Ferreting about
Posted on
July 15, 2023 by
Chris Cairns
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Humza deserves the sack, that’s for sure.
Poor ferrets! What did they ever do to be dumped with a photo-shoot involving that clueless self-serving muppet?
Clueless, isn’t he ?
We’re nearing the end of his useless, bullying reign. Good.
The Party whip and Party politics, now made utterly redundant in Scotland, until after independence.
The game is over!
The People have been duped long enough. Democracy, is not at the behest of politicians.
The same politicians whom falsely promised a referendum, face being sued by the people of Scotland, regardless of the head count, at the next election.
Scots Law will restore democracy, by court sanction of a referendum, to end the Union. Politicians, thereafter, can plead their case for clemency.
Shouldn’t they be rats in the sack?
Astonished says on 15 July 2023 at 10:31 am:
“We’re nearing the end of his useless, bullying reign. Good.”
I hope you’re correct but something tells me he’s the sort who will have to be dragged out of position kicking and screaming. He has absolutely no honour, no principles and no backbone. A self-server to his rotten stinking core.
Love the smug ferret face. Genius.
Not many urbanites can tell the difference between a ferret and a weasel.
Especially when it’s a lying weasel telling you it’s self-id-ing as a ferret.
Private Eye writes a lot about politicians doing a “reverse ferret”. Defo some evidence of that recently from the SNP.
Lying weasels doing reverse ferrets. I like it!
Stoker @11:03
I think you just described the SNP as a whole – not just its “Leader”.
robertkknight says on 15 July 2023 at 11:23 am: “I think you just described the SNP as a whole – not just its “Leader”.”
No argument from me on that one, Robert. Every last one of them.
Did you see the Ghost of Christmas Past in The Guardian today? He is concerned about the rise of the ‘far right’ in Spain. I don’t remember him having much to say when Catalan indy was smashed by the Spanish tho…
What a fkn ghoul he is.
The power of the political-cartoon is inestimable when drawn by a master like Chris Cairns.
Stoker and Robert Knight – How right you both are.
What’s the difference between a weasel and a stoat?
One’s weasily recognised and the other’s stoatally different.
Nice one Chris, we need a lot more ferrets to get outta the bag and pretty damn quick as well.
It cringeworthy noting some of those paying tribute to Winnie Ewing in a memorial service today.
Sturgeon, Yousaf, Forbes etc the SNP sycophants are out in force.
Love it – but there aren’t enough ferrets escaping from the sack and besides being too few they are also too late.
Hear hear Dorothy Devine the lot should just be gathered up, Useless should get in the bag wi nicla and the sacks o shit should be chucked in the piggin canal
Sorry Chris another belter
Xaracen.
Sorry for delay in responding to your comment regards the treaty, but life is busy,
However just to inform you that I have replied and I posted it on previous discussion post we held.
For some unknown reason I decided to have a wee wander over to the WGD site to read some of the comments.
7 SNP politicians are not standing for re-election. The FM and her deputy resigned. The CEO of the SNP and the Treasurer stood down, a sitting MSP has the whip withdrawn claiming the Party is not interested in Independence, police investigations are still active, yet all seems well with the SNP according to the comments! All the other parties in the UK are apparently in a mess.
I did see some comments that ‘Wings’ posts are all full of nutters and whilst I have to disagree with ‘ALL’ it is true that Wings does have it’s fair share.
The other thing that struck me with WGD is that there is not a huge spread of posters and that, similar to Wings, various individuals post umpteen times per day. Some of them post as much shite as the regulars on Wings-Che, Baird, RoS, Geri amongst others.
Nobody in Scotland appears to know what to do for the best. What a mess.
“Nobody in Scotland appears to know what to do for the best.”
Happily I do. The single thing that would be best for Scotland is that Rangers and Celtic football clubs, their supporters, and everyone associated with them, should vanish in a puff of blue and green smoke.
Lovely ferrets, Chris!
Chas – PhilM posted up earlier explaining that financial scandals and graft and all the rest of it are nothing new and that we should all get ourselves used to it.
What I notice is that there’s a malaise, as if everyone in Scotland knows that something is not right. We cannot rely on the Police to tell us what it is and we cannot rely on the civil-servants either.
So, it needs to change and I agree, it is a mess. What I will say though is that Labour may be just as bad. I would think very carefully before jumping into bed with that putrid bunch.
So the current Defence secretary Ben Wallace is thinking of standing down in the Autumn, Ben Wallace wants to be the new spokesperson for Nato, after no one wanted the job and the current spokesperson Jens Stoltenberg was forced to stay in the position for another year.
The calibre of Nato spokesperson isn’t that good with Lord George Robertson holding the post, then Stoltenberg and now Wallace wants it.
Wallace was caught out lying that he captured IRA bombers in NI in the 90’s he was decorated for it, but the MoD put a block on any info on the incident, old newspaper articles show that no one was prosecuted.
Wallace will make an excellent spokesperson for Nato.
link to declassifieduk.org
Never mind those ferrets, folks. Who’s that weird looking chap left holding the bag, staring like a terrified rabbit frozen in the headlights?
@dearieme
You have the perfect moniker if you think the solution to anyones problems is getting rid of 2 football teams.
RoS says
“no one wanted the job”
I say
BS
Luigi
That’s the New Pretender, as a result of the flawed and fraudulent election process that left him in charge of Scotland’s pretendy Indy party, and then pretendy FM of Scotland in our own wee, pretendy parliament.
As James Che pointed out, he’s also Keeper of the pretendy Great Seal.
And as others here have pointed out, uncountable Scots are now pretending they never supported or voted for the SNP at all.
Treble pretences all round!
@Republicofscotland (5.30) –
Didn’t know that about Wallace. Interesting.
I remember him, early days of the blue/yellow situation, being completely taken in by the Russian ‘pranksters’ who called him up as he was in his car, pretending to be the Uk***ian Defence sec or suchlike. Took him ages to twig and he was dishing out what should’ve been secret military intelligence right left and centre. Nothing came of it so far as I know.
Main.
This is the third time Stoltenberg (aka the Lord Haw Haw of Nato) has had to extend his tenure, because no consensus between Nato members being found on a new Nato SG and chosen ones rejecting the job such as Mette Frederiksen, Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia was lined up as the next Nato SG but she was relected as PM of Estonia.
Joe Biden wants Ursula von der Leyen to become the next secretary general of Nato.
Christ Ian you don’t know the half of it, if you think he’s dodgy check out James Cleverly the Foreign secretary and what he’s been up to. Remember which government he represents.
link to markcurtis.info
@Republicofscotland (7.01) –
Aye, he’s just a well-dressed thug.
Who lives in Scotland. BBC 1 Scotland. Episode 1. On now.
Our country is dying. The death rate is ahead of the birth rate.
The immigrants are coming in from England.
Indigenous Scots don’t want to stay. Can’t afford to have Waynes.
Angus Robertson’s advertisement campaign is to get foreigners in.
They’ll be no Scotland left.
RoS
So you’ve gone from “no one wanted the job” to “no consensus being found”.
So my first verdict was right:
BS.
And the only eejits bandying about the “Lord Haw Haw” jibe are, like I wrote, eejits.
45 sovereign nations supporting 404 with cold, hard, cash. I look forwards to iScotland becoming the 46th.
This, link to archive.ph from ABC News says von der Lying didn’t want the job as NATO Secretary General. Stoltenberg’s term was up last year but it was extended. Presumably it’s been extended again as Biden’s favourite still doesn’t want it. How could Biden be be so deluded to think that von der Lying would be up to the task.
For entertainment purposes only: The USA wants an EU leader as Secretary General as NATO will become the military wing of the EU once the USA decides to go after China – the Europeans have already gotten cold feet over that little adventure. That’s why Biden fucked over Wallace and after all the UK did to prove it’s loyalty to the USA. The only question now is whether the EU/NATO splits into east (new) and west (old), with the Poles taken the lead to create the Trimarium, link to en.wikipedia.org. That would be rather handy as once the orcs have dealt with these upstarts NATO will be back to its 1997 boundaries and everyone will be happy.
No apologies for reposting this link.
Anyone supporting the greedy wee Action Man should be ashamed and the latest virtue-signalling pish from Shirley-Anne Sommerville should be condemned.
No-one’s falling for this pish any more.
21stcenturywire.com/2023/07/13/scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-1/
@ ROS
” Joe Biden wants Ursula von der Leyen to become the next secretary general of Nato.”
Creepy ol’ Joe The Sniffer – in his rapidly deteriorating mental condition , probably heard her name as ” Ursula’s fond of lying ” and thought ” my kinda gal , she’ll make a swell head of cabbage , no , pumpkin , no , POTATO , no , damn it …..NATO ” .
If she does it will be another * triumph * for the WEF Wunderkind . The ” Future Leaders ” – Trudeau , Macron , UvdL et al – whose defining trait is an instinct to ban , cancel , slander , punish anyone or thing that opposes their demented * Progressive */Green worldview .
They’re all * products * from the same Auto/Technocratic mould , completely convinced they know what’s best for we less evolved cave-dwellers . Such is their compassion and humanity , they want to save us from all that distressing freedom , relieve us of the burden of critical thought and – in an act of selfless devotion – define reality for us . Truly , we are not worthy
Uncle Klaus must be soooo proud .
As ever , great work C.C
Robert Hughes – Well written. By the way, Starmer and Sarwar are both coming down the tracks towards us and they’re another pair that love themselves.
Can’t wait for the Orcs to triumph.
That will be a wild day of riotous celebrations for all of us Scots.
Haha, I crack me up.
Seriously though, it’s been 18 months now and still waiting for one of the regular deplorables to explain how the seesaw of freedom works, I.e. How Scotland’s freedom will be strengthened by the destruction of 404. Oh, and now the Poles have to be destroyed too according to SM!
Wha’s like us indeed.
Oh well, I guess I can wait another 18 months.
O/T: I’ve just finished watching Winnie Ewings memorial service on youtube by IndependenceLive. It had some beautiful solo singing [at 1hr to 1.08] and two excellent eulogies by Alex Salmond [from 39 minutes to 55] and Alex Neil from 1h 11.23.
At 1h 44 Alex Salmond has a word with Humza…
Unbelievable! Guess who had the gall to go to the memorial service? I wonder if she went to the Kingsmill Hotel gathering afterwards?
Pfizer, Ursula von der Leyen and €35 billion corruption
link to moderndiplomacy.eu
Great cartoon..
There’ll be no party discipline while Rasputin is on speed dial.
Gotta lead to be a leader, not capitulate to the failed exit crew. First action should’ve been to expel the Murrell’s & clean house but that would’ve taken a spine & someone with the sense to read the room.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Fckn moderation!
What did I say now?! *rolls yes*
Anyhoo, great cartoon. There’ll be no discipline. They needed a leader for that role & everyone knew Dumbza wasn’t it. They backed him lol. He should’ve called Sturgeons bluff once in office & cleaned house from day one.
@Captain Yossarian
I don’t think I’ve posted anything for a while and I certainly would never say that “we should all get ourselves used to it”. I ain’t no fan of the Milo Minderbinders of this world.
I might have said that almost all political parties at some point get into trouble over party funding. Anyone who’s paid any attention down the years will see that as a truism and it should not be surprising. The current predicament of the SNP does not surprise me at all.
As for corruption in Scottish public life, I actually want to do something about it but almost no-one else does. There is one organisation I know of set up to restore administrative justice in Scottish public life and all power to them but in practice they are gentlemen amateurs.
It’s not enough to report on corruption and hope that a little sunlight will act as a disinfectant (just read that sentence back and I want to make it clear that I am not pointing the finger at any journalist or blogger here). I am talking about taking the next step. Fighting auld Scottish corruption means political engagement to enact legislation to make it nigh on impossible to escape the consequences of corruption.
One example: retiring from your profession should NEVER mean that you escape investigation for the corrupt acts that occurred whilst in post. I have one profession in mind when I say that and one person as well.
Another would be the introduction into Holyrood of complete legal immunity, parliamentary privilege, for…you know the rest…
Anyway, I could go on and on. It will all come out soon enough, it can’t be stopped now.
Makes gesture of zipping lips firmly tight…
Instead of aiming at the bullseye,too many wading in bullshit!
And if you happen to feel something lumpy under your feet as you try
to move forward,well that’s a scottish politician…that’s what that
is!
It’s not votes those lumps need!
PhilM it is no wonder we are still not independent and corruption and incompetence from our politicians and betters is rapidly increasing, you only have to look at the support gravy troughers still receive from people who frequent this site and are educated and exposed to the superior investigative journalism of its owner
YET they still promote and support people who have sat immobile and unchallenging to the deliberate sabotage carried out against the people of Scotland by a perverted deviant and her entourage
Cherry , Forbes ,Regan , Fergus Ewing , Angus McNeil WHAT have they done for SCOTLAND that earns them the support of people on this site, NOTHING ,NADA, ZILCH,ZERO, the ONLY thing they have done is enrich THEMSELVES whilst all around them people are struggling , and they KNOW the only way things can and will improve for the people of Scotland is through independence yet they have done nothing to achieve that
Every one of them has BETRAYED Scotland and Scots yet people on here still give them support and promotion
Sturgeon didn’t wreck independence by herself she had the cooperation and sublimation of her drones mentioned above , if any of them had integrity or honesty they would ALL have exposed the fraud sturgeon was , but they ALL went along with the FRAUD because of SELF INTEREST so IMO they are as guilty of trea son as sturgeon is
PhilM @ 12:10 am
“The current predicament of the SNP does not surprise me at all.”
It shouldn’t really surprise anyone considering its behaviour is predicted for us by established postcolonial theory, in that: the dominant national party ‘leads the people up a blind alley’; ‘the party machine shows itself opposed to any innovation’ to secure independence; the party elite ‘feathers its nest’ and ‘builds up its pensions’; the party’s ‘will to break colonialism is linked to another will – that of coming to a friendly agreement with it’; and, in order ‘to hold back the movement’ and ‘protect the colonizer’s interest’ the party elite (now working alongside colonial forces) has to become ‘an instrument of coercion’.
The key problem remains, which is ‘the peoples lack of knowledge’ about what independence means (i.e. decolonization), why it is necessary (i.e. liberation from oppression), and how it can be achieved, information that is now available:
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
twathater 4.02am
Great Post.
Why haven’t the likes of Angus McNeil or Joanna Cherry not spoken out years earlier?
Joanne Cherry only seems to speak out on Gay Trans issues,,,why not have the same convictions for Scottish independence?
Why haven’t these two “rebels” not exposed Sturgeon’s lack of drive for Scottish independence in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022?
Why now in 2023, when the Yes Movement is divided and at the weakest point it has been in since before indy Ref 1.
That is why we have become wary of ALL politicians.
We have lost all the trust we once had in these so called “indy” politicians.
It will take a huge shift in their actions before that trust can be regained.
SNP has the leader, it deserves, a devolved, second rate puppet!
The party has already reached it’s zenith. The cult of personality is over. There is no messiah!
The last thing, the Scottish electorate needs is to fall into the clutches, of another false prophet! Best recognise the fact, Devolution is where SNP resides.
Self-determination rests with the people of Scotland and the Inner House of the Court of Session. Those who so obviously failed the people, SNP, may defer to Westminster in their defence.
Ultimately, resolution can only be found in court sanction of a referendum, on the future of Scotland.
‘The People of Scotland versus The Scottish Parliament’, therein, lies the answer to the question of self-determination.
Scottish politics will remain a farce until the people of Scotland, take back control.
I watched the memorial service to Winnie Ewing.
A fine tribute to her memory.
The eulogies by Alex Salmond and Alex Neil were absolutely fitting. They encapsulated so much about Winnie’s life, work and utter commitment over a lifetime to progressing Scotland’s emancipation and the desire to make our country a better place.
And also the eulogy by a grand daughter to her Gran.
But aside of the eulogies, the Christian service replete with some absolutely wonderful hymns and interspersed with some fine music some of which was in Gaidhlig was so very apt.
Only by looking back can you look forward. Life is what we make it.
And so, as we move forward in our ever more hostile and brutal world, we would do well to reflect on the values and commitment of people like Winnie Ewing.
Jimuckmac says:
15 July, 2023 at 10:43 pm
Pfizer, Ursula von der Leyen and €35 billion corruption…
Far be it from me to defend von der Leyen, but she is perhaps in the running for scapegoat of convenience.
I believe the West / NATO/ The EU / problems run much deeper.
While “The Press” in the West would have you believe otherwise, the aforementioned “West” has been comprehensively out thought, out played, and outmanoeuvred throughout the events in Eastern Europe, and have been schooled by Vlad the Unmentionable in virtually every discipline from Military strategy and tactics, Diplomacy, History, Economics and Statesmanship.
Pretty much the only lessons heading in the opposite direction, from West to East, are how “NOT” to do things.
While striving to remain objectively suspicious, how can I describe them, “the Non-Western Journalists” of the world have been given an eye opening “education”, where the conduct of Western Journalists has obliged their opposite numbers to recalibrate the dishonesty of the Western media. Such opinions were never very high to begin with, but there’s a very real sense that all rules, standards, and records have been broken. There ARE no rules.
Yes, of course it takes two to Tango, and only a fool would ignore history of Communist era deceptions and disinformation, but personally, I believe the Battle for hearts and minds was conceded when access to reporting was restricted in the West. Pro Ruskian outlets were shut down, while global observers via the internet have been able to witness Western propaganda being both broadcast freely, and typically, summarily demolished with contradictory evidence. And yes, I mean evidence.
Virtually nothing about the crisis in Yookraine has been reported fairly and objectively in West. The defeat probably hasn’t been as one sided as the defeat of Iraqi or Islamist forces by the Americans, but that is a misleading perspective considering the comparative nature of the fighting. Be under no doubt that the Ruskians took on, and roundly defeated, a potent AFU army trained and backed by NATO. To use the graphic vernacular, they didn’t just beat them, but fked them off the park.
There is an eerily familiar echo to the militarism, with all the high tech advanced modern weaponry coming unstuck when confronted with the crude resilience and obduracy of Ruskians fighting for Ruskia. (Before you say it, to them it IS Ruskia). It is objectively the truth that the Ruskian forces are now doing to Leopards what their grandfathers did to Tigers.
The Ruskians know their history. Their adversaries know their propaganda. And I mean, let’s not even mention the Transgender can of worms, and how that shit is going down in the trenches. FFS, let’s not even go there.
Such reverses as the Ruskian Army has suffered, such as the Nordstream 2, the blown up bridge into Crimea, or the Kakhovka Dam being destroyed, absolutely reek of Western “irregular warfare”, in some circumstances bordering on terrorist style suicide bombing. It is war without bravery.
Yes of course, no argument from me, that the drone attacks upon targets and infrastructure in Yookraine falls into the same category of cowardly and terror inducing attack. However, at least to a degree, the Ruskians do seem to be targetting infrastucture and storage capacity in an attempt to interdict NATO weapons and military personel on their way to the front. They’re saving their own lives.
But the point is, (see? I got to it eventually), for all the hubris, incompetence, disasterous strategic responses, and self inflicted damage of Economic Sanctions, not one single head has rolled. Not a single NATO General advisor has been sacked. Not a single bum has been removed from it’s seat. In fact, Ursula von der Leyen is in the running for promontion to become UN Secretary General. It’s actually insane. It’s all a game to these fkg people.
Right now, nobody is listening. Nobody wants to hear it. But perhaps there is a time coming when the world will be thankful for Vlad the Unmentionable’s restraint. Yes, I said restraint and meant it. Restraint that nearly led to him being deposed by is own Warhawks for NOT being aggressive enough. Maybe take a moment to think about that.
“IF” old Vlad got the heave-ho, and let’s speculate Wagner began to steamroller West to finish the job they should have finished in 1945, (their attitude, not mine). Exactly what would you use to stop them? Javelin missiles? HIMARs? Polish Krebs? Patriots? Leopard 2 Main Battle Tanks?
Sanctions? Didn’t work out so great, did they?
The ONLY thing the West should be launching are the long overdue Peace talks they should have started back in the 1990’s instead of their disingenuous Minsk “Agreements”. Don’t wait for the Americans or the Brits to hatch some “cunning plan”. Just do it for the sake of peace. Isolate and ostracise the shit stirrers.
What a bloody mess, and if we’re not careful, there will be a huge price to pay.
Jimuckmac.
Thanks for the link, von der Leyen was the German Defence minister for six years (2013/19) it was punctuated with with nepotism and incompetence.
She’s from the influential Brecht dynasty, Ursula is the daughter of Ernst Albrecht, a former German politician who was involved in the Celle Hole false flag operation. Anyway she is like certain Goldsmith’s destined (with lots of help) to rise to important positions she’s a well known Bilderbergers as well.
“For entertainment purposes only: The USA wants an EU leader as Secretary General as NATO will become the military wing of the EU once the USA decides to go after China”
Stuart Mackay.
After the fall of the Soviet Union/USSR, Nato had no remit they have to create fear among Europeans, a bogeyman if you like, Nato used DP shells in Bosnia/Kosovo and cluster bomb weapons, it was involved in Syria and Afghanistan, it even has its tentacles into South East Asia, its not as it describes itself a defensive organisation, its a warmongering group of nations led by the US.
link to declassifieduk.org
Breeks
Stick to your comfort zone and keep knocking out your “Thought For The Day” posts. At least with these, the reader might be able to convince himself you know a smidge about the subject matter.
Two nations, Breeks, a common border, the army of one nation over that border and knocking hell out of the other nation on the other nation’s territory.
Get yer fat, thick, lying, proto-senile heid aroond these facts.
“War without bravery”? WTF would you know?
@ Breeks
Right about now , the Drunk Mole Brothers will be furiously marshalling their collection of paper planes , elastic bullets – which never reach their intended targets , instead recoil back and lodge themselves in the club-feet of the shooters – Intercontinental water-pistols and all the lethally stupid weaponry at the disposal , with the Ramones ” Rocket To R****a ” on heavy rotation ,in an effort to shoot down your typically perspicacious comments .
” ONE ! TWO ! THREE ! FOUR ! cretins want to hop some more
Four-five-six-seven, all good cretins go to heaven
There’s no stoppin’ the cretins from hoppin’
You gotta keep it beatin’ for all the hoppin’ cretins “
“The defeat probably hasn’t been as one sided as the defeat of Iraqi ”
Good comment Breeks.
However as for the above, it was an illegal invasion of Iraq built on lies and deceit of Western nations, Nato had its HQ on the slaughter in Turkey where it ran the logistics in helping the West carry out the atrocities in the country, even today the US kills in Iraq, General Soleimani was murdered at an Iraqi airbase by the US without any recriminations from the so Hague.
Like Okinawa in Japan the Iraqi’s are getting seriously pissed off with the US and its military/political interference. Only recently a prominent and well respected Iraqi politician gave a speech in which he called for US forces to get out of Iraq.
