying yoon media – so who knows ?
I think it corresponds to the huge amount wasted by loopy Lorna on her idiotic bottle scheme. Humza says she an asset.
I see the transcult lobby groups are still getting all their enormous grants. NuSNP prospective MPs are going to have to defend this on the doorstep.
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy…
Dumb and Dumber peddling us all the way back to the cave. The average standard of MSP and MPs are truly shocking.
Three total arseholes who the public never voted for to lead shit. Imposed on us by Grubber Murrell’s dodgy ‘election’… Russian hackers my arse. The damage they are doing to Scotland is immense and on going. Grangemouth is just the tip of the iceberg…
Agree with what you say Ruairidh and the answer to your question is, nope.
The environmental movement was nobbled with woke poisoners well before the independence movement was. Seems to be their template.
Why don’t we remove hundreds of miles of roads in congested areas cover the new bicycle
Lanes with thousands of plastic signs and and non recyclable rubber boundary markers
and make thousands of tons of extra car exhaust pollution from gridlock and removal of filter lanes.
Each cycling commuter must have had £100,000 spent on them to ensure they can move quicker than the cars that people depend on and who pay fortunes in taxes and parking charges for the privilege.
Try being a travelling national accounts manager on a bike.
PS The business mileage rate for using your own car a fuel was set in 2011.
It once helped contribute toward your car depreciation, insurance, servicing, MOTs, repairs and fuel. Did anyone notice how inflation has been during the last 12 years?
It doesn’t matter what madcap plans the degenerate Greens come up with the current SNP will keep them onside to have the numbers to push policies through the chamber.
Mark Beggan.
Do you mean when Wade wasn’t slaughtering Jacobites (Scots) at the behest of King George I.
Incidentally Wade’s road inspector and fellow Irishman Major William Caulfeild also built roads in Scotland.
Also as EVERY Scots should know.
Wade received mention in an unofficial verse sung as part of God Save the King:
Lord, grant that Marshal Wade
May, by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush
And, like a torrent, rush
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King.
Ya allah! Ya allah! rid me of these vexing jinn.
«The Hour will come when the children of jinn will become many among you»
Al Suyuti*
(laqt al marjaan)
*Egyptian polymath
Have a nice day, FM.
The reaction of Humza is inaccurate.
It would more likely be “Way to go Lorna! But remember if it works I thought of it first.”
That’s not so far fetched
More concerning than the toon’s.greens, who’re just overgrown kids enjoying themselves really, is what Lord Foulks might have done to Humza (and on whose orders) – best hope is a serious night on the town to apologise but Foulksies boss, Sarwar?, might imagine things differently once he sees the tweet.
You’re one helluva talented artist, Chris. Today’s toon capturing the current governance of Scotland perfectly. They say a picture can paint a thousand words. This picture paints just the one that sums them up adequately. Incompetent!
*WORTH A REPEAT* Mac says on 16 December 2023 at 9:50 am:
“The damage they are doing to Scotland is immense and on going.”
Ruairidh says:
16 December, 2023 at 8:30 am
The brutal fact is we need an effective environmental party even more than the SNP
The brutal fact is you are part of an endangered species (the Scots) and you are the carbon they want to reduce.
WEF Agenda 30 writ large
“Had you seen these roads before they were made.
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.”
Sir Walter Scott quotes it somewhere, but the apparent attribution is to Major William Caulfeild (see RoS 9.57am comment above), who took over from Field Marshall George Wade (1673-1748) with road, bridge, and fort construction in the North of Scotland, designed to facilitate British troop movements in the quelling of the Jacobite insurrections. In 1725 Wade had been appointed “Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s forces, castles, forts and barracks in North Britain”.
Here’s a whimsical updated version of the couplet (make of it what you will) —
“If you had seen this toast before it was made,
You’d lift up your hands and bless Marmalade!”
Red @ 11:17 am
“The brutal fact is you are part of an endangered species (the Scots) and you are the carbon they want to reduce.”
Yes, a colonised people are always “in the process of perishing” (Fanon). So long as colonialism is allowed to continue, a people and their culture are withering away (Cesaire). UK/Scottish Government policies appear designed to hasten this process.
The colonizer knows that once ‘a people’ are made into a minority in their own land their prospects for independence are diminished. Imperial job done!
Which also helps explain the hidden census data, and the irregular local government election franchise used for any Scottish referendum and ‘national’ elections in Scotland which inflates the ‘No’ vote.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/determinants-of-independence-colonialism/?fbclid=IwAR3VsVeTv-kQD2PdAPy8Zgjt58rQ0Sw6SqM4GskFedocYWdlwthW8OX5L8A
They are real turkeys voting for christmas.
It is beyond belief that the SNP will put a candidate up against Angus McNeil.
Whoever is making these decisions at HQ is definitely a unionist plant.
The SNP needs to waken up to the fact their corporate structure has been compromised.
They need their own security service.
Green muppets who’s who, continued :
Lorna Slater
https://ifunny.co/picture/big-bird-update-im-in-the-hospital-with-a-slight-JTa2z1V49
Maggie Chapman
https://twitter.com/GonzotheGreat/status/1422995758962417668
Patrick Harvie and Ross Greer
https://twitter.com/Ross_Greer/status/989223928437657600
Maurice Strong – real author of Agenda21?
https://www.azquotes.com/author/14256-Maurice_Strong
Even if the entire A9 gets dualled, the uncomfortable and awkward fact remains that dual carriageways are merely sops for third world countries that can’t afford motorways.
They remain inherently more dangerous than motorways too, due to their lack of proper on/off ramps and lanes, and not having a hard shoulder.
Verra instructive to follow Scotland’s struggle to get itself 20th century roads, almost 25 years into the 21st century. Who can argue we’re not at heart, incorrigibly small ‘c’ conservative?
Alf Baird –
But you know our sense of timing,
We always wait too long.
One wonders whether Scotland is in the worst of positions: not independent, but yet with utter fools running a limited devolution very badly.
meanwhile …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCT-FurFVLQ
Re the cartoon, a parcel of cants.
With regard to the John Smith Institute, I am currently reading Graham Linehans’ book and in it he mentions that the woman, Sarah Smith, who carried out the hatchet job interview of him on Newsnight is a daughter of John Smith. On looking her up I just found this piece in the Guardian painting her as a victim with the original piece having being printed by Reuters, one of the authors of the Denton Files.
https://archive.ph/GmL37
@Republicofscotland
That’s the very chap.
Scots also massacred Jacobites.
Glasgow and Paisley sent troops to fight for the King
against the Poncy French git and his mates. Who later left his mates and their families
to their fate.
Mark Beggan says:
16 December, 2023 at 12:58 pm
@Republicofscotland
Aye that it explains it all?
Only a man with no stake in the game can pass it all off in a sentence.
@Alf Baird
You continually claim to have diagnosed the problem (“colonialism”), yet you never bother to prescribe the cure, other than in vague, undefined terms, such as “decolonisation” and “independence”.
Suppose I were to outline a few cures:
1. All people of insufficient racial indigenous purity to be removed from positions of responsibility, authority and influence, regardless of merit.
2. All positions of responsibility, authority and influence to be re staffed with indigenes, regardless of merit.
3. All inwards migration to Scotland to be stopped. That includes migration from England, the EU and further afield, so rules out EU or EFTA membership, and rules out the return of second generation or older descendants of Scottish emigrants.
4. All voting rights to be withdrawn from those of insufficient indigenous racial purity.
5. Whilst stopping short of ethnic cleansing, the effective barring of Non-Scots from good jobs would effectively encourage many of working age to migrate. The loss of voting rights would provide a certain encouragement too to non-Scots who don’t work.
What do you think, is the above taking it too far, or not going far enough?
I think I have provided a good description of the decolonisation process in many places, so is this what you are advocating for iScotland?
RoS 9:57
Aw naw, genocide. It’s everywhere.
I see we’re off topic into Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Ancient Guff (again).
Think of it as a British Isles wide religious dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism, and you get the picture. That will also allow you to make sense of the awkward facts, such as Scots on both sides, English on both sides, and WTAF BPC was doing with his army at Derby.
Essentially though, it was a dispute over which monarch of which faith should sit on the combined thrones of Scotland and England.
Which is why in any sane debating forum, a self-avowed republican like yourself would be told to find a different subject to froth over in your trademark partisan fashion.
Anton Decadent @ 12:57
With regard to the John Smith Centre, the Chair, Catherine Smith includes on her site biography, working “… on conflict resolution and democracy building in the NGO sector, working particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union.” This is an amendment to a previous entry which referred to a specific employer, namely, NGO LINKS, which she described as being “London based”. This is curious as NGO LINKS operated out of the University of Arizona. NGO LINKS was funded by the US Government’s National Science Foundation. Why would an agency ostensibly focused on scientific research within the territorial boundaries of the US fund political work in countries formerly in the Soviet Union (specifically Georgia)? Perhaps the National Endowment for Democracy has lost its utility as a front for the CIA?
In this, Catherine shares the same employment history as ex SNP MP Stephen Gethins. On loosing his comfortable, Westminster sinecure in the crash GE of 2019, Gethins was taken on with indecent haste by the spook ridden School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews.
Great cartoon but Dumbza would surely be celebrating the latest harebrained Green scheme & pledging £millions to their new plan…
Vivian O’Blivion –
He worked in the NGO Sector specialising in peace-building, arms control and democracy in the Caucasus and the Balkans regions. He worked with NGO Links in Tbilisi focusing on the conflicts surrounding the breakaway entities in the South Caucasus such as South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. He also worked for Saferworld on arms control, peace-building and democratisation in the former Soviet Union and Balkans.[2]
Gethins can see in the dark because he glows so bright.
@Father Vivian O’Blivion
Thank you for that, this stuff is mental. Blanket saturation across all levers of power and influence. Flesh ripping weasels the lot of them.
Vivian Gethens gets about.
https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/European_Leadership_Network
Some Scottish politicians are utterly compromised and serve the interests of London/Washington and Tel Aviv. This includes keeping Scotland in the union.
Chris, another excellent depiction of our far from excellent politicians.
So pleased that you are fit again for the hard task set for you of cheering up the Yessers!
“Aw naw, genocide. It’s everywhere”
John Main.
And if the Genocide Convention isn’t triggered one could say that the Rule of International Law is over.
If Israel’s genocidal politicians along with Genocide Joe- (Biden), and the UK’s Rishi Sunak and multiple EU politicians are NOT held to account in aiding and abetting the genocide of the oppressed Palestinian people, if they don’t face consequences for their part in facilitating the genocide then why would any nation/people look the ICC or the ICJ or UN to aid them in their time of great need.
In my opinion the West and its World Court, the ICJ and other bodies are on trial here and the world is watching, what they do with regards to this blatant genocide of the oppressed Palestinians will surely damage the credibility of these bodies for a long time to come.
“Yesterday I attended a session called by Palestine at the United Nations in Geneva. Over 120 states attended. While the formal session consisted of statements of national position with few surprises, I was able to discuss with a large number of delegates in the corridors why the Genocide Convention has not been activated triggering a reference to the International Court of Justice.
The answer is now clear to me. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed. There is no respectable argument that this is not a genocide in the terms outlined above.
The problem is that once the ICJ has determined that this is a genocide, it follows that not only are Netanyahu and hundreds of senior Israeli officials and military personally liable, but it is absolutely plain that “Genocide Joe” Biden, Sunak and members of their administrations are also criminally liable for complicity, having provided military support for the genocide.
The International Criminal Court cannot ignore a judgment of genocide from the International Court of Justice and will have no choice but to issue arrest warrants.
A genocide is the worst of crimes. Just how appalling this one is has been shown to the world like never before, through the power of social media.
But to the global 1% whose interests rule the world, no number of dead Palestinians makes any real difference to their interests. On the other hand, the ramifications for the international system of wealth concentration, if western political elites start to be held accountable for their crimes, are uncertain and therefore carry more risk. This is particularly the concern of ruling classes of both Western and Arab states.
It may sound astonishing, but to the world’s diplomats the enormity of a genocide appears less troubling than the enormity of doing something about it.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/12/murder/
https://x.com/BladeoftheS/status/1736025046064279765?s=20
People who will soon become a hated minority in their own country worrying about “genocide” of ethnic groups who have much higher birth rates than we do.
?_?
And the Greens don’t care about Road Deaths either. Having once watched a furniture moving truck play chicken with approaching traffic (I backed off giving us LOTS of braking room) they can get tae fuck.
Why does the A9 not self identify as a dual carriageway or even a motorway and save millions which could be used to grow almonds so saving the planet from the farting cows. Humza this is a joke so stand down. Good lad.
RoS
You don’t need to cut and paste from CM’s site on here. Alert readers can go there and read for themselves.
CM has a detailed and academic definition of the ‘g’ word, and plenty of people, yourself included, are happy to take that at face value and weaponise it. Others may have different opinions, based on the widely available and unassailable evidence around world historic genocides, e.g. the Armenian and Rwandan ones, not to mention the ones plenty want to deny; the Holodomor and the Holocaust.
Have to say though, if this is a genocide, it has to be the first genocide so far that could be stopped almost overnight, simply by a few thousand fighters coming out of their tunnels and bunkers with their hands up.
I suspect the reality of the A9 is that it does not need to be a motorway based on the traffic numbers.
There a couple of junction like Brewer and Dalwhinie that would benefit from work, bridges, underpasses etc but not motorway!!!
Dealing with the bampots driving at 90 mph plus would ve a good start.
@ David Holden
A few years back I suggested a similar policy in utlising Self ID to resolve the issue of breeding dairy cows producing male calves and the anger over the veal trade.
Unfortunately it never took off as I think the advertising department struggled to formulate an acceptable strategy to market TransCow “milk” to the public…
Plus as milk is WHITE, I suspect Humza’s administration would never be comfortable promoting and encouraging Scots to put bullock spunk on their cereal.
John Main @ 1:24 pm
“You continually claim to have diagnosed the problem (“colonialism”), yet you never bother to prescribe the cure, other than in vague, undefined terms, such as “decolonisation” and “independence”.”
According to postcolonial theory (Fanon, Memmi etc) where colonialism is permitted to continue this leads to: a) a greater risk of conflict and; b) a colonised people perishing.
Which leads to the realisation that the only remedy for colonialism is liberation, which may be achieved as follows:
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2021/08/29/scotland-in-the-21st-century-10/
A Christmas Cracker Chris. Very funny and great artwork.
Three Israeli hostages carrying a white flag shot by IDR.
Thought they were John Main’s ‘pallys’ I suppose
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219695220/israel-soldiers-mistakenly-kill-hostages-gaza
Old man concealing two rifles in his underwear.
https://twitter.com/NaksBilal/status/1733586352183140769
Another journalist drone bombed. Death toll >90
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/al-jazeera-says-cameraman-killed-in-gaza-by-drone-strike-on-school-building/ar-AA1lzD5x
Alf Baird
Thanks for your response.
I continue to be excited by your Scots language strictures. It seems harsh to demand that immigrants should be conversant in Scots when plenty of indigenous Scots won’t be and won’t be interested in learning.
As to forcing Scots on all youngsters going through education, that will defo result in some kids having parents and grandparents who naturally speak a different language (English). That has never worked out well in the places it has been tried before.
Finally, your dismissal of Gaelic as having any significance (by ignoring it completely) is surprising.
But, these observations aside, I see little fault with your ideas of identifying a valid Scottish franchise and through its elected representatives, withdrawing from the Union. As a precursor, an Indy party will have to form with these policies, and under the current franchise, get itself voted into power.
It’s gonna take years. High time somebody started that party.
It is not just the completion of dualling of the Perth-Inverness A9 which is at issue, of course. Also suspended to please the Greens was the plan to dual the A96, the very busy and dangerous artery connecting Inverness and Aberdeen.
Johnlmao
Show some respect. Capital ‘P’ is both justified and expected.
Ach, with Grangemouth refinery closing I guess that might just be the impetus stalwart of all things green, Fruitella, needs to switch from oil central heating to a more Eco-sustainable source of heat energy. It’s one thing using fossil fuels produced locally to keep yer arse warm, but surely a step too far to continue burning imported fuel with the extra carbon footprint that entails.
Just WHY are the SNP still letting these ‘green’ clowns screw up government.
Poor Humza, perhaps his heart is in the right place, yet he is either held up by the gender fascists, or the collective (and frankly, colossal) stupidity of Harvie and that Canadian nobody (that nobody actually voted for). To say both of them are cognitively challenged is overly generous. They would happily have us living in hemp teepees, eating grass, and dying from the cold, for fear of ‘climate catastrophe/armageddon/breakdown, or something – except for them, they really, really NEED their ministerial cars.
A lesser man than myself might simply say they are both thick as pigsh*t.
Great cartoon.
John Main @4.24pm.
Now lets see, take your word that its not a genocide, or that of diplomats who say it is a genocide a no brainer I think.
“The answer is now clear to me. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed. There is no respectable argument that this is not a genocide in the terms outlined above.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/12/murder/
The once persecuted have become the long term persecutors, the latter and their aiders and abettors MUST stand trial.
I still loathe this chinless wonder.
“Labour have selected Torcuil Crichton, a former Daily Record journalist as their candidate for the Na h-Eileanan an Iar seat at the next General Election.
Angus B. McNeil will run as an independent, the SNP have put up Susan Thomson, currently a councillor for Uibhist A Deas, Eirisgeigh Agus Beinn Na Faoghla.
Alba have said they will not contest the Western Isles seat in order not to split the pro-independence vote.”
I wish John Main would do some research.
It’s like trying to educate a goldfish.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/innocents-in-gaza-dont-be-naive/
Johnlm says:
16 December, 2023 at 6:17 pm
I wish John Main would do some research.
It’s like trying to educate a goldfish.
Do you believe all Zionist propaganda, or are you being selective? You don’t sound like a very ‘alert reader’ to me.
An Israeli government document suggesting the mass relocation of Gaza’s 2.3 million people to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is fuelling concerns about the possible e***ic clean*ing of Palestinians.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-palestinians-concept-paper-1.7015576
“An Israeli think-tank, the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zion**t Strategy, released a paper inferring the situation presented “a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip in co-ordination with the Egyptian government.”
“At the moment, these conditions exist, and it is unclear when such an opportunity will arise again, if at all,” reads a Hebrew-English translation published by the website Mondoweiss.
Israeli officials and other political figures have openly expressed similar sentiments, according to an article from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.”
Yousaf has given £36 million in total to Malawi. Zimbabwe. And Rwanda.
As part of the ‘climate justice fund.’
https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-plant-profile-malawi-kammwamba-thermal-power-plant-malawi/?cf-view
Like the coal fired power station at Malawi.
And the methane extraction project in Zimbabwe.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352854023000013
Rwanda. And it’s 2 billion airports.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/rwanda-kigali-international-airport-africa-aviation-intl/index.html
Dear Humza. Stop giving our money away to Africa. You are a ("Tractor" - Ed) to Scotland.
Anum Quasir is a cheating whore.
Yours sincerely. Scotland.
ScotsRenewables @ 7.05
I think there is definitely a genocide going on in Gaza.
My post was in response to John Main endlessly denying such, and spreading the worst, unchecked, Zionist propaganda.
I link to Zionist sites like The Times of Israel because it emphasise how corrupt his arguments are.
He is gradually having to moderate his position as events bring shame to his apartheid belief system.
Who knows, he may even stop slagging the Geneva Convention.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation did some polling.
“From 1-6 November 2023 we asked people how worried they were about different aspects of their lives that are influenced by the Government’s economic policies. These included the cost of essentials like food and energy, funding for public services, and their housing situation.
Key findings:
Two issues worried the public more than any other, by a large margin. 73% of people were very, or fairly, worried about reduced funding for national public services like the NHS, the police and education, and 73% were also very or fairly worried about the cost of essentials. This cut across demographics and political perspectives, with funding for national public services and the cost of essentials the biggest worries for both those intending to vote Labour and those intending to vote Conservative at the next election. People who were undecided about which way to vote were more worried about cuts to public services than any other issue.
The public was less concerned about high taxes. 49% of people were worried about the tax they pay on earnings from work and on the things they buy being too high – a significantly lower share than were concerned about national public services or the cost of essentials. In fact, more people were also worried about funding local public services or the cost of non-essential items than they were about taxes being too high.
People on low incomes were very concerned about the level of support provided by the social security system. After funding for public services (both national and local) and the cost of essentials, the fourth biggest worry for people in the bottom fifth of incomes was their income from benefits not being high enough.”
@ Fearghas at 5.31 re the Aberdeen – Inverness road needs dualling.
Just what I thought – there’s been another fatal crash today on the A96.
@Sarah 8:06pm
I agree with you the A96 needs upgrading as well the A9. Unfortunately the Scot Gov are good at statistics and the basis of Capital spend is road deaths per Kilometre. Overall the road deaths in Scotland have fallen. So that’s the SG line. The statistics for the Highlands are going up. Nothing matters North of Perth.
John Main says: at 12:44 pm
“Even if the entire A9 gets dualled, the uncomfortable and awkward fact remains that dual carriageways are merely sops for third world countries that can’t afford motorways.”
“They remain inherently more dangerous than motorways too, due to their lack of proper on/off ramps and lanes, and not having a hard shoulder.”
—————————-
Oh dear Johnny, you’re back to your bullshit again..!
I didn’t know Germany was a third world country with no money.. 🙁
There are literally thousands of kilometers of dual carriageways here because it’s the first step of improving the traffic flow from standard Bundesstrassen (Main federal roads – A roads in UK).
They are no more dangerous than other roads, in fact Motorways and dualed roadways are in the statistics less accident prone because the traffic is more directed with less distractions from crossing or mingling from sidearms. Some have hard shoulders, some don’t but the effect is the same.
As a britnat you should stop reading the crap from the Mail, Sun or Telegraph, etc., just because the sh**hole of England can’t get its act together doesn’t mean Scotland can’t learn from other countries to improve its infrastructure.
John Main you’re a yoon fanny..
@Johnim
“I think there is definitely a genocide going on in Gaza.”
From AlJazeera 14 Nov
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, says the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians in Gaza is the “right humanitarian solution” for the besieged enclave and for the region..
..Smotrich made the comments after Knesset members Danny Danon, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and Ram Ben-Barak, former deputy director of the intelligence agency Mossad, published a commentary in The Wall Street Journal on Monday suggesting moving some of Gaza’s population to nations that will accept them…
…Netanyahu reportedly has lobbied European leaders to help him persuade the Egyptian president to take in refugees from Gaza. Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence also has outlined a proposal to “evacuate” all Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt.
On Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said his country rejected any attempt to justify or encourage the displacement of Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip and called Smotrich’s comments “an expression of the Israeli government’s policy that violates international laws”.
“Any attempt to justify and encourage the displacement of Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip is completely rejected by Egypt and internationally,” the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.”
“…violates international laws…”
Sam
Looks like someone has plans to tie US aid to acceptance of refugees into Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Yemen.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/11/29/senior-us-lawmakers-review-plan-that-conditions-aid-on-arab-countries-receiving-gazans/
Republicofscotland at 3.12pm quotes from Craig Murray who also wrote this:
“In wars the general percentage of children among those killed varies from 6 to 8%… In Gaza it is 42%. This is indiscriminate destruction of an ethnic group”.
Who would like to make a guess as to the date Nicola became compromised and started promoting plants and taking on failed policies.
It started at some point. Take a guess
Stu
You beed to give a link to Talking up Scotland. Some if the examples of the msm distributing fake news, in particular how the bbc frame a story are very interesting and deserve a video audience
I’ll guess.
2015 Robertson changes conference rules.
2017 Sturgeon meets with Mayhem in a hotel.
If we were independent we’d have an A9 & an A96 & roadside entertainment lining the route just for good measure.
I’d say a dual carriageway is a lot safer than a motorway.
Especially when an old granny slows right down in front of you to exit the motorway as an HGV is in yer rear. £$€#!
Shug says:
16 December, 2023 at 4:36 pm
‘I suspect the reality of the A9 is that it does not need to be a motorway based on the traffic numbers.’
OH DO FUCK OFF! SERIOUSLY!… And Actually… when you’ve finished fucking, pick yourself up and fuck off again.
That’s from someone who lives in Perth and has to factor in Weekend traffic, as they filter North (and then South for Mondays) on the only ‘main route’ north in the counrty.
Fuck me, wasn’t I surprised on the few times on holiday ‘darn sarth’ 1/ to Sherwood/Robinhood Country and 2/ to the Lake District…. duel carriageway as a matter of course… all over the place.
And lets not even talk about 3 lane carraigeways. Oh no.
Just enough. Fucking lies, fed up of it.
I AM THE HIGHWAY
(Chris Cornell, Audioslave)
Pearls and swine bereft of me
Long and weary my road has been.
I was lost in the cities
Alone in the hills
No sorrow or pity for leaving, I feel.
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway.
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky.
Friends and liars don’t wait for me
Cause I’ll get on all by myself.
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close to you, I feel.
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway.
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky.
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning.
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night.
IS MIS’ AN RATHAD MÒR
(Bhon Bheurla aig Chris Cornell, Audioslave)
Neamhnaidean ’s mucan cuidhteas mi.
Fad is cianail mo thriall air bhith.
Bha mi caillt’ anns na bailtean,
Leam fhìn anns na cnuic.
Gun truas gam fàgail, caoidh idir nam chridh.
Chan e mis’ do rothan luatha
Is mis’ an rathad mòr.
Chan e mis’ do bhrat air sgiath
Is mis’ an speur.
Càirdean ‘s breugairean, na bi feitheamh riums.
Nì mi a’ chùis nam shlighe fhìn.
Chuir mi milleanan de mhìltean mar-thà fo mo shàil,
Ach fada ro fhaisg riut tha mi faireachdainn fhathast.
Chan e mis’ do rothan luatha
Is mis’ an rathad mòr.
Chan e mis’ do bhrat air sgiath
Is mis’ an speur.
Chan e mis’ do ghaoth a shèideas
Is mis’ an dealan.
Chan e mis’ do ghealach fhoghair
Is mis’ an oidhch.
@ Shug 11.36pm I’m sorry Shug I don’t agree with you telling Stu he has to include re talking up Scotland, on a few interactions with John Robertson I found him to be as much of a snp and sturgeon apologist as paypal paul and munguins new republic , robertson and munguin rightfully highlight the lies and duplicity of the MSM and broadcasters BUT it is done with the protection of the snp and sturgeon/useless at the forefront, when you point out their hypocrisy they just double down that WM is worse , as if that excuses the incompetence and corruption of the sturgeon/useless cabal of morons
Their attitude consists of vote for the shitey snp because the other parties are more shitier
twathater @2.23am
I fear your observations re Professor John Robertson has a ring of truth.
Yes, the learned Mr Robertson does a very-good job in highlighting the double standards of the msm, but, like you, I do wish the scales would fall from his eyes with regard to Sturgeon and the others in the cabal which has all but destroyed the SNP.
Ach, it’s not just the A9 that needs dualled, the bit when you’re heading north and turn left fae Ballinluig to ‘Feldy, and onto Kenmore will need done for aw they millionaires to get to their luxury hooses in the Taymouth Castle development.
Some of those developer contributions from the Taymouth Castle project to support local infrastructure could be used.
Of course those millionaire NuScots may just fly in with helichoppers so won’t require decent roads, but Perth and Kinross Cooncil could just slap a ULEZ extending to an altitude of a couple of thousand feet on the entire region and extricate some extra dosh that way. Totes legit too as alert engineers will note that helicopters dinnae use AdBlue and DPFs on their exhausts.
@GM 8:32
Yeah, yeah, you’re so dedicated to Scotland’s future you fecked off abroad. Let me guess – you plan to come back when your desperate need for free medical care exceeds your current desperate need to amass more personal wealth.
And naw, dual carriageways aren’t as safe or as efficient as motorways. Soz.
But don’t take it up with me. Take it up with those “daft” first world countries building “unnecessary” motorways.
From AlJazeera
“Netanyahu?
Then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced the Israeli prime minister’s indictment on November 21, 2019. The investigations were listed as cases 1000, 2000 and 4000.
Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu, 74, and his wife, Sara, 65, have received lavish presents from prominent Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire businessman and Israeli citizen James Packer in return for political favours. This case charges the Israeli PM with fraud and breach of trust. Fraud and breach of trust carry a prison sentence of up to three years while bribery charges carry a sentence of up to 10 years in jail and/or a fine. Milchan testified that he provided gifts to Netanyahu in June 2020.
Case 2000 accuses Netanyahu of negotiating with Israel’s leading daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, for favourable coverage in exchange for legislation that would slow the growth of a rival newspaper. This case also charges him with fraud and breach of trust.
Case 4000 indicts Netanyahu for granting regulatory favours to Israel’s leading telecommunications company, Bezeq Telecom Israel, in return for positive coverage of him and his wife on a news website controlled by Bezeq’s former chairman, Besides fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu has been charged with bribery in this case.
Netanyahu, who is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face court as a defendant, has denied any charges and claimed that the indictments were part of a politically charged witch-hunt against him by his rivals to remove him from office.”
Face it guys, if you want independence you will almost certainly need a leadership, and constituency, prepared to fight for it, as the majority of free peoples have had to.
At the moment the Scottish lion seems all gum and blunt claws and «everything worn out under the kilt».
This needs more than a «viagra» quick fix.
A recension of the methodology and strategy? Who has the balls?
From Ducksoap.
Tories used Covid-19 as an opportunity to enrich themselves, their families and their business associates via awards of PPE contracts. Multiples of billions of pounds of public money were handed to racketeers’ made-up businesses for alleged supply of equipment and services to assist with tackling the pandemic. Most of the equipment and services was not supplied or else was unusable. Prices paid for it had huge mark-ups. Recipients of the contracts raked in massive profits. It was the biggest scam in the history of UK.
–
On[e] of the beneficiaries was Michelle Mone, a Tory peer in House Of Lords. PPE Medpro Limited was incorporated on 12th May 2020 and was awarded the contract on 24th June 2020. Directors Voirrey Coole and Anthony Page are also directors at Knox House Trust that gives fiduciary advice to companies and individuals with emphasis on large scale tax avoidance. Knox House Trust is registered in tax haven Isle Of Man and is part of Knox Group of companies founded by its chair Doug Barrowman, husband of Mone. The company address for PPE Medpro Limited is the same address as that of Michelle Mone Interiors Limited of which Mone is a director.
–
The equipment supplied by PPE Medpro was deficient and the company is being sued by the government. Mone and Barrowman denied any involvement with PPE MedPro and maintained that criminal deception for several years before being forced to admit it is their business.
–
Today, Sunday 17th December 2023, BBC’s servant journalist Laura Kuenssberg gave Mone and Barrowman a platform on TV to lie and deceive. She gave them an opportunity to cast themselves as “scapegoats.” She allowed them to claim they were just running a business and allowed them to “regret” lying about owning PPE MedPro.
–
SteepBrae
In the past 12 hours we’ve had claims of “indiscriminate destruction”, “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” on here.
Lots of virtue signalling and tut tutting from the usual subjects, yet nobody prepared to point out the fast and simple route to stopping it, if they can ever agree on whatever it is.
The fighters in the bunkers and tunnels, probably a few thousand of them at most, need to stop fighting and come out with their hands up and with the remaining live hostages.
Sure, their side thus suffers a “military defeat”, but in the absence of a negotiated cease fire in which both sides row back from their annihilation pledges, that was always going to be the end result.
The simple fact that this realpolitik solution is anathema to the loudest shouters on here reveals their fundamental inability to interface with the real world, and by extension, tarnishes the Indy cause. Fantasists can’t be permitted unmediated input to the nitty gritty of rebuilding our nation and country.
They’ve already done incalculable harm – just look at oor pretendy FM. Enough is enough.
George Ferguson 8:30
I’m guessing road fatalities continue to fall due to the happy congruence of a number of factors.
The deterioration of road surfaces means travelling faster results in expensive vehicle damage that ultimately cools the enthusiasm of most boy racers.
The eradication of road markings and the obscuring of roadside signs (and sight lines) by vegetation, makes driving on unfamiliar roads much more difficult, hence speeds fall.
On many rural roads, the bloating of traffic as enormous SUVs become the norm (a trend amplified by vehicle electrification) has reduced the overtaking opportunities available, and hence reduced speeds.
It’s the widespread pot holing that mostly exercises me. Most daytime journeys involve a constant weave around the obstacles – not doing that rapidly breaks springs. In the wet and/or dark, the obstacles can’t be seen to be weaved around, and hence speeds have to come right down.
Last but not least, drive too close behind a truck that is merrily ploughing through the potholes, and consequently throwing showers of gravel in its wake, and your windscreen will become a casualty too.
Roads use an oil by-product product, increase oil demand and generally support the car-based “growth economy” so beloved of those who don’t mind the destruction of nature required to make it all work (for a while).
No surprise the purple pumpers are out to support the A9 by deriding those (very few here) who don’t agree that spending £2.5b more on construction, and more on ongoing maintenance, is more important than using the cash on any of the other credible destinations for funding.
I would hope anyone claiming it is justified by likely casualty savings can show how it bests spending in other casualty-prone activities.
What about the Scottish lionesses?
All very macho BTL here on Wings.
Scottish lionesses those without the balls are very busy at the moment trying to keep men out of our spaces.
Fth
Hard to either agree or disagree when you don’t list the “other credible destinations for funding”.
However, I would support a moratorium on all new road building and divert the funds to maintenance and repair of the ones we already have, with focus on road markings and signage.
I would also completely end new signage and lettering in Gaelic. That’s a daft and pointless virtue-signalling luxury we can do without.
In 2021, Scotland had the ninth lowest rate of people killed in road accidents out of a list of 40 comparable countries.
In Scotland, 26 people were killed for every million people in the population. This figure was higher than for the United Kingdom as a whole, where 24 people were killed for every million people in the
population.
The list of countries with comparable road casualty figures includes most European
countries and selected developed countries
Worldwide.
Of the countries compared,Norway had the lowest number of road deaths per million population (15),whereas the USA had the
highest (129).
@Sam 10:46
Something admirable about a wee-ish country that has the robust legal systems in place to charge even its head of state with criminality, when credible evidence of such criminality exists. Aye? Naw?
Good if oor ain wee country could take lessons on how to construct robust legal systems that would result in even our own head of state being charged with criminality, when credible evidence of such criminality exists.
Aye? Naw?
A properly functional and separated legal system here would help to advance support for Indy.
Aye? Naw?
“…John Main you’re a yoon fanny..”
LOL
Altogether now; “And so say all of us!”
fruitella the hun says:
17 December, 2023 at 11:27 am
Roads use an oil by-product product, increase oil demand and generally support the car-based “growth economy”…
….I would hope anyone claiming it is justified by likely casualty savings can show how it bests spending in other casualty-prone activities.
I agree and don’t agree Fruitella. What if those cars didn’t burn oil, but Hydrogen? If Scotland can produce clean electricity to excess, then why not invest that surplus in producing Hydrogen gas, which can perhaps be used in adapted internal combustion engines, so we don’t have to scrap several generations of “serviceable” transport, but make it “clean” instead?
For a long time, I’ve been an advocate for regenerating Scotland’s globally unique Caledonian Pine Forest, but before the flora and fauna is regenerated, invest hard in the Nation’s infrastructure and services, so we have “future-proof” services in the ground BEFORE the rewilding takes place, and both Scots and foreign tourists can enjoy first class recreation that is entirely compatible with indigenous wilderness.
I’ve also lent my support to Alf Baird’s suggestion of adapting ScapaFlow into a huge supertanker facility, which capitalises on bulk freight avoiding the costs and congestion of Europe’s Western seaboard by breaking down their huge cargos in Scotland, which are then distributed more efficiently by smaller vessels.
If we chose to, we could alter the whole gradient of our Nation to look towards and favour the North and Europe, and reduce our “dependency” on the South, which has had such a great jealousy and debilitating effect on Scotland’s development.
Upgrading the A9:might not be a lifeline to those in the North, but a vital artery for those in the South and Central Belt to keep up with a resurgence up North, and a process to bring Scotland up to speed with the modern world… Hydrogen transport, rail, sub-sea tunnels, port infrastructure, maybe even float planes and dirigibles for whale watching and island hopping?
Alex Salmond once said the HS2 work should have been started in Carlisle, so there was a chance it might have been delivered. So with our “new” Scottish Infrastructure… start it in the North, so there is massive incentive to connect with the Central belt.
We could have the capacity to make Scotland a paradise on Earth for people and critters in harmony and equilibrium, and even be the “neutral” lynchpin through which BRICS, EU, and Western Nations interact.
Independence, and only Independence, would see us engaged with the modern world in perpetuity, after a 300 years of stunted development, indoctrination and impoverishment.
We have all that we need except faith in ourselves.
I find it amazing how angry people get about Gaelic signs.
FYI In Brittany signs are in both French & Breton.
I believe the same thing happens in Wales.
As yet I don’t know how people react to the Breton & Welsh signs.
I did however find this:
https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2022-09-29/councillor-supports-defacing-of-co-down-bilingual-road-signs
archived version doesn’t show video but here it is:
https://archive.is/9mwjF
https://archive.is/YrQb6
The science behind bilingual signs, and whether they’re really ‘confusing’ on the road
https://archive.is/N3JFX
Lost in translation: How New Zealand’s plan for bilingual road signs took an unexpected turn
Bilingual road signs is quite an interesting topic.
Could all be part of the ‘Scotland as colony’ discussion.
@Breeks says:17 December, 2023 at 12:13 pm
Use the excess clean electricity to synthesis synthetic kerosene, gasoline, propane and diesel, etc. and we won’t even have to adapt the vehicles, other Internal Combustion Engines, or heating/cooking systems we already have. Neither will we have to adapt our existing storage, transportation or distribution infrastructures. We can keep our current aircraft too, not to mention our classic cars and bikes.
And no “perhaps be used” about it. Adjust the carbs, or remap the engine management systems, and it’s done.
For hydrogen, all of these things will have to be modified to a greater or lesser degree. Some of them will have to be junked and started over.
Nobody is suggesting a return to hydrogen in manned dirigibles for obvious reasons.
Soz, but you kinda lost me about 4 paragraphs before the end. Given the current trajectories of the BRICS, EU and Western Nations, I am far more concerned that all of them might see iScotland as a disposable, sparsely populated battleground on which they can vie for world dominance with acceptable (to them) collateral casualties.
But we can agree to differ on that, shelve the visionary idealism, and maybes learn to walk before we try to run.
Now, about these ferries …
This from Australia
https://archive.is/IASWt
Aussie outback sign graffitied with Indigenous names sparks debate
For those who object to spending money on Gaelic signs do you think the same should apply to dual language signs in New Zealand & Australia?
fruitella the hun says: at 11:27 am
“Roads use an oil by-product product, increase oil demand and generally support the car-based “growth economy” so beloved of those who don’t mind the destruction of nature required to make it all work (for a while).”
Well that’s as handy as fuck then seeing as “greens” like you are still using oil central heating…
How many litres of kerosene do you get through a year?
I only use about 5 litres of petrol per annum to cut enough locally sourced firewood with my chainsaw to keep my woodburning stove going. And that is the only source of heat I choose to use seeing as the price of leccy produced by hydro and wind is extortionate.
I could actually produce the small amount of leccy I use cheaper than the energy corporates sell it for by running a diesel / veg oil generator which operates at about 40% efficiency. Plus I could easily make an acoustic chamber to house the generator to make it quieter than the fucking air source heatpumps which you may have read I measured the noise levels of last week with one at 49db which is nearly ten times the legal noise limit of 42db, and the other was 59db which is almost 100 times the legal limit. Environmental Services at local Council have now been contacted about this so evidence is lodged with them that the roll out of this greenwashing shite is hugely flawed.
Come out with your hands up?
We know Israel have bombed apartments where hostages were taken.
For them it’s collateral damage for their idea of a greater good.
Yesterday we hear the Israeli’s shot dead 3 men walking up the road carrying white flags.
It turns out they were some of the kidnapped Israelis.
I suggest this established the fact that the Israelis will kill anyone over there white fag carriers, the innocent, women children it doesn’t matter when genocide is their goal.
I condemn all the killing and the kidnapping without question but those hiding in the tunnels are as well to shoot themselves when they know Israel is happy to kill their own.
Israel isn’t building any prisoner of war camps any time soon.
If there was a United Nations worth anything they have to go in there and keep these two apart just like in Bosnia. A UN forces has to be prepared to kill anyone attempting to kill.
Effijy
“Happy to kill their own”
Dinna be daft. It’s a war, shit happens.
If the surrender was organised like the temporary truces were, and overseen/monitored by the UN, there’s every chance nobody would get shot.
But you by all means continue to push for your idea – which as far as I can see consists of more of the same indefinitely.
Like most of the rest on here, you have only one absolute: ideological purity. So no solution to anything can ever be entertained if it will compromise that. And the wreckage of Scots Indy is all around us to evidence just where pursuit of that absolute has got you and your fellow travellers.
UN forces with shoot to kill orders! Just listen to yourself FFS!
John Main is a cheese eating surrender monkey for Scotland and Palestine.
But not for 404.
Effijy says:
17 December, 2023 at 1:43 pm
If there was a United Nations worth anything they have to go in there and keep these two apart just like in Bosnia. A UN forces has to be prepared to kill anyone attempting to kill.
A UN Force without the US or UK. The US voted against a UN Ceasefire Resolution, and the UK abstained. When they don’t have the courage or integrity to back a ceasefire, would you want them in a Peacekeeping role? Pretty sure neither the Muslim world nor the Ruskies wouldn’t wear it.
Furthermore, their undeniable complicity with Genocide, literally, by the UN’s explicit definition of Genocide, now means if Israel is ever to be prosecuted for Genocide, then the US and UK can be prosecuted for their own complicity in Genocide. Who polices the police when the permanent members on the global police security committee are absolutely rotten to the core?
We may be witnessing the death throes of the UN.
The League of Nations wound up after failing to prevent WW2. Dare I suggest the UN’s coat is on a similarly shoogily peg, but what the hell is there to replace the UN?
With the EU compromised and in trouble, the UN with blood on it’s hands, and the “Western Allies” undertaking Terrorist attacks, repeatedly now refusing to prioritise ceasefires and talks, shaping up to be on the side with European far Right Nazis and Nuclear powered genocidal maniacs, it would seem PEACE is now a four letter word, and if war is on the way to us, I really, really dislike the “side” we’re apparently doomed to be on.
As David Mitchell once quipped, playing an SS Officer, “Are we the baddies in this?”
Well, if you’re talking about the gun-running UK, then Abso-fking-lutely.
We Scots are running out of time to do the World a favour and bring down the curtain on the United Kingdom. Carpe Diem Scotland, or you’ll have nobody to blame when we’re bogged to the neck in the shite and lunacy that’s heading in our direction.
TURABDIN 10:47
Ive often said if Scotland stopped mitigating Yoon policies it would soon focus minds.
Currently they enjoy the best of both worlds.
One needs to give way to lay bare the other.
If the roasters who currently vote for the union actually LIVED with unionist policies, that’d maybe wake a few of them up.
Stop mitigating the bed tax, prescriptions, childcare, young carers, bus travel, elderly care, school dinners, bridge tolls, council tax etc..
If they have their way it will be a labour government & it will all end overnight. A political party can’t have separate policies across the border so they’ll maybe get what they wish for quicker than they think.
Fun times ahead..
So things may happen
Two cyclepaths and a dead-end.
If we put up signs along the A9 saying things like ‘too wee’, ‘ too poor’, ‘too stupid’, could we call it a JohnMain road?
*And ‘KEEP RIGHT’
John Main says: at 10:40 am
@GM 8:32
“Yeah, yeah, you’re so dedicated to Scotland’s future you fecked off abroad. Let me guess – you plan to come back when your desperate need for free medical care exceeds your current desperate need to amass more personal wealth.”
————————————
That’s very kind of you to remind us all about the plight of the many, many thousands of English who “emigrated” to France and Spain to enjoy the cheap sunshine and the other colonies of “little England” G&T, beer swilling fugitives. No need to learn the language, English reigns supreme and thanks to the EU and its health agreements could still get their treatments, no problem.
Then the thickos voted YES to Brexit… 🙁
The consequences shell-shocked them cos they’d just f***ed up the very basis of their existence abroad. There’s lots of houses an’ flats going cheap now.. 🙂
When I retire, I think Inverness will get the pleasure of my company and investments. (BTW, it’s twinned with Augsburg, Bavaria.)
___________________________________________
“But don’t take it up with me. Take it up with those “daft” first world countries building “unnecessary” motorways.”
———–
Maybe “daft” English/WM should build-back their motorways/dualed roads and build more high-speed train links like in the EU instead…!?
Oops, sorry, almost forgot, the sh**hole of England can’t do complicated things like that
I still chuckle at all the dunderheids abroad who voted for Brexit thinking it wouldn’t affect them LOL
They all seem to have an inherent sense of entitlement.
That they’re somehow special.
Aye, they were special alright but not in the way they think lol
Anyone enlighten me as to what 404 is/means please?
The Flying Iron of Doom says:
17 December, 2023 at 3:46 pm
Anyone enlighten me as to what 404 is/means please?
404 is the Error Code when the Internet search engine can’t find what you typed… typically it’s been erased and doesn’t exist anymore.
In this context, country 404 is the country you’re not allowed to mention here… If you type it, your post goes into moderation. (In other words Yoo-Krane). 😉
I do not see how surrender will affect the situation of the estimated 1.8 million Palestinian people now refugees in the places where they once lived.
Over half of Gaza’s homes – 305,000 residential units have been destroyed or damaged
339 educational facilities damaged
26 out of 35 hospitals not functioning
102 ambulances damaged
197 places of worship damaged
From The Conversation.
“There is a modern term for what’s happening in Gaza. Domicide refers to the deliberate destruction of home, or the killing of the city or home. It comes from the Latin word domus which means home and cide, which is deliberate killing.
But, home here doesn’t only mean the physical, tangible built environment of people’s homes and properties, it also refers to people’s sense of belonging and identity. We are seeing in many conflicts and wars across the world that alongside the destruction of architecture, people’s sense of dignity and belonging is also being targeted…
…Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim, an emeritus fellow at the University of Oxford, who was born in Baghdad, and is considered one of Israel’s critical “new historians”, called Israel’s actions “state-sponsored terrorism”. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian, wrote: “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed.” Others argue vehemently against any moral equivalence with the Hamas attacks.”
@The Flying Iron of Doom
Apologies. The algorithm seems to refuse to posts containing certain trigger words.
Ukr4ine once appeared to be a verboten word and many started using 404 instead.
404 error code means ‘page does not exist’
In truth. Your not missing much.
Getting chilly again so the village ASHP orchestra is beginning to fire up again for this evening and night’s performance of an unjoyous cacophony of droning resonances. Need to fire up my sound system, turn it up to eleven and blast out Rage Against the Machine…
404 is the country YouCrane
meanwhile …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVD0hG-_5gQ
coming to the minch, no time never, while in union
ferries? why would you need a “ferry”?
the anglo calls you subsidy junkie even as he robs you
Johnlm – got it, cheers.
Shona ‘Euphemism’ Robison strikes again.
“The size and shape of public services need to change” says Robison, as she disingenuously avoids saying what she really means, namely “cuts”.