Interestingly on the lack of any prosecution from the Hague of Blair and Bush over Iraq, the Malaysian courts found both men guilty of war crimes in an absentia trial
ROS
” Interestingly on the lack of any prosecution from the Hague of Blair and Bush over Iraq ….”
Of course , politicians in the West live consequence-free lives ; doesn’t matter how seriously n gravely they fuck-up , they never face even the slightest condemnation , never mind what they should face ie ….jail . In fact , not only are there never any penalties for the death n destruction the wreak on other countries , they go on to amass huge fortunes from their crimes , get to pontificate on global( ist ) forums and – most shocking of all – their opinions are sought and listened to when – inevitably – similar situations of conflict arise .
From Alex Salmond’s eulogy:
“Winnie never held office but you don’t have to hold high office to achieve something. Just as you can hold office and achieve nothing”.
I wonder who the second sentence was aimed at?
Breeks @ 10:43 on the 15th;
Absolutely excellent post, well done.
You had the idiot gammon Main spitting out his cornflakes within minutes.
Breeks;
Sorry, make that the 16th @ 9.45am!
Any updates on that “ticking clock” at Polis Sco’lan’?
John Main,
I understand that it’s important to start your argument from Feb 22 as it’s historically convenient for you just like it’s convenient to dismiss the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government as the catalyst for the present hostilities.
It is no secret that the West, primarily with the Uk and the US, engineered and choreographed the coup for their own interests.
You blab on (selectively) about one country invading another as if the Donbas regions had no right to self determination and no right to ask for help after enduring 8 years of ethnic cleansing according to Amnesty International.
I happen to think it would have been quite simple to allow the people of the Donbas to go their separate ways with a handshake and a pat on the back with no animosity whatsoever but that wouldn’t have suited the West, as they have now admitted the Minsk agreements were only a charade while they positioned themselves for war with Russ ia.
I have no doubt you don’t like these facts and will continue to ignore them, I may remind you from time to time.
@ Owen Mullions at 11.36: “Just as you can hold office and achieve nothing.”
Sturgeon was sitting there, having had the gall to attend. Do you think that she squirmed at that?
There were several points in both eulogies that Humza should have taken on board including Winnie’s 4 points on how Holyrood should conduct itself. At the end of the service, Alex had a few words with Humza – I hope Humza will shake off NS and revert to listening to Alex instead.
The singer was Julie Fowlis, as I expect everyone but me knew! Beautiful songs, beautifully sung. In Gaelic so perhaps not to the Revs taste though.
In 1991 Ukraine became independent. 92% of voters were in favour.84% turnout.
At that time 75% of Ukrainians identified themselves as ethnic Ukrainians, 25% as Russian.
UK researchers have monitored how people in Ukraine identify over time. More people identified as Ukrainian after 2014 when Putin invaded Crimea. More followed in 2019 when Zelensky said Ukraine wished to join the EU and NATO.More have become Ukrainian following the treatment of Ukraine by their invaders.
Russia’s invasion of 2014 was triggered by the parliament voting to remove Yankukovich as President.
In 2013 Yanukovich’s government suspended trade and association talks with the EU in November and chose to revive economic ties with Moscow, triggering months of mass rallies in Kyiv.
The protests, largely focused around Kyiv’s Maidan square, became violent. Dozens of protesters were killed.
In Feb 2014 the parliament voted to remove Yanukovich, who fled to Russia. Within days, armed men seized parliament in the Ukrainian region of Crimea and raised the Russian flag. Moscow annexed the territory after a March 16 referendum which showed overwhelming support in Crimea for joining the Russian Federation.
The referendum was not recognised by most countries and Russia has denied human rights abuses.
Aljazeera ran an article that likens the Russian occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk to North Korea with the closest control of the population and the use of torture.
In 1944 the Soviet Union deported around 200,000 ethnic Tatars from Crimea to Siberia.
Sarah – “Winnie’s 4 points on how Holyrood should conduct itself.”
I am now pessimistic for Scotland’s future under Holyrood. Whether it’s SNP or Labour, it doesn’t matter. The spirit of optimism and trust has been destroyed. I don’t think somehow that any of us really know how bad it is at Holyrood.
@Breastplate 12:49
I guess that if in your world, everything is the fault of the wicked west, what’s one more, eh?
Yup, Sleepy Joe & Boris forced P to attempt to annexe 404. The manipulative bastards.
Have to say though, if you truly believe that level of manipulation and string-pulling by our western elites is possible, best give up on Indy.
Maybe your Cringe is running you. If you are convinced that we Scots are powerless, then just for your own self-respect, you are going to have to convince yourself that nobody else has agency either.
Makes a change. The objections of the usual deplorables to the clear case of a sovereign, independent nation trying to repel a vicious imperialist aggressor seems to hinge on their perception that 404 fails the ideological purity test. They may well be a sovereign, independent nation, but they are not a good enough one. And thus they must be destroyed so the Scots Indy movement can dance around their funeral pyre.
Freedom!
But only for those they deem to be worthy.
@ Captain Yossarian: “..any of us really know how bad it is at Holyrood.”
I think the Rev knows and is doing his best to share the word but not getting help from MSM, as usual.
“how HR should conduct itself”
It’s a pointless talking shop that had the gall to force an unelected and unelectable nobody on the long suffering people of Scotland as their pretendy FM.
I don’t give a fuck how it conducts itself, and I won’t give a fuck until somebody has the guts and simple, old-fashioned integrity to start campaigning for a re-run of the flawed and fraudulent election process that resulted in HY strutting the world stage as pretendy Scottish leader.
It’s a travesty and a disgrace that simply screams out that we so-called Sovereign Scots are so insignificant and irrelevant that they can do anything they like to us.
And we will just suck it up.
Sarah @9:55 pm
If they were discussing the potential for scottish sharia to allow stoning of the prosecutors, in addition to keeping attempted rape allegators anonymous, it might help explain the hobsons choice*, from a religious perspective, at next holyrood election.
Ditto, and by extension, the outgoing police chief’s extraordinary claim about racism being rife in the civil service (shortly after his old boss had gotten on her knees to channel John Main/Colin Caeperniks demands to be shown the (cough) money, etc)
Robert Hughes
Epic! Although in truth current circumstances dictate that Nicola Sturgeon, like Ruth Davidson elsewhere, might be by far the best candidate for that job. Different circumstances might have seen a more appropriate role reversal but the silver lining for Sturgeon could maybe be having the recent 2 time hot favourite for UK PM as her lead spokesman/ bag carrier. 🙂
*unless and to extent Douglas Ross can benefit from an infeasible amount of second hand stardust in event Ruth Davidson brings home the rugby world cup.
Knowledge, it has been said, is power.
And rhetoric is what gives words power.
So a knowledge of rhetoric equips you, as a citizen, both to exercise power and to resist it:
The folding of the lie and the undoing of it are both accomplished through rhetoric.
Still not convinced? Let me try to persuade you.
Rhetoric was developed primarily for delivering speeches. Speeches designed to persuade an audience to side with the speaker’s argument.
Abraham Lincoln was a rhetorician, and American Presidents in general have been big fans of rhetoric at least since Lincoln’s time.
I’ve been playing around with speech writing and I thought it good fun to have a former American President deliver one I’ve written as an example in the use of rhetoric.
There are five parts to rhetoric, but for my speech I’m focusing on the second part, Arrangement.
In the Arrangement there are six areas: Exordium, Narration, Division, Proof, Refutation, and Peroration.
Not all of those areas are required in a speech and in my speech I’m only using Exordium, Narration and Division, and Peroration.
So, let’s imagine my speech is being delivered by Barrack Obama. An Obama who, this time, is rooting for an independent Scotland and is addressing a thronging crowd of indigenous Scots up on the hill – the Bannockburn hill, of course.
Bear in mind that reading a speech isn’t the same as watching it delivered by a speaker. Hand gestures, arm movements, head movements, tonal changes, tonal emphasis, facial expressions, and other devices are obviously missing. But if you can imagine an orator speaking aloud the words you are reading it will help give some idea of the speech’s potential impact on a listener.
Let’s set the scene.
It’s a warm summer’s day and the Sun is at full shine. Obama walks up to the podium. He is tall and slim and immaculate in his $2000 Dollar tailored suit. His hair is perfectly trimmed and his smile is whiter than fresh-fallen snow. He lifts a languorous arm and waves easily as if to an old friend. The hubbub dies down. The crowd settles into silent expectancy.
Obama speaks:
Speeches to the world made by American presidents generally take specialist speech-writers several weeks to prepare and are proof-read to the last period. They’re tested in front of groups of high-level Whitehouse staff long before they get anywhere close to a podium.
Why? Because words have power, and when you’re the most powerful person in the free world the words you speak in public require careful consideration – or at least they used to,
Oh, and if by any chance Barrack Obama reads the comments on WoS, I hope he doesn’t mind me putting my words in his mouth. Just having a bit of fun, Mr President.
The farce of the SNP
Candidate one:
Have you been investigated by the police? (Allegedly) Fecked off with over £600k? Lost yer party 70k members? Brought the party into disrepute? Fear not, we at the SNP are here to help. Have a bouquet of flowers, a heartfelt apology & you can keep yer job & yer property allegedly obtained by ill gotten gains.
Candidate two:
Have you had a rammy with an eejit at work that wasn’t your fault? Told a few home truths? Served yer constituents 18 yrs service? Were you Mis-sold an independence referendum? Been made to look a fool by the roaster known as Slater? Well you receive a suspension, yer membership revoked & you must leave the party with immediate effect. You’ve brought shame. We have standards & codes of conduct you know! Feck off & yer not coming back..
Btw, Angus has spoken out. Plan B & even writing to Mayhem for a section 30 himself who passed it on to Mundel to reply to. Also spoken out on twitter as well as various podcasts. Telling us a sec 30 *was for the birds* as far back as 2018 & totally exasperated of repeating the same failed plan hoping for a different outcome. Angus is a keeper, imo. Also ace at handling the media & as far as I know has never fluffed an interview & always has an answer. He should’ve been WM leader – instead we had whiney fckn Blackford for yrs. He’ll make an excellent leader of a political part & a future FM of Scotland, imo.
As for Cherry – well she’s doing it for the women, girls & gay rights at WM & those may not be indy but they are our most imminent threat in the here & now & is smashing it out of the park..
Also remember they’re elected to serve their constituents. Not serve the party with their fcked up policies adopted from another political party by Sturgeon.
Just my bobs worth..
The Scottish governments (SNP) quangos fleece the Scottish taxpayer of over £22 million quid in one year (2022).
link to archive.is
Let’s see.
UK**e voted for independence in 1991. 92% for. Turnout 84%.
Percentage identified as ethnic UK**e 75%. 25% identified as ROosh.
Over time, according to research in Manchester Uni those ethnic identifications have changed.
First in 2014. Then in 2019 and since Feb 2022. Many more now regard themselves as ethnic UK**e.Across all regions. Across linguistics.
What happened?
2013: Yanukovich’s government suspended trade and association talks with the EU in November and opted to revive economic ties with Moocow, triggering months of mass rallies in Ki vive.
2014: The protests, largely focused around Kyiv’s Maidan square, turned violent. Dozens of protesters were kissed.
February 2014: The parliament voted to remove Yanukovich, who fled to Roosh. Within days, armed men seize parliament in the Uk**en region of Comeea and raise the Roosh flag. Moocow annexed the territory after a March 16 referendum which showed overwhelming support in Comeea for joining the Roosh Federation.
Judging by subsequent events in territory occupied there might have been just a teensy weensy icky bit pressure on how to vote.
Aljazeera ran a piece on what was happening in where Don Bass and Lew Hansk were occupied. It is like North Korea it said, with the closest of eyes kept on the population. Theft, violins and torcher.
“For almost two years, he was incarcerated and torchered in these “cellars” until separatists swapped him and dozens of other prisoners in 2017.
Thousands of others were torchered and ab used in the “cellars”, according to rights groups and witnesses. The grave human rights abuses make Don Etsk and Lew hansk far worse than today’s Roosh, an international human rights advocate said.
“The cellars where prisoners are held in Don Etsk, and the widespread use of torcher, are among the most obvious human right issues,” said Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog group.”
There was no genocide by UK**e anywhere. That is a lie.
It looks to me that UK**e has been ecovering from the effects of colonisation for some time. Some drawn to the East, some to the West and inherited with its freedom a big pile of **it. Corruption, division. now, more united by an ill eagle invasion.
The big increase for support in joining the EU and NATO came in 2019 when Lee Zensky proposed the idea. It was called the Zee lensky effect though some here may call it the Glasgow effect Such is my grip on realty.
When they have as one voice denounced their oppressor
So many oppressors, so much selective denunciation, when the oppression is deemed “oppressive”, so much looking the other way, when the oppression suits the narrative that is being pushed.
BTW, not everybody shares your high regard for the saintly Obama, Northcode.
In face, given the hype that surrounded his anointing, the subsequent 8 years of non-delivery has tarnished any rep he ever had for good.
Divergent attitudes of Roosh and UK**e to one another is clearly visible in opinion polls. In 2008-2010, during the last three years of UK**e President Viktor Yushchenko’s term when relations were tense following Roosh in vasion of Georg ia on my mind, UK**e attempts to receive a Membership Action Plan at NATO’s Bucharest summit, and an ongoing Roosh-UK**e gas crisis, polls did not show a significant worsening of UK**e views of Roosh. Between 88 and 93 percent of UK**e held positive views of Roosh, with only 6-9 percent espousing negative views.
In contrast, during the same period, the percentage of Roosh holding positive views of UK**e plummeted from 55 to 34 percent. UK**E phobia in the Roosh media peaked during the second half of 2009, when UK**e expelled Roosh diplomats for promoting separatism and Roosh nationalist extremism and President Dmitri Medvedev responded with a threatening open letter to then President Viktor Yushchenko.
In 2010, with the election of Viktor Yanukovych, Roosh attitudes toward UK**e dramatically improved, doubling to a 70 percent approval rating. Yanukovych signed the Khar kiv Accords extending the Black Sea Fleet basing agreement to 2042, and UK**e adopted a ‘non-bloc’ foreign policy and changed its approach to national identity questions such as the Holodomor.
UK**e attitudes toward Roosh were stable until 2013, with positive attitudes ranging from 65 percent in the west to 93 percent in the east. These figures belied allegations of a Roosh phobic western UK**e; only twenty percent of the public there held negative views of Roosh.
Not surprisingly, the major shift in opinion took place after 2014. A major gulf in attitudes rose regarding Come ea, whose annexation was supported by 87 percent of Roosh and opposed by 69 percent of UK**e. In Roosh, both pro-Put it in supporters and anti-Put it in oppositionists like Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Khodorkovsky backed the annexation of Come ea. Seventy-nine percent of Roosh linked that action to the revival of Roosh as a great power and a return to Roosh rightful dominance of the former Sovi 8 Union.
Positive Roosh attitudes toward UK**e once again dramatically collapsed during the Euromaidan, which was portrayed in massive state-sponsored information campaigns as a West ern-backed coup bringing Roosh phobes and fash chests to power.
Beginning in spring 2014, UK**e attitudes toward Roosh begin to massively change—not because of any state-directed propaganda campaigns but in response to Put it in’s millie tary aggression. By mid-2014, positive views of Roosh had fallen to 52 percent. Put it in’s aggression has integrated UK**e and Roosh speakers by bringing the views of eastern and southern UK**es closer to those of central UK**es.
From “The Conversation”
The thing for me is trying to understand what type of person Nicola was when actually promotes a conspiracy to destroy Salmond or allowed it!!
We all know who did what but the conspiricy is protected by the police who seem to have been involved and it is protected by the courts by silencing any report or investigation.
Why why why would the establishment protect Nicola?
There can only be one reason in my opinion.
Having been in place so long the SNP will now be riddled with plants.
These are people whose job it is to undermine the case for independence, make fools of themselves providing good copy to the BBC and being promoted beyond their ability to insure the maximum level of incompetence is brought fully to bear. The blue haired brigade spring to mind.
I have stil to decide if the establishment is protecting Humza or just letting him tick over to the election when details of the Salmond conspiracy will be leaked causing maximum damage.
@Shug 4:37pm
I have a different explanation. Nobody was holding the Scottish Government and Nicola to account. Her MSPs,MPs, the MSM and even the Scottish Parliament with their deficient structure and procedural processes. If you want to think about the integrity of the Scottish Parliament think Linda Fabiani. Police Scotland are rightly taking their time in amongst World class diversion and non transparency. The truth will out and people are going to jail. Amen
@ Geri 2.36pm I presume your response was to my comment regarding Cherry , Forbes, Regan and Angus McNeil, I am aware of all the things that Angus has done and how outspoken he has been at times, but each time he has spoken out he then sat back down on his arse and did nothing, self preservation won out IMO , Cherry opposed prorogation and won then sat back down on her arse , no challenge to the COR or to the sovereignty of Scots, the only times I heard her speak about the GRR the priority was in regard to the threat against lesbains, the mention of females came with less priority
As for Forbes and Regan , Regan at least had her 5 mins of fame before sitting back down after the Useless (not my FM) was IMPOSED improperly and illegally on Scotland
Forbes has no integrity or honesty IMO she is just another neoliberal following the gravy bus
I enjoy your comments and your destruction of trolls but I despise liars and troughers who have sat back and allowed the deviant to sabotage independence causing unecessary pain and suffering to fellow Scots , that is my opinion
Republicofscotland says:
16 July, 2023 at 9:59 am
von der Leyen was the German Defence minister for six years (2013/19) it was punctuated with with nepotism and incompetence.
—————————
Broomsticks
So watched a TED talk by David Wengrow, an archaeologist who spoke about Tlaxcala, the state city where Cortez stayed and used them in his plan to conquer the lands of the americas. Apparently that city was very egalitarian. Well, the politicians there and the prospective politicians were regularly flogged and verbally abused as a method of reminding them who was in charge.
Just saying!
So Stu and this blog are merely keeping up centuries old traditions. Not the flogging!!
I’m posting this brief rhetorical analysis of my earlier ‘speech’ post separately because that post was getting to be on the long side.
Of course my ‘speech’ was deliberately way over-the-top, more of an unconvincing rant really, so that I could highlight how rhetoric is constructed.
All the Scots need to do is vote for independence using some kind of democratic mechanism. Not quite the same thing as the American revolution.
And I’m sure King Charles III isn’t nearly as bad as I made him out to be. I’ll be honest, that little bit in the middle of my speech about him, and England, was nicked.
It was actually part of the peroration of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Fourth of July address. Douglass (1818–95) was born into slavery in Maryland, but escaped to the North and became one of the most celebrated campaigners for abolition. He was having a go at America and its hypocrisy over slavery.
My effort at speech writing uses a number of rhetorical figures including: Anaphora (possibly Obama’s favourite figure), Litotes, rising and descending Tricolon, Alliteration, Personification, and Hyperbole.
It’s constructed like this:
First comes the Exordium. That’s where you make the audience receptive using one of a number of techniques, but mostly just getting your audience to think of you as one of them – hence ‘Obama’s’ references to Uncle Sam and ex presidents with a Scottish heritage and his own Scottish heritage.
Next comes the Narration. Narration is the who, what, when and where. That’s where you lay into your opponent, often with a bit of spin and hyperbole.
Finally comes the peroration. The peroration is where the speaker can really have fun. This is the opportunity to end on a twenty-one-gun salute, to move the audience to tears of pity or howls of rage, to wheel out your grandest figures and highest-sounding words (I think I might have failed here with my effort).
The peroration often uses figures of auxesis (a gradual increase in intensity) and repetition – frequently pulling together words or themes from earlier in the speech. This is where many orators will crank it up a wee bit in the direction of the grand style.
Of course my rhetorical breakdown is at best very basic. It can get a lot more complex and intricate but I’ve given you the bare bones of rhetorical construction.
And lastly, I apologise for my poor attempt at speech writing. I suspect there won’t be much in the way of career opportunities in that discipline for me.
But I hope at least I’ve given some idea of how powerful rhetoric can be and how we should always take the speeches we hear and the literature we read with a pinch of salt – at least until we’re sure of their validity.
Is there a statute of limitation, for treason?
Does the clock start ticking, from the date of the supposed IndyRef2?
Asking for a friend, of Scotland United.
@ Northcode 11.09pm TBQH northcode I enjoyed your previous speech irrespective of certain others efforts to demean and denigrate your work,I wouldn’t worry about their criticism I have yet to see any positivity in their comments which is a pity as some of their previous exhortations were bordering on lucidity
FINLAND have just finished building the largest cruise ship ever built. (Icon of the Seas).
It’s massive, yet here in Scotland we can’t even complete the construction of a car ferry for the Ardrossan to Brodick sailing.
What the fuck has happened to our once proud shipbuilding tradition?
link to unilad.com
@Northcode
I’m sure that I spotted a hendiadys in there.
Northcode
No need to apologise for the length of your previous post.
Very few, like me, would read to the end, anything that you produce.
@ Northcode
I agree with Twathater’s comment below your last , above .
Your fictional speech is a fine one . Too fine to ever be uttered by the collection of feeble mirror-gazing narcissists that comprise this generation of politicians
@twathater 2:23
You sure? Even NC later admits it was an “unconvincing rant”.
Maybes change yer handle to “twatneutral” then.
Northcode, ignore the smug entitled bastard.
I wonder who’ll claim the title of “smug entitled bastard”
Quite hard to find this so the sound is not the best but check out the insanity that is being taught to kids and the madness that is going on in schools as a result.
Of course Nicola gets an honorary mention…
People identifying as cats, other animals etc etc…
youtube.com/watch?v=pPz4f-Q7D3g
The fact they are trying to destroy this guy Andrew Tate (Assange style, Salmond style) is very telling, very revealing.
This is a guy who should not even be on their radar but he clearly is considered a serious ‘threat’.
Listen to what he has to say…
youtu.be/uAbERCAe9iI
He also provides a lot of clues and insights into what has been done to young men (in the west) and more importantly why, and what ‘woke’ ideologies are really intended to achieve…
It’s safe to say, the Scottish National Party has played a significant part in undermining any faith the Scottish electorate had in politics.
As far as I’m concerned, immanent elections have absolutely no bearing on pursuit of self-determination, by the general public.
Politicians are now almost irrelevant, except for future court proceedings, as respondents to legal action for misrepresentation of our right to self-determination!
**What the fuck has happened to our once proud shipbuilding tradition?**
Tories.
War wankers.
When the rest of the world was making a killing with the lucrative explosion of luxury liners Thatcher had Scotland churn out death & destruction ships.
@twathater. Thanks, tawathater. Much appreciated.
@Robert Hughes. Thanks for the compliment, Robert. Again, much appreciated.