This follows on from her remarkable use of the word ‘reprioritising’ recently when she meant at best “delaying” and more likely “cancelling”.
Be prepared for lots more weasel words from her on Tuesday. Someone is feeding her these lines. She is not intelligent enough to think of these substitute words and phrases herself.
“Euphemism”: A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing”.
Could be an interesting game when she speaks: Spot the Euphemism.
If there aren’t at least ten I’ll reprioritise the size and shape of my calorie intake.
Dan
Not sure whether you don’t understand one of my main points or just flat out discount it. I’ll try a refresh. Individuals can only effect peaceful change – or prevent it – by being very wealthy or by collective action through a functioning democracy. If this site is about anything it is about that ‘function democracy” bit. We don’t seem to have one in the UK although we could in theory,
Big Oil (and big pharma…etc.) put huge resources into preventing us responding collectively to the needs of the less-well-off and the natural environment (we depend on – but everybody knows that by now, surely?). If you think that a few concerned educated environmentally-minded people can change that by limiting their already pared-down consumption then you carry on berating them for not going full hairshirt. Perhaps you could share your thoughts on the mechanics of building alliances? I mean, you must have learned, by now, that “everybody around me are idiots” doesn’t work very well. You’re far from the worst offender on that score posting here, and I’m catching the habit too.
My partner had a kerosene system put in the house she did up seventeen years ago as back-up for the Morso she installed (off eBay). I stay there now. I never put an oil system in my house – replaced the old coal stove with an Aarow woodstove boiler. It’s an ok rural solution for the interim, till insulation and renewable leccy become available at a sensible price.
But by all means use me as your example of everything that’s wrong with “greens” even though I regularly point out that the people the SGP are a Stonewall/Democratic Left Scotland alliance that are as politically distant from the ecologically minded as the socialist/tory industrial yehaw pumpers on here. It will give me that inspiration scrapping brings. And before you say, I’m not hopeful of an alliance for independence either. I think the oil issue (or not) eclipses everything else for now.
Is Scots a language?
Are Norwegian, Danish and Swedish languages, being dialects of the «North Germanic» branch of Indo European? Mutually intelligible, certainly in written form, but except for status as the national languages of three sovereign states might be deemed «dialects» as opposed to distinct languages.
Serb and Croat are effectively the same branch of South Slavonic, albeit with two scripts, but are considered languages of two sovereign states. Mutual intelligibility is high.
Scots, a branch of insular West Germanic, has a unique phonetic footprint, quite distinct from Northumbrian English for example. It has a «high» literature, a mixed vocabulary testifying to the cultural links of the country and has a history of usage in government.
The orthography has no official standard forms, not uncommon in language development including English. A process of standardization was however aborted by the increasing primacy of English in religious and political discourse.
By such historic criteria Scots/Scottis is a language, a language arrested, however, in its development by circumstances that might have killed it off. Its development, the language planning etc is normally the preserve of academic linguists but the ground work is done by those who use it, particularly those who write it, regardless of form, spelling, style, vocabulary etc and with an awareness of its rich history.
Language revival is a well documented «process», rational and scientific, with the political will it would not be beyond Scotland’s capacity.
This is a useful asset.
https://dsl.ac.uk/
John Main,
It’s not war!
It’s one of the most militarised nations on earth with the best secret service there is built for the purpose of taking the whole of Palestine.
One Israeli official some time back share a map of the future Israeli land mass and a part of Jordan is to become theirs.
Israel, the US, EU and U.K. with hundreds of £Billions worth of weapons again DIY rockets made from water pipes and fertiliser.
We have seen the indiscriminate killing by Israel no questions asked and no prisoners taken.
If every Palestinian is but against the border with Egypt with all homes, jobs, schools, hospitals and general infrastructure destroyed what happens to these millions of people?
If Hamas hide their weapons and look like ever innocent Palestinian will every man be killed.
An Israeli Minister let the cat out the bag by saying the Palestinians have 3 choices.
1, Fight Israel and die.
2, Leave Palestine forever.
3, Live in a terrible prison and have no human rights.
It’s a long thought out plan to steal all of the land in the region.
“Yesterday we hear the Israeli’s shot dead 3 men walking up the road carrying white flags.
It turns out they were some of the kidnapped Israelis.”
Effigy.
Its the Hannibal Directive at work, the Zionists can’t have captured Israeli’s released and saying that they were treated fairly by Hamas.
The IDF arrested hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza, cooks, bakers etc, they made them strip naked then beat and humiliated them. The IDF have murdered 90 journalist who’ve reported on the genocide of the oppressed Palestinians.
Among the worst actions on the ongoing Palestinian genocide is the dropping of thousands of tonnes of dumb bombs these bombs don’t target specific targets, they are dropped indiscriminately into civilian areas.
Israeli politicians, and their military commanders who support this genocide, along with their aiders and abettors such as Genocide Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and many EU leaders MUST stand trial for their actions, they cannot be let off the hook as Blair and Bush were, though kudos to an Indonesian court that found both men guilty (In Absentia) of war crimes and crimes against humanity with Iraq in in mind.
The USA and Israel are not signatories to the ICC, the UK gave the ICC £10 million quid this year, its top prosecutor Karim Khan visited Israel to speak with Israeli relatives of the Israeli hostages post Oct 7th.
The USA is rogue state, a terrorist state if you ask me.
“The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Act authorizes the President of the United States to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”. This authorization led to the act being colloquially nicknamed “The Hague Invasion Act”, as the act allows the President to order U.S. military action, such as an invasion of The Hague, where the ICC is located, to protect American officials and military personnel from prosecution or rescue them from custody.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act#:~:text=This%20authorization%20led%20to%20the%20act%20being%20colloquially,personnel%20from%20prosecution%20or%20rescue%20them%20from%20custody.
@ Fruitella
I know we have a bit of robust argy bargy on occasion but I think we are still fairly well aligned in overall outlook, and it’s just the frustration of us not being able to progress towards more sensible and sustainable ways of existing that causes friction.
It shows how broken our democracy and political system is that we have have to endure such utterly flawed and unwanted policies being rolled out at all levels of governance.
I’d hope some of my input on here might motivate or nudge folk towards trying to see or do things in alternative ways to the effectively imposed system. But I admit I am disappointment that so little discussion of worth is generated on various matters raised, and that lack of input from others makes me wonder why I even bother. If folk won’t add their knowledge and experience so we can all better hone our comprehension on matters then it is no wonder we end up with such crap disjointed policies being foisted onto us.
I’d hope that the prospect of Scotland returning to self-governance would be a huge stimulus for folk to engage and thrash out ideas and develop initiatives that would improve our lot, because if we don’t do this and come up with credible stuff then it makes convincing folk that self-governance is the answer all the harder.
fruitella the hun at 4:15 pm,
“big pharma… put huge resources into preventing us responding collectively to the needs of the less-well-off and the natural environment.”
Since the pharmaceutical business is dedicated to addressing the needs of the less well off in terms of health and disease (while making money, naturally, or the enterprise wouldn’t last long and patients would suffer) I’m intrigued to know how and why you think it does what you imagine.
I see the deep thinkers at the SNP are going to stand a candidate in the outer Hebrides to help make sure Angus loses his seat and ensure a Labour victory sending Torcuil Crichton to Westminster. Way to go boys and girls another yoon to replace a stalwart Indy man. Any doubts about the party that Humza pretends to lead are removed so get in the bin SNP.
Effigy.
You are correct its not war as you say, its one of the most advanced militaries (Israel) in the world, and the US/UK and much of Europe against Hamas, and whoever is backing it.
Its not war Israeli is targeting civilians, and civilian infrastructure whilst cutting-off the essentials to human life water, food electricity etc, these acts are war crimes.
The UK is supplying Israel with “supplies” (whatever they are) from its multiple RAF bases in Cyprus, its also allowing the USA to do the same from those bases. The UK government secretly sent an extra 500 UK military personnel to Cyprus post Oct 7th, the UK also didn’t inform the Cypriot Government of its actions on supplying Israel, nor did it inform the Cypriot government of US actions at the RAF bases, this could leave Cyprus open to terrorist attacks.
Alba MP Kenny MacAskill asked a question in the HoC on the matter to try and get to the bottom of what the UK is sending to Israel via Cyprus, but he was met with a wall of silence from the UK government on the subject.
Breeks: “…so we have “future-proof” services in the ground BEFORE the rewilding takes place…”
Rewilding is not my prime concern. Resettling the rural areas is. People with the chance to build their own dwellings – makeshift for sure, bugger the codes – will have a chance at a debt-free existence enhanced by a wee plot to provide most of their vegetable needs, For those suited, this would be real indepencence. They will also provide Scotland with a reservoir or competent, resourceful and collaborative people – features not too evident at the moment, for many reasons. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with the “raw material”, it’s because of the current culture which we all play a part in.
” I’ve also lent my support to Alf Baird’s suggestion of adapting ScapaFlow into a huge supertanker facility…”
I read that post of Alf’s with dismay. It relies on the arctic ice melting, which will likely be accompanied by desertification of close southern latitudes and the upheaval that will cause. Persisting with a “climate change as infrstructure engineering” plan looks like imperial exploitation to me. Anyway, why would we need current levels of global trade if we develop a more self-sufficient, and therefore more secure, economy?
Knocking fifteen minutes off normal time between Perth and Inverness doesn’t seem worth the cost. Maybe people in such a hurry could buy dispensation from the 60 average limit. I do think bikers should get that anyway. And let the Tesco trucks do 60.
Closer to home, Operation Branchfrom which has been ongoing for two-years now has so far cost the taxpayer a whopping million quid, £1,084,620 (to the end of October) FoI.
“It’s understood that Police Scotland have still not submitted a report to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) over their investigation.”
Yet not one person has been prosecuted yet, the lack of movement on Operation Branchform in recent months led to a group of lawyers urging the Crown Office to explain what was taking so long.
“Two senior lawyers, Kevin Drummond KC and Douglas Cusine, argued the public are entitled to know why the investigation is taking so long.
The former sheriffs said that the “continuing delay” in bringing the case to a conclusion could stimulate “perceptions of a cover up”.”
James Jones says: at 5:06 pm
“Since the pharmaceutical business is dedicated to addressing the needs of the less well off in terms of health and disease (while making money, naturally, or the enterprise wouldn’t last long and patients would suffer) I’m intrigued to know how and why you think it does what you imagine.”
Interesting take, it could also be viewed that big pharma works alongside other big corporates in a symbiotic and parasitic modus.
Supermarkets and fast food chains sell crap food that makes folk ill and kerching, in steps big pharma with all the remedies for the induced ills.
I mean 12 teaspoons of sugar and god knows what other chemical shit in an “energy” drink is bound to have no adverse effects on a human, no siree, totes fine. Diabetes and obesity and melted brains were going to happen even if people ate fruit and oats…
I’ve mentioned before that I cured my basal cell skin cancer with one vitamin C tablet, crushed up into dust and a teaspoon of water added then the solution applied topically to the cancer and it cleared it out within 2 weeks. My oncologist was somewhat miffed I had made it disappear as he had planned to cut the skin off half my nose and replace that with a skin graft off my leg which would have left me significantly scarred. My alternative method meant there was no considerable cost to health service of surgery, and I have no scarring.
It also seems to be the case that I have just resolved with the input from another winger, about 3 years of being well out of kilter that the health service and big pharma drugs has been unable to diagnose and cure.
Had symptoms along the lines of feeling constantly under load and chronic fatigue / post infection syndrome, with aching and weak muscles and joints, gastro / digestive issues similar to intolerance with restricted nutrient uptake, head aches and brain fog, and most concerning were cardiac problems with a sometimes resting pulse rate of 120 when it’s normally 60. Compounded by added hassle of tick bite going to Lyme disease…
I took one single dose 3 weeks ago of something I won’t state on here, and as of today I’ve now completed 5 mountainbike rides with significant exertion and none of the previous symptoms have plagued me since the dose.
Oh what surprise this is, or should I say its not a surprise, the info stored on the phone could’ve shone some light into what was said with the Scottish government in mind during the pandemic.
“A mobile phone which could contain vital WhatsApps and messages about Holyrood’s covid response has been lost by the Scottish Government.
Officials said they could not locate the device of civil servant Andrew Slorance after his widow handed it to them last summer.”
“His wife Louise said: “It says a lot about the level of information governance at the Scottish Government that this has been allowed to happen.””
“Louise said Andrew had communication with figures including Sturgeon, ex-health secretaries Yousaf and Jeane Freeman and National Clinical Director Jason Leitch. It means evidence on the devices will not be passed to the inquiries.”
Something doesn’t sit right with this, it stinks to high heaven.
@Sam 3:54
Seriously? You don’t see how stopping the war will make any difference?
Wow.
fruitella the hun says:
17 December, 2023 at 5:34 pm
Breeks: “…so we have “future-proof” services in the ground BEFORE the rewilding takes place…”
Rewilding is not my prime concern. Resettling the rural areas is. People with the chance to build their own dwellings – makeshift for sure, bugger the codes – will have a chance at a debt-free existence enhanced by a wee plot to provide most of their vegetable needs….
That’s not incompatible with my vision for Scotland. As a stonemason myself, the opportunities to do something transformative would be tremendous, but my view of the world is that the critters have as much entitlement to these lands as we do, and our “reclamation” of our own nation should reflect that. We have an opportunity to do a noble thing by them.
Our rural and island communities, what’s left of them anyway, are both sophisticated and delicate, and a sudden influx of wagon trains from the Central Belt would be as catastrophic as the grey invasion from the South.
I also wonder whether history is simply repeating, and the social housing Scotland desperately needs will be administered by such commercial enterprises as require labour. We need a superior integration that goes further than that… some societal reconstruction.
Our wilderness needs to be wild, or otherwise, what’s the point rehabilitating it? Nature isn’t a garden to be manicured, nor serve as a playground for murderous bastards with shotguns and hunting rifles…nor indeed artillery pieces and strike aircraft.
Daisy walker
Thanks so much for the fuck off. It is so lovely to see you confirm the level of thought achieved by the A9 dual campaign.
Even when there have been road works on the A9 the delays gave been minimal. The main junctions are the issue and in particular when people are speeding.
The road should gave been upgraded when oil was discovered and access north was critical but the people voted unionist and gave the oil revenue to London and the people of perthshire were particularly to blame being strongly unionist.
So my message to the people of Perthshire is suck it up. You voted for it.
Is all not what it seems with Horse Box Mike Russell being appointed as the chair of the Land Commission.
“I do not know who briefed the press about this before any official announcement but it was a clear breach of confidence. For the role of Land Commissioners, Parliament has to approve the appointment BEFORE Ministers can appoint. Who leaked this information and why?
Michael Russell, is the former President of the SNP, who stepped down from SNP responsibilities to take up the post of chairman of the Scotland’s Land Commission.”
So the SNP plan to appoint their former SNP colleague to chair a government body that give advice to the Scottish government.
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2023/12/17/the-land-cruiser/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Dan your ideas are workable and have merit, unfortunately not everyone has the capability (physically , financially , theoretically or time) to carry out lots of these processes.
It is the same with the green transport initiative, where all these pseudo progressive ministers in government DEMAND that the people stop using their cars, WHAT have they ever done to make it easier to use public transport, as a former shift worker on 6am-2pm 2pm-10pm 10pm-0600 there was no option but to use your car and as far as I’m aware it is still the same situation
As the saying goes failing to prepare means you are preparing to fail , for decades if not centuries politicians have had no foresight and have been at the bidding of big business who direct the route of travel, the ytube links that Confused put up about the tunnels shows what can be achieved if you have politicians who have the desire and intelligence to make things better, what we in Scotland and the ruk have are duplicitous CLOWNS of ALL parties who neither share a brain or a spine
We in Scotland are a small nation with vast resources and very intelligent people, if we were independent those resources would or could be used for the benefit of that small nation and that small nation ONLY
Effijy 4:41
No, it’s not war.
It’s the IDF blasting away with everything in their armoury and then it’s the ricochets coming back that are taking them out.
Not forgetting the AI photoshopping that makes the home made rockets with water pipes and fertiliser look like assault rifles and RPGs.
Haha, I crack me up.
Hey Breeks
Completely unacceptable, isn’t it, that any wild creature should have even a tiny sporting chance against the murderous bastards with the shotguns and the hunting rifles.
Far, far preferable for the creatures to be crammed and enclosed, within field or windowless shed, so that the murderous bastards with the electric prods and stunners can get every single fecking one.
@ shug
It’s more than just the main junctions on the A9 that are the issue. So many of the small ones are where the issues occur because there are no slip roads to join, or bridges to cross both lanes of traffic. Plus the lack of continuity of junction design, even with the recent upgrading also means incidents will continue to occur. I was on the A9 earlier in the year and southbound to Stanley junction has one of these weird slip roads with needlessly tight turns which will catch folk out in adverse weather conditions such as snow and ice when main road has had a snowplough and gritter, but slip road hasn’t. The northbound Bankfoot junction still has the fucked up needlessly short and skinny slip road and braking zone to leave main flow of traffic on the road and reduce speed for the corner, the pile of loose gravel of what was once the road surface caused by folk understeering as they turn kind of proves the issue.
But fuck it, diversity inclusion means a hyperactive kid with an etchasketch can design a main trunk road these days so yay and woke points for that.
RoS at 5:27 once again, with no recognition of irony, posting on here his claims to know UK government “secrets”.
But it’s his assertion that Cyprus is at risk of “terrorist attacks” that can’t go unchallenged.
Do tell us who these international terrorists are, RoS.
Hey Dan
You could always accept the point I made earlier that dual carriageways are laid out to less stringent requirements and criteria than motorways, and are therefore both the less safe and the cheaper option. Scotland should be aspiring to extend its motorway network north of Perth (completed 44 years ago) and the Inversneckie route is the obvious route to do that on.
Daily Record:
“A mobile phone which could contain vital WhatsApps and messages about Holyrood’s covid response has been lost by the Scottish Government.
Officials said they could not locate the device of civil servant Andrew Slorance after his widow handed it to them last summer.”
This is disgrace. She’s the only politician in the UK not handing over the whatsapp messages.
No one knew what they were doing at the beginning of covid. I accept that.
It’s obvious that the Government was wrong to clear the hospitals of patients without testing those going into care homes. They did it in a panic.
Fortunately. Intensive care beds were never overwhelmed in Scotland. And Louisa Jordan field hospital was never required.
Patients were categorised onto pathways at the beginning of covid 19. Green. Amber. And Red for escalation if they deteriorated. And the doctors had to play god. Who would be given access to the escalation treatments. And who would be given palliative drugs.
I suspect this will all come out.
Why is sturgeon not handing over her messages?
What is wrong with her?
Has she ignored the advice of doctors and nurses?
I think she’s made a big mistake. She panicked. She wanted the hospital beds clear. For an incoming wave that never materialised because of the lockdown restrictions she implemented.
I can accept that. If she hands over the messages. If not. Then, kick her doors in again. Her and Jean Freeman and the Dentists doors should be kicked in and ransacked. Government computers and laptops, don’t just go missing.
This is pointing to a deliberate destruction of evidence and conspiracy to conceal the truth.
Even Matt Handcock and Boris Johnson handed over the whatsapp messages. It’s astonishing that she hasn’t!
No one knew what they were doing.
But people thought Sturgeon was a good communicator.
Even from her own narcissistic self righteous me me perspective. Surely she can see it looks bad on her for not handing over the messages?
What is she hiding? We know must government business was conducted over WhatsApp.
And we know at the very beginning of covid. Mistakes were made as no one knew what to expect. People can certainly forgive over that.
But now she’s not being open and accountable. What is she playing at?
Breeks
The resettlement should take place on arable land/areas, i.e. largely devoid of wildlife, good for carrots and tatties, and you will know that’s not the west highlands, by and large! An opportunity for the north-east that doesn’t wreck the environment WDO (we depend on). I’ve posted the numbers previously – John Main was the only person who challenged (read?) it.
And if my seventy years have taught me anything it’s that revolutionary processes fail so It would need the consent/compliance/cooperation of current landowners, not their defenestration.
I’m a full-on nature conservationist, I assure you. You should see our garden…
As for operation branchform. The cost has now ran over £1 million. And nothing has came about of it.
I can’t understand why it’s taking so long.
I hope we hear about it this week. I suspset we will. Keep the pressure on them.
I think Sturgeon gave the order to clear the hospitals.
She jumped the gun.
She anticipated the hospitals being overwhelmed. In both Scotland and England and looking like the Chinese field hospitals.
And she didn’t want her NHS out of space. But by doing so. She ignored the concerns of doctors and nurses who may well have already had their first covid patients as it was public frenzy that it arrived. It spread within the staff who didn’t have masks. And into other patients. Only for it to be released into nursing homes.
This was months before they Brought in guidance that a patient must be 10 days clear of covid 19 with a lateral flow. Because remember the PCR tests at car park sites? Remember. Well.
I’d accept if Nicola was honest about her decision making. But I won’t accept the cover up of this. And I would hold her accountable accordingly and unforgivingly knowing that she is trying to conceal her decision making.
In what is now becoming a corporate homicide case.
Fitba is a funny old game. Nobody else has talked about it. So I will. Condolences to Aberdeen supporters especially Stu and the guy from Stockton-on-Tees. Fitba is a countermeasure to the reality of living in Scotland especially for men. In fairness congratulations to Rangers. Now we have the Conversion Bill in January. Lot’s of money to support groups aligned to the Scot Gov position. No real public debate. Expect another Court Case.
Dan says: at 6:47 pm
@ shug
“It’s more than just the main junctions on the A9 that are the issue. So many of the small ones are where the issues occur because there are no slip roads to join, or bridges to cross both lanes of traffic. Plus the lack of continuity of junction design, even with the recent upgrading also means incidents will continue to occur.
But fuck it, diversity inclusion means a hyperactive kid with an etchasketch can design a main trunk road these days so yay and woke points for that.”
——————-
If diversity inclusion means what you write then road building in Scotland is fkd. Road design incl. junctions to and from is the bread an’ butter of road planing. Cutting corners on any road or motorway is tantamount to complicity to murder.
Fruitella
In other news, the MSM is reporting the opening of the first of the five Scottish spaceports currently proposed or already under development.
I certainly never saw that one coming. Five FFS!
I wonder how the proportions of civilian applications/payloads and military ones are going to pan out. And where the profits will be going.
John Main
Not my assertion, though I agree with this concerned MP.
“The information came to light after a parliamentary question from Kenny MacAskill, Alba MP for East Lothian.
He told Declassified: “It’s a British ‘sovereign base’ but it’s in Cyprus, which is both a sovereign nation and ostensibly an ally. This lack of any formal mechanism for exchange of information about UK and US activity on the island is not only insulting to Cypriots and Cyprus, but potentially endangers them.”
MacAskill, a former Scottish justice secretary, added: “They surely should have a right to know what operations are being flown from their island. Yet these UK and US military actions are undertaken without any need to consult the Cypriots. Even though it could make them a target for terrorism.””
https://www.declassifieduk.org/u-s-air-force-and-raf-use-cyprus-base-near-gaza-for-operations-without-telling-cypriot-government/
Genocide Joe Biden, could find himself out of office and deep in the brown stuff sooner than he thinks.
“It is now two and a half months since the House Oversight Committee opened hearings to consider the grounds for an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden for his increasingly apparent involvement in the extravagant corruption and influence-peddling schemes of his wayward son Hunter, his brother James, and other members of the Biden family.
The full House finally voted on this matter last Wednesday along strict party lines, 221 Republicans to 212 Democrats.
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., a.k.a. “the Big Guy,” will now be formally investigated on accumulating evidence that he was a participant in and/or a beneficiary of Hunter’s years of manifestly criminal conniving while Pop was Barack Obama’s vice-president and during the post-veep interim before Joe moved into the White House.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/17/impeachment-biden-under-formal-investigation/
There is zero indication that Israel wants a surrender, ceasefire – temporary or otherwise.
There are many indications of what it does want.The destruction of Gaza and its people.
The Henry Kissinger of Wings needs to think again
A nice wee earner if you can land one of the commissioners posts.
“MSPs are to investigate the number of commissioners in Scotland following concerns about ballooning costs.
The Scottish Parliament’s Finance and Public Administration Committee has launched an inquiry into the commissioner landscape, looking at whether there is a “coherent and strategic approach”.
There are seven commissioners in Scotland, who together cost £16.6m in 2023-24.
That covers the staff and running costs for each office, though the amount for each varies with the lowets at £300,000 for the year and the largest at £6.7m.
An eighth, the patient safety commissioner, was agreed earlier this year with an anticipated cost of £645,000 per year.
The creation of a further six commissioner posts are currently being proposed by both government and backbench MSPs.”
A neurodiversity commissioner, Hmm.. what will they think of next.
“Proposals for future posts include a neurodiversity commissioner”
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,msps-launch-inquiry-into-commissioners-after-alarm-over-costs
Strong words from the Pontiff himself, he has moved on from calling for humanitarian corridors to calling out Israeli terrorism.
“Pope Francis has condemned Israel for using “terrorism” tactics during its aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip.
The pontiff deplored the recent killing by the Israeli military of two Christian women who had taken refuge in a church complex at his weekly address at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
“I continue to receive very grave and painful news from Gaza,” said the Pope.
“Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings. And this happened even inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns,” he said.
“Some would say ‘It is war. It is terrorism.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism,” he said.
Francis referred to a statement about an incident on Saturday by the Latin Patriarchate of al-Quds, the Catholic authority in the holy city.
The Patriarchate said an Israeli military sniper killed the two women, whom the pope named Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar, as they walked to a convent of nuns in the compound of the Holy Family Parish.
Seven other people were shot and wounded as they tried to protect others.”
From AlJazeera.
“Al Jazeera is referring what it calls the “assassination” of its cameraman Samer Abudaqa in Gaza to the International Criminal Court. In a statement on Saturday, the Qatar-based network said it instructed its legal team to “urgently” refer the case to the Court.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to confirm captive release negotiations have resumed with Qatari mediation. Reports had indicated talks that had stalled since the start of this month have restarted after Tel Aviv admitted to mistakenly killing three captives in Gaza.
The Health Ministry in Gaza has called for an inquiry into witness reports that Israeli bulldozers “buried people alive” at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Major parts of the hospital have been “destroyed” by the Israeli army, according to witness testimonies.
Hundreds of people are trapped inside Gaza’s only Catholic church, including relatives of British MP Layla Moran. The Holy Family Church has said Israeli forces killed a mother and daughter there “in cold blood” on Saturday.”
Well its taken this Scottish Tory Lord decades to realise what we in Scotland have been saying for years that Westminster is broken.
The only surprise for me is that its the ultra-unionist Lord Michael Forsyth that’s saying it.
“Former Scotland Secretary and Margaret Thatcher ally Michael Forsyth has said Westminster’s “presidential” style of government is weakening democracy.
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,michael-forsyth-the-house-of-commons-is-broken
The Conservative peer, who served in both the Thatcher and Major governments, said special advisors are dictating to Cabinet ministers and raised concerns about the churn of appointments which has seen six chancellors and six home secretaries since 2016.
He said: “We’ve moved from a system where the prime minister is first among equals in the Cabinet to a sort of presidential system where the prime minister is surrounded by special advisors who then boss around cabinet ministers.
He said: “The House of Commons now, I think, is broken.”
@Sam 8:16
Zero indications? Really? Nought, nil, nada, nothing, zilch?
Ah hae ma doots.
For starters, zero would indicate that long after the war was “won”, the fighting would continue. It would have to, if there is literally nothing that can bring about a cease fire.
Capeesh?
More from AlJazeera
““The humanitarian situation has become very desperate, not only for the residents of Rafah city but also for the one million displaced Palestinians here who are becoming hungry, thirsty and traumatised as the war pounds on,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah.
Mahmoud said the amount of aid being allowed inside the strip is not enough and has forced the Palestinians into a “survival mode”.
“People are without anything – without a home, without access to food, without water and without medical supplies,” he said.”
More from AlJazeera.
Reminder of NI
“Two Christian women – an elderly mother and her daughter – were shot dead by an Israeli soldier on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem has said.
“Around noon [10:00 GMT] today … a sniper” of the Israeli army “murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza” where Christian families have been sheltering since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the patriarchate said in a statement on Saturday.
“Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot and killed as they walked to the Sister’s Convent. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety,” it said.
The patriarchate highlighted that no warning was given before the shooting started and added that “they were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.”
Seven more people were also wounded by gunfire as they tried to protect others, the statement said.
Reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the church, which was accommodating Christians in Gaza, has been a target of direct Israeli bombardment over the past few days.
“Major parts of it have been destroyed. Snipers are shooting at every moving object in the yard,” he added.
In its statement, the patriarchate said three projectiles fired by an Israeli tank had also struck a convent of the Sisters of Mother Teresa charity, destroying its generator and fuel supplies, and rendering a building housing 54 disabled people uninhabitable.
“The 54 disabled persons are currently displaced and without access to the respirators that some of them need to survive,” it added.
According to the Vatican press agency, the strikes wounded three people.
“The 800 remaining Christians in Gaza are on the verge of extinction. They’ve made life very difficult for this community,” Mahmoud said.”
Sam @8.31, (Apols, Rev, for OT but others started it) quoting Al Jazeera (!) refers to: Gaza’s only Catholic church. I wonder why there is only one Catholic church left in Gaza when the whole region which the Romans sarcastically called “Palestine” after the Philistines, the sworn enemies of the Jews, had a Christian and Jewish majority before the Muslim conquest and their colonial suppression of the majority population. What could have happened?
@ Graf Midgehunter
Re. A9 dualling. I was being a bit tongue in cheek but there was a fair bit of public consultation with various local groups and meetings held during planning stages where folk could add input and insight, and propose design ideas, and voice concerns too. That makes sense to a degree as locals know the area best and they could identify where crossing points suitable for say horse riders and cyclists / mountainbikers would be required.
At one meeting I gave one of the planning and design engineers a link to the cycling and running Strava heatmap app, which they could use to identify where crossing points to maintain existing access would be required*. This app was not something they were aware of but they got back to me when they checked it out and thanked me as it is a useful tool that could be used by them for any future works.
A wee correction to my above post as now understand the northbound Bankfoot junction has had some alteration since I was last there a couple of years ago.
This link has several pics of junctions, the first pic is the Stanley junction I mentioned with the tighter than needs be slip road turns, and looks to me like the designer may have been a big Page 3 fan… The Bankfoot junction is the third pic and the sharp turn at end of slip road off has been softened.
https://www.transport.gov.scot/progress-update/a9-dualling-luncarty-to-pass-of-birnam-construction-update-summer-2021/
What is deemed wrong with using the continuity of conventional diamond shape junction designs with straight slip roads up to a central bridge crossing that make it easier for drivers to increase their speed to blend with flow when joining, or to reduce speed after leaving the main road.
* This app also identifies where members of the public have previously accessed areas around Kenmore and could be used as supportive evidence into how the Taymouth Castle development may impact future access.
Kenmore link but you can zoom in and out and drag cursor to view anywhere on the planet. (I understand this heatmap app when it was launched actually caught out some military folk who were in areas where they weren’t meant to be)
https://www.strava.com/heatmap#12.84/-4.02212/56.59139/hot/all
Ted
Ah c’mon now Ted, don’t be asking awkward questions.
Hey Sam
Re your “zero indications” BS earlier, very clear non-zero indications being reported in the MSM this evening.
But it’s the MSM, so I expect that in accordance with your usual playbook, you’ll rubbish the reports as lies for now, and then if a temporary cease fire does start, deny you ever posted that a cease fire was a zero probability impossibility.
In other news, looks like the Big Boys are gearing up for the Lebanese border war, just in time for Xmas. Neither side formally marks Xmas, so it will be no biggie for either of them to get stuck in over the holidays.
Look up how Christians are treated in Israel, not the fundamentalists who funnel money into that gangster state, they are not the ones being spat at in the streets.
On the subject of gangsters I have a book about Meyer Lansky who was the head of a Jewish organised crime gang in the US and who had more people murdered than Al Capone but it is better not to talk about things like that as there are consequences. He was in contact with Golda Meyer and would arrange for shipments meant to be leaving US ports for the Palestinians to be instead delivered to the Israelis. For some reason none of that is mentioned on Wiki.
@Dan well played with the heat maps Dunkeld is popular with the MTB crowed.
People need to realise that all the roads being turned into single-tracks by adding cycle lanes is just a cover. The real reason is to fill our streets with driverless cars, buses, and lorries, which in turn maximise profits for the corporations. The green smokescreen is hogwash, but sadly it doesn’t matter who we vote for as they’ve all been bought off long ago by the corporations.
Nobody picking up on the Conversion Therapy Bill in January. Concerning ourselves with foreign matters we are ill equipped to influence. I will summarise. Parents will be prosecuted for speaking to their children about gender change issues. Remember the Christian Institute from Named persons fame. A ton of money being raised to defend against this leglisation. How many times?. Why are the SNP/Green Government after our bairns?. Why not concentrate on economics or growth?.
@George Ferguson. I would be interested to know where the bill originated, who funnelled money into it, who were the law firms etc. As I have previously stated on here Dentons bought a Scottish law firm about five years ago.
She forced us to stay home to save lives when all the time her Government policy was the biggest killer.
@Anton Decadent 10:29pm
Follow the money is a good argument. Follow the perversion is more apt. They keep trying through different routes to control our bairns. Why?. Take one look at Patrick Harvie, Maggie Chapman or any of the SNP supine backbenchers to get your answer. Over representation of LGBTQ++++. More money being donated to the Christian Institute and not a first class journalist like Stu.
They’re going after children because they’re easily indoctrinated.
& They want to sexualise bairns to pave the way for MAPs (Minor attracted persons = Paedophilia to you & me) to become acceptable & just what bairns are gagging for.
The Muppet’s who transition are collateral damage – at least they’re not gay. (Their thinking, not mine)
Big pharma is behind it. Who doesn’t love a life long customer greeting about open wounds? Kerching!
The Greens have already cashed in..
I expect the SNP has too but they’ll have taken a leaf out the Tory rulebook & have it via a private offshore fund somewhere.
The messages have been lost. I hope GCHQ has them all backed up.
It’s time they pulled the plug on the SNP. It’s making me want to abolish Holyrood. And Police Scotland. If only I didn’t want Independence.
That’s the level of frustration and anger I feel at seeing Sturgeon continuing to be unaccountable. After everything she’s done.
She needs to be brought down. For the good of the country to move forward. It will never go away. I believe that by getting in touch with whatsapp. We can have access to all of Nicola Sturgeon’s decision making.
Who the fuck does she think she is. She locked us away. And now she’s obstructing a parliamentary Inquiry and a police investigation into corporate manslaughter.
The cops are officially investigating corporate manslaughter. So I hear.
Sturgeon. You’re going down. You’re a disgraced ex leader. The worst we’ve ever had.
The Police Scotland investigation into avoidable deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic could turn into the “biggest corporate homicide in history”, according to one campaigner.
Detectives have spent months interviewing former nurse Lesley Roberts after she submitted a criminal complaint against the Scottish Government under the Health and Safety at Work Act, naming former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and former health secretary Jeane Freeman.
Ms Roberts – who was working on the frontline with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde at the start of the outbreak – told the Scottish Daily Express that she has now signed an agreed statement running to 35 pages, along with 52 productions, as part of her submission to the sprawling Operation Koper inquiry.
We need to get this Leslie Roberts on Wings Over Scotland. We need to know the details of Operation Koper.
We need to know what Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t want us to know.
Republic 8:31
True. Unelected special advisors & lobbying groups paid by the highest bidder to whisper whatever poison they’re peddling into governments ear.
GRR, Israel, immigration, pharma, private healthcare etc It’s corrupt to it’s core & ministers are happy to stuff their bank accounts with cash.
David
There won’t be anyone talking until an investigation is over.
It jeopardises the case otherwise.
DAN
Thanks for the article and Strava site.
Will have a better look at them on Monday when I have more time.
I suspect these “lost” phone messages wouldn’t be pivotal to an investigation unless somebody already knew what was written in them.
Second point, is the “lost” phone the device which sent them, or the device which received them? Find the other device. Or is that device “lost” too?
Frankly, this whole saga feels like a trail of breadcrumbs thrown down for gullible people to follow.
Whoever is responsible for this phone, produce it or go to jail. “I’ve lost it Officer” is the dog-ate-my-homework excuse.
If the SNP are serial offenders accomplished at “losing” critical evidence, start putting the pieces together and prosecute someone for trying to pervert the course of justice.
OT… but this kind of thing gets up my nose…
“… . It’s a nice historic building, but there is that problem, that it’s a bit cold”.
https://constitution-unit.com/2023/12/18/restoring-and-renewing-parliamentary-buildings-fit-for-parliamentary-diplomacy/
Just watch how “it’s a bit cold” turns into a multi-billion restoration project for some greasy backer of the Tory Party, but remember, we’re talking a bit cold in London, and I just bet you could squeeze in the word “little” – a little bit cold. It’s London ffs, not Reykjavik.
What happened to hardy people who could tolerate a degree of discomfort but still function, and furthermore recognise the solemnity of their workplace and exercise some fortitude? Some people have to work outside in all weathers, and a bit cold is an everyday occurrence in winter, but they just get on with it.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out the Kitchen. Stop pandering to spoiled brats and delicate whiners, and save all that cash for seminal buildings which are in actual distress.
There’s an absolutely terrible article on Unherd today (as in the original meaning of the word, i.e. inspiring fear and terror): “The truth about the ethnic cleansing in Gaza”.
I like to think I can handle the truth better than many regulars on here, but even so, it’s an uncomfortable read. Those who prefer the soft, fluffy illusions of the fantasy worlds in their heids best give it the body swerve.
Still, the bare facts for 2023 alone are jaw dropping: Pakistan has kicked out near half a million migrants. Not a squeak on here, despite the close family ties of our very own “dear leader”. Then there’s the Karabakh expulsion of 120,000 Armenians. Again, not a squeak, even though these people are of the same religion as we Sovereign Scots supposedly still are.
It makes one realise yet again, as if for the first time, that news isn’t what’s happening, it’s what somebody with an agenda and funding is choosing to make a song and dance about.
Lorna Slater could write and present a better budget…….sadly
https://archive.ph/DP1zj
That’s our biased censored MSM you’ll be talking about Johm Main @8.10am
It’s no surprise that many folks do not know what’s happening due to the MSM keeping them in the dark and feeding them a diet of keec
At least you recognise that John.
Genocide John Main pretending to care.
Interesting new tactic.
fruitella the hun @ 5:34 pm
“It relies on the arctic ice melting”
A natural deepwater hub port in Scotland serving multiple markets in Europe has many environmental advantages:
– reduces need for dredging estuaries in North Sea Basin ports
– reduces ‘transport movement’
– reduces transport emissions.
in addition to saving €millions in transport cost every year. Such a port is not dependent on the Arctic ice melting, many existing liner services could use it.
@JOHN MAIN 08:10
The persecution, ethnic cleansing that dare not speak its name is that of Christians and that because Christianity is considered synonymous with imperialism.
Christianity existed in North Africa, Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Central Asia, China, India before imperialism a historic fact that Guardian types and Amnesty would have expunged or modulated.
As a member of an ancient ethnic Christian community from the region i shall not be expunged or required to modulate.
The Armenians are in peril of another «holocaust» and at the hands of whom?
Whisper it not in NATO.
TURABDIN
All human history can be summarised thus:
Stay strong, or go under.
The reality-denying lunacy of those Indy supporters pushing the “cuddly, friendly, nice wee iScotland” trope over the last generation has worked only because nobody is seriously trying to ethnically cleanse us.
(And no, the rantings of BoJo and a never-sung verse in the UK national anthem don’t count)
What we do have now is a slo-mo ongoing cultural and national replacement, idiotically supported by plenty on here, because to oppose it would be “Tory”, and hence ideologically unsound.
And reality acceptors like myself can’t even get 100% behind Indy, because Indy has been hijacked to de facto include EU membership, with the freedom of movement rules that will guarantee our ongoing cultural and national replacement.
Again, enthusiastically supported by plenty on here, not because they like the idea, but because they hate those who oppose the idea more.
To change the tone a tad, just been watching the toilet flushing that is Baroness Michelle Mone.
She is so utterly reflective of the endemic corruption that is our government in the UK. Pillaging the public purse by those in the know, in the circle, is the way it is.
For tory Mone it was as easy as speak to minister responsible for procurement, a wee word with fellow Tory Michael Gove, get on the VIP list, set up a company and Bob’s your Uncle get a £207 million contract for supply of PPE.
Pocket £60m profit which her husband considers reasonable, squirrel the £60m offshore into a variety of bank accounts and trusts, and then deny that you had anything to do with the supply of PPE. Fail also to declare one’s interest to the House of Lords .
And then when found out this absolute piece of toilet flushing has the gall, the criminal gall, to say that denying that she had any involvement was not a crime, whilst concomitantly her husband said the £60 million was a fair profit.
You could not make it up. These people are utterly above the law. They can do as they please, take what the want, say what they want, and there is no sanction.
The Police, the National Crime Agency, the Prosecution Service, the Parliamentary regulator – where are they. Or should we say in whose pockets are they. Corrupt police, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt regulators, corrupt government.
This was £60m that these toilet flushings helped themselves to. And that was just their cut out of a public contract reported to have been worth £207 million.
And now of course we find out that the PPE suplied was defective and that Medpro are being sued for the recovery £127m for the cost of defective supply.
And there was no crime is Mone’s proud boast.
So suck it up folks, just suck it up. You paid for this, so suck it up saps. How much more shit can you take?
Alf Baird
I was working from memory. Did you not say that the melting ice would make trade with Pacific economies more viable and Orkney would thus become ideally placed to exploit that?
What’s your position on increasing oil extraction? Is continuing oil production central to your view of a viable independent Scotland?
Michelle Mone, what they are doing to that lassie is like another holocaust.
– other people made me do it.
She needs a 23andMe, find herself 1/256 part ashkenazi, then “make aliyah” as Mischa Monestein, and she is safe from extradition; UK won’t do shit. Tel Aviv is full of paedophiles (Greville Janner?) who couldn’t get a fair trial anywhere else due to antisemitism.
– in any case, she’s a braw lass (er. “milf / mature” surely?) and the money has been well spent.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fbai33m6fu9j61.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Df41ed6076d770ec19d6b8150ea4f63b826644096
any redblooded man would.
I bet “lucky dougie” can’t even tell she’s a tranny.
– who needs “wimmin” anyway, “playing sports” and all that.
“up the bum and no babies”
(not having ovaries, womb etc also helps)
I can see the bombed out gazans on the bbc being interviewed by orla (pained face) guerin – and little mahmoud, all he could say was ” … nice lady, she did nothing wrong … “
Accurate apart from the fact that Humza wouldn’t be banging his head in exasperation… He would be happily clapping on their insane ideas like a coke fuelled harbour seal!
fruitella the hun @ 12:23 pm
“Did you not say that the melting ice would make trade with Pacific economies more viable and Orkney would thus become ideally placed to exploit that?”
The initial research on the feasibility of deep-water transhipment port capacity in Scotland was based on existing and projected liner shipping traffic flows which are mainly transAtlantic and intra-Europe. If greater trans-Arctic traffic occurs via the NSR in future then a northern hub also becomes even more attractive for such traffic, but is not entirely dependent on this.
Liner shipping is rapidly moving towards low emission fuels such as methanol and use of renewable energy to create hyrdogen; a European hub port in Scotland would therefore seem especially well positioned to become a future clean fuel bunkering facility.
Unfortunately such initiatives require a national government to think and act strategically, which is a skill set obviously missing from the UK’s SNP colonial administration.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692305000086
The North Sea route will partly be opened by climate change but it will also be opened through man made efforts created by nuclear-powered ice breaker ships:
https://www.mining-technology.com/features/the-nuclear-icebreakers-enabling-drilling-in-russias-arctic/
It could happen and Scotland with Orkney’s deep port could be a major beneficiary of it.
Re, Mone
Is it just the token Scot they’re going after?
£200 BILLION+ went missing & I remember Sunak say at PMQs it was written off & wouldn’t need to be paid back.. we’d all to get over it.
Mone is a thieving barsteward but she wasn’t the only one.
There was the pizza firm that could make PPE
Dildos track & trace that no one can track
& Hancock’s dodgy mates..
Go after one – go after them all or STFU & move along. Tories have always been thieving barstewards so what’s so special about Mone & few million?
Burner phones – ping the mast & find it. If it’s dead it dead, move on. Kate Forbes said she kept the messages & the media went off the boil. They’re just distracting with bullshit. Click bait for papers who are on their last leg..
Someone a few minutes earlier mentioned the ice melting. Don’t they realise the ice melts in the arctic every summer and it doesn’t affect sea levels one jot as ice floating on water has no effect. This is basic physics folks. As for the ice at the south pole – it is doing spectacularly well at present, so best not to worry about being flooded anytime soon.
The whole Climate Change scam is akin to the Indulgence Scam operated by the Catholic Church centuries ago – pay money or burn. The only real threat to this planet is nuclear war or the next Ice Age which is overdue!
James Jones 5.06pm Sunday
The methods used by large corporations to prevent democratic control over them are very well known to everybody who reads and posts internet content (or historically, newspapers and books). To state the bleeding obvious, lobbying, advertising and subtler forms of persuasion, campaign support and temptation directed at public decision takers, perhaps generating useful soft but career-damaging kompromat, are the stock-in-trade of PR professionals. Not to mention hiring communication consultants to broadcast material through cyberspace.
Your statement: “Since the pharmaceutical business is dedicated to addressing the needs of the less well off in terms of health and disease …” is you being funny, surely?
OT, apologies.
The talk of expensive failed policies reminded me of an old theory that, besides it’s many other flawed features, a primary function of the hate crime bill was to forcibly prop up the self-id side of the GRR.
How much of an issue is it going to cause now that we have one bill passed and to be rolled out, while the other is dead in the water?
What puzzles me even more is that the GRR took 6 years to write and the outcome was the most extreme, most easily objectionable version possible, which expressly breached the Scotland Act in it’s title (amending WM legislation) and express intent (human rights reserved). It was surely designed not the be passed into law.
I hope the section 35 could result in another challenge arising from the contradiction that a transgender identity has no legal standing or definition on one hand, but specified legal protection on the other. I have to retain some hope that the HCB has to be repealed somehow.
Real problems:
* Immigration
* Collapsing birth rates
* Endemic corruption
* Failing public sector
* Debt
* Poverty
* Our government and media
Pointless distractions:
* The climate scam
* Anything else you see on TV
PacMan 1.16pm
Of course nuclear powered ice breakers servicing Arctic oil pumping and peddling Pacific tat to hungry but dim western consumers (what do we send them back with?) could happen. It would be a notable stage in the journey to dystopia some crave, for the adventure, lusty bucks that they are.
Maxxmacc says:
18 December, 2023 at 1:27 pm
The only real threat to this planet is nuclear war or the next Ice Age which is overdue!
Indeed. Climate change is undeniable, a natural phenomenon. But human-induced global warming is completely unproven and unprovable. The sophisticated predictive (greenhouse) models used tend to become less and less accurate or reliable beyond even a few months, let alone years/decades/centuries. Show me a peer-reviewed, generally accepted scientific study that proves otherwise.