@Dorothy Devine – 🙂
The paratactic @Oneliner – at least one Hendiadys, and a couple of Transferred Epithet, too.
@twathater.
Apologies twathater. Just noticed I misspelled your moniker.
This:
Thanks, tawathater.
Should be this:
Thanks, twathater.
“What the fuck has happened to our once proud shipbuilding tradition?”
Sadly, folk have now been asking that question for 50 years. The tories (red and blue) decided to put everything on a shiny, globalist future, where everything of any value was outsourced around the world (cheap labour) and London made a mint out of laundering the world’s dirty money. Easy money. Home manufacturing was too much like hard work. Investment? Why bother? Worked a treat – for a while.
Well, now with the Brexit hangover and BRICS kicking in, we are in a very different world. Globalism is off the agenda (some deluded fools think it is still going to happen) and even the dirty money is going elsewhere. Those countries that sold off the family silver in a hurry and banked everything on a global economy (essentially the west, led enthusiastically by the US and it’s UK puppet) are now seriously screwed. Folk’s this ain’t going to end well. Empires rarely go quietly.
I have to believe the Salmond trial will be exposed for what is was in the run up to the next election and there will be much focus on:
Woman H and an issue of perjury and the pay off.
A failed Scottish legal system that appears to be protecting the guilty and persecuting anyone writing about it unless from an authorised position.
A media that failed to challenge and the reasons for that failure will be presented as ‘but they told us!!’
The SNP senior team (all MPs MSPs and officers) who could see what was going on and stayed silent.
Senior officers in the government who failed in their responsibility will of course have been following their minister’s instructions.
Now I don’t expect our unionist media to expose all of this but I do expect they will focus on the conspiracy and failure of the SNP, making it entirely the fault of the party making it a dead parrot in the election.
I see no point in supporting the party any further as they have been well and truly goosed by Nicola and her team incompetents.
What a sad end to a great party
Ron Clark
6.44
The Finns honed their shipbuilding skills through paying WW11 reparations to the USSR. Then they made their name building ice breakers and developed Nokia mobile phones. Now it’s cruise ships. They’re independent and they’re imaginative.
According to Col Douglas MacGregor the blue/yellow deaths are at 350,000 with a similar number severely injured, platoon-sized desertions/surrenders, mounting anger against Zelen*** etc.
Supporting this evil dwarf and his minions is unforgivable. Angus MacNeil should get that flag off his Twitter handle immediately.
21stcenturywire.com/2023/07/16/col-douglas-macgregor-odessa-and-kharkiv-fall-under-russian-control-and-authority/
Northcode
Your didactic posts on rhetoric are always a welcome feature of Wings.
I wonder, could you do one about adianoeta? I learned that term recently. It would be good to have your take on it sometime. Of course you may have posted about it before.
Humans Yousaf’s garden shed submersible, offering folk the opportunity to view the wreck of IndyRef2. All that’s required is an ‘X’ on the ballot paper, for SNP.
Any takers?
Got a feeling, it could be a one way ticket.
@Ian Brotherhood says:17 July, 2023 at 12:14 pm
Not long to go now before Scots Indy can really break out the celebratory bunting, eh Ian?
Do make sure do tell us beforehand exactly what we will all be celebrating, there’s a good chap.
Some of us Sovereign Scots can’t quite see how our own Scottish independence and freedom from colonialist imperialism is going to be enhanced by a stunning victory for oppressive, militarist, colonialist imperialism just the other side of Europe.
Fucks sake, some of us are so dense we can’t even see how Scottish aspirational EU/EFTA membership is helped by an existentialist threat to the EU. What are we like, eh? Too fucking stoopid, honestly it’s embarrassing that you will have to step in and teach us.
So, Ian, me auld mucker, take some time out from your celebratory dancing around the funeral pyre of yet another sovereign, independent nation and culture to explain why we must all join in.
Beauvais @12:25pm
Thanks, Beauvais. Nice of you to say so.
I will lose no time in reading your next post. 🙂
Adianoeta, as you obviously know, is a figure that has an overt meaning and an unsuspected hidden one beneath. It’s an interesting figure and I haven’t written about it on WoS before, although I might have used it in some of my posts.
Happy to oblige you with my take on it if you want. I’ll put something together soon.
Northcode
Thanks Northcode. I shall look forward to reading it.
From “YOURS FOR SCOTLAND A blog by Iain Lawson”.
Reproduced from an Iain MacWhirter article published originally in The Times. It deserves a wide audience in Scotland as the process described in my headline still has some distance to travel.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
It’s a rather fine, perceptive piece of writing.
@Brian Doonthetoon says:17 July, 2023 at 1:26 pm
That’s a great article, thanks for the link.
@BDTT: I have just commented adversely on McWhirter failing again to point out that the allegations v Alex Salmond were perjured e.g. the “attempted rape” of a woman who wasn’t there!
Ian B .
As anyone who watched the Scott Ritter video you posted the other day SHOULD realise , Agent Z is so mired in corruption and deceit , his role as the US’s glove-puppet means he will sacrifice any amount of his countrymen – indeed the totality of the country – in the desperate effort to preserve his own worthless skin . Even if it means bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war , or over that brink .
People need to remember , the likes of Agent Z , the ” tactical nuclear strikes ” fantasists in and around the White House / Pentagon and the rabid profit-at-any-human-cost dogs of the MIC are psychopaths ; morally , spiritually & psychologically depraved beyond remedy . They must be stopped before they precipitate the destruction of us all
“According to Col Douglas MacGregor the blue/yellow deaths are at 350,000…”
According to Reuters,reporting on the above claims, “Reuters has not been able to independently verify the documents and some countries, including Roosh and UK**e, have questioned their veracity, while U.S. officials say some of the files appear to have been altered…
…According to an assessment collated by the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency, Roosh has suffered 189,500-223,000 total casualties, including 35,500-43,000 ki*led in action and 154,000-180,000 wounded.
UK**e has suffered 124,500-131,000 total casualties, including 15,500-17,500 ki*led in action and 109,000-113,500 wounded in action, according to the document entitled “Roosh/UK**e – Assessed Wombat Sustainability and Attrition.””
Sorry to disappoint you, Ian, the UK**e soldiers’ deaths are not as high as you thought.
As to the “evil dwarf”, Lee Zensky, he seems well regarded in his own country. One wonders if his countrymen and women know more about him than others.
Political scientists from Manchester University (who know nothing, of course, being academics) are quoted in The Conversation.
“In their recent book, The Ze***sky Effect, political scientists Olga Onuch and Henry E. Hale argue the president emphasises the unity of all UK**e and expresses a civic national identity that is shared by the overwhelming majority of his fellow citizens.
This means that UK**es’ main loyalty is to the state rather than to a region, a language or a religion. According to an August 2022 opinion poll carried out by the Ki viv International Institute of Sociology, 85% of UK**es consider themselves to be citizens of UK**e rather than being from the eastern or western regions of the country, Roosh speakers or UK**e speakers, Christian or Jewish.
But while Ze***sky’s emphasis on UK**e civic national identity helps to explain his ability to connect with his own citizens, it does not explain the popularity of UK**e’s president abroad. Here, too, shared values are the key…”
The brotherhood gathered together today united in their belief of the pure evil of UK**e should first check their sources.
In particular, the past convictions of Mr Ritter, much admired by some.
@Robert Hughes says:17 July, 2023 at 1:54 pm
They must be stopped
A clarion call to action from Bob. Postpone cooking your tea until this is sorted out.
Mystifying why Bob is addressing this to me auld mate Ian though. Hardly any time since Ian was posting on here about the need to keep all intentions quiet from now on.
Don’t tell them they are going to be stopped, Pike!
@sam says:17 July, 2023 at 3:20 pm
it does not explain the popularity of UK**e’s president abroad. Here, too, shared values are the key…
An innarestin assessment.
Maybes shared values are the key to the usual deplorables’ continuing rabid enthusiasm for the Orcs too.
Luckily, their warped and perverted shared values are a million miles away from the shared values of the majority of decent Scots. Decent Scots may well be split approx 50-50 on Indy, but we can all recognise another Sovereign Nation fighting mightily for its independence, freedom, culture and language against a vicious, colonialist, invading, occupying empire.
And thus we can nearly all be on the right side of history with this one.
Usual deplorables excepted.
Robert Hughes.
The Black Sea Grain Deal ended today, well the last grain filled ship left yesterday. The reason the deal wasn’t extended beyond today was that the West/UN/EU/404 didn’t live up to the end of the deal so the RF cancelled it.
Soon the price of grain will rise, however more worryingly millions of people living in Third World nations will feel the pinch, or even starve as they won’t be able to meet the new costs of buying the grain.
Unsurprisingly whilst the deal was in motion the the majority of the grain found itself on its way to Europe, and not to countries that needed it more.
@sam (3.20) –
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Ian, the UK**e soldiers’ deaths are not as high as you thought.’
If that’s the best you can do you must be a bit thick as well as a nasty-minded cunt.
Brian Doonthetoon – I read that and it is very encouraging. I have been dealing with Holyrood for the past 7-years, the Labour Party, and they are putrid. They were described so by a very mild-mannered guy who was an expert in the field of law. So, the Labour Party is putrid and I accept that. Are the SNP better, or are they even worse? What I have noticed over the past 10-years is that Parliament has been hollowed-out until there is nothing left. Questions are asked and never get answered. Ditto the civil-service (some of whom are no better than gangsters), the law and the Police. I really hope we are turning a corner here and the Police lead the way. I regret saying this and I know that I am inviting opprobrium in return, but Scotland was described as resembling a banana republic several years ago and that was not far wrong.
The answer? All at Westminster agreed that Boris Johnson was a liar and corruption was starting to hang about him like a bad smell. So, they dumped him. They didn’t defend him or send him flowers or anything like that, they just sacked him. That method of cleaning out the stables should come here too.
If only Salmond had stuck around these past 10-years, this would have been an entirely different country and I don’t think many would disagree with that. The trouble is, it takes a long time to build a strong bedrock of support, but once you start to lose it, and lose trust and public confidence, it is very, very difficult to get it back again.
Anyway, if anyone thinks the Labour Party are the answer to anything – forget it. Perhaps Holyrood as a respected institution just needs a bullet in the head?
@Ian Brotherhood says:17 July, 2023 at 4:20 pm
If that’s the best you can do you must be a bit thick as well as a nasty-minded cunt
Aw Ian, brave face an that.
And remember hearts and minds. You’re trying to convert decent Scots to supporting the genocide of a free and independent nation and culture. Simply spouting expletives won’t do that.
And if you’re worrying your bunting won’t keep, dinna fash, that stuff is good for years.
sam says:
17 July, 2023 at 3:53 pm
” The brotherhood gathered together today united in their belief of the pure evil of UK**e should first check their sources.
In particular, the past convictions of Mr Ritter, much admired ”
Don’t know if yr being deliberately provocative or just thick , but there is no ” brotherhood ” and fuck-off with conflating the people of Uk rain with the targets of our condemnation ie …the despicable leaders they’re currently cursed with .
And good try with the attempted smearing of Scott Ritter , dig a little deeper and you’ll find the truth of what happened to him for being a thorn in the side of the Deep State . Besides which , shooting the messenger is the last resort of those who can’t face facts
@Republicofscotland says:17 July, 2023 at 4:13 pm
Ah ken fit ye mean RoS. One hard-done-by imperialist aggressor invaded and is destroying a former colony, and it’s the former colony’s bastarding fault it can’t get its produce shipped to market through the ports under the control of the imperialist aggressor.
It’s a crying shame how the MSM twists everything to make it look like the imperialist aggressor is at fault.
BTW, couldn’t you do with shedding a few pounds? Free up a bit grain for those countries that need it more?
“You’re trying to convert decent Scots to supporting the genocide of a free and independent nation and culture”
You have no moral high ground on this one.
You mean like the Azov, Kraken and Aider battalions were doing in the Donbas for eight years whilst the UN looked on and did nothing.
@Captain Yossarian says:17 July, 2023 at 4:29 pm
Perhaps Holyrood as a respected institution just needs a bullet in the head?
The incumbents of HR knew that the election process that put HY in place as SNP leader was deeply flawed and mired in illegality.
But the incumbents of HR went ahead and elected him FM anyway.
By doing so, they showed that they don’t care about the law, they don’t care about appearances, and they don’t care how the reputation of Scotland looks to the rest of the world.
They don’t care about handing ammunition to Scotland’s enemies, because any legit politician facing and negotiating with HY will know he is a fraud, and thus in a weakened position.
And they certainly don’t care about us ordinary Scots.
Sadly, I think the root of it all is that we ordinary Scots don’t care, and from that, everything else flows.
Ever seen any #NOT MY FM banners? Naw, me neither.
@ Ron clark “What the fuck has happened to our once proud shipbuilding tradition”
Having worked as an outside contractor in most of the Scottish shipyards I can tell you that most of them suffered from the greedy bastard attitude of “Give us the fuckin money owners” but don’t ask us to reinvest profit in new tooling to make the job easier and quicker,and when they tried competing with other countries their cheaper labour costs, lower wages and conditions, lack of health and safety won out and the large yard owners just shut the doors
“Ian Brotherhood says:
17 July, 2023 at 4:20 pm
@sam (3.20) –
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Ian, the UK**e soldiers’ deaths are not as high as you thought.’
If that’s the best you can do you must be a bit thick as well as a nasty-minded cunt.”
Deflection there, Ian. Just telling you the figures you quoted can’t be verified by a reputable source and also are not regarded by US Defence Intelligence as accurate.
If you are not going to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong why mention the UK**e losses in the first place and why the petulant reaction rather than admitting the possibility of being wrong.
It’s not so long ago that you were thanking me for providing you with information. Now I provide you with information that looks to be more accurate than that in your post and you go ape.
@Robert Hughes
“fuck-off with conflating the people of Uk rain with the targets of our condemnation ie …the despicable leaders they’re currently cursed with”
Generally populations do understand their leaders pretty well and it is indisputable that now that particular leader has approval ratings of over 90%. A reasonable person might think it useful to take account of those ratings and the wisdom of the population in deciding what is “despicable” about that leader.
Mr Ritter does have convictions. According to the BBC, “Scott Ritter has been found guilty of unlawful contact with a minor following an online sex sting operation.
Ritter, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, had a sexually graphic online chat in 2009 with an undercover police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl named Emily.”
He is your source. The only one?
Sigh, still waiting for John Main to link back to just one of his previously expressed concerns about Yoocrane on the run up to and during Euromaiden.
He seems to spend so much time posting on the internet pontificating about stuff it shouldn’t be too hard for him to provide a solitary link back to a comment around 2014 and long before “the war” kicked off when people were being blown to bits.
C’mon John, Show me a comment!
Luigi @ 11:44 am
“What the fuck has happened to our once proud shipbuilding tradition?”
The fact is we do not educate enough of our own people to design and build ships, or much else it seems. For many years our universities have mostly employed and educated people from other countries and cultures to do such things elsewhere, and to do most of our thinking for us.
John Main – I’m inviting more opprobrium but I can remember a succession of Secretaries of State for Scotland. Each was honest and accountable and that meant the civil-service worked, law worked, education, health and the Police all worked fine. In fact, they worked better than they worked in England. When that strong leadership is removed, and replaced by 10-years of Sturgeon and Swinney, all the things that we rely upon become tainted by bias and cannot be trusted any longer. We will see what the conclusions from Operation Branchform are, but a continuation of the last 10 years of Holyrood malfeasance will not be acceptable to many, probably not to most of us. It has totally failed, hasn’t it.
O/T
Don’t usually bother with social media but I’ve been spending a lot of time on YouTube lately.
I’ve noticed quite a few adverts from the Scottish Labour branch highlighting. They are not promoting their policies but highlighting the SNP financial investigation and other scandals involving the party.
I have no doubt that these adverts will be on other social media platforms.
Leaving aside the glaring fact that the unionist branches in Scotland can lean on their London paymasters for financial assistance that the SNP can never dream of having, it looks like Labour is going all in to get more Westminster seats here.
It is hardly surprising that the SNP Westminster MP’s are doing their best to either find alternative careers or finding ways of keeping their seats.
@sam (5.08) –
I hope for your sake that you are a 77er or suchlike because if your comments today are sincerely held personal opinions then you are sick in the head.
I shouldn’t have called you a cunt and it won’t happen again – I won’t be responding to anything else you post here and would be grateful if you could have the decency to do likewise, unlike Main who grabs every opportunity to proffer his unsolicited bilge.
The red tory branch manager in Scotland Anas Sarwar makes up a pathetic excuse to defend his millionaire knight of the realm boss.
“ANAS Sarwar has made a ridiculous excuse for Labour’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap – claiming that changing the policy would risk a repeat of the disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget.
The Scottish Labour leader claimed there were fears of repeating the financial mismanagement imposed by Truss and then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, which saw inflation rise, the pound collapse and a hike to mortgage interest rates.”
Captain Yossarian @ 5:31 pm
“I can remember a succession of Secretaries of State for Scotland. Each was honest and accountable and that meant the civil-service worked, law worked, education, health and the Police all worked fine”
Aye, Younger, Rifkind, Forsyth and Lang etc were aw jist pure deid brilliant, so they were! Mass unemployment, de-industrialisation, discounted giveaway of public utilities, financial deregulation, the PFI scam, poll tax, and plunder of our resources “all worked fine” – as did Westminster’s propensity to drag Scotland into its numerous illegal and costly military conflicts.
The Scottish Tories deceit and abject failure led to Scotland becoming a ‘Tory Free Zone’. New Labour’s Devolved assembly offered Scots a wee bit hope but as we’ve now discovered its just a colonial administration which hauds doun the people and protects the colonizer’s interests, a hauf wey hoose at best.
Fowk cannae ser twa maisters and that is the SNP’s downfall in trying to manage a colonial administration run by civil servants and institutions whose allegiance is to an anti-independence British state; the outcome of that ‘model’ is entirely predictable.
I don’t have much hope, any, that Operation Branchform will result in prosecutions of those who deserve it. COPFS has permitted prosecutions of clearly innocent parties – Mark Hirst and Alex Salmond, for example – and I can’t see them suddenly pursuing justice instead.
Iain MacWhirter’s article refers to rumours within the SNP about charges being imminent in Operation Branchform case. Can anyone else see a change of heart in COPFS? I hope for but doubt it.
@Ian Brotherhood says:17 July, 2023 at 6:09 pm
unlike Main who grabs every opportunity to proffer his unsolicited bilge
Early onset senility Ian? Maybes get that checked out?
Or just lies. Alert readers will note the first post of unsolicited bilge from yourself at 12:14 today.
Completely irrelevant, completely off topic, completely unsolicited.
And complete bilge.
Anyways, Ian, me auld pal, I’m glad its the lying thing and not the senility thing.
Maybes keep to Rev Stu’s rules in future, eh? There’s a good chap.
“Ian Brotherhood says:
17 July, 2023 at 6:09 pm
@sam (5.08) –
I hope for your sake that you are a 77er or suchlike because if your comments today are sincerely held personal opinions then you are sick in the head.”
I shouldn’t have called you a cunt and it won’t happen again – ”
Still deflecting I see. Not willing to admit the possibility of being wrong?
You’ve called me in your previous post “thick” as well as a cunt. Now you say I’m sick in the head, conditionally of course. I have to be believing what I post. Or be a 77er. Is that ageist?
Would you withdraw the remark about being “sick in the head” if I said I don’t ever mean what I say?
Did you know that phrase, “sick in the head” is identified in medical research literature as derogatory towards people with mental health problems? Use of it among the young is an obstacle towards those with mental health problems seeking help. Youngsters get such derogatory language from the media and parents.
You only mentioned deaths of soldiers. You might have mentioned deaths of civilians. Of course, those are overwhelmingly from one country.
And you were only interested in one country?
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified a total of 9,177 civilian deaths as of June 30, 2023. Furthermore, 15,993 people were reported to have been injured. However, OHCHR specified that the real numbers could be higher.
One great thing that Anas Sarwar has going for him is that the election that made him SLab leader wasn’t a fraud.
At some point I expect every opposition party campaigning in Scotland to “remember” that HY only got where he is due to that flawed and fraudulent SNP leadership election process.
That was the behaviour of a party with a collective suicide wish.
Michael Forsyth’s mother, or maybe his sister, was a school teacher and so took an interest in education and managed it in conjunction with the Councils and Unions and kept it on a steady course. Same for policing, law, the health service and all the rest of it. That’s the point I was making. Now, after 25-years of devolution, it is all in a mess. As far as PFI goes, England dropped that 6 or 8 years ago. Scotland still uses it to build everything (some of it quite badly, I would add). That’s why we are constantly complaining we don’t have enough money. A lot went wrong pre-Devolution and I agree with you on of that, or most of it, but a lot has gone wrong in the last 25-years here too, hasn’t it. It’s been a missed opportunity – can we agree on that?
What the English parliament thinks of the UN’s 24-SCD.
“Defying the UN over the Falklands
The UN’s 24-country Special Committee on Decolonisation — its principal body addressing issues concerning decolonisation — has repeatedly called on the UK government to negotiate a resolution to the dispute over the status of the Falklands. In its latest call, in June 2019, the committee approved a draft resolution “reiterating that the only way to end the special and particular colonial situation of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) is through a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom”.
The British government consistently rejects these demands. Last year, it stated:
“The Decolonisation Committee no longer has a relevant role to play with respect to British Overseas Territories. They all have a large measure of self government, have chosen to retain their links with the UK, and therefore should have been delisted a long time ago.”
In 2016, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf issued a report finding that the Falkland Islands are located in Argentina’s territorial waters.”
Yet.
“Between 1966 and 1968, the UK government had been engaged in secret negotiations with Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falklands.
The BBC revealed in the late 1990s that the two countries signed an agreement in 1968 stating the UK “will recognise Argentina’s sovereignty over the Islands from a date to be agreed” while “duly taking into account the interests of the population of the Islands”.”
The first link makes a compelling case that the UK, though the English government makes the final decisions is a rogue state.
link to markcurtis.info
link to declassifieduk.org
Sarah – I understand that at least one other outside agency is involved, so it’s not just Police Scotland and the COPFS. I’m therefore optimistic that the correct arrest(s) will be made. I have absolutely no inside knowledge by the way.
I know Scott Ritter he is a very good man. Like so many critics of the Establishment they set him up with sexual accusations. He was not interacting with a minor, he was interacting with a FBI operative playing the role of a schoolgirl.
Scott maintains he knew it was an adult and it was a roleplay game. I believe him. What is not in dispute is that it was in fact an adult.
The honey trap operation occurred after Scott, a US Marine officer seconded to be a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, blew the whistle on the lies about Iraqi WMD. The parallels with Assange, Salmond and other threats to the Establishment are obvious.
I don’t agree with much of what Scott writes on Russia but that is irrelevant.
I also know and like Iain MacWhirter, but he has rather been pandering to the Spectator and Times since leaving the Herald. He knows very well the truth about the Salmond accusations but elides this in his work for new paymasters.
I was trying to think of the image that captures the Sturgeon years best.
For me it is a toss-up between:
1. Painted-on windows on the Glen Sannox
2. Classroom doors cut-off at the bottom (Have tried to find out through FOI if any actually were but “ScotGov does not keep records”).
3. A cardboard box for newborn babies box (that does not work).
We desperately need Branchform to seer these into the electorate’s conciousness to ensure that no Sturgeon-like cult is ever permitted to form again.
Well, at least not until the next time.
Captain Yossarian @ 7:11 pm
“but a lot has gone wrong in the last 25-years here too, hasn’t it. It’s been a missed opportunity – can we agree on that?”
Most Scots suffer from a lack of opportunity (hence also historic excessive out-migration) and are unable to benefit from their own resources. A colonial country and people is always under-developed for that is the inevitable result of its economic plunder and cultural obliteration. It matters less whether external rule is direct or indirect, the main decisions are still made elsewhere.
@Republicofscotland says:17 July, 2023 at 7:19 pm
The relevance of your ferret onto the sovereignty of the Falkland Isles eludes me, but maybes you could answer a simple question.
Has the bastarding English government told Argentina that they regard the Falklands as English and that any attempt to attack them will be met with a nuclear response?
Haha, just my little joke.
Here’s a wee quote from those bastarding liars at Wiki:
“A referendum on political status was held in the Falkland Islands on 10–11 March 2013. The Falkland Islanders were asked whether or not they supported the continuation of their status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom in view of Argentina’s call for negotiations on the islands’ sovereignty.
On a turnout of 92%, 99.8% voted to remain a British territory, with only three votes against. Had the islanders rejected the continuation of their current status, a second referendum on possible alternatives would have been held. Brad Smith, the leader of the international observer group, announced that the referendum was free and fair and executed in accordance with international standards and international laws.”
Sovereign Falklanders, eh? No, don’t tell us, it’s the wrong sort of sovereignty, or it fails to pass your self-imposed ideological purity test.
Sovereign Falklanders right enough. They wouldn’t see you or others who think like you in their road.
Alf – About 50% of my family support the SNP. I’m fairly ambivalent about it all to be honest. That said, I enjoy the posts here and some people have good ideas which, in my opinion too, centre around energy – oil, gas, wind and all the rest of it. My party used to be Labour but they are no good and so I am content to be vote-less. I remember the Salmond years at Holyrood and I was content that the country had a course, or a direction, and there was a basic honesty about him. If that had continued for another 5 or 10 years the Nationalist movement may have been unstoppable. There is an undeniable underlying force and justification for it but, in my opinion anyway, the Nationalists we have now aren’t really Nationalists and that’s the real tragedy.
Scots engineers have always worked overseas, I was one of them, but that is just because we trained so many and the money overseas was better. I wasn’t chased abroad because I was starving or couldn’t find work here. I used to work with another Scot on the edge of the Sahara in Africa. He used to play golf in the sand after work every day.
Viscount Ennui @ 19.42
Perhaps the image of the “private” former First Minister calling a press conference to announce that she was making no comment and that “she was convinced she had committed no offence”.
Laugh ? I was almost tempted to go out and stand a round for everyone.
@ Viscount Ennui
IIRC btl commenter Shug had collated a list of stand out failures.
But aye, that door saga was certainly a fine example of the epic fuckwittery we’ve witnessed.
“Nicola Sturgeon has defended plans to cut the bottom off some school classroom doors to improve ventilation as “basic common sense”.”
link to bbc.co.uk
I’m not First Minister (yet), but I like to think (without listening to input from a crapshoot of taxpayer funded bullshit special advisors) that I could garner more support from across the Scottish public for my basic common sense idea which was to just open the fucking doors a bit during times when increased room ventilation was required.
Building regulations acknowledge door aperture sizes are important for a myriad reasons, and they really shouldn’t be fucked with off the back of some batshit crazy lunatics’ suggestions.
Door dimensions marries well with my other headline manifesto position of ensuring that no less than 90% of slices in a bread loaf should actually fit properly in a toasty machine.
Elect me and no Scots bairns will endure drafty classrooms when there are no colds or flus doing the rounds, and no Scots will suffer the pain of third degree molten cheese burns from improperly sealed toasties.
Main.
“Argentina’s government is celebrating a decision by a UN commission to expand its maritime territory in the South Atlantic Ocean by 35% to include the disputed Falkland islands and beyond.
The Argentine foreign ministry said its waters had increased by 1.7 million square km (0.66 million square miles) and the decision will be key in its dispute with Britain over the islands. Argentina lost a brief, bloody 1982 war with Britain after Argentinian troops seized the South Atlantic archipelago that Latin Americans call the Malvinas.
The UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf sided with Argentina, ratifying the country’s 2009 report fixing the limit of its territory at 200 to 350 miles from its coast.”
I found this reply to above by the English government very enlightening in a hypocritical sense.
“The British government says islanders cannot be forced to accept Argentinian sovereignty against their will.”
Putting Scotland’s position aside for a moment with the above in mind, one wonders what the Chaggossians would make of that statement
Of course UK oil companies are making a fortune from oil found in Argentine territorial waters, under the guise that the Falkland island are cough cough British.
link to polarjournal.ch
Sam,
I think you will find that the Russ Ian government will lie to its people, the Uk rainian government will lie to its people and our Governments (both of them) will lie to us.
So how do we find out the truth? Unfortunately the answer is we don’t, the best we can do is collect information from different (unconflicted) sources as sources funded by governments and their agencies are compromised by said funding.
I have already explained this to John Main but it suits him to believe what he wants and I’m guessing if you’re willing to believe liars, you will certainly have a comfortable world view through your rose, white and blue coloured spectacles.
I noticed that you replied to my facts the other day about country 404 by typing off somebody else’s opinion on the matter, I often find that this is the crux of any problem we have as a country. Too many people buy an opinion from one of the daily rags or adopt an opinion from the BBC or whatever channel is spewing forth the government narrative, all because they can’t form an opinion themselves.
Of course, you are entitled to believe whatever you want but I would like to ask you one question.
In what way would your life be affected by the people of the Donbas making their own decisions?
I can’t envisage any negative effect in my life at all through their independence but if they were left in peace in 2014, there would be a lot less dead people.
Perhaps you see things differently or perhaps you have to phone a friend first to get an opinion.
Craig Murray,
Yes, it always seems important to some to play the man and not the ball.
“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
John Main,
Regarding the Falklands, in the event of Scottish independence, would they continue to see themselves as British? I have no idea.
Surely this would create a bit of an identity crisis unless British actually means English.
@Breastplate says:17 July, 2023 at 8:47 pm
If we accept there are two sovereign nations, sharing a common border, then one of these nations is a good bit over the shared border on the other nation’s territory.
It “suits me” to believe this. Not only is the lie in the MSM, it is in all the “alternative” news sources the deplorables like to cherry pick from when it suits them.
It “suits me” to believe that borders should be respected as an ultimate principle of international relations, not the least because I dearly wish for the borders of my own nation, Scotland, to be respected and held sacrosanct.
BTW, bad timing with your post. Immediately above, RoS is claiming that what the inhabitants of any area of the world’s surface actually want is irrelevant. Tough for the Dons U Bass, eh?
To be fair, tough for the UK rainy folks too, but fortunately, we can discount every wibble RoS writes, as if taken seriously, it would end all hope for Scots Indy. Tough for us, eh?
Not to mention world peace.
Anyways, as you pointed out, it’s all lies. The cluster munitions, the nuclear sabre rattling, the mass graves, the drone attacks, the existence of the big bridge, the sinking of the big ship, the n@zis, Wagner, dead kids, rescued cats, those fake refugees in Sue Ryder, all lies, lies and more lies.
That’s what it “suits you” to believe isn’t it:
the Russ Ian government will lie to its people, the Uk rainian government will lie to its people and our Governments (both of them) will lie to us.
So how do we find out the truth? Unfortunately the answer is we don’t
Ouija boards, clairvoyance, has their time finally come? Try them out and report back, BP.
@Breastplate says:17 July, 2023 at 9:02 pm
Maybes they would see themselves as rUKainian?
To be pronounced very carefully when in some parts of the world!
@ Captain Yossarian at 7.23: “…at least one other outside agency is involved, so it’s not just Police Scotland and COPFS. I am therefore optimistic that the correct arrest[s] will be made.”
I pray that your optimism is justified. They have got away with so much when I have thought their come-uppance was inevitable that I hardly dare hope any more.
Hi Dan.
RE: Toasties. I rediscovered the joy of the ham, cheese and onion toastie a number of months ago. Now I have a couple every week.
I use Lidl’s “Simply Pan Loaf” or whatever its real name is. Because most pan loafs are taller than the space allocated in the toastie machine, what’s the point in paying a premium price for bread, when a half inch of the toastie extends outside the toasting area, and has to be cut off and binned or thrown out for the birds, if you’re lucky enough to have a piece of ‘green grund?
When did the bread producers decide that the toastie machine manufacturers were up the wrang dreel?
A slice of bread should still fit within the confines of the toasting area, as originally designed. Bread producers are playing with our brains.
That’s a good point, Breastplate.
Captain Yossarian @ 8:26 pm
“Scots engineers have always worked overseas”
Personal anecdotal experience is interesting. However, historic census data and research on industrial development suggests Scotland ever since the union has imported a significant proportion of its professional and managerial class.
An example today would be the fact that around half of teachers in Scottish schools in a number of council areas come from rest-UK, mainly England. Another illustration would be that only around 1-in-10 academic staff employed by Scotland’s ancient universities are Scottish.
Mass unemployment (and state incentivised out-migration of skilled workers) was of course a long-term feature of a weakened (i.e. under-developed) Scottish economy until relatively recently.
A ‘cultural division of labour’ continues, and this seems inevitable so long as the indigenous Scots language is deemed ‘invalid’ and not taught to future generations of Scots, and elite universities offer very limited places to indigenous Scottish students, whilst all the best jobs remain advertised outside Scotland in the metropolitan capital press.
@Dan says:17 July, 2023 at 8:38 pm
open the fucking doors a bit
Ah Dan, your naive innocence is oddly touching, even if it does hint at what must be your advancing age and lack of contact with modern day Scottish reality.
When was the last time you were in a Scottish school, in the Central Belt, say.
These places are locked down, often with campus police officers on duty, because otherwise, some knife-wielding or gun-toting maniac could burst in and start slaying anybody within reach.
You can’t just open the fucking doors and leave them open.
Agentina’s submission to the UN can be seen here, link to un.org
I’m not sure what areas were covered previously but if the map on page 6 is now the accepted limits then the area covered is simply eye-popping. The bigger picture is definitely oil, fishing rights and minerals. The Falklands, even if they keep their right to self-determination is simply a drop in the bucket. Rather like Vatican City sitting in the middle of Italy.
As for the islanders allegiances? Well, I was there in the early 2000s and they are more British than anyone living in the UK. There were a few immigrants after the war, keen to show solidarity and make a new life. However original islanders, being farmers, are as independent-minded as you care to imagine. Argentina, if it ever got its act together could treat them like Alaska – leave them alone and write everyone a cheque, every year and still have vast mounts of money left over.
A very interesting development. I wonder how this will pan out over the next few years and possibly decades.
Salmond’s speech on Winnie. Starts at roughly the 39 minute mark.
youtube.com/watch?v=KGlnX89nzR4
What a class act Alex Salmond is.
The True Radical Spirit Of Scotland Hall of Fame.
Robert Burns
Winnie Ewing
Alex Salmond is a certainty after he leads us to independence.
Robert Burns absolutely was… that poem is scathing, people should read it again and for him it was historically ‘fresh’ in the memory like we can’t imagine. Read the poem, it is brutal.
Stuart MacKay @ 9:51 pm
“The Falklands”
Importantly, the UK Decolonization Committee (C-24) did not accept the referendum result on the island (to remain part of Britain) because it did not take account of the descendants of the indigenous population that had been evicted by the British. Which suggests we need to consider then the descendants of 3-4 million displaced Scots since British rule was imposed in Scotland.
Alf, The Falklands had no indigenous people. The only people who have any claim to that title are the current residents. Having visited the islands a couple of times, i must say that they are welcome to them.
@ captain yossarian 5.31pm can I ask when you first arrived in the uk as I am 72 years of age and have lived all my life in Scotland and have no recollection of those honest and decent Scottish Secretaries from the unionist parties you speak of, every last one of them was a Scots but who desperately wanted to be english, so much so that they even returned £1.5 billion pounds to the english treasury because they couldn’t find anything worthwhile to spend it on in Scotland
My family were all liebour voters who believed that labour represented the working class and maybe in the early years they actually did, but I can assure you speaking from lived experience of 72 years they BETRAYED the working class
sturgeon and her fellow depraved perverted deviants have wreaked havoc on Scotland’s governance for the last 9 years but that pales into insignificance when compared with the decades of labour corruption in Scotland and the ROUK and the destruction wrought on the whole of the uk by the greed driven amoral tory incompetents
It is the rose tinted all our yesterdays guff so beloved of the english working classes that allows these parasitical bastards to get away with muuurduur
I’m reading the news about the commonwealth games in 2026 being cancelled by Australia.
We need the commonwealth games to return to Glasgow.
It would mean everything.
Someone get Alex Salmond on the phone.
Get Alex Salmond the phone. If he reads this. We need the Commonwealth Games to return to Glasgow.
We should step in and take the bid. It would help the national pride for an Independent Scotland.
Sturgeon of course only wanted Eurovision.
We need the commonwealth games to come back to Scotland. Let’s make it happen!
A summer of Independence as big Eck said. We need to promote our national identity to the world. Again!
link to bbc.co.uk
Come on Scotland. Let’s make it happen. Someone needs to suggest hosting the 2026 commonwealth games.
I can’t think of a better man than Alex Salmond. The East end of Glasgow is a better place today. Sir Chris Hoy. Remember him? We some new national heroes. This country needs to get off its hands and knees.
Bring the commonwealth games home.
Twathater – I’m younger than you but not by much. I’m also erstwhile Labour and my point is that we had an opportunity which was presented to us by the creation of Holyrood and by Salmond’s term there, which proved that it could work and be a success. What I am saying is that has been squandered and it will take 2 or 3 generations to get that trust back again. £1.5B may have been returned to Westminster unspent, and I have heard this story before and so it is no doubt true, but more than that just disappears annually from Holyrood and that is what is currently under Police investigation.
@Alf Baird says:17 July, 2023 at 11:36 pm
did not take account of the descendants of the indigenous population that had been evicted by the British
There was no indigenous population. Nobody was evicted.
we need to consider then the descendants of 3-4 million displaced Scots
Sure, tell WM to pay them reparations [chuckles].
Tell you what though Alf, I’m losing sleep over the Declaration of Arbroath, you know, that bit where it boasts that we Scots had thrown out the Britons and completely destroyed the Picts.
An iScotland could defo be on the hook for reparations to their descendants, and what if our ancestors actually missed a few Picts? Could be millions of the beggars by now. The mind boggles [chuckles].
Haha, Alf, just my wee joke.
Now tell me, what’s your excuse?
Craig Murray @ 7.25pm
Thanks for giving more detail on what really happened to Scott Ritter , and why .
For the record , I don’t take anything ANYONE says as gospel .
I make judgements on the veracity/plausibility of what I read based on what I know of the person writing , their background and the accuracy of their previous writing eg did what they say turn out to be the case , or not ? Intuition and Reason also play their part .
Ian Brotherhood and I are referring specifically to Scott Ritter’s recent two-part video – Agent Z…… in which he lists known facts regarding the * mysterious * political ascendancy of Z , his equally * mysterious * vast wealth , foreign and U property portfolio , his * coincidentally * prescient role in the movie ” Man of the People ” among other details of this shady character’s life .
Elsewhere , on Stephen Gardner’s podcast , he interviewed an ex-CIA officer who said it was common knowledge in * certain circle * Z was a regular cocaine user . Obviously , I have no way of knowing if this is true ; but it could account for the latter’s erratic behaviour and verging on megalomaniac self-inflation .
Despite all that , he’s being presented to the Western public as some cross between Che Guevara ( minus the Communism , of course ) and Francis of Assisi . Jesus in ( wrinkle-free ) combat fatigues . A lot of effort has went into the laundering and ironing of this image .
Meanwhile countless 1000s of humans die and the world edges closer to catastrophe .
Oh dear, what is the point of britnat Labour?
All the polls show folk hate brexit and want back in the EU, I mean just wait until you need a vise to enter the EU as of next year. Yet what is Labour’s policy? Do the same as the Tories. By next year, the demands to return to the EU will be massive.
Then to top it off, their is the hated and frankly evil rape clause for benefits. Another easy political win for Labour, but No, ‘SIR’ Keir thinks it is a very good idea. Same as the Tories.
So, there we have it, Labour with those two policies alone could win a landslide, and likely win massively in Scotland by rejoining the EU and getting rid of the rape clause. Two easy, easy open goals for ANY serious opposition party to win with. I mean, I am no Labour supporter, but honestly, any kid could tell Labour how to win a landslide at the next election with just those two policies.
And, just imagine if the Labour policy was to return to the EU, the Tories would rip themselves apart in the run up to an election.
Am I the only person to notice that SIR Keir Starmer is a feckin Tory? Seriously, just what is the point of britnat Labour?
@Robert Hughes (7.11) –
Hear hear.
‘Conspiracy theories’ have a strange way of becoming fact after a while. 20 years ago since David Kelly was killed and the cover-up continues. The architects of the invasion of Iraq still enjoy immunity whilst making public pronouncements about civil liberties, ‘freedom’ etc.
Not one of the visitors to Epstein’s island has been arrested. The new film about child/sex trafficking, ‘Sound of Freedom’ is being suppressed by msm despite huge public interest.
This interview is a long watch but riveting. Caviezel looks traumatised.
link to youtube.com
@Robert Hughes says:18 July, 2023 at 7:11 am
Good post, Bob.
I don’t know how you missed the uncanny ability “Agent Z” has to make people who are opposed to him dance like puppets on a string.
Heck, he even made P order a military annexation of a neighbouring country. It’s like “Agent Z” has inherited all the Machiavellian powers of Rasputin.
Meanwhile countless 1000s of humans die and the world edges closer to catastrophe
Aye, and just think how easy it would be to make it stop. All “Agent Z” has to do is tell P to withdraw his army back to his own country. But naw, “Agent Z” just keeps on with the death and destruction and because of his control of P, P is powerless to make it stop.
@Robert Hughes says:18 July, 2023 at 7:11 am
Good post, Bob.
I don’t know how you missed the uncanny ability “Agent Z” has to make people who are opposed to him dance like puppets on a string.
Heck, he even made P order a military annexation of a neighbouring country. It’s like “Agent Z” has inherited all the Machiavellian powers of [redacted cos the name of the Russti Mad Monk triggers moderation].
Meanwhile countless 1000s of humans die and the world edges closer to catastrophe
Aye, and just think how easy it would be to make it stop. All “Agent Z” has to do is tell P to withdraw his army back to his own country. But naw, “Agent Z” just keeps on with the death and destruction and because of his control of P, P is powerless to make it stop.
Robert Louis says:
18 July, 2023 at 7:17 am
…, any kid could tell Labour how to win a landslide at the next election with just those two policies.
I agree, so in what kind of world does this make any sense?
Well, in the UK kind of world, where politics is just a soap opera / puppet show, a token government, where it’s the “Establishment” framing the options where the proletariat are “allowed” to exercise their democracy upon.
You have a “choice” between red and blue, but all that is at stake is the colour of ribbon on the rosette, nothing more. You think you influence power? Dream on fool.
The UK Establishment only ever allows choices to be made when it already holds both ends on the string. Democracy is their weapon and instrument of control, yet we, the poor deluded people, insist it is ours.
The people are the rabbit, the Establishment is the stoat, and democracy is the dance we are all mesmerised by.
To show a degree of balance and some much needed credibility whilst pontificating on matters of “war”, you’d think John Main would at least throw in the odd post highlighting his concern for the people of Yemen…
Come now Dan, if it’s not on the news it’s not happening, obviously.
Anyway, Russ ians bad!! Bad, bad bad!
The words ‘Directive’ and ‘Stirling’, strangely absent from the comments.
Must be a serious contender.
I look forward to the big reveal!
Very interesting indeed from Scott Ritter… British bodyguards.
rumble.com/v2zs3r0-a-scott-ritter-investigation-agent-zelensky-part-1.html
@Dan says:18 July, 2023 at 8:58 am
To show a degree of balance and some much needed credibility whilst pontificating on matters of “war”, you’d think John Main would at least throw in the odd post highlighting his concern for the people of Yemen
Sure Dan, just as soon as you lead from the front with the “balance” thingy by calling out the other posters on here who like to bring up The War from time to time.
And as for the “credibility” thingy, have you read the posts from the usual suspects who are cheering on the destruction of free, sovereign nations on Europe’s eastern borders?
For the avoidance of future doubt, I don’t give a flying fuck about Yemen. I don’t expect that to change until such time as the leader of that country, or any other country in its vicinity, decides to threaten me and you with imperialist aggression backed up by the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Jeezo Dan. Whataboutery virtue signalling. Is that your best shot?
“Importantly, the UK Decolonization Committee (C-24) did not accept the referendum result on the island ”
I’m not surprised by that Alf, Britain/England is no longer a member of the C-24.
link to un.org
Mind you consecutive English governments have been propping up some of the most nasty regimes around the world, where democracy is a dirty word, whilst interfering in other nations political business.
England’s current king has met with the dictators that Westminster props up at least 120 times. Of course King Charles III isn’t/wasn’t the only royal linked to these evil oppressive regimes.
link to declassifieduk.org
link to declassifieduk.org
They’re toppling like dominoes in a row now.
“ANOTHER member of the SNP frontbench team in Westminster has announced they will not seek re-election next year.
Philippa Whitford, the MP for Central Ayrshire and the party’s Scotland Office spokesperson, has said she will not contest the next General Election.
Whitford becomes the eighth SNP MP to announce they will stand down ahead of the upcoming Westminster election, expected in the later months of 2024. “
Part Two of Scott Ritter’s Zelen**y expose.
link to youtube.com
Sort of for fun/mischief.
How many adult, human, female MPs or MSPs (whether they identify as such or not) have long hair compared to Maggie Chapman hair (short cropped – so you don’t have to gird your loins and google her)?
The reason I ask is that I’m wondering if the Madame Maos’ of the gender identity movement (let’s be nice and not call it a cult) all have certain traits which either make them susceptible to recruitment or define how zealous they are in pursuit of the goals of the collective.