Sure, reducing the human carbon footprint is worthwhile, but to adhere to it religiously and cause millions of poor people to suffer (or worse) in pursuing this Net Zero nonsense is unforgivable. As I said before, it’s the dark powers lurking behind the green campaigners (useful idiots) and politicians (even more useful and idiotic, useful idiots) who stand to make a lot of money put of this. Follow the money and you will identify who is controlling the narrative and driving the agenda. BTW have any green campaigners or politicians looked into the huge environmental costs of lithium battery production? Nope, didn’t think so.
If and when the planet decides to alter it’s orbit tilt by a fraction of a degree (as it can and does on occasion), then we are all screwed anyway. Net zero won’t make a blind bit of difference to the climate IMHO. I’m not saying don’t do anything, but at least try to be sensible about it. If it’s an all-or-nothing strategy, then we may end up with nothing.
Bortwhiskels
From what I’ve hear Police Scotland have said they need training to implement it & they’ve no money to fund it.
So that’ll be that hopefully.
A spectacular fail on all front..
Still won’t address the trans brigade & the nana LGBTQ police tho as they appear to be a law unto themselves & have nae bother interpreting it (everything is anti trans – even dog fouling) regardless of what comes out of government.
O/T Is Barrhead Boy/Through a Scottish Prism under attack? I get 503 Service unavailable now.
Bortwhiskels says:
18 December, 2023 at 1:45 pm
OT, apologies.
The talk of expensive failed policies reminded me of an old theory that, besides it’s many other flawed features, a primary function of the hate crime bill was to forcibly prop up the self-id side of the GRR
The primary function of the Hate Act is to shut the Scots up while their homeland is given away for free to foreigners.
See Ireland for more details.
Luigi
‘ BTW have any green campaigners or politicians looked into the huge environmental costs of lithium battery production? Nope, didn’t think so.“
You must have missed this…
https://archive.ph/HtVKf
“GB News programme breached Ofcom impartiality rules, investigation finds”
“With some limited exceptions, Rule 5.4 requires that all broadcasters’ programmes exclude all expressions of the views and opinions of the person providing the service on matters of political or industrial controversy or current public policy. Broadcasters are also required under Rule 5.5 to preserve due impartiality on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters of current public policy.”
https://archive.is/W55ry
Also getting this message, Sarah.
Barrhead Boy site back.
@ Graf Midgehunter
Ain’t the internet a goldmine of stuff.
Took a quick flight on google earth and landed my ass on the google map streetview of the Northbound A9 Bankfoot slip road junction which is unlit.
Regardez the long straight slip road which runs relatively parallel to the carriageway, and note sharp deviation to left chevron signs at the end.
Now envisage driving at night in inclement weather. There is southbound traffic on the main carriageway so both you and they have dipped beam on with the headlights to a degree impedeing your vision with the oncoming traffic glare, and as your dipped beam lighting pattern reduces the height of light to the righthandside it is therefore not high enough to illuminate and see the sharp deviation in route signage till you are closer to them.
This design and situation makes it harder to see the two sharp turn warning chevron signs for the tighter than needs be turn and also limits what you can see to be able to better judge the curve radius of the corner which dictates the speed you can take the left turn at.
Why not angle the slip road away from the main carriageway at a slightly more divergent angle towards the last tree on the left, which would reduce the severity of the corner and turn required at the end of slip road, and also mean you would have reduced glare to deal with from southbound traffic.
https://www.google.com/maps/@56.4892791,-3.5030924,3a,75y,334.57h,85.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spU_Z9JZttseZK9ixOHzcJg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
@ SteepBrae: you also unable to get Barrhead Boy/TASP. Mmm that’s a worry.
Rev, do you know anything about problems for Roddy’s site?
Did anyone watch Lady Moaner’s interview? I mean she’s always had her knockers but I thought she made a right tit of herself
OK – Barrhead Boy’s site is back, as SteepBrae says.
It is not just Gaza that is being attacked by Israel The West Bank too.
This from Medecin Sans Frontieres.
““The situation today in the West Bank and particularly in Jenin is extreme. We have seen a significant increase in violence against civilians, and it has been increasing rapidly since 7 October,” says Luz Saavedra MSF coordinator in Jenin.
“Attacks on healthcare have increased dramatically and become systematic. The destruction of roads and infrastructure such as water pipes and sewage systems have also been alarming,” says Saavedra.
In the last few weeks, Israeli Forces have besieged multiple hospitals in Jenin, creating a direct impediment to healthcare, and even shot and killed a teenage boy in the Khalil Suleiman hospital compound. The obstruction of healthcare has unfortunately become common practice. During each incursion, various hospitals, including the public one, were surrounded by Israeli Forces. “
Ford Carrier Strike Group and Bataan Amphibious Ready Group heading towards Yemen, UK and French destroyers already there, the group have raced to the region to stop attacks on supply lines in the Red sea.
Yemen once again looks like coming into the crosshairs of these warships, Yemen has been under attack by a Saud led coalition (UK has supplied weapons and training to the Saudi forces) which has killed thousands of innocent civilians since 2015, the Saudi’s have had a blockade on ALL supplies to Yemen in place for years.
Just wait till the Houthi forces realise that the main US base in the region in Djibouti, is within rocket range if fired from Yemen.
All I can say is good, who knows what in Scotland would be on the table in the deal with Scots not having a say in it, the NHS would surely have been up for grabs.
“JOE Biden has reportedly shelved a trade deal with the UK ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Negotiations were due to go ahead before the end of this year according to a draft outline of the pact prepared by the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) office, Politico reported.
But Biden has faced opposition at home and there have been disagreements between the US and the UK on the details of a deal.
One person familiar with the negotiations told Politico they did not believe the proposed deal would “re-emerge”.
Talks were intended to be finished before the US presidential election and the expected UK General Election next year.”
Makes one ponder just how much of what we see and our resultant “knowledge” garnered from it is manipulated.
https://www.offtopicscotland.com/post/the-christmas-tree-files
I recall a Grousebeater article on BBC vetting but with a quick search I can’t find it and busy making dinner. Memory test (I’m sure the article in question contained reference to a women overhearing some boss in another office in the building be far from complimentary to her)
Archived link to BBC page mentioning the crimbo tree vetting.
https://archive.is/SDD8b
Another related BBC article.
https://archive.is/3LSch
Interesting to dig back with a search on such things. It turns up so many articles from way back. Including that Observer article mentioned in above link. And Hacks and Spooks – Close encounters of a strange kind, and even stuff from Hansard.
Owen Mullions @ 15.12
I see she is adopting the Ms Sturgeon defence of, “I don’t believe I have done anything wrong”, so that’s alright then.
Just to keep us abreast of the situation.
The Southern General hospital aka the (QEUH) in my home town of Glasgow appears to be bursting at the seams with sick folk a new NHS plan called Glasflow sees patients moved out of A&E and into the corridors of the hospitals as no wards beds are available.
The patients are then given ring door bells (I kid you not) to bell a nurse if they feel unwell or need something as their are no amenities in the corridors like you would find in the wards.
https://archive.is/djI1o
Republicofscotland @ 17.02
Makes a change from sitting in an Ambulance for 2 hours outside Gartnavel Hospital with a suspected heart attack. Just shows that “lessons have been learned”.
From The Jerusalem Post
“The Auschwitz Museum in Poland criticized an Israeli council head on social media Monday for calling to turn the Gaza Strip into an empty museum similar to the former Nazi concentration camp, outright comparing it to terrorism.
The remarks in question were made by Metula Council head David Azoulai during an interview with 103FM. He called for all Gazan Palestinians to be sent to refugee camps in Lebanon, and then a security buffer zone should be established in Gaza made empty to resemble Auschwitz.
“The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and leveled flat, just like in Auschwitz. Let it become a museum, showcasing the capabilities of the State of Israel and dissuading anyone from living in the Gaza Strip,” Azoulai said. “We should leave Gaza desolate and destroyed to serve as a museum, demonstrating the madness of the people who lived there.”
The resonse from the Auschwitz Museum in Poland was this.
“”David Azoulai appears to wish to use the symbol of the largest cemetery in the world as some sort of a sick, hateful, pseudo-artistic, symbolic expression,” the museum posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Calling for acts that seem to transgress any civil, wartime, moral, and human laws, that may sound as a call for murder of the scale akin to Auschwitz, puts the whole honest world face-to-face with a madness that must be confronted and firmly rejected.
“We do hope that Israeli authorities will react to such shameful abuse, as terrorism can never be a response to terrorism.”
I can’t help thinking Lady Mone’s interview was sending a message to certain tories that received a kick back in return for the contract, you better get me out of this or I will have to name the people I bunged.
@RoS 4:29
“Just wait till the Houthi forces realise …”
Aw naw RoS, now you’ve gone and done it, if even one Houthi is a regular reader on here!
@Sam 5:19
Your post really shocked me.
I have never seen Auschwitz referred to as a mere concentration camp before.
It’s like almost every day now, our very language is being manipulated in pursuit of one hidden agenda or another.
Is it OK with you if I continue to use the previous universally accepted terminology and refer to it as an industrial-scale extermination camp?
,
Luigi says:
18 December, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Maxxmacc says:
18 December, 2023 at 1:27 pmThe only real threat to this planet is nuclear war or the next Ice Age which is overdue!
Indeed. Climate change is undeniable, a natural phenomenon. But human-induced global warming is completely unproven and unprovable. The sophisticated predictive (greenhouse) models used tend to become less and less accurate or reliable beyond even a few months, let alone years/decades/centuries. Show me a peer-reviewed, generally accepted scientific study that proves otherwise.,’
I may be (well, am) ignorant on these matters but before I scrap my car and am reduced to burning muesli in my multi-fuel burner I also would like to see a detailed, unequivocal and ‘peer-reviewed’ analysis to quiet my concern that I may be being tucked up like an Arbroath Smokie.
One only needs to look at Mole Man and the Bimbo in your assembly to see one side of the ‘green’ movement.
As an instance I heard a recent BBC Radio 4 interview with a (the ?) leading UK expert on the ‘climate emergency’; he said (as accurately as I can recall) that ‘we are (nearly ?) at 1.5 degrees-we haven’t seen that in 3 (could have been 4) million years’
My understanding is that the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago-when glaciers so huge that they they eroded my mountains in Wales to resemble a modern teenager’s dentition- melted. Surely that took more than 1.5 degrees rise ? Or am I missing something ?
Long and detailed piece from The Guardian in 2022 about the Mone/Medpro affair.
Mediation seems to have turned into legal action later. Why not from the outset?
“PPE the government bought for £122m from a company linked to the Tory peer Michelle Mone was purchased from the Chinese manufacturer for just £46m.
The extraordinary profits apparently made by PPE Medpro and its partners in the supply chain are revealed in documents leaked to the Guardian, including contracts and an inspection report for sterile surgical gowns supplied by the firm.
Despite being bought at the start of the pandemic and delivered in 2020, the 25m gowns were never used by the NHS after government officials rejected them following an inspection.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has for months been seeking to recover money from PPE Medpro through a mediation process. The firm claims it is entitled to keep the money, arguing that DHSC “agents” approved the gowns after inspection.
PPE Medpro’s contract to supply 25m sterile surgical gowns was one of two awarded to the company after it was processed through a government “VIP lane” for politically connected companies.
The company was first entered into the government’s high-priority lane after Mone contacted two cabinet ministers – Michael Gove and Theodore Agnew – in May 2020 to say that PPE could be sourced from “my team in Hong Kong”.
Documents leaked to the Guardian shed light on the production of the gowns by a company in China, Wujiang Tutaike Textile and Finishing Co Ltd, as well as the apparent cost price paid.
Two contracts entered into by PPE Medpro’s supply chain intermediaries with the Wujiang company suggest it supplied all 25m gowns. The total price paid was $60.35m, which at the time equated to approximately £46m.
That suggests that PPE Medpro and three intermediary companies shared as much as £76m in profits – perhaps less shipping and other logistics costs.
A spokesperson for PPE Medpro argued the company saved the government money, given the prices it was paying for PPE at the time.
“The supply chain was significant, involving the sourcing team, manufacturers, sterilisation plants, packaging, quality assurance teams, logistics, finance and much more,” they said. “This global team of people and companies worked around the clock 24/7 to deliver PPE to the frontline to save lives.”
In January, the Guardian revealed that a tranche of leaked files appear to show both Mone and her husband, the Isle of Man financier Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in PPE Medpro’s business. The leak included WhatsApp messages from June 2020 in which Mone, texting from a private jet, appears to be discussing the required sizes of the gowns, and details regarding the DHSC’s purchase order or “PO” process.
Lawyers representing Mone said the Guardian’s reporting was “grounded entirely on supposition and speculation and not based on accuracy”. They have repeatedly said she “was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity”, had no “association” with the company and “never had any role or function” in the process by which contracts were awarded to the firm.
Lawyers for Barrowman have also distanced him from PPE Medpro, but they have not denied that he benefited financially from the company’s business.
The House of Lords commissioner for standards, Martin Jelley, is investigating whether Mone should have registered an interest in the company or whether she broke lobbying rules. Mone denies any rule-breaking and said: “I was asked to help at a time of national emergency.” Her lawyer said Mone would not answer questions about the gowns because “she has no involvement in the business”.
A lawyer for PPE Medpro indicated that the company believes it is entitled to keep the money paid for the unused gowns, on the basis that it did fulfil the contract. They said: “The gowns were fully inspected by DHSC agents and only when they were satisfied that the contractual requirements had been met was payment sent to PPE Medpro. Payment was sent in full, clearly signifying complete satisfaction with the inspection process.”
That inspection appears to have taken place in China, before the gowns were then transported to the UK. The Guardian has seen a leaked 20-page report of an internal supply chain inspection apparently carried out before that, in late August, at a factory in China’s Jiangsu province.
It contains photos from inside the factory showing workers in casual clothes at sewing machines beside large piles of blue gowns, some trailing on the floor. The packing area is cramped and dimly lit.
Photographs show that PPE Medpro’s gowns were packed into boxes at the factory with “sterile surgical gown” printed on the side in capital letters. Each gown was also wrapped in a clear plastic bag, with labels inserted inside.
The labels in the inspection report bear PPE Medpro’s name and logo, technical specifications and instructions for use for the “sterile surgical gowns”. However, they do not display a certification number from a “notified body” such as the British Standards Institute (BSI) that would usually be expected to confirm surgical gowns were sterile in accordance with regulations.
A lawyer for PPE Medpro did not dispute that no notified body had certified the gowns as sterile, but suggested that was not required because the gowns had been approved under “an equivalent technical solution” that meant that “the normal rules do not apply”.
They suggested PPE Medpro was exempted from standard rules because its products were supplied under “very specifically and precisely agreed processes” and “in accordance with the annexures to the contract”.
The Guardian has also been leaked what appears to be a draft label for PPE Medpro’s gowns that did include a BSI number. It is not known when the label was designed or by whom, and it does not appear to have been used as the final label.
It looks largely identical to the final label seen in the leaked inspection report, except for the display of the number – 2797 – which is the official identification mark for BSI’s Netherlands office.
A spokesperson for BSI said that it had never authorised PPE Medpro to use that certification number and had now reported the incident to the Netherlands regulator, the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ): “We can confirm that PPE Medpro is not a client of BSI. We have reported the misuse of our notified body number to IGJ.”
PPE Medpro did not respond directly to questions from the Guardian about when the label was designed, what its purpose was, whether it was ever shown to the DHSC, and why it apparently displayed an unauthorised BSI number. The firm’s lawyer said it denied any wrongdoing.
The lawyer added that the DHSC had required all sterilisation documents prior to shipping, and the gowns were collected from a sterilisation plant it had approved.
When the gowns were finally delivered to a PPE depot in Daventry, they were inspected by officials from both the DHSC and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The DHSC declined to explain why the gowns were rejected, while the mediation over its dispute with PPE Medpro is continuing. An MHRA spokesperson said: “They did not enter the supply chain after a range of checks by the MHRA and DHSC, which also showed that they were not double-wrapped.”
On the subject of climate change:
https://www.wired.com/story/stop-planting-trees-thomas-crowther/
Pretendy FM Yousaf’s first budget the morn. Awwww.
Predictions of the financial black hole have varied up and down over the past few weeks, but now seem to have settled at £1.5 billion.
Looks like Scotland’s hard-pressed tax payers are in line for an unwanted Xmas bill.
“Whenever we want to subvert any place, we find that the British own an island within easy reach” – Frank Wisner, head of CIA covert action.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/britains-42-coups-since-1945/
They won’t be “showing you the money” this Christmas.
A handfull of nuts in a sock sounds more likely.
Merganser
Verra innarestin indeed if HY was to use his time in the spotlight the morn to present an evidenced, worked through economic explanation as to how that £1.5 billion black hole could be filled, several times over, by the budget of an iScotland.
Heck, he could produce printed and online pamphlets to hand out/distribute to spectators and press, containing independent auditing by respected international academics and economists. That would, IMHO, create a media sensation, and a surge of Indy support.
The entire exercise could have been paid for by the money he’s been pissing up the wall on his failed policies at home, and hurling into the crowds on his overseas, career building jaunts.
Show the entire world the money!
Ah hae ma doots. I’m expecting a two pronged approach from the New Pretender: Blame WM and just have faith he could do better if given the free rein to do so. Continuity, in other words.
Inviting the obvious reply: “Ferries to that!”
fruitella the hun at 1:35 pm
“Your statement: “Since the pharmaceutical business is dedicated to addressing the needs of the less well off in terms of health and disease …” is you being funny, surely?”
Not at all. Without it you’ll be trying to cure cancer, etc. with vitamin C, garlic, a poultice and prayer. Good luck with that.
James Jones
Just have faith 🙂
John Main say at 6:58 pm
“Looks like Scotland’s hard-pressed tax payers are in line for an unwanted Xmas bill.”
You mean British taxpayers. Like when Yousaf throws money into foreign aid like it’s in his remit and the British government hasn’t done that already.
Main
**Looks like Scotland’s hard-pressed tax payers are in line for an unwanted Xmas bill.**
Congratulate yourself on voting naw.
That was your reward. A never ending pig in a poke.
When Cameron kicked naw voters in the teeth on the 19th September 2014, he meant it.
Served up by the author of the vow & now CEO of the SNP.
Suck it up sunshine. You voted for it..
https://robinmcalpine.org/what-on-earth-is-scotland-doing-accepting-this-fiscal-framework/
The Rockefellers were very interested in using their Petrochemicals in the drug industry – and in steering people away from more natural remedies.
They commissioned the Flexner Report
Treatment is much more valuable than a cure.
John D Rockefeller and family were reportedly homeopathic medicine believers, for themselves.
The pharmaceutical business is dedicated to making MONEY.
They’re not interested in yer sore head. They’re interested in patenting the pain relief pills to SELL to governments all around the world.
They could cure cancer, at a price. But why do that? They’d lose a customer.
GRR is a lucrative business & a never ending supply of brainwashed live guinea pigs to experiment on.
It’s no fun experimenting on dead people. They can’t admire their work for very long. Best to perfect their art on live meat.
James Jones says: at 8:25 pm
“Without it you’ll be trying to cure cancer, etc. with vitamin C, garlic, a poultice and prayer. Good luck with that.”
Guess you missed my post that shows you can cure certain types of cancer with vitamin C. No need for all sorts of expensive drugs and complex procedures.
Another other oncologist I have spoken to since I cured my own basal cell carcinoma for a few pence actually knew that vitamin C does work in the treatment of some cancer in certain circumstances.
Why would health services ignore this and just go with the expensive options that would leave folk significantly scarred.
Some on here always moaning about where the money is or how it’s being wasted, but fuck all to add when folk post stuff that could save significant amounts and free up revenue for other treatments that do actually need more involved and costly treatments.
I’ve often wondered if society was prescribed a decent quality multi-vitamin, just how much might that might sort so many other ills that suck up cash and time to treat.
Vit D being a good example with identified benefits and which is known for folk to be lacking in due to poor food quality and dietary choices, compounded by lack of sunlight at our latitude during the winter months meaning our bodies don’t produce enough ourselves.
Johnlm says:
18 December, 2023 at 8:37 pm
The Rockefellers were very interested in using their Petrochemicals in the drug industry – and in steering people away from more natural remedies.
They commissioned the Flexner Report
Treatment is much more valuable than a cure.
John D Rockefeller and family were reportedly homeopathic medicine believers, for themselves.
Interesting. With respect to the Flexner Report, Wikipedia and other references say, “Homeopathy, traditional osteopathy, eclectic medicine, and physiomedicalism (botanical therapies that had not been tested scientifically) were derided.”
Rightly so
With respect to targeting the cause rather than the symptoms (sometimes quite hard to do), people balk at gene therapy which is the ultimate treatment. Can’t have it both ways.
Blackhole of £1.5 billion. Income tax increases, social service cuts, NHS funding cut.
Ah well at least we had the funds to pay Baroness Mone £60 million fee for selling us over £100 million of useless PPE.
It one big laff, so it is. Just a fechin big laff. Sucjk it up folks. Buy a luxury yacht. Transfer your money to an offshore tax have. Hee hee hee, I’m splitting my sides. So’s Mone and her man too. They know we’d eat shite for them.
@ Dan.
No, I did see that, and eyebrows were raised. Granted, for skin cancer it’s remotely possible that a topical treatment might destroy the area in lieu of a surgical removal, but it’s recommended not to ‘play with it’ lest it promotes further expansion. You got lucky.
High dose Vitamin C treatments have been shown to be quackery.
O/T
The below article about the release of Netflix’s viewing data which shows are actually watched compared to what is perceived popular online.
https://www.theverge.com/24003126/netflix-viewing-data-ginny-georgia-witcher
While it is not about politics, it does highlight what all of us on here knows that the woke echo chamber that is social media does not reflect opinions of the ordinary person in the street.
From the looks of it, Twitter/X is on a financial freefall and may not survive and it’s alternative’s like Meta’s Threads and Mastadon isn’t exactly setting the heather on fire.
Social media is far more than these platforms and it’s effects is more profound but at least hopefully as the above social media platforms become irrelevant, politicians and mainstream journalists will not be able to lean on them to justify their empty and cheap soundbites.
I fundamundally hope Labour bring back Jim Murphy I miss him Glasgow Kissing cardboard placards.
It seems that the national crime agency is investigating Michelle Mone. They are up the ladder above the police.
We need the national crime agency to investigate Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell.
Her PPE. Has gone bust! I suppose strapless bras weren’t very good at trying around the ears!
Corton Vale is going to run out of space. Perhaps she can share a cell with Nicola Sturgeon. Wouldn’t that be hell?
Ahaha.
Tommy ( a legal)
“I may be (well, am) ignorant on these matters but before I scrap my car and am reduced to burning muesli in my multi-fuel burner I also would like to see a detailed, unequivocal and ‘peer-reviewed’ analysis to quiet my concern that I may be being tucked up like an Arbroath Smokie.”
I’ll know not to hire you if I’m ever in a tough spot. There is a huge amount of info out there, you’d have to be a better scrum-half than I was to get through life avoiding it.
Of course lawyers make a plush living out of exploiting the philosophical doubt inherent in the scientific method – unequivocal is not testable despite sounding reasonable to numpties. Well fucking unlikely is sufficient for sensible folk .
Fun fact
The third most common cause of deaths in the US are medical mistakes.
https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/medical-errorthe-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us
Alastair Crooke is one insightful fellow. He points out that the Israelis only version of the ‘two state solution’ is and always was ‘apartheid’.
If you listen to the astonishingly repulsive human slug spokeswoman the Israelis have or the incredibly dislikeable Uk spokesman this is EXACTLY what they outline as the two state solution. Apartheid and far worse than anything in South Africa.