Personally I think all of this is simply a mind-virus, that got kicked off by #metoo and is burning it’s way through the stock of college-educated, middle-class, female, professionals and by inference, the candidate pool for political parties keen to give women 50% of the blame for why everything is falling apart. That means the whole thing probably has a ways to go unless the proportion of said college-educated, middle-class, female, professionals elected to parliament is bumped up to 100% and the collapse of civilisation is triggered. After that sensible people can step in and rebuild.
Terribly sexist? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Women, in general, haven’t been holding the reins of power for very long. There must be a learning curve.
Imperialism has kept Scottish independence in its box. I’d guess that American influence, deeply permeates Whitehall, when it comes to maintaining right-wing control over troublesome lefty Scots.
In any event, SNP comply, happy to continue to play politics in their kindergarten parliament.
Whatever is announced this weekend, in support of Scottish sovereignty, it must contend with the most powerful and underhand western nations on the planet!
Utilising Scots Law, our representatives, need to be every bit as sleekit, in order to expose the truth and deliver self-determination.
Holyrood and Scotland, has everything to gain, when our own people, are truly in charge of the nation.
RoS, that’s peculiar – I was just wondering where the lady was as I expected her to challenge the gender/science denying ordure and never a whisper did she make.
Philippa Whitford
Another fkn disappointment.
Fully paid up member of the woo cult. Girls amputating their breasts & stripping their bodies of future motherhood & men with dicks in women’s crisis centers. She damn well knows it’s prepping for pedo central.
Shocking from a breast cancer specialist & healthcare professional. A great loss to indy because she was an excellent orator but as the saying goes: Go woke, go broke.
Another *be ready for indyref2 any moment* knowing fine well it wasn’t happening.
They’ll all flee now. They’ve feck all to try punt at the next election & they know it.
What are they selling? A section 30 request…ZZzzzzz!
Dorothy
There were shades of her going to speak out, defending Joanna was one – then she was demoted & put back in her box & came out again (obviously after some re-education, Stepford wife reboot) to defend the woo with gusto (one of the daily politics shows)
Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Especially given her profession. If this mass sterilisation program was happening in some 3rd world country – she’d be on a plane to campaign for it to stop.
John Main says:
““…deplorables…usual suspects…”
I notice you’re channeling your inner Andy Ellis these days!
The thing is, I don’t feel the need to tediously call out or interject on nearly every btl post / point in an attempt to denigrate other posters by diminishing their input, which is effectively trying to censor differing views and information on a range of subjects some may want to consider to help develop their comprehension on such matters.
That you choose to operate the way you do highlights your unwillingness or inability to consider anything other than your own perceived reality.
But in #Westworld stylée: Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
There is no way you can be so up the curve and fully informed on the myriad constantly evolving factors that are applicable to specific local, national, and international issues affecting all the countries on this planet. Jack of all trades, master of none, comes to mind.
But if you actually think you are some stellar know it all then why not grace us dumbies with a few examples of hardcore in depth proposals (backed up with evidence to justify and prove their worth) that would actually help resolve any of the number of the issues you continually post about.
Like the overweight and unfit supporter sitting on the sidelines slagging off the athletes on the pitch, it’s easy to heckle, but a whole lot harder to actually step up and do better.
@Geri says:18 July, 2023 at 11:54 am
If this mass sterilisation program was happening in some 3rd world country
Erm …
Naw, forget it, it’s fine.
So far I am only seeing good people leaving and the dunderheads are staying put
@Dan says:18 July, 2023 at 12:16 pm
“…deplorables…usual suspects…”
These are quite mild and anodyne criticisms compared with some of the vituperative abuse that is frequently posted on here.
Once again, I am disappointed to see your selective outrage on clear display.
“Like the overweight and unfit supporter sitting on the sidelines slagging off the athletes on the pitch, it’s easy to heckle”
It’s a nice picture, but who exactly are the athletes on here? It’s all overweight and unfit supporters shouting and bawling at each other. If there’s a serious game going on somewhere, we’re not playing. In fact, I don’t think we are even watching it.
To stretch your analogy to near breaking point, we’re certainly not watching and commenting on the same game.
I see John Main, a sort of Scottish Col Blimp, has resurfaced again. A year ago he was telling us all ‘the rouble will be rubble’, Ru’s economy will collapse, Ru is running out of missiles, shells, drones, chips …and he’s still spouting shite now.
NATO? A club for ex-imperialists and failed empires – all the way from the Belgians to dear old Blighty. And this is what he has the horn for…yet he claims to be an indy supporter.
LOL
Hard to believe, however I’m reading that our incomplete Ferry (the two vessels combined were originally to cost some £97 million, now estimated to come in around £300 million) has been refused a Maritime & Coastguard Agency Certificate as a staircase, or stairs connecting decks, is too narrow.
Stuart Ballantyne’s offer to construct proven design Catamarans must surely be looking even better now, well, to anyone except Ms Sturgeon and her former administration.
RoS claims:
“Of course UK oil companies are making a fortune from oil found in Argentine territorial waters, under the guise that the Falkland island are cough cough British.”
Ho many barrels of oil does RoS believe have been sold in the British Falkand island EEZ?
Many? Any?
What kind of “fortune” does that make in the real world?
The Falklanders had their Referendum too. A bit like the similarly “once in a lifetime” here in Scotland one in which less than 38% of the electorate voted to remain British.
The big difference is that the vote in the Falklands to remain British was 99.8% (with a 92% turnout) to remain British.
That’s in the real world, not in the imaginations of the Separatistas who believe that there is no such thing as the United Kingdom.
Correction:
I meant to say that less than 38% of the electorate vote to leave the United Kingdom which was created by Scots for the benefit of Scots.
“Part Two of Scott Ritter’s Zelen**y expose.”
Some might see an unfortunate phrase here.Is this the Scott Ritter, caught on webcam by the polis (pretending to be an an underage girl),
mass ru baiting?
@Towbar Sullivan says:18 July, 2023 at 1:15 pm
A year ago he was telling us all ‘the rouble will be rubble’, Ru’s economy will collapse, Ru is running out of missiles, shells, drones, chips
Naw, Wilson, I wisnae.
Ye’re deluded, or a liar.
If oil was so pish why don’t they just leave it in the ground?
Pack up, go home, take yer drilling elsewhere..give it away for free to a neighbour.
Said no country, ever.
“The big difference is that the vote in the Falklands to remain British was 99.8% (with a 92% turnout) to remain British.”
“Importantly, the UK Decolonization Committee (C-24) did not accept the referendum result on the island ”
“Ho many barrels of oil does RoS believe have been sold in the British Falkand island EEZ?
Many? Any?”
“In a previously unpublished letter, the former chancellor Norman Lamont said the revenues from Falklands oil should go to the British government, not the Falkland islanders.
“I have no doubt that in the event of a major oil find, tax revenues should accrue to the UK exchequer.”
I doubt any English government would’ve given a toss about Falklander’s and their fate, if oil and mineral assets hadn’t been discovered in and around the region of the islands.
“Declassified documents show that Britain has long been interested in oil around the Falkland Islands. In 1975, an energy department official wrote: “Our ministers are very interested in the possibility of exploiting offshore oil around the Falkland Islands.””
@ John Main
That response is soo Ellis like it’s uncanny. C’mon, can you not show a bit more deviation in character. 😉
I am not outraged as you try to suggest though. That is you slipping into the lazy binary antagonistic modus of trying to divisively box everything into extremes so commonly found on t’internet.
I’ll give you that I was selective though, and I selected you because you are unique in the way you operate on here in terms of regularity of posting, and general input to discussions.
Because you comment so much on so many differing subjects, it highlights your contradictory positions.
One minute you are expressing concern about the plight of certain people and sovereign states, but in your next post you “don’t give a fuck about” other people and states enduring similar situations.
You sate you are concerned about ongoing migration into Europe, yet you don’t seem overly concerned about the geo-political shit playing out that causes the instability in countries that forces the displacement of folk who then become those migrants.
Can’t think of anybody else posting on here that displays such openly blatant hypocrisy or lack of consistency in the positions they take on matters being discussed.
Anyway, got to go as stripping brake calipers and reconditioning them for an extensive brake overhaul on my car for its MOT. Prefer to rebuild my own stuff as bought recon stuff costs money and is far too often shit which sometimes means you’re lucky to get a few years out of components due to low quality materials used in replacement brake pistons, rubber seals and protective dust boots.
I’ve made a simple electrolysis bath to put my calipers and carriers in to chemically kill and remove the corrosion build up, then they will be rebuilt using OEM seals and the pukka red grease.
Can’t see my electrolysis bath setup using more than a couple of Kwh (so about 70 pence of leccy) to properly recondition all the calipers. Interestingly the electrolysis bath process is effectively a hydrogen gas generator.
On the English government approach to immigrants but not those from 404.
“THE United Nations have issued an extraordinary statement condemning the UK Government for being “in breach of international law” with its newly passed Illegal Migration Bill.
It comes after Tories in the House of Lords crushed a series of renewed challenges to key aspects of the bill by peers.
In a night of drama on Monday, the Conservative frontbench saw off five further changes being sought by the unelected chamber to the Illegal Migration Bill, including modern slavery protections and child detention limits.
The reforms are a key part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s bid to deter people from making hazardous Channel crossings in small boats.”
“On Tuesday, the UN stepped in. Issuing an extraordinary joint statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk (below) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi condemned the UK’s actions.”
“This new legislation significantly erodes the legal framework that has protected so many, exposing refugees to grave risks in breach of international law,” Grandi said.
“In addition to raising very serious legal concerns from the the international perspective, this bill sets a worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow, with a potentially adverse effect on the international refugee and human rights protection system as a whole,” Turk added.
“I urge the UK Government to renew this commitment to human rights by reversing this law and ensuring that the rights of all migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are respected, protected and fulfilled, without discrimination.
“This should include efforts to guarantee expeditious and fair processing of asylum and human rights claims, improve reception conditions, and increase the availability and accessibility of safe pathways for regular migration.”
Anyway the immigration barge/prison arrived in Dorset England today it can detain/lockup 500 immigrants it arrived from Italy.
No such hardships for 404’s especially in Scotland where they lived on a luxury cruise liner with an inhouse doctor and dentist, not to mention having their very own SNP government minister in Ian Gray.
The 404’s have all been housed now in Scotland or close to it, no such luck for many of the indigenous folk with thousands of Scots still waiting to be housed.
The most important article you’ll ever read on where the citizens of the world stand, we are in the dark.
link to consortiumnews.com
When we have finished studying and analysing the mess of a Westminster legislated pretendy parliament put up to Scotland with all the appointee employees, who sale in her while punching big holes in the Bottom like a deliberately self inflicted titanic crushing its way through the Scottish democracy,
We will get some grit and self esteem an just walk away with no negotiations, just a total reset.leaving the bait clickers to rescue the other half.
There is ZERO income from oil in the Falkland EEZ. None. Not a drop.
“It’s Falkland’s oil” is as idiotic as the SNuPties’ slogan “It’s Scotland’s oil” was in the 1970s.
In the case of the Falklands there is no oil production.
In the SNumPtie case, there is no oil that belongs to the UK because it is all belongs to the oil companies who own it.
There was, briefly, a nationalised oil company, based in the land of Weege.
BNOC was created by Wedgie Benn as a socialist programme. He gave them Dennis Thatcher’s Burmah Thistle oilfield as a birthday present. I remember in 1976 the entire staff, all five of them including Lord Kearton and his secretary, visited us in Leith where we were preparing for the installation of the Greythorpe One jacket in the Thistle field.
A decade or two later there were 3,000 Weegie bureaucrats in the HQ, all of whom had self-promoted by cramming underlings under their own arses to rise up the food chain.
BNOC was a disaster, rather like the troughers, and in pretty much the same way, as the toughing arseholes of Holyrood and the Leith Numptorium.
Nationalisation of a country’s entire oilpatch, unless done very intelligently as the Noggies did, is always a recipe for disaster. See Iran in 1952 as an example of what can go wrong.
Ebenezer Scroggie @ 4:31PM
Thatcher is dead – get over it.
You may have tried to forget but we didn’t. We had a party and a very fine one it was too 🙂
Away back to Surrey with your greed and ignorance, Mr Scroggie
Ebenizer Scroggie,
If not the territory of Scotlands Oil or Oil belonging to Scots why did Westminster need to hide the MacCrone report Scotland and Scots?
Geri, I hadn’t heard of her defence of Joanna Cherry , I just heard her silence – which disappointed me greatly.
Got to love supporters of the UK union questioning the potential abilities of a future self-governing Scotland to manage… well manage just about anything better than the current setup under London Rule.
link to businessforscotland.com
@Republicofscotland says:18 July, 2023 at 2:40 pm
There’s a complex debate to be had on:
1 Legal asylum routes, versus illegal asylum routes.
2 Seeking asylum in the first safe country, versus traveling through umpteen safe countries to get to a preferred country of convenience.
3 Penniless desperate people, versus wealthy people who can pay far more than the legal ticket price for an illegal journey.
4 Temporary refuge (there’s a war on) versus permanent settlement for economic purposes (dollar, dollar).
5 Skilled people versus benefits claimants.
6 Defenseless women and children versus angry young men.
7 Sharers of the culture and values of the refuge country, versus hostile and uncompromising enthusiasts for their own alien, incompatible, frankly stone age, culture.
It’s all complicated and nuanced, eh RoS? It needs a grown up debate and it needs it soon (actually, it’s years overdue), cos the knowledgeable grown ups think there’s going to be millions coming here.
Every single year
As a result of wars, climate change, etc. etc.
50 DegC in southern Europe. Makes you think, eh? How long would you stand it before you were on the move?
@ Dan 2.34pm as you say, so Ellis like in thought and self delusion , in the face of his constant negativity and denigration about everything proposed by anyone I have asked him to put forward his own positive suggestions that may propel us faster toward independence, the answer came called evasion, positivity is a foreign concept to him, he is only interested in his own opinion
His arrogance and disdain towards others is designed to create animosity
Intentionally or not, the devolved Scottish Parliament (SNP) stands in the way of independence and must be sued by the people of Scotland, in pursuit of a court sanctioned referendum, for restoration of Scottish governance and complete autonomy.
Our right to self-determination, the basis of democratic ballot, enacted by Scots Law and therefore, internationally recognised, as such.
The above court action should be a matter of priority, for those leading the Stirling Directive.
Yesss Ya dancer! I don’t believe it!
Humza Yousaf looking in to bringing the Commonwealth Games back to Glasgow.
He’s been reading my comments on Wings over Scotland.
Get big Eck on the phone.
Let’s back the bid for Scotland.
Glasgow needs the boost. Our city swarming with rats after 8 years of Sturgeon malaise.
We need the commonwealth games back in Glasgow. To lift and be a nation again.
Scotland United for the commonwealth games!
A lot of Hilary/american talking heads.
What ever the case it seems to iAmerica War dollers and wars contracts driving the need to hang on to Scotland as a base.
Scotland run by hoax union,
England run by America,
Britian run by EU treaties and legislation
Which bit is Great Britain
Hats off to the council bosses in the Australian state of Victoria for ditching the Commonwealth Games and to instead use the billions of Aussie dollars inhouse on schools, hospitals infrastructure etc.
Meanwhile the foreign owned media in Scotland is pushing for Glasgow to put an offer in to hold the Commonwealth Games, what utter madness.
Glasgow is a rundown filthy city that’s crumbling around the edges, its people are mostly poor, and its schools, doctors, dentists, hospitals, housing and infrastructure are desperately in need of investment, the last thing that the city needs is to fritter away over a billion quid on a short term sporting event that has no real legacy.
The SNP ran city council and the SNP government had better not decide to waste huge quantities of taxpayers cash on this Commonwealth nonsense, which is due to start in three years time.
The games should be shelved as many countries are struggling just to keep public services opened. Better still get those mega rich royal b*stards to fork out for it, those royal leeches have been bleeding the taxpayers dry for centuries.
@twathater says:18 July, 2023 at 5:19 pm
Aw, is this cos I called you “twatneutral”?
constant negativity and denigration
It’s an online forum. Worse happens at sea. Man up.
put forward his own positive suggestions
Done that plenty of times: Show us the money neatly sums it up. For reasons not clear to me, the idea always meets with hostility and contempt, yet it seems a no-brainer to me.
only interested in his own opinion
I am certainly not that interested in some of the ludicrous opinions that are regularly splurged on here. It’s still a free country, and as a Sovereign Scot, I not only believe I am entitled to post my opinion, I believe the reputation of Scotland is damaged when the more nonsensical guff goes unchallenged. So I do what I can.
His arrogance and disdain towards others is designed to create animosity
I feel some considerable animosity myself when I see what the SNP, and by extension the Indy movement, has done to our country of Scotland.
It has all been a mahoosive clusterfuck, and I don’t think another decade of just doing the same will magically come good.
Anyways, I will hold my breath waiting for your critique of the next opinionated, negative, disdainful comment, whoever posts it.
Haha, just kidding! You post plenty like that yourself.
Main.
“Legal asylum routes, versus illegal asylum routes.”
“In April 2023, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick was asked in Parliament which safe and legal routes were available to a young person wanting to flee the conflict in Sudan.
He said, “the best advice would be for individuals to present to the UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency]. We already operate safe and legal routes with them.”
But the body insists “there is no mechanism through which refugees can approach UNHCR with the intention of seeking asylum in the UK”.
Critics of the government’s asylum proposals, such as the Refugee Council, say they risk breaking international law.
The main principle of the 1951 Refugee Convention states that refugees should not be returned to countries where they faced threats to life or freedom. the Court of Appeal ruled in June 2023 that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful and risks breaching Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Theresa May’s Go Home Vans, Brexit and Stop the Boats, show English governments up for what they are.
Its no complicated Westminster has pillaged and murdered all over the world under the guise of bringing democracy and freedom, is it any wonder then that some of the people from those countries decide to come to the UK to make better life for themselves and their children. Of course its only a problem if you have brown skin.
More on England’s The Illegal Migration Bill.
I suppose we can’t expect any better from a country (England) that is illegally detaining Julian Assange, and its judiciary intends to send him to the USA.
“The WGAD — the supreme international body scrutinising this issue — has repeatedly demanded that the UK government end Assange’s “arbitrary detention”. Although the UN states that WGAD determinations are legally binding, its calls have been consistently rejected by the UK government.”
The Bill extinguishes access to asylum in the UK for anyone who arrives irregularly, having passed through a country – however briefly – where they did not face persecution. It bars them from presenting refugee protection or other human rights claims, no matter how compelling their circumstances. In addition, it requires their removal to another country, with no guarantee that they will necessarily be able to access protection there. It creates sweeping new detention powers, with limited judicial oversight.
The Bill denies access to protection in the UK for anyone falling within its scope – including unaccompanied and separated children – regardless of whether they are at risk of persecution, may have suffered human rights violations or whether they are survivors of human trafficking or modern-day slavery and may have other well-founded claims under international human rights and humanitarian law.
Most people fleeing war and persecution either do not have or are unable to access formal documents such as passports and visas. Safe and “legal” routes are rarely available to them. The 1951 Refugee Convention, for its part, explicitly recognises that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly.
As a result, their rights to health, an adequate standard of living and to work are at risk, exposing them to the risk of exploitation and abuse.
@John Main 6.41 pm
Show us the money neatly sums it up. For reasons not clear to me, the idea always meets with hostility and contempt, yet it seems a no-brainer to me.
It’s not the only idea and, to many, not the most important.
Neoliberalism is an ideology that can and does do enormous harm. It has the interests of the elite at its core and causes great harm to health, well documented,by causing poverty and inequality.
Consistently, on here, you do not recognise that. Why?
Commonwealth games 2014
Whit a year! Scotland was alive & buzzing with indyref & the summer was a long hot scorcher.
They’ll never capture that buzz again.
Instead it’ll be a reminder now that we had it in the grasp of our hand & we let outsiders fuck it up for us.
@Republicofscotland says:18 July, 2023 at 6:50 pm
which safe and legal routes were available to a young person wanting to flee the conflict in Sudan
Not even going to look this one up. I already know there are plenty of safe countries between here and Sudan.
is it any wonder then that some of the people from those countries decide to come to the UK to make better life for themselves and their children
If you believe people making vague claims to be descended from people who may have been adversely affected by people long since dead, are entitled to come to the UK and take it out on us who weren’t even alive at the time “just because”, then we won’t ever be agreeing. Quelle surprise.
Of course its only a problem if you have brown skin
Do you have brown skin? What about Yousaf and Sarwar, not to mention Sunak? Where precisely do you see the problem, cos I don’t?
Rubbish, whataboutery and inchoate, formless resentment, RoS. So nothing new from you. Hope I don’t trigger accusations of arrogant disdain from TH, but I won’t censor what I think.
It’s a breach of international treaties. The UK must accept refugees & the refugee has the right to go to the country of their choosing. Not the other way around.
This is mostly because of language barriers. No point stopping at the first *safe country* if they don’t speak the lingo.
Another reason they’re losing friends everywhere. They’re racist & that well known exceptionalism in thinking they’re special & can cherry pick international commitments.
Heehee – chickens home to roost. That’s what happens when you colonise most of the world & batter ppl to speak the *Queen’s English*
I don’t much like referring to Mr Ritter so I’ll stop posting about him after this.
Whatever he says should be seenin context. He has been in a large country close to UK rainy today doing a promotion tour for the sale of his book.
Naturally enough he is enthusiastic about his location saying it is “thriving”. He says Mr Put it in “will go down in history as one of the greatest leaders of all time.”
He also says, ““It’s only because of Mr Put it in that the big R exists today. But big R doesn’t just exist — it thrives.”
(Somewhat edited)
He also said the place near him UK rainy today was a rabid dog which should be shot.
It’s just a book promotion tour.
RepublicofScotland
(Useless has a team looking into it he would’nt want to lose out in the publicity stakes ).
As u say let Charlie pay for it after all the Commonwealth belongs to the crown .
Republicofscotland @3:42pm
Interesting article, ROS. It’s important that we, the people, are able to shine a light on the inner workings of institutions and bureaucracies that claim to exist for our own benefit.
I’m always a bit reluctant to refer to the Germany of the nineteen thirties and forties – it’s a time in fairly recent history that is too often dragged into debate for spurious reasons. But the article you provided a link to made me think of a book I recently read about the trial of the war criminal, Adolf Eichmann.
I think it’s relevant in the context of the article, but correct me if you think I’m overstating the point the article is making.
Have you heard of Hannah Arendt?
She covered the Adolf Eichmann trial at Jerusalem in 1961 for The New Yorker, where her account was originally published in February and March, 1963.
She wrote a book on her experience of the trial in the summer and autumn of 1962 during her stay as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University.
It was she who coined the phrase, “the banality of evil”.