This is not hippy trippy Israel of the Kibbutzs era, this has morphed into a horrible violent racial supremacist nightmare.
They are now internally demographically overrun by racial/ethnic supremacists of the most astonishing order.
Is Israel the lens through which the world sees Judaism, is Israel the lens through which the world sees America, the UK, the global west…
It has already happened. The global west is now considered scum for its support of Israel and its glaring ethnic cleansing. We are utterly destroying our world capital, our reputations, our name by supporting this abomination and what it is doing.
It has corrupted our democracies, our media, our societies.
Alistair @ 9.27pm. I miss fundemundhly Jim kissing Eddie Izzard on the line in Glasgow, then booking a room in the crown plaza for the evening.
@ James Jones
I’ve probably still got a few pics on an old hard drive of my treatment method and journey. I obviously did some research before making the choice to treat it myself.
You can say I got lucky, but that was better than being unlucky which would have been the case if I had gone down conventional treatment route. Treating myself was sort of forced on me seeing as the health professionals managed to fuck up and prevaricate for so long before I finally got a slot to get treated.
When I first visited a doctor to get it checked out it was only a few mm in size, but the doctor for some reason couldn’t get the digital camera to work which should have meant a pic landing promptly in an oncologist’s email to quickly assess and determine necessary treatment time-frame.
Somehow this meant a kind of pigeon post message must have been sent which delayed treatment for months. During that time the cancer was growing and increased in size and was getting on for 10mm in size at outer perimeter, and it was ulcerating and shedding nearly once a week with blood capillaries noticeably spreading out around perimeter edge to around 20mm diameter.
So when I finally got an appointment for treatment, the oncologist wouldn’t remove it because it was now too big and would require a more involved procedure than just a simple surgical removal around the perimeter to give a small clear margin with a local anesthetic.
It would now require a full operating theater surgery and skin graft procedure, which they would have to reschedule for as they couldn’t risk doing it over crimbo and new year as there would not be adequate levels of staffing to cover having the wound checked and re-dressed as it healed, or surgical cover if for any reason the skin graft didn’t take with all that entails.
So I went home and looked for alternatives because nobody had informed or counseled me on just how significant the procedure would be or about the resultant significant scarring in a prominent place on my face I was going to be left with.
A bit of googling and 2 weeks later I had basically cured it myself with little to no scarring.
About another month later I returned to see that same oncologist for a pre surgery consultation and reassessment, and that is when they were miffed that it had gone. They did take a small biopsy section from across the now healed area and it came back clear of all cancer cells.
Basal Cell Carcinoma is probably the “best” skin cancer to get if you have to get one, with Squamous next and Melanoma being worst.
Tommy meant Tommo, apologies (autocorrect, as it happens)
@ Dan,
So if your medic was slow to act, how does that reflect on the technologies the pharmaceutical industry had available?
Meant to include it above. Here is the link to the Alistair Crooke interview.
youtube.com/watch?v=ycaUEzFoZ3Q
Said in my best Humza-I-hate-whites-speech accent…
Lorna Campbell, shite!
Patrick Harvie, shite!
Humza Yousless, shite!
Every other member of the SNPG cabinet, shite!
Humza Yousless, shite!
Mentioned twice because he is extra, shite!
So not a white but a shite supremacist state with Humza as the gleaming ponging shite turd upon a green lake of shitey incompetence, corruption and downright perversion.
@ James Jones
Is that really all that you take and focus on from all that I said.
Regardless of how long the conventional health system and its failings took in attempting to deal with and resolve the issue, they still would have gone down the same conventional path of treatment, when there are other options that could have been tried and are far less costly for health boards to pay for, and these would also leave patient with considerably less prominent scarring.
The pharmaceutical industry has undoubtedly got some decent technologies and has delivered very useful advances in drug developments for treating various conditions, but there are also negatives such as what the fuck was going on with all those covid
vaccinessymptom reducing serums…But it is the discrepancy in how the pharmaceutical industry and associated health services operate overall that I question.
One vitamin C tablet costs pennies, and there are creams for treating BCCs in places like Australia. These are produced by companies within the pharmaceutical industry, yet they are not used or available here for whatever reasons.
Strange how all our energy prices are interlinked and effectively fixed by corporate interests in this modern global world even though the energy is generated from completely different and unrelated sources in countries with vastly differing economies, yet access to certain drugs produced by similar massive corporate pharmaceutical companies doesn’t follow a similar modus.
The other day I also mentioned that one single dose of a compound (which I don’t think is available here but is produced by a global pharmaceutical company) appears to have cured a debilitating condition I have endured for several years.
Symptoms aligned with ME / Post infection chronic fatigue syndrome, which was compounded by contracting Lyme disease from a tick bite a year ago. So I’ve had years of compromised health with aching muscles and joints and cardiac issues, and the numerous visits to and tests by the health service couldn’t get to the bottom of it.
For background I am not a lazy individual and was previously very fortunate to be healthy and fit. Have held KOMs and top ten mountainbike times on Strava app for both short sprints and steep 1000 feet climbs. (Well I held them till lazy twats on E bikes with 100s of extra watts of leccy assistance stole them from an auld git riding a 33 pound steel 26er because said twats wouldn’t filter their rides into the correct E bike times section.)
So when someone like that gets knocked for six in health terms it is tough to take. Another day today and again no adverse symptoms after yesterday’s mountainbike ride. Each recent ride over the last few weeks since taking the dose has been of increased duration and exertion level. This change in health is directly attributable to the treatment I took almost 4 weeks ago.
Previous to the dose if I tried a 30 minute bike ride I would for days after be exhausted, aching, with a sometimes resting heart rate of 120bpm when I used to have a 60bpm resting rate.
I am incredibly thankful that my health really does seem to be consistently improving, but like the BCC issue, I have had to fix this outwith the conventional health service.
It makes me wonder just how many other people might also be enduring significantly compromised health similar to what I had endured for years, but they won’t be able to try what I did because they are stuck in thinking they must conform to the conventional systems around us.
Bullseye !!!
Mac @ 11.17pm
In your shitfest you neglected to mention Civil Service Scotland – as chronic a constipation as ever there was. Enema long overdue.
Sam 18 Dec @ 18:55
Loving the idea BS (whatever) was ready and waiting for the commoner’s cold war PPE.
Investigating officers should start there and interrogate those responsible about when they started work on it, the experts they consulted, & etc
If there’s no such BS, the question arises as to why Lady Mone is being persecuted for delivering perfectly conforming goods on time and on budget – and that becomes the principal head of investigation 🙂
Anyone know how the UN security council would work in event of a non proxy war with Russia (ie how their veto would be overcome)
Seems to me that if Humza stopped triangulating for labour voters/ another 5 ( hundred) years of union he could save the world with UDI later today.
ie the permanent security council could then sanction USA by minimum of two clear points (4-1, 3-1 or 3.5/1.5) and stop the genocide for Christmas
Mac says:
18 December, 2023 at 9:54 pm
…The global west is now considered scum for its support of Israel and its glaring ethnic cleansing. We are utterly destroying our world capital, our reputations, our name by supporting this abomination and what it is doing.
It has corrupted our democracies, our media, our societies.
I subscribe to this belief, but I suspect it’s a wee bit disingenuous to blame it all on Israel. The UK’s foreign policy has been a weeping sore for decades, indeed centuries , leaving many populations around the world deeply cynical and mistrustful of all things Briddish.
Do you think the Chinese have forgotten the Opium wars?
Do you think India has forgiven the UK for turning India from one of the wealthiest nations in the world into one of the poorest?
Did the UK really think that undermining the EU with BREXIT was going to win them friends throughout Europe?
Did (does) the UK imagine the bloodthirsty Briddish Imperialism was just a 19th Century faux pas which the rest of the world will just forget about?
When it comes to spectacular self-delusion about what constitutes the polar extremes of good and evil, I truly ask myself whether the murderous Israelis and their nonexistent conscience, guilt, or accountability are playing the part of teacher, … or pupil.
There’s another parallel with the way “troubles” are addressed as starting at a convenient juncture which best flatters themselves… For example, the Israelis cite the Hamas incursion into Israel as unprovoked hostility. Unprovoked??? Are they kidding?
Study YooKrane too… The war and instability in that part of the world didn’t start with the Russian invasion, but the Minsk Accords and Western t(reach)ery towards Ruskia don’t exactly flatter the West’s political integrity, so let’s all take 2023 as the year it all kicked off. Aye, right.
I believe it was the French who coined the phrase “Perfidious Albion” back in the 18th Century… and the French aren’t exactly whiter than white themselves.
There was a tremendous meme on t’internet a while ago, featuring “how the British see the British Empire”, beside the picture of a loyal and trusty Golden Retriever, and “how the Rest of of the World” sees the British Empire, beside the picture of a rabid, slavering werewolf complete with 2 inch claws and fangs bared in anger…
Poignant too… those nations who regard the UK through English rose tinted specs, tend to be the same nations most “hostile” and unsympathetic towards Scottish Independence.
I’d like to change the paradigm, and rekindle the distinction between English and Scottish Enlightenment… hopefully before it kills us.
Morrisons who used to be one of the big four of the UK supermarket industry is currently in dire financial circumstances.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/boss-of-morrisons-delivers-stark-burning-candle-warning-to-staff-as-he-calls-for-urgent-change/ar-AA1lFz8D
The causes of it is from the article:
What has this to do with Scottish independence? The argument about independence is all about economics and as one poster on here says ‘Show me the money’. Showing people the money is more about what will be in people’s pocket but also about keeping the money in their pockets.
Using the above example, if Morrisons goes under or loses his position in the industry it mean less competition and therefore higher prices. That would mean less money in peoples pockets.
Financial responsibility is more about just keeping ‘the Markets happy’. It means running a well regulated and competitive economy that works for the people.
If the SNP was more focused on these things then they could have credibility about being competent on economic matters and therefore their arguments for independence would be strengthened. The argument for independence could be not doing things radically different from the status quo but doing things better from the status quo that isn’t benefiting the ordinary people.
However, that hasn’t happened. They are more interested in woke issues and cosying up to incompetents like those mentioned in the cartoon drawn by Chris.
Breeks
Another 30,000 in the dinghies this year.
Astonishing to think all that could be stopped, just by printing copies of your post, and handing them out on the beaches of Calais.
Haha, I crack me up.
Opium Wars? Get a grip man!
@PacMan
Good post.
The route to Indy involves making the economic case. It’s not “sexy”, but then it’s not rocket science either.
Everything ordinary voters want, such as decent services, law & order, health care, education, etc. comes from the tax payer funds that can only be efficiently allocated by competent, savvy governance.
As an issue prioritised by all voters, of all mainstream political persuasions, and all geographical origins, it’s looking as if it is the only issue in an increasingly diverse Scotland around which a majority for Indy will ever coalesce.
Tinkering with the franchise, or raking over the Ancient Guff, is just wasting time pandering to an ever-decreasing minority of Scottish voters. The majority don’t give a flying feck.
stuart mctavish 6:41
It really is a shame there is no mechanism by which we could get a bet on.
You appear to be convinced that all that is needed for peace in the ME is for some “big boys” to say “right lads, that’s enough”.
I would happily bet my house that regardless of what the “world” says, these two sides, both sworn to the other’s extermination, intend to fight it out to a result.
I’m fairly confident too, that plenty of the Arab ME states are being vocally critical of Israel, only because they secretly believe their statements will be nullified by the votes against and the abstentions. In other words, they are getting exactly what they want whilst still acting out the performative theatre that keeps a lid on the Friday riots.
Regarding UDI, everybody’s fecking off for several weeks rest and recuperation. It’s Xmas FFS. Until Humza can stuff HR with another 30 or so fellow travellers, nothing will ever happen over the festive shutdown.
25000 dead in Gaza.
4000 Frogs in Gaza ???
Gawd knows how many Yanks and Poms.
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6035/Nearly-25,000-Palestinians-killed-during-70-day-Israeli-genocide-in-Gaza
https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1736003097170681968
@JOHN MAIN 07:58
More fundamentally it is a matter of convincing the people that they can be successful in what they do, a major «psychological» issue.
The wasted «negative» energy put into feeding the massive inferiority complex and grudge with regard to the neighbour ought to be redirected into a positive and dynamic sense of worth and capability.
There is no question that the «wrong sort» inhabit Scotland’s politics and public life generally. They are «establishment» consequently little innovative or imaginative may be expected from them.
In the end the dynamism will come from the few not the many. A few with a far wider perspective on the possible than is currently dished up on the menu of standard fare UK politics and worldview.
Breeks @ 7:24 am
“When it comes to spectacular self-delusion”
Yes, despite Britain’s many and ongoing failures some ‘proud Scots’ still yearn to be British at any and all cost, even to the extent of taking us into 80+ unnecessary armed conflicts since the end of WWII, and no doubt more to come.
This reflects what Paulo Freire termed “a dominated consciousness” in which people lack a critical understanding of their reality. “To truly know it they would have to reverse their starting point”. In other words, we might care to think what Scotland would look like today had there been no Annexation of our country, obliteration of our culture and languages, plunder of our economy, displacement of our people and cultural recreation of our lands? Well, just maybe we would be much like Norway or Denmark and other well-developed sovereign countries?
And yet John Main @ 7:58 am still thinks “The route to Indy involves making the economic case”, which he is unable to provide; and which rather ignores the emotional case which influences how people vote on the constitutional matter and is determined by cultural assimilation and the ‘colonial mindset’.
Someone asked me: why did you say last week Brexit change nothing but everything? I said well apart from the precedent of Scotland just needing to decide to leave and act on that – there are loads of other poss brexit changes when you think about it? But here’s here are a couple:
1. Brexit did not change the physical land border of the North and South of Ireland
Nor did it change the physical UK land border between Scotland and England.
But what Brexit did do was:
(i) For the first time in the history of the UK-EU/EU-UK relationship produced a physical LAND border between UK-EU.
(ii) so what Brexit did was necessitate a brand new treaty, rules and responsibilities on UK-EU/ EU/UK relationship over the movement of goods, services and people across a Land border – and not simply the old port of entry relationship.
(iii) in addition what Brexit is doing today it creating, testing and refining the very precedent, exact infrastructure and exact arrangement that will be required for a:
Scotland:EU/England:rUK
England:rUK/ Scotland:EU
Land Border Relationship
In the first ever UK:EU land border it is estimated that there are 300 major and minor crossings along the 499-kilometre (310 mi) UK Northern Ireland land border with Ireland with the vast majority of those crossings remote and inconspicuous.
Whereas, in the second rUK EU border Scotland and England are separated by only a 96-mile soft border stretching from the Solway Firth in the west to Marshall Meadows Bay in the east; with around 15 main crossing points.
Where Scotland determine and just leave the UK: the future land border arrangement, the precedent of treaty arrangements and application already now exist thanks to Brexit.
The Scotland Leave rUK Land border arrangements are already up and running, it obviously works fine, and is already being refined in terms infrustructue, rules and best practice application all because of Brexit.
2. Scotland leaving the UK also means – The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 no longer has any affect in Scotland. As an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom its purpose then was to prevent internal trade barriers within the rUK, and to restrict the legislative powers of the devolved administrations (and importantly NOT a Sovereign Nations state) in economic matters.
After Brexit though, while the UK is still subject to almost all prevailing pre referendums EU trade laws, The UK Internal Market Act 2020 did introduce the principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination into Scotland rUK trade law. Setting also a framework and precedent to begin Scotland:EU/England:rUK
England:rUK/ Scotland:EU
Or Soverign Nation States of the British Isles Relationship Negotiations.
Importantly, in any relationship and negociation – Scotland gets to write its own future whither its: The Scotland & British Isles Internal Market Act 2025 or any of the other pieces of legislation concerning trade to be passed following the Scottish Government letter confirming Scotland is leave – The Union of the United Kingdom .
3. Brexit also means, based of precedents and frameworks recently established, that all the pieces of legislation concerning non-trade to be passed and written in Scotland, for the Scottish Parliament on behalf of the people of Scotland.
Meaning the people of Scotland establishing a Scottish Convention 2025 to introduce the principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination into future rUK trade law, Scotland gets to write its own future on trade in The Scotland & British Isles Internal Market Act 2025, and Scotland also to gets to write its own future on all those other pieces of legislation concerning non-trade that need to be passed.
As said, there are loads when you think about it. Will Scotland follow the rules and expertise of Norway in setting up a Scottish Soverign Wealth Fund?
Will Scotland follow Ireland and becone another members of the EU that are not members of NATO and be a country that develops a longstanding policy of military neutrality: does not join military alliances or defense pact and be a UN Peace Keeping Force?
In so many ways: Brexit changed everything…
Stuart McTavish.
What about this.
What about using the UN Resolution 377, can it be rolled out on this occasion?
“United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377 A,[1] the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members (P5), fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed force when necessary, in order to maintain or restore international security and peace. It was adopted 3 November 1950, after fourteen days of Assembly discussions, by a vote of 52 to 5, with 2 abstentions.[2] The resolution was designed to provide the UN with an alternative avenue for action when at least one P5 member uses its veto to obstruct the Security Council from carrying out its functions mandated by the UN Charter.
To facilitate prompt action by the General Assembly in the case of a deadlocked Security Council, the resolution created the mechanism of the emergency special session (ESS).[3] Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on eleven occasions.”
It seems the choice boils down to tying ourselves to the UK, with its historic attachment, political and civil service preferment towards global player delusions and involvement in every unnecessary foreign conflict, disaster and controversy; or a independent Scotland equally deluded by socialism, wokery and greenery, determined to be the most naïvely nice nation on the planet.
Both determined to ignore and gas light the catastrophic effects these ideologies inflict and little concerned what costs they inflict on their populations.
Sad times with nobody offering any solutions without being monstered by the establishment of both nations.
Baird
‘And yet John Main @ 7:58 am still thinks “The route to Indy involves making the economic case”, which he is unable to provide;’
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it really the job of John Main to make the economic case for Independence to the masses? I would have thought that this was a task for our wonderful politicians. It may have escaped your notice but people in Scotland are more concerned with money, or the lack of it, than the subjects that seem dear to the 5% of Scots that your ilk align to. The ‘obliteration of our culture and languages’ for fuck’s sake!! However, we can always rely on you to slip in some guid Scottish words along with the drivel you usually post.
It is good to see that you have found yet another useless academic to try and convince people of your flawed arguments. It is not too difficult to see who lacks a critical understanding of their reality!
You really need to try and not talk down to people Alf. It does you no favours but, because of your arrogance, you simply cannot help yourself.
Did you know that Unionists outweigh Independence supporters in Scotland? Your arguments will convince very few to change. The possibility of more money in an individuals pockets might!
Geri thanks for the link, the SNP under Sturgeon and now Yousaf have done incredible damage to Scotland, fiscally the article says that Sturgeon has turned Scotland into a region such as Cornwall and that John Swinney knew fine well that his and his parties fiscal actions have created that blackhole deficit.
Its as if the SNP are deliberately trying to undermine Scotland, I suppose this should be expected from a colonial administration that wants to put Scotland back in its box and its succeeding, just look at the energy deals that the SNP have done that see Scots lose out big time.
We need to remove this careerist grifting party of chancers, and unionists who have no intention of freeing Scotland from this union. Every time the SNP agree a deal it damages and reduces Scotland’s voice in the world.
We need to get the SNP out at every turn starting with the next GE.
Vote Alba Join Alba.
I consider Scotland requires an Alexander of Macedon, an embodiment of cunning to cut through the bonds of slavish convention.
Like Alexander, probably an outsider untouched by an education system which has produced too many drones prepared to toil in the groves of «the system».
The outsider looking in is often better placed to identify «the problem» than those living in the very heart of it.
The UK is now an ailing structure it ought not to be delivered life support.
The devolved system in Edinburgh is looking altogether too much like intensive care.
Yes I think John Main should be making the economic case for Independence.
If John Main is an independence supporter then surely he should be able to tell us why he supports independence.
He continues to demand ‘we’ show him the money yet he doesn’t answer the question.
Why on earth does he support independence when he doesn’t have an answer to something he believes is of paramount importance?
Chas says:
19 December, 2023 at 10:44 am
Baird
‘And yet John Main @ 7:58 am still thinks “The route to Indy involves making the economic case”, which he is unable to provide.
Scotland are Leaving. Here is the Withdrawal Letter. Despite repeated requests to do so the UK have filed to provide the economic case for Scotland Remaining in the UK Union.
For those considering the 2014 project fear pish of pensions, what currency and seats at big tables for organising the next military conflict. Dont waste your time.
Thanks to, and in post UK Brexit circumstance…. you will get pasted.
Weird isn’t it!
Have Alba got the answer?
Unlike the Tories don’t have much to say on women’s rights!
John Main & RoS
Appreciate UDI could be considered irresponsible, or even authoritarian (despite everything!), and possibly made more difficult by being unable to fully explain why it didn’t happen between 24 June 2016 and 1 Feb 2020 (and without it, all bets being off!)
But consider:
Everyone needs an out
At least one main contender for POTUS 2024 wants Bibi gone* already
DNC risks losing its ‘antisemitic’ AND it’s Jewish/ blm base if it becomes apparent that the operation paperclip legacy is misdirecting the IDF for ‘reasons’
America itself has been weaned on how it sent inglorious bastards to win the war and liberate death camps from behind the iron curtain – and wants no truck whatsoever with genocidal fascists
Accordingly I reckon USA would take no time at all to come to its senses were it to be embarrassed by the security council (ie even more seriously so than catching 2 guys shagging on the senate floor!), and the method suggested might even open the door to newly independent Scotland taking a commanding role in the peace keeping forces across Israel & country 404.(East & West)
Better yet, since USA will come to its senses sooner or later (and without recourse to the potential assisted suicide of article 377), we’d be doing it at no risk to the world’s natural progression & potentially great benefit to ourselves and our standing in the new world
We’d need to want it enough, though
*Presumably to retirement rather than the Hague
We seem to have a lot of ‘outsiders looking in’ but none are coming up with any solutions.
At this stage I don’t think we need ‘outsiders looking in’ telling us where we are at we already know we are ‘up shit creek without a paddle’.
What we need more is ‘insiders looking at themselves’
Going to live in a foreign country is very difficult but the UK isn’t a foreign country hence the attraction.
The UK is a multi-cultural country so isn’t seen as a foreign country to those immigrants.
Republic @ 10.45
“It’s as if the SNP are deliberately trying to undermine Scotland”
Yes. A good example is Humza’s sudden announcement of no increase in council tax. Where did that idea come from? Uncosted, no discussion, just an announcement at an SNP conference.
Either he thought of it himself without thinking of the consequences (quite possible). Or the person pulling his strings in the background told him to do it (more likely).
Whatever the reason, it is just another example of the SNP’s determination to portray Scotland as incompetent and incapable of running its own affairs properly.
And he says the deficit which the councils will be lumbered with will be fully funded by the government! Which is already bankrupt.
As I have said so many times, the SNP is not a party of independence any more. Scotland crashes and burns every day whilst they (and the Greens) are running the show.
TURABDIN.
Regardless of what of what the word Colonialism means to modern day people, sadly It produces the a vintage idea of dark skinned people stolen for slavery and forcible removed from by violence from their native soil,
and the concept is brushed aside as not applying to modern day,
However enslavement of people, and forced migration of vast populations has not altered and the stealing of property has not been forsaken by modern elitetist,
It is proceeding by introducing new laws that are invisible links, but more subtle chains of bondage attached to global colonial masters constraining the people,
You are still punished if you, as a modern slave, protest, your voice is still cancelled out by those employed to whip you into line, if you become troublesome and stir up the natives emotions like julian assauge, alex salmond or craig murry, even the tony robertsons of this world as just a few examples,
Your mortgages and repayments of all sorts of finance bind you to paying capital bank masters and you are taxed beyond what you are earning, whereas the colonial modern masters often where apply exemptions to themselves.