This is an extract from her book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”:
The ‘cogs’ were not excused their deeds on the grounds that they were mere cogs. That was Eichmann’s defence, which ultimately failed.
Shortly thereafter he was hanged for his part as a cog in the machinery of a brutal bureaucracy.
I disagree with comment on spending a billion on the games.
We don’t need to spend a billion on the games.
However. Our city is crumbling. The SNP quite literally want to turn it into the rubble. The shopping centres are to be demolished.
We need the sporting competition, to bring in money.
We need the snp to build new housing for Glaswegians. Affordable housing. We don’t make money off the commonwealth games. But it will encourage them to spend the money on housing with the benefit of tourism.
Bring it home. We need some hope and pride.
@sam says:18 July, 2023 at 7:01 pm
It’s not the only idea and, to many, not the most important
Sure, but does the many who don’t care make a majority? My guess is that the majority do care.
“Vote Indy to make yourself poorer”.
Fits on a T-shirt, but I can’t say I have ever seen one like that.
Soz, but I’m not getting your link between neoliberalism and putting more money in the pockets of us Scots. Quite the opposite is how I see it. To reach our pockets, the post-Indy money has to be spent in Scotland as much as possible.
Bring back the commonwealth games. Back the bid. 2026. Make it happen. Build this city up again. We need help. S.O.S.
Glasgow is in dire straights and needs massive help.
The Sottish team in the tunnel, before entering the stadium for the 2014 opening ceremony.
link to youtube.com
Opening ceremony The ppl of Glasgow & Mr Rod Stewart at Celtic park
Can someone link it if it doesn’t work? Ta..
youtu.be/hyrcQCYcn08
“(Useless has a team looking into it he would’nt want to lose out in the publicity stakes ).”
Ronald, I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised by that, in times of political turmoil, a government/party whose popularity is on the wane, it usually turns to war or some major event to galvanise support from the electorate.
In three years time we’ll have the Holyrood elections Yousaf/SNP will see bringing the Commonwealth Games to Scotland (if successful) as some sort of distraction from Scotland circling the pan under his and Sturgeon the Judas’s tenures, the Roman’s knew well how to use the bread and circuses tactic to turn the heads of the masses away from dire realities.
“Have you heard of Hannah Arendt?”
Northcode.
No I hadn’t heard of her, but a very interesting post thank you, today those cogs, have children mortgages and bills to pay, and ethics and morality doesn’t pay the bills, some of those cogs do it out loyalty other are fanatics or madmen/women.
Of course if you read history books, you’ll soon realise that if a conqueror kills thousands or even millions, (with the aid of his cogs such as Alexander the Great, he’s often lauded as a great man or a great defender of the faith and so forth and not a murderer.
The murders of say Lumumba, Allende, Gadaffi, Saddam, etc, are considered as justified, and the cogs such as Madeline Albright who openly said it was worth it to kill half a million Iraqi children for the US to achieve its goal, are lauded in most circles within the media system which projects onto us, what we should say and think on such events.
My link to the article you cite, points out that we don’t even know what governments and huge corporations are up to now, so we can’t even say where we should start to guide the world onto a better path.
@John Main @7,28pm
“Soz, but I’m not getting your link between neoliberalism and putting more money in the pockets of us Scots.”
Well, put fairly broadly there is more likely to be a healthy economy with a healthy population.
Also, because people die prematurely, unjustly and suffer longer periods of ill health than those above them in the socioeconomic scale many days are lost that could be productive.
Frontier Economics for the Marmot Review of 2010 calculated how much would be saved to the economy if everyone enjoyed the ideal – the same level of health of the top decile by wealth.The savings in welfare payments and increased tax receipts were pretty huge.
Of course, we are not going to get the ideal but the figures even so gave an idea of the effects of inequality and poverty and the saving to be made by reducing those blights.
That calculation did not take account of the savings to the health service made by no longer having to do so many interventions that were avoidable by having a more healthy population.
If I was running this site I would query the software to find out who were the top 10 most prolific commentators on here BTL and then ban every single fucking one of them.
(I’d maybe go top 15 or even 20 on that. Use your judgement.)
Commonwealth Games bid.. By Yousaf.
Only if there’s a new event..
The 100m dash: Pelting politicians with balls of their own shite!
@Geri says:18 July, 2023 at 7:19 pm
colonise most of the world & batter ppl to speak the *Queen’s English*
Queen’s deid, Geri, do try to keep up.
Oh and the British Empire comprised around 25% of the Earth’s land surface.
So not “most” of the world at all.
Do try to get your facts straight. None of this is rocket science.
The real identifier of a ‘troll’ now is not (inflammatory) ‘content’ it is (mind numbing) ‘volume’.
Hi Mac.
Whether or not Rev Stu took any action, the stats would be interesting.
Republicofscotland @8:23pmpm
“My link to the article you cite, points out that we don’t even know what governments and huge corporations are up to now, so we can’t even say where we should start to guide the world onto a better path.”
Point taken, RoS.
You’re right, of course. Eichmann was on trial after the collapse of the bureaucracy he was a part of and the world was united in its condemnation of the regime that spawned that bureaucracy – so, a completely different situation from the one the world is facing now.
The oil/gas and other resources on the UK continental shelf within the UK’s EEZ belong to the UK, not some cluster of counties.
Within the UK sector of the North Sea there is no internationally recognised division attaching any particular patch to any particular county or group of counties. There is the UK Sector and that’s all.
The “It’s Scotland’s oil” slogan of the 1970s was simultaneously a hoax and a fantasy. It still is. It’s no more “Scotland’s oil” than it is “Rutland’s oil” or “Cornwall’s oil”.
The fantasists need to get a grasp of reality, otherwise they’re doomed to lose the next IndyRef in “a lifetime” or “a generation”. Say 2032 or thereabouts.
Mac
Who would you like to read from btl?
Observations this evening.
I think if Salmond came back and led the indy movement and the SNP recognise they have a problem and act to address it, I think it is possible for the movement to come back in 6 months, with his strong and visionary leadership.
It seems a short timeline but I think everyone in the nationalist movement can see it needs to happen and will respond positively.
The next general election should be by Jan 2025. The next Scottish elections is May 2026 unless they change standing orders and collapse the Scottish parliament early.
The drawbacks of course are
We need Nicola and her man to cop a plea and end the pain of the investigation and court case, I suspect this is not likely.
The unionists will out the Salmond conspiracy and show the toxicity of the SNP and try to use it to split the movement further.
We need the bampots currently in charge to see reason and understand that their future on the current trajectory very limited.
The greens would benefit from come with us but are they commited to indy?
Perhaps I have been out in the sun to long but there is time for the movement to recover, but sensible heads need to have sensible conversations and recognise their past failures and move forward.
Northcode
2023 is the 50th anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen University. After suffering a heart attack in Aberdeen, she spent some time being cared for at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. She had a second fatal heart attack in December 1975.
Her friend, the well-known novelist Mary McCarthy gave a lecture at the university in her honour and also to pay tribute to the hospitality of her Aberdeen hosts, which I was fortunate enough to attend.
Shug – The problem with your idea is that Salmond is now unpopular with the electorate. Not with me, or with I suspect anyone else on this site, but with the electorate he rates alongside Price Andrew I believe. So, unlikely to happen and even if it did happen, it wouldn’t give you the result you think it would. A very capable guy and no doubt about that. Far ahead of anyone else at Holyrood, but the SNP butchered his reputation sadly. He’s doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe this year with David Davis, Bercow and Brian Cox and so I’m not even certain he would want to spend time at Holyrood. He’ll enjoy himself at the Edinburgh Fringe, he wouldn’t enjoy himself at Holyrood, especially not now.
Brilliant post Northcode. A great read thoroughly enjoyed it.
Northcode at 2.26pm
&
11.09 pm
Keep posting
Shug,
I’ve mentioned here a few times over the years that 2026 the USA will be celebrating 250 years or semiquincentennial of independence.
That will be all over our news telling us how good independence is, but not for viewers in Scotland.
It would be a very interesting time to have an independence referendum here in Scotland, people telling us how terrible it is for people to make their own decisions to the backdrop of celebrations about, eh..people making their own decisions.
And just for those who think we can’t afford it, here’s this 250 year old golden oldie.
“Where the money is to come from which will defray this enormous annual expense of three millions sterling, and all those other debts, I know not; unless the author of Common Sense, or some other ingenious projector, can discover the Philosopher’s Stone, by which iron and other base metals may be transmuted into gold. Certain I am that our commerce and agriculture, the two principal sources of our wealth, will not support such an expense. The whole of our exports from the Thirteen United Colonies, in the year 1769, amounted only to £2,887,898 sterling; which is not so much, by near half a million, as our annual expense would be were we independent of Great Britain. Those exports; with no inconsiderable part of the profits arising from them, it is well known, centered finally in Britain to pay the merchants and manufacturers there for goods we had imported thence—and yet left us still in debt! What then must our situation be, or what the state of our trade, when oppressed with such a burden of annual expense! When every article of commerce, every necessary of life, together with our lands, must be heavily taxed to defray that expense!”
—Charles Inglis, 1776, Pennsylvania
It’s what John Main’s great great great grandad might have said.
To all the dependants on here..
Where is your money coming from now & who is guaranteeing it in your future? I must’ve missed the memo England will guarantee our pocket money for eternity.
They can’t even take care of their own citizens. Even during the boom yrs of oil they spent it on themselves.
England was an absolute shite hole. It is only Scotland’s wealth of resources that is keeping us chained because without that they can’t play on the world stage playing with the big boys in blowing everything up.
The pish pension.
The pish elderly care.
The pish child care.
The pish life expectancy.
The pish outlook.
The pish exodus of Scotland for a better life & opportunity elsewhere.
The pish you can’t even retire now to sunnier climes since Brexshit.
The pish of a failed two party state & the charade it’s any different.
I dunno what fcking loopy juice yer drinking but wise up FFS!
Even during COVID, pandemic or not, Scotland was told to FUCK OFF when the chips were down with..
PPE (England first)
Vaccines (tried to threaten a return to the Alien Act)
Furlough (Scotland told to piss off & raise money itself)
So, who is showing you yer money for life?
Do tell.
A Holyrood Minister for Democracy, would be more appropriate, than Minister for Independence. Even so, each title is a misnomer, given the situation.
Acquiescence to Westminster, by SNP, despite their repeated election promises of IndyRef2, now leaving the electorate with no option but to sue their (inadequate) Holyrood parliament, in pursuit of fully democratic and autonomous Scottish government.
A court sanctioned referendum, the only justifiable outcome, to determine the people’s democratic right to self-determination.
Margaret Eleftheriou @18th July 10:1 pm
Thanks for that information, Margaret. I had no idea that Hannah Arendt had visited Scotland, or that she had delivered lectures at Aberdeen University.
I’m part-way through another book of hers, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”.
I’m a huge admirer of her writings. She had a sharp and brilliant mind.
Her ideas on how loneliness is the common ground for terror and how tyrannical regimes use isolation as a weapon of oppression are remarkably insightful.
This passage is from “The Origins of Totalitarianism”:
And this comment she made in a TV interview:
I couldn’t agree with her more.
And you were fortunate indeed to attend a lecture given by Mary McCarthy, another great writer, and mind. I’ve read a couple of her novels. Her 1942 debut novel, “The Company She Keeps” and “A Charmed Life” (1955).
I hope her lecture was as good as her novels.
Thanks again for letting me know of Hannah Arendt’s visit to Scotland – I’m not sure why, but knowing that has made my night.
masslass @18th July 11:07pm
Many thanks for your kind comment, masslass. Much appreciated.
The only ppl I’ve found to write off Salmond are britnats & Greens.
Britnats for obvious reasons.
Greens because they’ll not get their woo shite through Holyrood. They’re instantly relegated & they know it.
Geri says:
18 July, 2023 at 7:19 pm
It’s a breach of international treaties. The UK must accept refugees
———————–
When will scotland start taking them then? They took less 500 last year…..
I note that Dr Whiteford cites “ aggression & contempt towards SNP MP’s and indeed Scotland over the past 8 years specifically mentioning that the Boris Johnson government “ toxic legacy remains” . My question is therefore why has the leader of the SNP then Blackford and now Flynn allowing this to go on in what is our representatives place of employment ? Is it not long overdue for the leadership of our elected representatives to show some “ backbone” tell “ loudmouth” Hoy the supposed leader/ speaker of the house that enough is enough as regards this unacceptable contemptible behaviour towards Scot’s MP’s and Scotland in a supposed “ workplace” . The SNP leadership should have told Hoy in no uncertain terms that all elected SNP MP’s would withdraw entirely from “ parliament “ as and until Hoy instigated employment style tribunals to identify and sanction persons responsible for this aggression & contempt against Scots representatives and suspended and/or expelled them from parliament . Thereafter ,Hoy himself should be held responsible for allowing this type of behaviour to go unchecked .
Blackford and now Flynn should make it crystal clear that no SNP members would return to work as until this disgraceful behaviour was dealt with and he personally apologies to all Scots members and the Scottish Nation as a whole .
Or does the SNP leadership just sit wringing their hands and keep pocketing their pay cheques ? ( bought & sold?) . Pathetic if this is what is going on . Bruce & Wallace would be “ turning in their graves”
Geri
Overlooking, for the moment, that you believe all 220,000 people who voted for the green list last time are “nonces”, why do you call the self-ID stuff “their woo shite” when it has been well documented here that the LibDems, Labour, SNP and even a smattering of lost Conservatives also voted for it.
But that’s not what you mean by “their woo shite” is it? What you must mean then is their policies to deal with climate damage and nature damage. Policies that would restrict some profitable activity. That’s what a lot of commenters on here regard as perverse, particularly those with a direct connection to the oil industry.
Salmond has given the nod to these challenges this year. He was never a friend of things environmental – I know, I used to work in that area.
The indy campaign needs those 220000 votes but you and others seem to be deliberately alienating them. I wonder why? Surely it’s not as simple as that line will play well in a north east constituency?
Highlander,
Are you sure, there’s a lot more English refugees than that in a month.
“ Geri @ 1153 pm the pish you can’t even retire now to sunnier climes since Brexshit” . The Tories do not want pensioners spending “ their English or Scottish money” in Spain or elsewhere abroad ( hence Brexshit and all the added beaurocracy in travelling abroad is for that reason). In fact , they do not want holidaymakers now to spend what they consider to be “ their Tory money” abroad , hence the eventual plan is to make foreign holidays only to be affordable for “ the elite “ with the plebs being encouraged back to Blackpool, Bognor , etc etc . Ie a return to the fifties & sixties whereby the “ English hierarchy only” travelled abroad usually to the Caribbean colonies and such like. The Tories hate the “ plebs” spending “ their Tory money” outwith the plebs back yard .
The days of low cost holidays abroad are numbered .
North Chiel
Hoy despises the Scots & the SNP. He always has. Alex Salmond cut him a new arse when he interrupted Joanna Cherry to tell her she was finished. Salmond rose to his feet & gave him a right dressing down.
I can’t stand the man. He should never have been speaker. He’s a rancid bigot & serf.
Re Brexshit
2,500 English are heading back to blighty. Spain is having a crack down on illegal immigrants LOL
Now that they’re no longer in the EU & don’t have the correct paperwork they were instructed to leave or be deported with bars & restaurants instructed to find Spanish workers instead. Oh dear, the Brexshiteers never did understand the meaning of the word *reciprocal*. The Tories better start building houses for their own refugee crisis. LOL
fruitella the hun
Don’t try guessing what I mean. I meant what I said, the woo deviant shite. Make no mistake the Trans bullshit has only just started – the non binary crew are ready next to take up parliament’s time & money on shite no one wants.
& You are a liar about Salmond – it was him that started the Green initiatives FFS! Are you a snotty teenager with no sense? The Scottish Greens ARE NOT environmental. They are sexual deviants & parliament has wasted more than enough time on their *feeling*
highlander
Dang! If only we were in charge of our own immigration eh? We would take refugees – we could swap them for rUK pensioners who are a drain on all the free stuff we give away while they vote unionist.
sam says:
18 July, 2023 at 7:19 pm
It’s just a book promotion tour.
Is it Sam?
I hold a different opinion.
I actually think both Ritter and Douglas MacGregor have been absolutely vital in pricking the bubble of Western propaganda and scandalous disinformation. The accessibility of their commentary, (no small achievement by itself), is perhaps THE biggest reason the situation has not spiralled out of control and escalated into a terminal global conflict.
They have consistently provided objective and adroit commentary which has proven to be far more reliable than anything from the Pentagon, and it takes a brave man, (in this case two), to speak to America saying things which America doesn’t want to hear. It takes an even braver man to speak out and say the things the American Establishment doesn’t want it’s people to hear.
I don’t believe he’s in it for the money, nor does he strike me as a self promoting egotist, nor indeed a is he a Ruskian pawn. We all have our crosses to bear in life, and I believe the bane of Scot Ritter’s life is an unhealthy faith in truth and righteousness, whatever the cost to himself.
The entire situation in Eastern Europe has been orchestrated by a malignant menace which for decades has sought continually to destabilise Ruskian interests and exacerbate East / West tensions which might otherwise have flourished into a greater and more prosperous European continent that was fully reconciled and at peace with itself.
Ask yourself who doesn’t want that to happen.
And while you’re contemplating that conundrum, just ask yourself again, who or what was the driving force behind the insanity of Brexit?
They malign the Ruskians as Orcs, but the irony is, we’re the ones living in Mordor, and in the vice-like thrall of a great and growing evil. As the greatness falters, so the evil grows.
There is a huge confrontation looming on this current trajectory, and frankly, I fear Scotland is being dragooned into serving the dark side, (again), and no good will come of it.
Scotland must break free and stay free to pursue the role of peace broker, and use whatever influence we have, great or small, to do what is right for peace and reconciliation.
I believe that role is Scotland’s bane.
But, just like Scott Ritter, I also believe justice will eventually reveal this isn’t a bane at all, but a flawless and unbending integrity.
Nigel Farage saying there is no chance he will be able to open a UK bank account with any bank. Who coordinated that exactly?
All of this is sinister as f**k and makes the shite Alex Jones comes out with look sane.
I increasingly feel that we are in the middle of something, more and more alarm bells are ringing. I’d say it has been going on for about 2-3 years now, one engineered crisis after another. A pattern I expect to continue and escalate.
Going after guys like Farage and Andrew Tate, it is totally mental and completely out of order. The Alex Salmond stitch-up, the persecution of Assange, the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn, covid made in lab, rigged elections, rigged referendums…
It is everywhere at this point. No dissent whatsoever is being tolerated.
I don’t know what we are in but it definitely feels like a post-democracy era, like they just cancelled democracy and never informed us. It became all together too problematic for them. Even with every mainstream newspaper and media outlet controlled and singing from their hymn sheets they still could not control us… so in the end they just cancelled us.
When was the last time you felt you had a political leader who was sincerely acting in your best interests. The last time for me was when Salmond was FM but other than that the answer is never, my whole life. But what we are seeing now is the worst I have ever seen. It is like we have no leaders, they are asleep at the wheel or worse.
Breeks says at 3.44 am
Presume you have you seen Scott Ritters recent videos on Mr Zel and his illegal selling off of his countries assets to the big corporations, no consultations with the people. The parallels with Scotland are shocking maybe he learned from Brit agent unionists and their SNP helpers.
@ fruitella
Ah, I notice you’ve slipped in that wee dig again that some on here have connections to the oil industry, as a lame attempt to create the presumption that they support and agree with how it’s managed.
FYI I actually only got a job in the oil industry because as an engineer it was the only work that provided me with enough of a wage that would allow me to buy a modest cottage in the area I live, such were the property prices out of kilter with local wages. That situation is even worse now as the influx of English move up from down south taking the limited housing stock out of the reach of young locals.
You come on here to defend the green Party and their voters as they support environmental issues. But do they really. It seems they haven’t a scooby about the laws of physics, conservation of energy principles, and economies of scale.
DRS is flawed for many reasons, but how are loads of complex recycling machines using up resources and manufacturing them in energy intensive processes a more environmentally sound practice than just getting folk to use the existing recycling services we have already got in place in the 32 local authority areas across Scotland.
Likewise, how are loads of solar PV panels and air source heatpump systems, again made using up resources and manufactured in energy intensive purposes, a more environmentally sound practice than just using the ever growing abundance of renewable power Scotland has through our already in place infrastructure.
Do these idiots not realise they are creating the exact problems of needless over consumption that they claim is the issue.
And here’s another.
link to robinmcalpine.org
Geri
“…Salmond – it was him that started the Green initiatives FFS!”
I guess you’ll have a handy list of those, by now. Say what you mean.
I resent the communist capture of the Greens more than most. I oppose Queer Theory as equality gone too far. Right over the edge.
Now, about alienating those 220,000 votes for an indy position last election. What do you mean to achieve by that (assuming any of them see your spouting “pish” at everything you find annoying.
Mac, you mean the know all , windbag variety? Or the swamp creature variety?
Worms are turning in the Valley of the Ultra-Woke
link to archive.is
Mac says:
19 July, 2023 at 8:30 am
I don’t know what we are in but it definitely feels like a post-democracy era,
There never was real democracy, Mac. Always been a sham.
It’s just that the current crop of politicians (all parties) are so pathetic, it’s becoming painfully obvious (not that the powers that be care – they still think they can get away with it). Fine and well, the masses are content with their bread and circuses. Until the money runs out, that is. And that’s when it gets dangerous.
As Gerald Celente says:
“When all else fails, they take us to war”.
He wasn’t kidding.
My sorry view of the Scottish electorate and its “political class”. In the words of our greatest Songwriters.
“They never learn,
Captured by the fire, while the cruel flame burns.
Needing to repair,
What was never there, what’s been left behind.
Fruitella the hun,
Why would 220,000 voters shun the idea of independence when Scotland was at the forefront of renewable energy (under Salmond) unless it isn’t really about Green Energy?
How many of those 220,000 think they have better green options with the Unionists?
Scottish Green party bosses will soon be trying to oust one of their own in David Jardine, who has said of Green policy;
“the Scottish Greens had “become intolerant and exclusionary”.
“Jardine faces accusations of engaging in “right-wing, transphobic talking points.”
Jardine added.
“party members have been suspended and expelled or driven out by an aggressive faction which has scapegoated folk who believe that one’s sex is determined by biology”.
“He accused that “faction” of having “created a hostile environment”, adding: “The core objective of Green politics is sustainability. To achieve that we need – among other things – to be a broad church, not a narrow exclusionary sect.
“The cause is urgent and we need to get along with our fellow members as we find them, not as we would like them to be.”
Replies to Jardine’s points within the party were as predicted negative in nature.
“One Green member told this paper that the decision to publish the nomination “with the transphobia and attacks on the party” was “the ‘party of trans rights’ throwing trans people under the bus”.