In the old version of Colonialism you were tied to one sugar plantaion or farm land and were punished for trying to escape running away.
The modern version is to restrict your ability to travel to far by car, air or boat by withdrawing your ability to do so.
Your arm may not be branded with a hot iron to say who you belong to in modern Colonialism, but you will still be branded and identifiable to your new master by the modern digital identification version,
And your children, your wives, your partners, your food and the security of your shelter is still in bondage, controlled by Colonialism of big corporations,
There are those willing to do the harsh bidding of punishment on populations for their masters if it saves their own skin, and are easily controlled themselves given them slightly better financial options, or given them slightly more freedom.
Under this catagory come the structure of control, Councils, local policing to protect those colonialist , minor judges, etc.
The first line of defence and barrier to ensure modern tax slaves of bondage are under control, for the digital world and big brother are working for the modern Colonialist.
The best example, are Councils that are employed to use ULEZ,
We do need people that can see further than the old “Colonialist” word,
And recognise the Colonialist ideology has not died or disappeared, it has morphed into the modern era more subtly hidden and more dangerous, but still willing to control the births and deaths of their slaves with modern birth control, euthenasia of the disabled, old veterans, homeless, and those whose working life soon expire by pre-planning,
No need to pay out pensions or medical help.
The ultimate global Control of freedom, speech, travel, health, housing, finances, importing populations for cheaper work, and control of life and death of the modern slave,
“Experimental psychology” under tribal cancel cultures and “experimental medicines” by mass enforced inoculations links the ideology of world war two germany to the modern day British Colonialist,
It did not disappear, both went underground, and have re-a-merged joined as a new threat to all nations.
There are three things which it is career/social suicide to question and those are.
1. Mass immigration into Western countries
2. The trans lobby.
3. Jewish over representation in all avenues of power and influence in the West be they politics, the media, entertainment, finance, academia, publishing, the Arts and the charity sector/NGO’s/Non Profits etc.
Remember a couple of months ago when the Rev had his bank account closed for #2? Do you know who never had their bank account closed? Jeffrey Epstein, indeed he had access to the top ranks of the world of finance. On looking up his contacts there I discovered that those who did not share his Early Life background were usually married to a woman who did and therefore, the same as Starmer, so did their children.
With regard to #1 on the list one of my late middle aged neighbours has sold up and moved out of the area after being battered unconscious and losing an eye across the road from where they lived. Three New Scots have been charged with it. In response Police Scotland have announced that the station which covers Govanhill, Gorbals, Cragie Street was closed yonks ago and Aikenhead Road does not cover Govanhill for some reason, is one of the stations marked for closure. On looking up crime in the area I found an article by the Revolutionary Communist Party claiming that police stop and search in the area was child abuse and used a quote by Len McClusky to back it up. On looking up who the councillors for the area are I found that the SNP councillor is that guy with a beard which looks like pubes stuck to his face who turned up with Alison Thewliss to protest against women, he is also listed as a Political Education Officer, the Green councillor is a female impersonator and of the two Labour councillors the female one appears to have a hobby of collecting properties, three at the current count.
Wee bird telling me the SNP is dropping / has dropped GRR appeal.
I’d be overjoyed, if it wasn’t such a self indulgent, deluded and monumental fk up, which humiliated Scotland on the global stage, … to begin with.
First impressions of the SNP Budget. The Scottish Economy is a game of Jenga. I didn’t believe the numbers. My message to the Scot Gov don’t play with the livelihoods of the Scottish people and their Public Services. Taxing our way to prosperity hasn’t worked in anywhere else in the World.
A player in British imperial designs whose influence still has consequences.
https://ajammc.com/2017/03/06/ann-lambton-in-iran/
AN OLD JOKE starts with a British, a French, and a German socialist in a bar, discussing how to start the revolution.
The Frenchman insists they should immediately set off to stir up the masses, build barricades all over the city, and storm Parliament. The German disagrees, “Comrade, surely we must first theoretically reorient the revolution before attempting to rally the masses!” He suggests publishing a new edition of Capital, with a new preface theorizing the current historical conjuncture.
The two argue for some time, with no compromise in sight. Finally, they turn to the Briton, “Comrade, which of us is right?”
The British socialist pauses, lets out a sigh, and awkwardly replies, “Well, I don’t know much about all that — but tomorrow there is a by-election in Bognor Regis, and Labour could win the seat!”
Extract from https://jacobin.com/2023/02/tom-nairn-britain-constitution-democracy-nationalism-obituary
Chas @ 10:44 am
“Correct me if I am wrong, but is it really the job of John Main to make the economic case for Independence to the masses?”
Correct me if I am wrong, but he did say that “The route to Indy involves making the economic case”.
@Alf Baird 3:40pm
Exactly we need to make the economic case for Independence the phraseology John Main makes weakens his case. But the Scottish Budget today set back the cause of Independence a decade. Let’s make it simple because the Scot Gov over complicate matters. Like six tax bands vs three. Dealing with the devolved current situation. It’s money in and money out like any other business. Income capped at 60 billion. So in a revenue vs costs situation. It’s the costs the SG can influence. Rounding up the numbers 20 billion for the NHS. Everything else Hunky Dory. The 1.5 billion black hole filled by taxpayers. Except it won’t be because behavioural changes will kick in. That was the most anti Independence budget since the devolution began.
Humza has made it clear there is no bright future for Scotland any time in the immediate future. Freezing the thresholds didn’t work in making the economy grow, neither did the 41p, 42p, 46p or 47p rates work. So lets try tax some more.
Higher taxes to pay for increasingly poor and distant services. Ever increasing public sector mismanagement class. Nonsense like the recycling and heat pump schemes. Not a single diversity officer cut.
As well as not raising anything like the amount the SNP say, it will also cut discretionary income left at the end of the month and hammer all the sectors of the economy that live off it.
Grim.
George Ferguson @ 4.19 “The most anti independence budget…”
No surprise then. The SNP are not a party of independence, and until people realise that and stop voting them into power Scotland will suffer under their continued pretence.
Somebody somewhere is directing this level of incompetence to ensure that independence doesn’t happen.
@Turabdin, thanks for the link re Ann Lambton.
ayemachrihanish 11.44
Great stuff.
Are YOU handing the letter in? When? Where? You have obviously been convinced that Independence is imminent however 98% of your fellow Scots would tend to disagree. It is up to somebody, anybody to persuade them. Maybe you are the Chosen One?
Who really needs a currency to use and of course England will pay Scottish pensions for ever-won’t they? Although I have a wee feeling that the majority of the English electorate would baulk at that if, by some fluke, Independence was upon us.
Baird
For someone who tries hard and sadly fails, to come across as awfully intelligent, you fail to grasp some basic stuff. I will repeat it is not up to John Main to make the economic case for Independence. The onus is clearly on the Independence Movement themselves if they are going to convince us. Of course it is possible that the subject has been looked at in great detail and has been found not to be viable! I don’t know, you certainly don’t and neither does anyone else posting on here.
Our brave Government have today oulined plans to rectify our fiscal Black hole. I have not seen them as yet but am not holding my breath. I fail to understand why they cannot produce a projected Profit & Loss Account or even an Income & Expenditure Account for an Independent Scotland. I keep hearing that we ‘do not have the appropriate financial levers in place’. Demonstrate to us all what accurate ‘financials’ could look like if they WERE in place. Is that too difficult?
Rightly or wrongly, it all comes down to hard, filthy cash. If you have it you can do things, if you have not, you can’t. Does that ring any bells? Of course we could all run about starving, cold and in rags, secure in the knowledge that we could all speak to each ither in guid Scottish words and celebrating the demise of a 300 year old Union. The divvy up of UK assets and Liabilities will be agreed amicably with no rancour. Not sure who would lead Scotland at the negiotating table but why concern ourselves with such trivia!
Of course, this is all Unionist heresy as ‘it will all be fine’ following Independence. Our fantastic Scottish Government, who ever they may be, will march as onwards to the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold.
Some people need to take the tartan blinkers off and get real.
@Merganser 5:19pm
Too convenient to blame in on MI5. Spooks and Vigil. Noticeably and unusually was the balanced coverage of the Scottish Budget by the BBC. They tried really hard not to laugh but did present fair coverage with different interest groups having their say. If you have ever met Shona Robison then incompetence is the order of the day. I am fed up with the mantra of the “Tories”, the ghost of Nicola Sturgeon haunts Holyrood. The 1.5 billion blackhole is a SNP/Green Scot Gov creation. And we don’t have to look too far to tot up the mistakes.
@Ian Smith says:19 December, 2023 at 4:39 pm
Grim
Ah, c’mon now Ted, soz, Ian.
We’re leading the world for number of income tax bands.
@Alf Baird says:19 December, 2023 at 9:46 am
rather ignores the emotional case which influences how people vote on the constitutional matter and is determined by cultural assimilation and the ‘colonial mindset’
Dinna blame me, Alf – the people who coined the “Scotland In Europe” lie first started ignoring the emotional case, and that was decades ago.
To this day, tell them where to put their defacto EU membership after Indy and watch them get all emotional! Not on the side of Indy though, naw, it’s rule from Brussels they want, plus the useful opportunity to feck off abroad if Scotland sinks like a stone.
And as I never tire of pointing out, another 100 or so New Scots probably arrived here today, as they do every day. They have votes, and the emotional case for Indy leaves them stone cold.
Genocide John, Ferguson & ‘Chas’ aka the 3 arses. We see you.
keep on scrollin.
Chas says:
19 December, 2023 at 5:48 pm
ayemachrihanish 11.44
Great stuff.
Well thanks.
And you ask: Are YOU handing the letter in? When? Where?
If you wish: as long as I am a duly appointed and appropriate representative of the Scottish Government.
When? Well, from the democratic Scottish decision to leave the UK (that could be 2024 or 2025?) until the delivery of the Notice of Withdrawal Letter? Probably weeks? 9, 12 weeks thereafter?
Where? Wherever agreed upon. Symbolically, most likely 10 Downing Street.
Then Chas says: You have obviously been convinced that Independence is imminent however 98% of your fellow Scots would tend to disagree. Really?
Is that why Scotland has had an SNP First Minister since 2007?
Amazing how only 2% of fellow Scots who agree have achieved that- 16 unbroken years of Scottish National Government.
Chas, that comment of yours is weapons grade deludamol. Best just shuffle along pal…
George @ 6.05pm
Fair point. The direction is still coming from Sturgeon. But why continue to plough this furrow, and make so many obvious (deliberate?) ‘mistakes’?
There comes a point when you think so much unintended incompetence couldn’t be dealt out by a government year after year. But the SNP have done it, and continue to do it.
Sturgeon was adept at appointing useless people into positions of power, and happy to see the catastrophies which ensued. Why?
Why has the most useless MSP been chosen by foul means to become the First Minister? Look at all those senior SNP members who came out and backed him, knowing how useless he had been and how useless he would be. This is a deliberate act to ensure the incompetence continues unchecked. And it does by the appointment of someone like Shona Robison as DFM, and putting her in charge of financial matters.
Something is going on behind the scenes. I don’t know who or what it is, but Scotland is being pushed into a downward spiral which is a tragedy to watch, and looks like continuing.
@ayemachrihanish says:19 December, 2023 at 7:05 pm
Scotland has had an SNP First Minister since 2007
Naw.
That sequence ended on 29 March 2023.
It’s not that he “won” a ballot with 26,000 or so anonymous votes of people who we can’t even say with confidence are Scots.
It’s that the ballot was flawed and fraudulent, and thus Yousaf lacks legitimacy in his roles as SNP leader and Scottish FM.
And no amount of airbrushing or self delusion can ever ding that chiel.
Soz.
It’s instructive though that SNP apologists like yourself will spit in the face of Scotland’s honour and proud history if it means your tribe can retain its grubby grip on power.
Scots who still believe that intangibles like legality and probity in public office count, see you for what you are.
“And as I never tire of pointing out, another 100 or so New Scots probably arrived here today, as they do every day. They have votes, and the emotional case for Indy leaves them stone cold.”
New Scots my arse, the largest group heading north are the English, this is why a ten year minimum residency is essential to anyone getting a constitutional votes, ten years immediately prior to the vote that is. Some other nations don’t even give a constitutional vote to foreigners.
In anycase when, not if, its shown (by a indy FM with courage to say so) that Westminster has broken the rules of the Treaty of union, and it has on multiple occasions, a straight declaration in the chamber at Holyrood on dissolving the union should be enough to rid us of Westminster.
Then maybe we can get around to sorting out all the shit that the SNP allowed under Sturgeon and Yousaf such as the below.
“You cannot have missed the property sector, the oil and gas sector and the Edinburgh financial sector throwing their weight about. They have all infiltrated the civil service at just about every level, either via revolving doors, through networking or through what is effectively bribery.
There are hard-core right-wingers all over Scotland’s public agencies. They are constantly in pursuit of privation, of the protection of PFI, of corporate procurement and all the rest of it. When government is weak (or in Sturgeon’s case, uninterested) and the core part of the civil service is poor quality, vested interests run the roost.
Remember, it wasn’t really Transport Scotland that privatised the car charging network, it was Scottish Enterprise. They also re-wrote the national hydrogen strategy on behalf of the oil and gas industry. PFI for trees is what right-wingers think ‘just transition’ looks like.
Why? Because the people involved have all given influential board positions to the corporates and are all going to get lucrative Board positions in the private sector in return when they retire (which I think is basically bribery). Those of you worrying about secret service infiltration of the SNP should worry more about corporate infiltration of the Scottish public sector at almost every possible level.”
Scotland is currently f*cked on so many levels and its all down to the SNP under Sturgeon and the Yousaf.
Get the SNP out of office at every election.
Vote Alba Join Alba.
@James 6:56pm
I am Ferguson our family has done more for the cause of Independence than most. But I can’t see you because you hide behind a non de plume. If we don’t fix Holyrood we can’t get Independence. Unless you are willing to say who you are I can’t engage with you. I am critical of the SNP/Green Government for good reason. They are getting in the way of Scottish Independence.
“Something is going on behind the scenes. I don’t know who or what it is, but Scotland is being pushed into a downward spiral which is a tragedy to watch, and looks like continuing.”
Merganser.
As Professor Alf Baird would say, its the colonial administrations (SNP government) job to make it look as though Scotland couldn’t manage its affairs and to run a country if it were independent, hence the continued downward spiral to give off the appearance that we need Westminster and the union, that of course couldn’t be further from the truth.
The SNP government will stagger on on from one disaster to another and they’ll all be at our expense, the SNP has now no credibility left, that was one of the goals to portray the party as inept and hopeless. It took decades of hard work and dedication from hard working indy minded folk to build the party up to its pinnacle under Alex Salmond, it took Sturgeon and Yousaf under a decade to completely destroy it.
The uk has decided the next general election will be won by the bluLabour party on behalf of King Charlie the third of Saville.
The deviant corps are wetting themselves on here and toasting each other every night.
Gowd bless each one of them
Some people on ‘Wings’ stick their heads above the parapet, make comments and rightly or wrongly,take whatever flak comes their way. They might write absolute mince but they deserve a grudging respect as at least they have an opinion. With one caveat- the same one is not repeated every day, often umpteen times. Then there are others like our friend James who contibutes absolutely nothing, to any discussion, other to to hurl abuse in his snide, schoolboyish style, which only enamours himself to similar rather simple individuals. Such is life.
ayemachrihanish
Are you telling me that 98% of Scots think that Independence is imminent? I stand by my figures. Anything else you think is worth debating in my post? Or do you simply prefer to stick your head in the sand and hope it will all go away?
If Scotland is serious about Independence it HAS to discuss the ‘awkward’ bits but are we capable. You clearly are not.
Golf at Machrihanish is always an enjoyable experience. Debating/arguing with you………….not so much.
Here is an exclusive for WoS. The same day as the Scottish Government budget, notification of terms of voluntary selective severance /redundancy announced for Police Scotland civilian staff. Terms disadvantage older staff. It’s started already did you pick out the word Cuts in the Budget today?. Obvious to me.
@Republicofscotland says:19 December, 2023 at 7:30 pm
New Scots my arse, the largest group heading north are the English
Maybe, but when HY says he wants a million New Scots (or is it two million?), it’s defo not English he has in mind.
You feel free to believe that the New Scots in Pretendy FM Yousaf’s high tax capital of the western world are going to be unaware of or not care about the “no taxation without representation” principle.
It’s long been bleedin obvious that you excel in believing several ludicrous things before breakfast every day of the year.
Many of the rest of us are grounded enough to be able to cope with reality.
Our indigenous population is being replaced. If we want to leave the UK, we will need a democratic mandate to do so. We can’t rely on indigenous Old Scots, because year on year, they form a declining proportion of the Scottish electorate.
The solution is staring us in the face – come up with pro-Indy policies that a majority of all Scottish voters will back.
All Scottish voters includes Tories, monarchists, Brexiteers, New Scots and English immigrants.
Appeal to the lowest common denominator that unites all these groups, the folding wonga in their pockets.
Besides, it’s Alba policy. Why are you forever banging on about Alba if you don’t support their policy?
The European Union has vowed to permanently shut down X if Elon Musk doesn’t immediately ban alternative media from the platform.
It would appear that EU doesn’t like free speech, who’d have thought that Ursula von der Leyen would oppose free speech.
@Merganser 7:21pm
I wish I had all the answers to why Scottish people continue to vote for daft and dangerous policies. My only explanation is that the SNP are cocooned in self interest. Half the payroll of Scotland have been feasting on preferential treatment in public contracts and public funding. A few years ago a Unionist commented on another forum being excluded from Scottish Civic life. Belatedly I get that now. The best person for the job always. As a people we always lacked deference to the Establishment and had political and common sense. Now the Scottish Government are the coercive Establishment we once resisted. And we have let them do it under wheesht for Indy.
Looks like Chav has been on the sherry..
5% ? LOL! Where did you conduct your polling?
Can Scotland do trade deals?
Sell licences?
Conduct international trade by themselves without some chaperone?
People only care about money in their pocket do they? Okay, let’s take a look at that..
Employment law/zero hour contracts = reserved.
Minimum wage = reserved.
Pensions= reserved.
Benefits = reserved.
Tax on oil & Gas = reserved.
Taxes on Fuel = reserved.
Taxes on tobacco = reserved.
Taxes on alcohol= reserved.
Vat = reserved.
NI = reserved.
Welfare & benefits = reserved.
Bed tax = reserved.
Scotland will reclaim her independence & fck all the reserved shite. We’ll make our own decisions with our OWN money.
Every single thing that would alleviate poverty is RESERVED TO WESTMINSTER.
Stop playing the broken record. We’ve hear it since 2012. You got your way & we remained in the Union. Guess what? It’s still shite!!! We all told you that in 2012 FFS!
Republic
It’s a worrying move by the West.
Between closing down freedom of speech to closing down people’s bank accounts – we’re heading into Dictatorship.
Canada shut down protesters bank accounts & thousands never got them back either.
Geri, which countries do you want additional trade deals with and at what levels would you set all those taxes?
“Maybe, but when HY says he wants a million New Scots (or is it two million?), it’s defo not English he has in mind.”
Not maybe, definitely.
In anycase Sunak and Modi’s up and coming free trade deal will see a huge amount of Indians head to the UK as part of the free trade deal, and as Scots have NO SAY WHATSOEVER on who can an can’t live in their country (an absurd position that wouldn’t be tolerated abroad) Scotland will find itself further flooded with foreigners from south of the border.
Safe guarding the indigenous population by disenfranchising those who don’t meet the criteria for a constitutional vote must be a priority, Alba must be compelled to make this happen, what use is a indy party if it won’t take the decisive actions need to gain independence.
A Scottish independence party MUST be willing to do WHATEVER it takes to gain independence, independence MUST be front and centre on everything they do or say.
Scots are up against on of the most nefarious regimes on the planet that will use every dirty trick in the book and then some to keep Scotland chained and subdued whilst it robs its rotten, Scots need a nasty indy minded FM with the courage to fight fire with fire, a heartless b*stard that will do whatever it takes to free Scotland from this prison of a union.
George Ferguson
**I wish I had all the answers to why Scottish people continue to vote for daft and dangerous policies. **
We didn’t. No one voted for Green policies. We are experiencing this BECAUSE of the union.
An independent country would’ve sacked the government for going off script with no mandate.
Scots are unable to do that because of the Unionist system. Only parliament can sack parliament. Crazy eh?
You know this massive deficit that Scotland has
how about the U.K. debt clock racing toward £3,000,000,000,000.
https://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
But Westminster has all the fiscal levers.
The English Labour Party emptied the treasury and took £300 Billion of PPI debt at enormous interest rates and the Tories have already ensured 15 years of Austerity, of Recession, of Cut Backs.
The NHS has had its throat slashed,
Schools can’t balance the books,
The Police no longer a fair Cop
Mortgage rates, inflation, energy prices and food inflating quicker than a formula 1 tyre.
22 million living in relative poverty in the U.K.
2.9 are Children
Over 900,000 don’t have their own bed to sleep in and even more familiar with cold damp accommodation and regularly feel hunger.
My first priority is always to get Westminster out of Scotland and they can keep their debt with them just like they threatened the EU at Brexit negotiations.
Pat Blake
Any one we want to..
Why? Which ones do you want to claim we can’t?
@Geri says:19 December, 2023 at 8:42 pm
our own decisions with our OWN money
Ermmm.
Isn’t the plan to use the pound and then the euro? Not our own money at all.
Every single thing that would alleviate poverty is RESERVED TO WESTMINSTER
Hmmmm.
Alcohol MUP is entirely on the meddlers in HR.
I haven’t checked the rest on your list, feel free to make assumptions about my order of priorities.
Incidentally, the much desired SNP/Green “right” to permit and encourage any bloke to burst into the girl’s changing rooms and get his tackle out is RESERVED TO WESTMINSTER too.
And that’s just grand, so let’s not pretend it’s all bad news.
Indeed Geri, we had the Canadian parliament laud a N–i recently, we have Sunak meeting with people in Italy with links to a fascist party we have the West openly embrace Zionism, and backing a fascist country in Eastern Europe.
Main
We already print the £1.
It’s already legal tender.
No problem just instructing to print more.
MUP is fck all to do with raising revenue. once it crosses into England to move through ports & shops, England collects the revenues.
As for Men getting their tackle out. We’ve no need to thank the Union. An independent Scotland would never have allowed it to pass parliament with no mandate & against public opinion so but yer bunting away.
We CAN blame them for introducing it here in the first place tho. Westminster appointed Leslie Evans brought that shit to our door & the Greens QWERTY crew ran with it..
It’d never have happened in an indy Scot.
But it ain’t over yet. Labour will introduce it. Tories have already let it run rampant. They’re already avid fans of censorship so they’re half way there already..
Republic
Aye..and what are the English doing about changing their direction of travel??
On here greetin’ about the SNP & a diddly administration that can do fck all about anything FFS! LOL
You couldn’t make their bullshit shit up..
Typical squirrels..
Geri says at 9:00 pm.
“No one voted for Green policies. We are experiencing this BECAUSE of the union.
An independent country would’ve sacked the government for going off script with no mandate.
Scots are unable to do that because of the Unionist system. Only parliament can sack parliament.”
Well, the Greens have been empowered well beyond their vote-proportion only because the SNP needed their support. You can show them what you think about that at the next election. How is the union stopping you?
@Geri 9:00pm
OK a good point. If only we could have an election for both Parliaments. Neither of the leaders of these Parliaments has been elected by the people. But you can’t complain about Michelle Mones knickers and 200 million when we have wasted over a billion here. Tell that to the taxpayers in Scotland. And explain to them that corruption is acceptable in Holyrood and not Westminster?. My answer is simple. corruption is not acceptable in either Parliament. Regrettably it was Wheest for Indy and not the Union that was the most culpable reason for this mess. Operation Branchform and a one million pound investigation later will uncover the corruption unless they haven’t been paid off before their deliberations.