Another said that, at a hustings held on Monday, Jardine was “clearly advocating for the rights and views of Terfs (in his words), and was questioning the party’s tolerance of sex-based rights. All right-wing, transphobic talking points that have no place in the Scottish Greens”.”
I witnessed the lunacy of Margaret Thatcher destroying entire industries for political ends. Scotland still bares the scars.
But this so called woke ideology, identity, progressive politics when combined with the Green’s own brand of lunacy is by far the most self destructive and corrupt set of ideas I have ever seen by far. It is a very clever and carefully crafted deception that was rolled out across the West, decades in the making.
What I find interesting is that whoever ‘they’ are they very much hate the local white populations of ‘their’ own countries. Makes you wonder who is really in power. You don’t hate your own people do you…
Does anyone really believe Joe Biden is calling the shots? Sunak? Yousless. So who is.
Who has been driving all the woke madness, going after our kids, to poison their minds and encourage them to mutilate their bodies. It is horror movie stuff.
And it is full on indoctrination in the schools at this point. Just saw a clip of a father barging into a classroom (that was being guarded by a private security guard) to find it full of kids and male trannies in full regalia with rainbow flags everywhere etc etc… who does this to their ‘own’ kids.
Who shuts down their ‘own’ key industries, oil and gas, farming, who emasculates their ‘own’ male population of fighting age.
So the first conclusion is that the people who really run the show in the UK and the USA at least, don’t like the local populations of the UK and the USA and they are actively doing everything they can to weaken and undermine them.
The second conclusion is that ‘we’ don’t know who ‘they’ really are. A war is being waged on us from within and we don’t know who the enemy is, in fact most folk don’t even know the war exists.
Sending hundreds of thousands of young men to a certain and needless death in an offensive with no air cover is a genocide. They had no chance, sitting ducks. Who does that to their ‘own’ people.
Dan
I’m only interested in defending ecologically-minded policies. The Green Party have been pushing ideas that don’t meet that criterion and I wish the current leadership was turfed out. I voted Alba last time but it has shown opposition to the few cinderella initiatives that at least had green intent – if not administrative competence. It was the attitude to conserving 10% of the sea bed that finished me off as a hopeful Alba voter. It’s occupying the space needed by whatever can ally the green and independence vote better than Sturgeon/Chapman’s flawed (doomed, really) attempt.
Salmond, admirable and wronged for sure, is, as in the noughties, placing his bets on upping oil extraction and mitigating the squeals with the promise of carbon capture. The world is catching fire.
It looks like Michelle Mone has wriggled of the PPE hook, no surprise there then.
link to archive.is
Breastplate
“How many of those 220,000 think they have better green options with the Unionists?”
Good question! What’s your guess?
At the moment Wings commenters seem to have faith in the Tory energy policy, which underpins growth-based economic policies. Most green voters are likely to be sceptical about that to say the least.
@mac Independence was the Trojan Horse for the SNP/Greens to infiltrate and reshape the Scottish political landscape towards a woke takeover Even the most sceptical of us never seen it being so bad and all in the name of progress apparently
Fruitella the hun @ 10.13.
This non technical commenter has great faith (and interest) in Dan’s contributions, which seem to me simple in concept, relatively inexpensive to introduce and, most importantly, reliable in use for the home dweller.
I’m thinking of straightforward schemes such as home insulation, electric storage heaters (with no mechanical maintenance or noisy operation), pump storage schemes for additional electric generation, etc.
Generating power in central installations and delivering it “ready to use” to homes seems much more straightforward and appealing than having heat pumps & boilers in every single individual dwelling.
One of the major obstacles to devising and implementing any type of integrated energy or maritime policy seems, quite simply, to be that our devolved administration has no members with solid engineering or practical backgrounds.
And as far as Ms Slater is concerned she seems to have reversed the concept of “By example shall we lead”.
@Breeks
“They [McGregor and Riitter] have consistently provided objective and adroit commentary which has proven to be far more reliable…”
You mean this?
Scott Ritter
@RealScottRitter
It’s becoming clear that Bu cha was a “cleansing” operation conducted by UK rainy National Police. UK rainy information operations decided to flip the script and blame big R. The CIA works hand in glove with UK rainy day info ops. Biden knows the truth, yet lies. Hence the crime.
3:49 am · 6 Apr 2022
Hence the crime, indeed.
I won’t be troubling you with a reply again.
@ fruitella
Ach, well at least if things go really bad you can go club a seal for sustenance, with the added bonus of getting a retro cool jacket and hat to keep you warm coz ye cannae afford the energy prices to heat a room… That’s if you don’t mind breaking the law though.
Scottish seals appear to have more advantages and rights to a space to live and thrive than young Scottish humans as can be seen by the seals’ more prolific land grabbing exploits and breeding rate when compared to young Scots.
Dan @ 8:34 am
“And here’s another.”
Robin MacAlpine’s analysis of Blackford’s woeful economic paper is pretty astute, as would be expected, though his appreciation of Scottish universities ignores the fact they employ (or teach) relatively few Scots.
Blackford could nevertheless have asked Scots who at least know something about Scotland to develop an economic strategy but obviously feels we are not up to the task. Hence his dependence on London lobbyists.
In my 50-year experience in researching global ports/trade development – which includes study of many former colonial nations – it seems fairly straightforward and relatively inexpensive to develop a strategy to rapidly double (or more) Scotland’s international trade, which remains vastly under-developed due to the economic ‘ corset’ of colonialism. Here is a wee flavour:
link to scotlandspeaks.com
fruitella the hun
The Greens are not an independence party. How many times does this need pointing out?
They’re an authoritarian, intolerant cult who doesn’t believe in biology never mind the environment.
They’ll vote for independence or they won’t. If they want change then they won’t get it by staying in the union. Trying to hold the YES movement to ransom won’t work which is exactly what you are trying to do here. It reminds me of those ‘Trans rights first. Fck independence’ drones all over social media when they were warned they needed independence first. They haven’t a brain cell amongst them & it’s absolutely despicable the Green party is using vulnerable sick ppl to feather their own sick agenda & totally destroyed Holyrood by turning it into trans issues every fcking day while wasting copious amounts of money funding their never ending charity groups during a cost of living crisis.
It was & still is a deliberate act to derail the SNP & the YES movement. They can take their Nutella & stick it where the sun don’t shine.
The Greens will be out at the next election. Hell mend them. They had a sniff at power & they went fcking insane – especially to OTHER PEOPLES KIDS.
No thanks..
@ Sven
I just tend to look at systems and identify their intended end objective*, and then consider the most efficient reliable way it can be designed and operated to achieve that end result. Therefore eliminating superfluous layers of crap which just adds inefficiencies and hinders the system.
The KISS (Keep It Simple
StupidScotland) acronym seems long forgotten by those currently involved in administering policy rollout in our country.*When I say objective, of course that objective may not be what it initially might seem. EG. Electrical energy generation, I may think it’s about supplying electrical power through the grid to households and businesses as the objective, but it may actually be just another profit making scheme for the large corporates and associated hangers on to that gravy train.
This view is becoming ever more obvious when you see the likes of the article about trees by Robin McAlpine I linked to earlier this morning, and also the DRS scheme with the head of Circularity Scotland raking in £300k a year (double what the First Minster gets iirc).
And similarly too with the ferries I suppose. Pretty sure a couple of years ago I said just stop throwing yet more good money away and scrap the current two builds and go with the Alf Baird’s suggested alternatives at 15 million each, as it seemed clear even back then that costs and time would still escalate to more than it would cost and possibly time to buy and have delivered, two turn key ready to go proven designs.
The problem with Holyrood: I notice Fergus Ewing has said that if the duelling of the A9 is not progressed starting now, the FM should resign. People voted for Ewing and they expect him to deliver and he is delivering. I don’t claim to know much about him, but he sounds pretty impressive to me. Compare him with Lorna Slater who no-one, or hardly anyone, voted for. Nevertheless, she is a minister and Ewing is a backbencher. If you asked the Scottish public: “What would you rather spend a hundred or two-hundred million on – a bottle return scheme or duelling the A9?” That in a nutshell is the problem. Humza thinks the Green Party are worth their weight in gold. No-one else thinks that – should someone not tell him?
@ Dan: have you seen the new, and first, leaflet from http://www.liberation.scot? Iain Lawson has it today on his blog Yours for Scotland.
It seems that social media hasn’t replaced leaflets after all! Iain asks us to print some and take to populous places such as shopping malls and football matches. [He must be thinking of somewhere other than Wester Ross…]
I suggest that people also print some QR codes BUT more immediately, and easily, every Yes person needs to speak to, or email, one other today and get them signed up to Liberation.scot. We can ALL do this and it is urgent that we do so.
I say that I don’t know much about Fergus Ewing and I don’t, but I remember him standing up at Holyrood in defence of fishing communities who were being threatened with having generations old fishing grounds closed-off. That decision was made by Mhairi McAllan who has always seemed slightly vapid and overwhelmed by everything that is going-on. Ewing’s performance that day was as good as you will see in any parliament in the world? maybe? That was my opinion at the time and that is what Holyrood is supposed to be for. So, I’ve written two posts today and they have both been about Fergus Ewing and Holyrood. The two don’t get-on, but it is Fergus Ewing, and others like him, that we need, not Holyrood.
Mac 9:55
Paedophlies.
They’ve came out of the deep dark web & want it to become mainstream & just another orientation.
Get into government, form lobby groups, get organised, use a Trojan horse – genuine gender dysphoria. They tried the same in the 80/90s with gay rights. PIE.
They’ve dumped the Trojan horse now that it has its foot in the door. Now anyone can join their ever expanding club under the *umbrella* term & more & more introducing the true paedophile agenda.
The people standing in their way to access children are women so they’ll just remove & erase that category, mock, dehumanise & demonise them as all the phobes & get them to leave services, professions altogether. That’s why they hate their own ppl. Anyone who is a gatekeeper.
According to sources on the internet regards the dark web – it’s a billion dollar industry with billions of subscribers world wide. From snuff to watching live events of the brutal torture of women & babies & those babies are from the never ending supply chain of foster kids & adoptions.
There are sick women in on this too. Playing the honey trap to lure kids.
Sturgeon has done decades of damage & it’ll be a good politician who will row this back now that it’s a cancer in every level of government.
Dan, Sven,
More from Robin McAlpine on the difficulties the current crop of politicians have in dealing with reality, link to robinmcalpine.org
And that’s what it is so sad and pitiful that Scotland was still desperate to sign up, so desperate for any press release about green energy and international collaboration that it nods anything through.
gives you a taste of what’s in the article.
Meant to add that Biden has promised them sex change surgeries if they march to war & volounteer for Ukrainy.
How sick is that?
It’s the stuff of sci-fi but all those hormone treatments cause epic aggression & rage in ppl. Maybe it’s a fcked up experiment gone wrong like the alleged Vietnam drug that sent ppl batshit crazy. Lol
Breastplate says:
19 July, 2023 at 1:04 am
Highlander,
Are you sure,
————————–
Yes less than 500, thats all the snp took.
Captain Yossarian
They’ve tried. He’s as dumb as fck & wants to maintain majority rule.
In a parliament that’s designed for cooperation.
A power trip his predecessor passed onto to him. From one narcissist to another & to the narcissist who is in charge of the Greens who makes irrelevant red lines.
From Dumbzas own mouth *it’s impossible to work in a minority – nothing gets done*
So what’s so vital that they’re passing through Holyrood? Nothing that I see.
Fergus is raging because his job is on the line, not Lorna Slaters from another party. Sturgeon has deliberately undone what Salmond promised through spite, imo. She didn’t get all the Kudos for the Queensferry crossing so started ditching the remaining policies he started.
Mac,
Hear hear,
The policies are global policies passed on to each Countries infiltrated government discussed by the unelected meetings such as Davos, G7: Wef, Imf,Who,gender 30 etc.
Conspiracy theories that the people are now living out in reality, in every Country at present.
Can no longer be a Conspiracy,
There is always only a year or two between being a conspiracy and living the reality for citizenss,
I hear climate change ideology and think how daft, weak and supceptable these are these peoples brains are that believe this nonsense without realising that this is cyclic in nature for billions of years,
Your never will see these weak brained big mouth idiots trying t stop the every second generation repeat but constant wars or holding t account who blew the fish out the sea at nord sream,
The never are consstantly on the attack at government doors, whch would be the correct position f true,
No the come after the easy targets, those with very little finances or very little choice in what the big corporations are doing with the consent and licences of big MPs bought and payed for within our governments.
Harrasssing and Bending the ear and attacking the wee man.
I would love them to explain how global warming happen during and after the ice age with no people to blame,
And why geology tells us these events have happened many times in a cyclic natural events with out the blame lying at the door of peoples industries,
How Archaeology proves a flood happened without plastic and oil being invented.
Climate change like the gender issue is man made concept for control of populations and Countries
If the Green brigade believe this shite while governments pushing these Social experiments on us are at the same time as blowing up nature, towns, people, animals and oceans, cutting down trees that are good at carbon capture and have been for millions of years.
Then i would suggest the green brigade are low intelligent ignorant bullies helping governments implement nothing more than a big social experiment on the people.
Dan @ 11:23 am
“And similarly too with the ferries I suppose. Pretty sure a couple of years ago I said just stop throwing yet more good money away and scrap the current two builds and go with the Alf Baird’s suggested alternatives at 15 million each”
On the money Dan. ScotGov still remains very poorly advised, intentionally so; because all a colony can ever expect is a ‘mediocre meritocracy’ running its affairs and institutions.
Buying and operating (or building) proven designs of ferries etc at much lower cost is really not that difficult, as many former colonies demonstrated after their liberation:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
The rewilding Scotland has taken a cruel and (unrecorded) twist that requires the present wild life to be culled and killed for experimental replacement with bears, bison, wolves, large preditory birds and beavers,
Turning Scotlands wildlife American,
Why?
It require big tracts of land and sea to move out of the hands of Scottish people and into the hands of governments and Charities outwith Scotland,
It runs rough shod over normal farming and fishing industries of Scotland,
Our food produce ability is in slow but scarey free fall.
Our Scottish recipes and food is also being taken over.in a slow creep under these global policies.
And to ice the cake you will not be allowed into your own crountry side due to restriction on movement and travel,
All we need to add is viruses for control of the population in their own Country,
@ James Che 12.40 pm
You have some support.
This from scientist Javier Vinos @ from-sea-levels-to-sea-ice-media-ignore-good-climate-news-in-2022/
“It is reasonable to assume that increased CO2 has contributed to warming since the mid-20th century when our CO2 emissions increased significantly, but no one knows how much they have contributed, no matter how much the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) insists that “humans are the dominant cause of observed global warming over recent decades.” (IPCC AR6, page 515).
There is no evidence for this statement. I know this because I have read thousands of scientific papers looking for it. And no, computer models are not evidence of anything but the programming skills of their authors.
Models and their predictions are constantly changing and when our knowledge of climate changes, they must be redone.
The absolute lack of evidence contrasts sharply with the decision to cut our CO2 emissions to zero by completely changing our fossil fuel-based energy system and calling CO2 a pollutant—when it is as essential to life as oxygen.
All this while most of the world doesn’t give a damn about emissions and many are only on board for the promised money.”
Holyrood doesn’t have a HoL. The place things supposedly go to be double checked for errors & to be thrashed out on the finer detail.
Holyrood has cross party committees instead that have utterly failed to do their job but waved through one disaster after another.
It’s deliberate self sabotage.
A supposed indy party risking devolution & being the only ones to have a section 35 issued in its short 25 yr history.
That was no accident & what better way to turn Scots off independence in disgust but by having a supposed indy party implement it..
I hope the whole rotten lot of them go & we achieve our independence outside of the rat infested Holyrood parliament.
The stupidity of even having unionist parties, from another country, even sit in it unelected (list seats, 25+ yr loser Murdo Fraser) & collecting a wage to be a continuous wasp at a picnic to any type of progress.
But we’re not a colony! LOL Aye, right.
It’s on its way….
link to assemblyfestival.com
Buy the tickets, get there, spread the word. Alex is back.. 🙂
James Che @1:01pm
Surely your mean “Turning Scotland’s wildlife Scottish” or perhaps a wee bit Polish:
Steppe Bison, native, went extinct 6000 years ago
Brown Bear, native, extinct 450AD
Eurasian Beaver, native, extinct 16th century
Wolf, native, extinct with the last one killed at Killiecrankie in 1680 or Brora in 1700
White-tailed Sea Eagle, native, last breeding attempt was in 1916. They probably disappeared completely with 10 years after that.
A reasonable case can be made for Brown Bear but Bison is probably pushing things a bit. 6000 years is still sort of post-glacial and I think this period coincides with the time that the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland lost all the trees, so climate change may have done them in regardless.
I take what you say about rewilding as yet another land grab. However Scotland’s a big place and not all of it is good for farming or even forestry in a lot of places. It could be a rather productive use of the land and would certainly bring in piles of cash from tourists if the sea eagle reintroduction around Rhum is anything to go by.
Even if you’re not so keen on the more controversial predators, bringing back elk, feral highland cattle and possibly wild boar or lynx would make the countryside more interesting than having a mono-culture of Red Deer. The regeneration of native woodland would certainly benefit.
I’m sitting on the NE corner of Lisbon and there are wild boar about 6 miles from the house. They do make a bit of a mess trampling crops (here it’s rice) but unless you look really hard for them you’d never know they were there. There are also Eagle Owls right up to the edge of the city (2 miles from here). No children have been carried off as far as I know but I can’t say the same for the occasional pet cat. You can cram a lot of wildlife into even quite densely populated areas if you have the right habitats. Scotland could be a lot like Spain which has population density of 94 people/km2 (Scotland has 67/km2) and still has a lot of wildlife (it is much bigger though).
@ sarah & Stuart MacKay
Aye, have read both those articles which were linked to on the evermore useful link to voices.scot
(Where’s yer avatar gone Stuart?)
I say evermore useful now that twitter has helpfully banished me from the grief of viewing its abundance of shit whilst looking for the odd gem.
Hey ho, no great loss as gives me time to do other more productive stuff instead…but will point out that those still using those ghastly sites that helped manipulate and influence society into the crapfest we now find ourselves in, are doing so to an ever decreasing bubble so they may want to question the worth of spending time on those platforms. Boycott, Divest, Sanction Jist saying like.
…Update for those of a technically inquisitive disposition. Finished cleaning the rear calipers in my electrolysis bath. I used a 12v car battery as the supply for the anode and cathode. I connected a charger to the battery that was supplying 2 amps of current ( #OhmsLawKlaxon for ASA aka NuEnglish 😉 ) so I wouldn’t discharge the battery over the duration of the process. It took approximately 5 hours per caliper to kill and remove all the build up of corrosion.
An energy usage monitoring device on charger mains lead shows it didn’t even use 1Kwh of power over the duration. So less than 35 pence of renewably produced Scottish leccy to clean the components without even having to leave my garden.
If I had gone down the sandblasting route I would have had to drive to blaster cleaners using my time and fuel, pay the blast company, use big compressor power, and processed blast media like sand to clean them up. And the rust would have returned as soon as the components were exposed to humidity as blasting only removes the corroded surface, where as electrolysis cleans corrosion out of the porous metal surface.
So that’s yet more eco credit points earned by using the contents of one’s napper to think how to achieve an objective in the most efficient way possible.
Now if I was in the Scottish green party I’d be looking to setup a taxpayer funded quango or two with numerous associated stakeholders, all snorting lines of Bisto powder off eachothers’ arses whilst they spent years on the gravy train trying to coming up with some overly complex, inefficient and therefore massively compromised bumblefuck of a process to restore brake calipers…
Dan
Thanks for the kind words about link to voices.scot – both now and in the past. It’s still very niche but the current clientele seem pretty happy with it.
I agree twitter has really gone to hell of late. For the past few months I would post links to the more interesting blog posts from voices but engagement really fell off a cliff recently. I suspect the same happened to a lot of the people I followed as everybody seems to be retweeting junk from any old place. Informative tweets are few and very far between.
As for the Scottish Greens I fear you give them too much credit. Since brake calipers are inextricably linked to transport and so to the evil oil industry they must be banned immediately.
Nice one on the electrolysis bath – you’re a resourceful engineer – a True Scot.
Oh has Mr Livingstone
link to msn.com
@North Chiel says:19 July, 2023 at 12:43 am
Bruce & Wallace would be “ turning in their graves”
Maybes, but they’ve been birling at top speed ever since HY took over.
Puzzles me why us Sovereign Scots are so supine about it all.
@Breeks says:19 July, 2023 at 3:44 am
use whatever influence we have, great or small, to do what is right for peace and reconciliation
Hear hear Breeks. I will use my small influence, courtesy of Rev Stu’s hosting, to do my tuppence worth for peace and reconciliation right here. Excuse the shouting:
Occupying aggressors of Russtiland! Fuck off back to your own country! Thanks
Anybody else care to join me? Breeks? Anybody?
We are the 51st state.
Latest madness heading our way is to remove women from voting (who were the suffragettes anyway? It was a minority faction) & asexual ppl (who have a new flag for London pride) are *oppressed* & deserve the same rights as everyone else lol is there a law against ppl having no sex now?
Their madness is on every platform & censorship daft. Sickening they tap into autistic kids to peddle & absorb this shite.
That’s why the trans in Holyrood will continue under the Greens agenda. Non binary, Asexual & every other loopy fringe group inventing their oppression as a complete distraction in government.
Environmental factors aren’t even on their radar. If it were they’d have damn well pushed for it while in government & done their homework. They didn’t. They’re a con & a front for more sinister shit.
This is a part of the 2020 World Happiness Report.
“What exactly makes Nordic citizens so exceptionally satisfied with their lives? This is the question that this chapter aims to answer.Through reviewing the existing studies,theories,and data behind the World happiness Report,we find that the most prominent explanations include factors related to the quality of the institutions, such as reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions. Furthermore, Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom,as well as high levels of social trust towards each other, which play an important role in determining life satisfaction.”
What price happiness? What price health?
Some folk have it erse about face. Health and happiness makes more money for a country. Without both your stuck where Ingerland is – Shitsville. Keeping us bound.
Those innarested in today’s posts about Scottish environmentalism and pointless tree planting will benefit from reading Unherd’s article “The clue China is preparing for war”.
The article explains how the Covid Spreaders have embarked on a crash programme of deforestation. Here’s a wee quote:
“[the deforestation rate] greatly exceeds the rate of the Amazon’s deforestation, even though the West’s environmentalists have so far remained entirely silent.”
So why are they doing this? China is heavily dependent on imported food. They need to clear fell their forests so that they can grow their own, and thus become self-sufficient in food. And there’s a hell of a lot of mouths to feed.
Self sufficiency in food is a precursor of their expansionist, imperialist, colonialist policies. That’s all explained in the article.