‘Chas’
Why would I even bother to engage with a unionist half-wit like you? Fell into that trap long ago. Complete waste of time.
The lot of you [Yoons/Tories] get shot down in flames every time you post your shite on here but just return with more of the same bollocks ad-infinitum, deliberately trying to destabilise the btl thread.
Waste of oxygen every one of you.
I’m reading that the gender Bill is not going to be appealed. Announcement tomorrow. Superb. It’s great to be on the right side of history isn’t it?
Pack your bags and go Patrick Harvie. LGB without the T. Time to restore Christian and family values into our country and our schools.
LGB and autistic people. You are born in the right body. You do not need a sex change. You are uniquely brilliant. You are lesbian. You like women. You are gay. You like men. You are bisexual. You like men to be male. And women to be female. Cross dressing transvestites… NO one’s type!
It’s over Nicola. It’s over. Islya Bryson. And Amy George. Better not drop the soap in Barlinnie. The violent male inmates haven’t seen a woman in a looooooooong time!
Ahahaha. Yess. Get it right fucking up ye.
It’s time to take our schools back from Ali Baba and the forty theives.
No chicks with dicks in our schools. Woman. Adult human female.
LBT. Without the T.
Patrick Harvie. Out now!
Solidarity with JK Rowling. Joanna Cherry and the sisterhood of the world. Mums. Mothers. Chest feeders and cervix holders.
You’ve won. I’m so happy for you all. What a campaign. Woman won’t wheest.
Let Mridul Wadawa reframe his trauma tonight as no males in female spaces.
No chicks with dicks in our women’s refuges. You’ve lost.
James Jones
**How is the union stopping you?**
Because the union awards free list seats.
Seven bells of shite is knocked out the list vote to eventually land on a joker…
Why do you think we have Tories? No fecker votes for them either. Murdo has been warming his arse on a seat since the parliament opened despite no fecker ever voting for him…
That’s why..
Get rid of the union. It’s nothing but a thorn. It also serves ZERO benefit to Scotland.
Not one of you can ever name a single benefit.
Dear John Nicholson.
LGB Without the T.
Gay. Lesbian. Bisexual. Never. Stop. Never change.
You’ve lost.
Wayaeyy. Ha ha ha. Your deeds would shame all, the devil’s in hell.
Goodnight to gender butchery.
“In times of famine even the devil has to feast on flies”.
Chas says: “You have obviously been convinced that Independence is imminent however 98% of your fellow Scots would tend to disagree.
That is your quote word for word
98% of your fellow Scots would tend to disagree.
And all I did was point out that if you were right then the other 2%, the 2% who agree Scotland Leaving the UK Union is imminent, have in fact kept the SNP in Government for the last 16 years.
That is some heavy lifting from 2% or less than 100,OOO of my fellow Scots 🙂
Obviously, the basis of your comment is stupidity. Whereas today at 9:52am facts were simply setting out why Brexit and Post Brexit changes everything regarding Scotland Leaving the UK Union.
It´s just the Law and Facts pal…
RoS deploys the ‘N’ and ‘F’ words.
James deploys the ‘Y’ and ‘T’ words.
Slowly the dust at ground zero disperses …
RoS and James anxiously scan the target zone through their field glasses …
Surely nothing can withstand these ultimate weapons? If these have been deployed, and found to be ineffective, then what is left for them to fire?
Help!
@John Main 10:10pm
I am unconcerned about these words. Last year for the third year in a row the SNP Government ruined Christmas for Scottish women.Tomorrow the denouement of the SNP flagship policy and a dumping for their GRRB bill. We won’t be able to watch it, grandchildren minding. I thought Kemi Badenoch guidance to schools was spot on today re Gender woo woo. A future leader in opposition. Hopefully will influence the SG promotion of Conversion Therapy consultation in January 2024. The woke stuff is a busted flush. Women should rejoice for a moment because input into the consultation in January is needed. Down to For Women Scotland again.
Geri at 9:52 pm.
“Get rid of the union. It’s nothing but a thorn. It also serves ZERO benefit to Scotland“
Not one of you can ever name a single Not one of you can ever name a single benefit.”
It stopped the GRB for one. Come on, all the evidence suggests an independent Scotland would go off the rails big time, or do you think the devolved government is making wise choices? “Yeah, but if they had more powers they’d become more astute and responsible.” Ha!
Do you think Westminster is making wise choices?
Trillions in debt & heading to a perpetual Tory Dictatorship & Yankees b*tch.
I must’ve missed where they ever made wise choices.
Holyrood is an administration – hog tied by Westminster Scotland Act & is stuffed full of Westminster appointed civil servants whose job it is to fck everything up.
No more examples of that than supposed *legal advisors* who haven’t been very good at their jobs.
Scotland would NOT go off the rails.
Our parliament would have a constitution & ministers would take an oath.
Anyone going off script or caught deliberately sabotaging anything would be booted out.
SNP have only gone bat shit mental since they handed the 2021 independence vote to the Greens so they could shit all over Scotland.
BOTH will be removed. Independence won’t go away tho. The SNP isn’t the independence movement.
Tick tock..
Geri at 11:46 pm:
“Do you think Westminster is making wise choices”
That’s not an answer, it’s a diversion. Your independent Scotland is supposed to be better, not equally bad, else what’s the point?
“Scotland would NOT go off the rails.
Our parliament would have a constitution & ministers would take an oath.
Anyone going off script or caught deliberately sabotaging anything would be booted out”
Oh you poor, simple child.
“Independence won’t go away tho. The SNP isn’t the independence movement.”
Maybe not, but without it the independence movement has fragmented, losing its focussed, political representation. It sets independence back.
I’ve just acquired my first King Charles stamp, cool.
Maybe ask Santa for a nice wee scrapbook to stick it in?
Bless.
Imagine getting excited by a stamp of that unemployable creature. Does is show his combover or have they covered that up.
Honest UK government
https://www.thejuicemedia.com/honest-government-ad-visit-the-uk-2024-election/
Ian Smith says: 19 December, 2023 at 4:39 pm
According to the Herald, there are going to be thousands of public sector job cuts due to the bugdget. While these include DE&I non-jobs or essential front line staff?
Unionist dishonesty fails to recognise and admit the squeeze on funding right across the UK stemming from the rotten, incompetent and malign UK government.
“A recent survey by SIGOMA, (the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities representing 47 urban authorities in the northern, midlands and south-coast regions of England), which looked at the state of their local councils’ finances, found that ten per cent of members were considering making a Section 114 (S114) this year, while close to 20 per cent said it could be possible in the next year.
Many councils said this was the first time they were having to consider these drastic actions due to their lack of cash reserves to balance the current year’s budget.
Councils highlighted that the most common cause of pressure was demand for children’s social care. Our members have called for the government to treat this service with the same importance as adult social care and provide additional grant funding.
Inflation, energy costs and wage rises were also significant factors, with the situation set to get worse as high-interest rates will soon begin to impact as existing loans mature, bringing more financial pressure.
This increase is despite changes to guidance in 2020 by Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy which gave authorities the ability to raise their financial distress with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) before issuing a notice. Since 2020, 16 councils have received exceptional financial support from DLUHC, with seven announced this year.
Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton, Chair of SIGOMA, said: “The Government needs to recognise the significant inflationary pressures that local authorities have had to deal with in the last twelve months. At the same time as inflationary pressure, councils are facing increasing demand for services, particularly in the care sector. Pay increases are putting substantial pressure on budgets, and so the government must ensure that local authorities have the additional funding they need to fully fund these pay increases or risk impacting future service delivery.
“The funding system is completely broken. Councils have worked miracles for the past 13 years, but there is nothing left.”
Room 151
“The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee has heard how the issuing of section 114 notices in local government has moved from being ‘idiosyncratic’ to being ‘systemic’.
Two evidence sessions held today (8 November) and attended by Room151 featured representatives from local government discussing the topic of financial distress at local authorities.
John Fuller, vice chair of the Economy and Resources Board at the Local Government Association, told MPS that all councils were struggling, and that there was a “general understanding that about half of all authorities are going to be in financial distress, if not this year then next”.
Whereas previous section 114 notices were issued for a variety of reasons with “no common theme”, the sector has now reached an “inflection point” where more and more councils are contemplating 114s for broadly similar reasons – essentially that the demand and cost of services is far outstripping funding and income.
The committee heard that councils are being forced to spend a large amount of their budgets on children’s and adult social care – along with
special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and temporary accommodation – at the expense of the discretionary services that the majority of people would use. Fuller said that, effectively, 96% of people are funding the 4% who need the essential services that are rapidly increasing in cost.
“We can’t just be ‘social care authorities’,” Fuller said. With two or three services taking up “well over” two thirds of a local authority’s budget, the purpose of local government must be put into question – and this is something the government should seek to answer.”
Am I the only one who has never heard of the Sports ‘Personality’ of the Year choice.
The BBC really needs closing down, hideous organization, full of globalist cocksuckers. Making people pay them just to own a television is obscene considering the absolute poison they pump out.
Every single male sports event has to have at least one female commentator… it is all so obvious.
If I do watch match of the day now it has to be on the player so I can scroll past the smug condescending woke bawbag Lineker and the insufferable cretin that is Ian Wright and whatever inane bubbleheads they have on.
Fuck the BBC. A massive part of the problem with broken Britain is the ‘agenda’ and endless shite they fill peoples heads with. I think I detest them more than our politicians and that is saying something…
James Jones @ 11:07 pm
“all the evidence suggests an independent Scotland would go off the rails big time”
You fail to understand what happens in a colonial society.
All the evidence from postcolonial theory suggests that a colonial administration is no way to govern any country; colonialism always leaves a country and its people under-developed. That’s why former colonies decolonised – and needed to remove colonial collaborators in their midst.
Fowk cannae ser twa maisters – thay aye luve ane an laith the ither. In a colonial society the procured native elites serve only the interest of the colonial power and hold the independence movement back.
The coloniser has to show that the native is incapable of governing himself, also to give the latter a ‘dependency complex’. That is why nothing in a colony is permitted to function effectively, and because ts main purpose is to serve the needs of the ‘mother country’.
Didn’t some of the Yoon councils blow all their money on a stupid coronation?
The independence movement in Scotland has completely lost its identity since 2014. This is no coincidence, it was central to what Sturgeon set out to achieve.
We don’t know what it is to be a nationalist now, what being a nationalist means anymore.
People are even afraid to use the word, in case some repulsive woke turd calls them a blood and soil nationalist (wink, wink) or an ethnic nationalist (wink wink)…
What do people think is going on in the world right now. We are in the middle of world war between those who have seized power in the west, the globalists, and those countries left who are opposed to globalism, the nationalists.
Britain, the US most of Europe is now in the hands of the globalists, the BBC are globalist and the Sturgeon SNP are globalists, none of them are nationalist, they all hate and despise nationalism. Sturgeon is not a nationalist, she is a globalist, it accords with everything she ever did in power.
People might not like to read it, but the country that is the leading nationalist nation on earth by a long way is Ru$$ia. And the greatest nationalist politician on earth by a very long way is Vlad.P.. They know who they are still, they have not been robbed of it.
The struggle is globalism versus nationalism. That is the titanic battle that is unfolding right now in places like Ukraine but also all throughout our societies.
Hungary is a nationalist country still, China very much so…
Where is all ‘homo-globo’ crap coming from endlessly, the west. Who is trying to make their boys into girls and vice versa and pervert them, the west…
Whose side are we on here folks? I know who I utterly despise and oppose.
It is time to rediscover what nationalism means and has always meant. It is not a dirty word like the globalists want you to believe. They are the dangerous one, the neo marxists in their ‘new clothes’.
One world government versus independent nation states. Globalism aims to eliminate nations, eliminate sexes, eliminate your entire sense of identity. It is time to go to war against these globalist ‘woke’ cunts.
(Try this again with a couple of modifications)
The independence movement in Scotland has completely lost its identity since 2014. This is no coincidence, it was central to what Sturgeon set out to achieve.
We don’t know what it is to be a nationalist now, what being a nationalist means anymore.
People are even afraid to use the word, in case some repulsive woke turd calls them a blo0d and s0il nationalist (wink, wink) or an eth-nic nationalist (wink wink)…
What do people think is going on in the world right now. We are in the middle of world war between those who have seized power in the west, the globalists, and those countries left who are opposed to globalism, the nationalists.
Britain, the US most of Europe is now in the hands of the globalists, the BBC are globalist and the Sturgeon SNP are globalists, none of them are nationalist, they all hate and despise nationalism. Sturgeon is not a nationalist, she is a globalist, it accords with everything she ever did in power.
People might not like to read it, but the country that is the leading nationalist nation on earth by a long way is Ru$$ia. And the greatest nationalist politician on earth by a very long way is Vl@d.P.. They know who they are still, they have not been robbed of it.
The struggle is globalism versus nationalism. That is the titanic battle that is unfolding right now in places like Ukr@ine but also all throughout our societies.
Hung@ry is a nationalist country still, Chin@ very much so…
Where is all ‘hom0-glob0’ crap coming from endlessly, the west. Who is trying to make their boys into girls and vice versa and pervert them, the west…
Whose side are we on here folks? I know who I utterly despise and oppose.
It is time to rediscover what nationalism means and has always meant. It is not a dirty word like the globalists want you to believe. They are the dangerous one, the neo m@rxists in their ‘new clothes’.
One world government versus independent nation states. Globalism aims to eliminate nations, eliminate sexes, eliminate your entire sense of identity. It is time to go to war against these globalist ‘woke’ c*nts.
@ Mark Beggan at 12.16 a.m.: “my first King Charles stamp. Cool.”
I know a sarcastic remark when I see one, Mark! However I’m afraid Scotland’s desperate state caused entirely by our failed independence party has caused a sense of humour failure in some btl commenters.
JOHN MAIN & GENERAL
NEW SCOTS, my nation is looking for a new home (the ancestral home currently occupied by incomers), several millions of us, hard working, well educated, adaptable, very good at languages, cultivated and ready to move in.
Downside we’re Christians, a group Europe and maybe the FM are not too keen on.
At least we show willing on the reproductive front. WOW!
@TURABDIN
From NIESR
“Following publication of our work, the Scottish Government approached NIESR to provide this analysis for Scotland specifically, as part of their Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population’s wider report into how to enable asylum seekers to gain employment, improve wellbeing and reduce the risk of exploitation.
Our new research found that allowing people to work while they wait for outcomes of their asylum applications could add £30 million to Scotland’s economy annually by allowing some eight thousand people to work.
We found the benefit to the Scottish economy would be through helping to fill gaps in the Scottish workforce, which in turn increases future council tax paid directly to the local authorities that host asylum seekers. we found no substantive downward pressure was likely to be generated on the wages of existing Scottish workers. One reason for this is simply the scale, migrant flow (especially in the case of Scotland – just a few thousand asylum seekers–) is markedly small compared to the size of the existing workforce.
The Scottish Government have stated that the full report will underpin the development of proposals for a Scottish Asylum Right to Work pilot which is due to be submitted to the Home Office in 2024.”
Aye
So true Alf,
We see it time & time again throughout history.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
It reminds me of the flick the Grey Zone too..
Where J*was helped othe J*was into the chambers in return for perks, food, special treatment, rewards in the vain hope they’d keep their position & be a good little soldier.
It’s a human flaw & one the Brits use to their full advantage.
Holyrood was hog tied from day one but presented as a prize. They weren’t stupid & stuffed it full with good little soldiers.
SNP & Holyrood became more interested in serving itself & has been completely captured. Westminster is no better. Scottish roasters easily bought for a bauble & a dead stoat cloak for doing absolutely hee-haw. It’d make anyone puke at the pure pantomime of that archaic den of thieves & vipers.
Scotland needs a Lion who’ll not flinch. I can only see that coming about by taking the treaty head on & completely bypassing the pomp & ceremony of politicians who become far too easily dazed, confused & derailed by what’s in it for themselves..
Mac @ 9:56 am
“It is time to rediscover what nationalism means and has always meant.”
Yes, nationalism is the only ‘bulwark against Imperialism’ (Edward Said). A colonized people ‘only become nationalists in order to free themselves from oppression’ (Frantz Fanon).
The SNP elites are clearly working for and enabling Imperialism. They are ‘an instrument of coercion’ oppressing the people, not liberating them.
@Sarah
You’ve just got to laugh. Big talk, Reels of it. Diatribe, Spiels of it. World problems are all sorted out on these very pages. Pity its Fa Fa land. What with all the experts on here. I’m amazed the world still spins. God must be jealous.
Geri @10:29
Free bar for FM questions and a vote to repeal the treaty at 5pm might be enough.
Mac , I am with you there .
This is utterly appalling and sick if you ask me, the link to the story is in the link below.
“Ha’aretz reports that the Israeli military’s Operations Directorate operates a Telegram channel called “72 Virgins – Uncensored” that posts sadistic images of Israelis murdering Palestinians, mutilating their bodies:”
https://nitter.net/jeremyscahill/status/1734507744135127108#m
For those unaware:
BBC text pages been reporting, since yesterday, they’re expecting the SNP to announce today, Wednesday, that they will *not* be pursuing an appeal against the “gender” ruling.
@Mac –
Hear hear.
I’ve barely watched any BBC since the referendum. The way they used their stable of ‘personalities’ to persuade viewers to ‘Stay With Us!’ was appalling, still can’t believe they got away with that.
Now I only ever see wee snippets via social media. Not being immersed in their non-stop pish any longer it’s much easier to see what a bunch of entitled, compromised, corrupt spoilt brats they are – an absolute shower of fannies from top to bottom.
But they’ll never leave us alone. Even if everyone in the whole UK stopped paying the license fee tomorrow, no way will the British state ever let it go under and Pacific Quay will surely remain as a kind of garrison, even post-independence.
“South Africa just issued a warning to any citizen serving in IDF. Says they could face criminal prosecution over war crimes in Gaza. Naturalised citizens could lose South African nationality. It comes 1 month after South Africa’s severed diplomatic relations with Israel”
UK citizens are already aiding the IDF on its genocide in Gaza, shameful.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/is-it-legal-for-british-citzens-to-fight-in-israels-military/
When looking up Kate Osborne yesterday after reading about the spat between her and Kemi Badenoch I saw that she is a member of Labours Socialist Campaign Group.
A lot of people hide behind socialism as a front for their anti white globalist worldview, fake concern for the poor etc, that mask tends to slip when they scope down to exactly which poor they want to see emancipated. I much prefer people to be up front and honest about their principles, if they have any, that is. A lot of other people are dragged along in their wake believing that they are being kind and doing the right thing and afraid of being cast into the wilderness for speaking out. Just like the Stasi though there are, at the time being, a lot more of us than there are of them but they have control of all levers of power right up to and including the appointment of leaders in the West. The fact that Geert Wilders, Javier Milei and Donald Trump are all Zionists is not a coincidence, only so much ground is allowed to be given.
stuart mctavish @ 11:04 am
“a vote to repeal the treaty”
Yes, tearing up a mankit violated treaty and freeing the people is all any colonized group’s elected nationalist majorities are tasked to do.
Unfortunately the SNP elite think they were elected to front a colonial administration, themselves becoming part of an oppressive regime.
“A quarter of Scottish Councils could go bankrupt2. Widely reported.
Is it a deliberate plan by Humza to force them into bankruptcy by not allowing them to increase council tax, and not properly financing the defecit created by his decision (without consultation).
There’s something really strange going on here. Someone is pulling his strings as usual, but who is it and why? What could be achieved by this, and for whose benefit?
@ Mark Beggan: “What with all the experts on here..”.
There ARE experts on here – you need to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. 🙂
I am no expert but I know that Scotland needs to regain it’s freedom by withdrawing from this Union – we would then keep control of all our assets and wealth, and be able to restore the common good as the defining character of our society.
Politicians could be subject to the people and no longer rule the roost.
Ian B;
“…But they’ll [The ‘BBC’] never leave us alone……Pacific Quay will surely remain as a kind of garrison, even post-independence”.
Aye, Ian and it has ever been thus; they (and their predecessors) just cannae/couldnae leave us alane – been meddling in Scottish affairs for nigh on a thoosand years now. In fact some of their apparatchiks are seen in these pages daily, sadly.
Like the old joke about the Scotsman being amazed at the incredible country he’s getting back ‘in the beginning’ and the reply came; “aye, but wait till you find out who your neighbours are…”
@Merganser
“Is it a deliberate plan by Humza to force them into bankruptcy by not allowing them to increase council tax, and not properly financing the defecit created by his decision (without consultation).”
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/12/20/ending-the-toxic-politics-that-is-breaking-the-uk-and-the-world-beyond/
“In the article I made three points. The first was that however keen the SNP might be to protect the people of Scotland from the impact of Tory austerity, the point was always going to be reached where this was not possible. That time has arrived.
Second,to demonstrate that this is not the SNP’s fault (although, I stress, I am not saying they have a perfect budget record) I drew attention to the estimated one in five English councils of multiple political complexions that expect to declare bankruptcy in England in the next year as they too face the impossibility of setting a legal budget that lets them deliver the services that the law demands of them. Austerity is now breaking our systems of democratic government, and our public services.
Third, I then noted that Labour’s commitment to let the Bank of England create recessions if it so wishes, and to live within the dismal forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and to balance the government’s books (wholly unnecessarily) means that it might be even worse than the Tories in imposing austerity and that they certainly have no chance of improving the situation.
As a result, the right response to the messy, difficult and in some senses, clearly inappropriate budget the SNP has set is to be angry, but not necessarily with the SNP. Like councils, it has been given tasks to do that are simply impossible within the budget, taxation and borrowing constraints imposed upon it. The appropriate anger of people should, in that case, be directed against those imposing the constraints, and not those trying to work within them.”
Mac @ 9.56
” People might not like to read it, but the country that is the leading nationalist nation on earth by a long way is Ru$$ia. And the greatest nationalist politician on earth by a very long way is Vl@d.P.. They know who they are still, they have not been robbed of it. ”
Spot-on . If only Scotland had a leader with a fraction of VP’s strength and undaunted determination to act in the best interests of his country : and face-down the endless manipulations , machinations & threats of the lunatics in and around the U.S war machine . All of the latter’s perverted * interventions * and * investments * in 404 have blown-up spectacularly in their faces ; as will their similar backing of the atrocity now taking place in THAT apartheid State .
Good . Not before time that instigator of geopolitical death & destruction was halted in it’s hubristic arrogance .
BTW . I don’t usually complain about posts not appearing – I never consider any comment I make to have much importance , just my thought/feeling at the time . But 3 occasions recently posts of mine have went to moderation and never appeared : one comment I can work out what words caused this , the other 2 I have no idea why , I even modified a particular word/name I thought could cause it to be ruled-out , still it never appeared .
Not a big deal , but kinda frustrating when you take the time to write something only to have it vanish , and not know what caused the vanishing .
Alf Baird at 9:37 am
“You fail to understand what happens in a colonial society.
All the evidence from postcolonial theory suggests that a colonial administration is no way to govern any country.”
I can’t agree that Scotland is a ‘colonial society.’
“-colonialism always leaves a country and its people under-developed. That’s why former colonies decolonised – and needed to remove colonial collaborators in their midst.”
Give us some examples.
James Jones
Are you having a laugh?
India
Africa
How many do you want? There’s over 70..
James Jones @ 6:01 pm
“I can’t agree that Scotland is a ‘colonial society.’”
The UN (C-24) tell us that independence is decolonization and, although denial of oppression is an important aspect of the colonial condition, the definition of colonialism is well established:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/determinants-of-independence-colonialism/