@sam says:19 July, 2023 at 3:25 pm
Innarestin.
Show us the health & happiness then. That fits on a T-shirt.
Alas, like the money, the health & happiness is not there to be shown. Despite a quarter of a century of an entirely devolved SNHS.
Oh well.
Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom,as well as high levels of social trust towards each other
See that “social trust” thingy there? That’s weaselspeak for monoculturalism. The author(s) of the report understand the root cause of what they are writing, but dare not explicitly spell it out.
Oh well again.
Dan
I forgot about your avatar question – there’s a clue 😉
It was wildly out of date. Not outrageously so, but being a dutiful parent has not been kind and I’m too self-conscious to post an updated version. Besides, it was showing up anywhere I used my email address so I decided to delete it from WordPress’ avatar site and so fade into the shadows somewhat.
Co2 is and carbon are very important to sustain the enviroment,
We as humans are are part carbon.
Diciduos tree planting is a must,
Pre- industrial age there were more trees and hedges, so if anything there should be more emphasis in planting this kind of trees by Councils, green town squares, and less concrete in villages and new house build, inner cities should have big pulic parks as they used to before council became industrious grey living cubicle housing.
Councils should encourage bigger Council gardens and allotments, get people out into the fresh air and produce some of their own table vegetables like they used to do, before Councils became greedy for profit and private contractors.
Living in a town used to be green
Living in a town now is grey.
As to the numpty whom said that American and other Countries animals used to roam Scotland and suggests we bring them back,
We are a island, Britain took a different evolution path, and that is how it should remain.
If you want to return native species to Scotland, How about re- introducing some Native Scots.
John Main
Social trust is not just monoculturalism but also the social-democratic pact that was formed between the governing and the governed in the wake of WWII and lead to the creation of national health services and other safety nets.
The governing largely decided to break their part of pact and we got sold multi-culturalism as a way of justifying the large-scale immigration needed to pay the pensions of the baby boomers and from there corporate profits and drive down wages and conditions in general.
It’s pretty much acknowledged that social trust in the Nordic countries is dead and buried. So much so that Sweden is now experiencing a backlash against multi-culturalism and an extreme right-wing resurgence. All of which is not helped by the flood of assault weapons coming out of The Conflict.
It will be interesting to see where Nordics end up in the surveys in future years. Probably there is a lag between what people feel when asked these questions and what they know the reality to be. The Nordic Dream is fast turning into a nightmare.
“Unherd’s article “The clue China is preparing for war”.”
Main.
Still pushing the shite from that George Soros/Sir Paul Marshall funded propaganda rag.
Stuart MacKay.
The beauty of visiting different Countries is that no two were the same, and that is how it should be.
Otherwise were are being coerced into being one Country type and one culture underglobal one world order.
Is it not these very same global people screaming about diversity
“When will scotland start taking them then? They took less 500 last year…..”
Pish.
Since the war in 404 began eleven months ago, more than 22,000 people with a Scottish sponsor have arrived. Article dated 12th of January.
I’d also like to add that its not up to Scots who comes and goes from abroad, Scots are so f*ckin weak minded that they allow a foreign country (England-Home Office) to decide who can and cannot stay in their country.
link to archive.is
As for gullible Scots how many of them offered to sponsor a Yemeni or Palestinian or South Sudanese family? More to the point was the scheme even available for those fleeing conflict and persecution.
Nor have we seen the Scottish government appoint a minister for Yemeni’s or the Sudanese or even Palestinians, the hypocrisy is f*ckin staggering.
Standing up for baby boomers,
What the government omit to tell the younger generation is that these baby boomers paid towards their pensions with money being deducted every pay packet each week or month.
It is the next generation and present generation getting handouts from the ( previous generation, paying in and working dammed hard for it in all weathers) whom are on a credit system while not working and contributing anything financially or industrious in way or sort of permanent employment.
The generations after the baby boomer wait to be fed freebee money from government like chicks in a nest,
Ignorent, brainwashed in propaganda, and most ( not all) bloody lazy.
“ John main says @0306 pm “ probably because the majority of “ sovereign Scots” are kept “ doped up” via their daily dose from the state cultural propaganda output channels , which have been “ Birling” non stop for as long as I can remember John .
By suing the Scottish Parliament, for the right to end Devolution, by democratically ending the Union, that court action, by the people of Scotland, when upheld, the first consequence, prior to holding the court sanctioned referendum, would be an immediate, Holyrood election, as SNP & Parliament itself would have lost all credibility, due to the enforced nature of the court action and previously won mandates for such a referendum.
The ensuing election campaign would then be a precursor to the referendum campaign itself. A fresh ensemble of independence politicians newly in place, in readiness for the main event.
With SNP shamed, the main question being.. With independents likely to form a Scotland United front, who is likely to emerge, to lead a referendum campaign?
Is there anyone other than Salmond? Perhaps Sara Salyers could be persuaded?
Sam.
I was watching the RT Hon John Ruddick Australian parliament speech who also referred to the way the Nordic system works and the results on the populace.
@Republicofscotland says:19 July, 2023 at 4:55 pm
There are a number of big differences between the citizens of 404 and the citizens of those other countries you list.
But by far the biggest difference (actually it’s a humongous difference on stilts) is that the citizens of 404 are here temporarily – they intend to return to 404 where they will have a stake and a vested interest in forging a free, rejuvenated sovereign nation to protect and nurture their unique culture, language, etc. etc.
Do any citizens of these other countries you list ever intend to go back? I hae ma doots.
I fully understand that due to your prejudices you can’t see that difference, but never mind, plenty of us can.
It’s a sad state of affairs that Scotland won’t be able to retain exactly the sort of New Scot who could teach us the true meaning of Independence, and help us along the road to that destination. But while the citizens of 404 are here, we can maybes all learn a little from the example they set.
@Republicofscotland says:19 July, 2023 at 4:40 pm
Still pushing the shite
Sure. There’s a great pic on the Guardian Online of Leo Varadkar shaking hands today with “Agent Z”.
If we were Independent our own Leader could be guiding our own contributions to The War. But instead, WM gets all the credit and the Coalition Of The Willing is probably unaware of Scotland’s existence.
James Che says:
19 July, 2023 at 5:01 pm
Standing up for baby boomers
Can I just point out that many baby boomers not only paid all taxes while in work, but still pay tax on relatively small pensions. More pensioners than ever before are now paying income tax because of the Tory government freezing the personal allowance.
I retired 15 years ago and because my pension did not reach the level of the personal allowance I did not pay income tax (although I continued to pay all other non-progressive taxes). However, this year I now have to pay income tax on an income which has not kept up with the cost of living. I suspect a lot of other pensioners are caught in the same trap.
Scotland can do better and we need to spread the message. Labour are not going to help us either.
I notice the wanker Main is not using his other “names” lately.
He is trying to take on the whole site single handedly.
Please try to ignore the site wanker if you can.
I know he tries to pull you into replying,,,but it is far better if he is ignored.
The guy and is “names” are total arseholes.
“But by far the biggest difference”
Main.
I’ll tell the REAL difference since you ignore it, is that the Yemeni’s, South Sudanese are fleeing their lands due to proxy wars caused/backed by the West, the poor Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can’t even do that, with Israeli patrols ships, often aided by English warships patrolling that part of the Eastern Med (Levant) making sure no aid reaches them they often fire on Palestinian fishing boats.
404’s cossetted immigrants/refugees, will not want to go back for their won’t be much to back to, except the Western region everything West of Kiev that is if they’re lucky.
Anyway the West/Nato caused the conflict to break the RF, but it will be Western citizens that pay the hefty price for them starting it as its backfiring spectacularly.
@Ron Clark says:19 July, 2023 at 6:15 pm
He is trying to take on the whole site single handedly
Naw, you’re wrong there Ron, I’m not trying to take you on.
You get a free pass cos you’re special. Very special.
Remember now, Ron, ignore this post!
kumrads die because they’re told)
kumrads die before they’re old
(kumrads aren’t afraid to die
kumrads don’t
and kumrads won’t
believe in life)and death knows whie
(all good kumrads you can tell
by their altruistic smell
moscow pipes good kumrads dance)
kumrads enjoy
s.freud knows whoy
the hope that you may mess your pance
every kumrad is a bit
of quite unmitigated hate
(travelling in a futile groove
god knows why)
and so do i
(because they are afraid to love
@Grouser says:19 July, 2023 at 5:43 pm
Look on the bright side 🙂
President P is now calling up military reservists up to the age of 70 as he endeavours to keep his meat grinders running at full capacity.
I know British Labour are dumping on working class families and children to look appealing to the white metropolitan elite middle class,
does any one know if they will compensate the WASPI woman,
Mhairi Black MP was a champion of their cause until she took up the battle to bring drag acts from sweaty clubs in Benidorm to primary schools,
Black`s legacy from 8 years in office is thinner gruel than Barack Obama`s 8 years in office.
Republicofscotland says:
19 July, 2023 at 4:55 pm
“When will scotland start taking them then? They took less 500 last year…..”
Pish.
—————————————
We are talking about illegal immigrants and 500 is the number of places the snp supplied in 2022
Dan – We may have slight differences in political outlook from time to time, but your resourcefulness as an engineer is superlative. I always study your engineering posts and there’s not much to disagree with. Wherever I have gone in the world, it is always good to meet up with a Scotsman and they are usually sensible pragmatists like you. I may have bored you with this story before but I remember working in Libya and a young guy was delegated to work with me and his father came down to see me and tell me how happy he was that his son was learning from a Scotsman. So, my advice to you is don’t irritate yourself with all of the shite on here; remember you are a Scottish engineer.
Meanwhile, the Chief Constable of Police Scotland says that they are now looking into embezzlement regarding the accounts, and the BBC are reporting that the ScotGov have cut down 16 million trees so they can put up wind turbines.
That’s quite startling. Who would want to cut down 16 million trees when there’s all of that sea to put wind turbines in? Trees are good.
“We are talking about illegal immigrants and 500 is the number of places the snp supplied in 2022”
Which raises the question of legality, it certain doesn’t lie in Scotland, Scots have no say on who can or can’t live in Scotland, the Brain family being a prime example of the foreign country of England’s Home Office which had the final say, they kept the family waiting for twelve years before giving them the all clear.
As the HO in a foreign country decides who can and cannot live in Scotland, it begs the question are 404’s immigrants illegal in Scotland.
Trees.
Regurgitated Tory pish from January. Jeez, is the news really that slow?
Anyway, commercial crop. Replanted elsewhere.
How many have the Tories planted?
There’s also that dodgy as feck Lordship nonsense who supposedly plant trees in return for buying a title.
James Che
The comparison with Spain was more along the lines that it’s been inhabited by humans for a long time, has a reasonably large population and yet some parts are as wild as you can imagine.
Large parts of Scotland, if not all of it, have the marks of being managed. I’d like to see decent sized chunks of it becoming wild. Take the Flow Country. It’s an utter abomination that trees were planted there for tax breaks for the already well off – f**k you Terry Wogan. I hope you’re burning in Hell.
Looking around from Knockfinn Heights or east from Ben Armine you could be on the edge of the world. Wild places are part of the fabric of a country and the people who live in it. It’s probably good for business too – rugged Scotland, rugged Scots, etc.
Greenpeace
Tory tree planting..oh dear..
**The Conservative 2015 manifesto pledged to plant 11 million trees in England over the course of parliament if elected.
Yet the latest figures released last week show that since April 2015 the government has only overseen the planting of 1.35 million trees, equivalent to 1009 hectares.
This represents a 66% drop on the rate of planting over the course of the previous government. At the current rate, it would take the government 12.2 years to reach the pledge instead of the three until the next election.**
Main; “…Self sufficiency in food is a precursor of their expansionist, imperialist, colonialist policies…”
Which country did China bomb most recently, me old gammon?
Ron Clark;
“…I notice the wanker Main is not using his other “names” lately. He is trying to take on the whole site single handedly. Please try to ignore the site wanker if you can.
I know he tries to pull you into replying,,,but it is far better if he is ignored.
The guy and is “names” are total arseholes….”
Excellent observations, Ron. Let’s all give it a try…?
Highlander
The Tories have made the *tough* decision to remove 404s council relief funding.
They were also pulling the funding for families who gave them a home. Where are they expected to go now?
Also 404s refugees were allowed to work & earn a living yet other refugees are forbidden..why?
The UK government is in charge of our immigration. They say who comes & goes. Do you not think Sturgeon would have relished more if she could for her photo ops & selfies? 500 was obviously a cap set by that bleeding heart, Patel.
@ Geri
Aye, after a few days of leave a bawheid radge in England rocks up again ranting aboot a ream o’ trees being cut doon, but unfortunately fails to mention there have been a magnitude more planted.
The moaning fucker should be chuffed some trees got cut doon as the windfarms that replaced them are generating and sending leccy ( OhmsLawKlaxon ) to England so the twat has enough power for his laptop to post his shite on here!
16 million trees is about 17% of all of the trees in Scotland.
That’s quite a lot. It’s also 1,700 trees a day being felled.
Now, little young saplings don’t replace big mature trees in terms of the amount of carbon they absorb, do they?
Why is ScotGov doing this? It’s a reasonable question.
Captain Yossarian
Part of the SNP hate Salmond and most of alba hate the SNP that falsely accused Salmond commited perjury and lost £600k.
My point is we need to meet in the middle and we need to focus on the real target Westminster.
Both sides need to compromise.
While we fight amongst ourselves, Westminster pumps oil.
Seems Rev Stu is running silent right now.
Maybe he’s been collared by Interplod as a witness for the prosecution in the upcoming Court of events.
Given that through his commendable diligence it was he that delivered this SNP criminality into the public domain much to the benefit of the Scottish Electorate, it makes sense for some down time.
Right before some long overdue jail time for the Murrells. Eh?
I looked this up some months ago. Under Scots law fraud at this scale gets you 5 to 7 years in jail.
Wouldn’t that be just primo?
Sigh. Well Scotland wouldn’t have much of a forestry / timber industry with all the significant benefits that brings in terms of related jobs, economic activity, and wood products, if we can’t harvest trees once they mature.
Some may not know this but wood products that we use extensively in a variety of ways come from trees. So we either utilise our own forestry and timber or import it from elsewhere.
And if we cannae cut down trees then all those subsidy junkie posh folk with huge big houses who installed massive wood pellet fired boilers for the state RHI kickbacks on their heating bills won’t be happy if they cannae get wood pellets to burn.
Why would an independence party ( Alba, who has extended the hand of friendship repeatedly to have it thrown back in their face) want to compromise with a party content to push Better Together & would rather meet Labour leaders?
The SNP are now a unionist party. The leadership election & the kowtowing to the Royal farce is evidence they’re no longer interested in indy.
If I were Alex Salmond I’d make the Scotland United plan the last ever offer he makes – they’re just a dead weight. Imo..
“President P is now calling up military reservists up to the age of 70 as he endeavours to keep his meat grinders running at full capacity.”
John Main, let’s pretend that we don’t have sufficient information from our media to know who has the upper hand in country 404, as both sides are saying the other side is pish.
You seem to believe that 404 has the upper hand because Russ ia has run out of fighting aged men and are relying on people who have already one foot in the grave, if true Russ is is done, their finished and 404 just needs to mop up the dead bodies and everything will be as it was.
But let’s test that theory.
There has been a series of red lines that the USA and other countries wouldn’t cross to help 404.
It started with only helping with humanitarian aid, we crossed that red line.
Then it would be defensive aid, we crossed that red line.
Then it would be providing short range offensive weapons, we crossed that red line.
Then it would be sending tanks and armoured vehicles, we crossed that red line.
Then it would be providing medium range offensive weapons, we crossed that red line.
Then it would be providing long range weapons, we crossed that red line.
There are more red lines but that’s enough to be getting on with.
Did the West cross these red lines just for the bants or did they cross these red lines because they had seriously, and I mean seriously underestimated the Russ ians.
There would be no reason to do an about face with every red line unless the alternative was worse.
Every red line crossed is an admission that what had gone before wasn’t enough to beat the Russ ians, escalation in our eyes was warranted.
We’re still escalating. This is a game of global thermonuclear chicken.
Do we continue to escalate to the inevitable face off with the Russ ians on their own doorstep or do we wind our neck in?
I know what my advice would be to our idiot politicians.
What would yours be?
“little young saplings don’t replace big mature trees in terms of the amount of carbon they absorb, do they?
Why is ScotGov doing this? It’s a reasonable question.”
Don’t expect a reasonable answer from ScotGov to a reasonable question.
Even in thoroughly corrupt Nigeria and Sarawak there is a deal whereby timber companies must plant a hundred or a thousand saplings to replace every mature tree felled. Those deals really are honoured, mostly.
In the past decade I’ve felled a coupla dozen very mature Beeches, Oaks and Ash, some of which were planted in the 1770s and the rest in the 1800s. In return, I’ve planted well over 150,000 young saplings on LFA land in the central belt (almost exactly midway between the centres of Embra and Glescae).
I no longer accept any subsidies from the arseholes who run the SNumPty-run successor to the Forestry Commission in Scotland, because their demands are absurd. They want serried rows of alien trees at a crazy close spacing (3m for deciduous, 2.5m for coniferous). The resultant woodland will never ever be or look ‘natural’, not even after Birnam Wood marches on Dunsinane.
I pay all of my costs of planting myself. Bollocks to the gumment subsidy culture.
Lorna Slater is a goppingly stupid cunt.
Post scriptum: Did you know that there are only 30 species of native trees in Britain?
Did you know that 97% of the ancient Caledonian Forest (please don’t call it ‘pine forest’!) has been wiped out by man (Scotsmen) in the past 4,000 years?
If Ukrainy was winning they wouldn’t be doing the shopping list world tour begging everyone for their latest top of the range weapons. (Notice they don’t want any beat up pish lol)
Our media is worse than P-tans for state funded government propaganda. They’ve lost what little credibility they ever had under Blair & have never recovered. They’ve a nerve touting for subs. They’re just typists now.
Republicofscotland says:
19 July, 2023 at 8:26 pm
“We are talking about illegal immigrants and 500 is the number of places the snp supplied in 2022”
Which raises the question of legality, it certain doesn’t lie in Scotland, Scots have no say on who can or can’t live in Scotland
———————————–
Well you are wrong there- the biggest group of migrants coming to scotland are university students, this is down to the snp policy, less % of scots going to uni, this is what pays for the “free” uni.
getting back to the illegal migration bill you the the snp should either take more or stfu
Geri says:
19 July, 2023 at 9:04 pm
500 was obviously a cap set by that bleeding heart, Patel.
——————
nope the snp, pure virtue signaling
@Breastplate says:19 July, 2023 at 11:56 pm
You seem to believe
Anywhere that two eejits gather together to pointlessly argue online, the phrase “you seem to believe” is almost universally accepted as evidence that one eejit is about to accuse the other eejit of holding an opinion that the first eejit just made up in his heid.
How have you not realised that yet?
Regarding the rest of your post, there’s a nasty, vicious war on, and the goodies are slowly and belatedly realising that they can’t fight with one hand tied behind their back.
You’re shitting yourself, BP, and I won’t think any the worse of you for that. Ergo, the temptation to throw a free nation of 45 million people, and look the other way whilst its culture, language, etc. are destroyed is strong in you. What matters the 45 mill, as long as you and yours are cosy and safe, eh?
But keep it to yourself. On a site dedicated to the survival and re-flowering of our own nation’s culture, languages and freedoms, it’s a very bad look.
@James says:19 July, 2023 at 9:02 pm
Let’s all give it a try
Way to go, James, full endorsement from me and other decent, rational Scots reading here.
Byeee!!!
TREES.
It’s a funny thing, that somehow the greenies and eco-warriors’ of Scotland seem to have forgotten about trees. Instead of squandering money on silly traffic ‘schemes’ and the ridiculous low emission zone tax, they should be planting more trees.
I recall, as a boy, their was a huge drive to plant more trees, as they would;
1. Clean the air – removing damaging particulates known to cause health problems.
2. reduce the impact of pollution, and remove most key toxic pollutants found in industrialised cities
3. Cool cities. This effect is massive in heavily populated cities
4. remove CO2 and produce oxygen.
At all of these, trees are exceptionally good. The car-hating loonies in Edinburgh council should stop p*ssing everybody off by closing just about any road left in Edinburgh, and instead start a massive tree planting campaign. Indeed, part of the reason that air quality is so good (the best in the UK) in Edinburgh right now, is due to the number of trees it already has.
Seriously, trees are just sooooo very, very good at getting rid of CO2 and pollution. Nature’s solution to a man made problem. And they look nice too – a lot nicer than loony Edinburgh council bollards.
Maybe planting trees is no longer fashionable among the green luddites, since it doesn’t fit with their obsessive hatred of ALL cars.
Just a reminder… Trees can be good, but they can also be absolute bastards if situated inappropriately.
Blocking significant natural light and heat, shedding leaves, blossom, seeds, and sap that chokes traditional Scottish slated roofs stopping the roofs ventilating properly.
Blocking rain gutters and downpipes, and the road gullies and drains.
Tree owners or councils that adopt the trees are supposedly legally responsible for all the detritus that comes off their trees. But as ever, good luck trying to get them to manage what they are responsible for in any way shape of form.
But cut a twig off a bush in bird nesting season and you’ll feel the full force of the re-wilding gestapo and the cops will rock up.
My neighbours and I are sick to the back teeth of the issues the trees cause. If any tree hugger wants to come round and help fill numerous tonne bags with leaves from all our gardens several times a year and clean the gutters whilst they’re at it then please get in touch.
Sick of waiting for news to happen. Anything on the horizon, Stu?
Happy with a Devolved parliament that’s subordinate to Westminster?
In truth, Scots have responsibility to address that failure. The People of Scotland versus The Scottish Parliament, court action against Holyrood & broken mandates.. the very definition of self-determination.
I see a front page this morning saying something about Branchform being extended to investigate embezzlement. They must’ve been short of actual news.
Non-coniferous trees in an urban environment are lovely things.
Almost cuddly.
North American species in the countryside: not so much.
I still say that the SNP-appointed bitch-cunt is a cunt. Not in a nice way.
” the biggest group of migrants coming to scotland are university students”
Really.
In 2014 there were 400,000 folk from the rest of the UK who lived in Scotland mainly English immigrants, of which 72.1% voted no in the 2014 indyref.
Today no one knows just how big that number has become, from 400,000 to ? because Sturgeon the Judas produced a Scottish census a year late and millions more over budget, of which the results of are still hidden from us. Probably the flooding of Scotland by English folk was part of the reason the census was a year late, I think it was put back so as the info wouldn’t have an effect on voters voting in the election that was due on the same year.
However it doesn’t take a genius to figure out (walking around my home Glasgow town and listening to folk talking) to realise that, that number has increased, and if you really were a Highlander, you’d have noticed it as well as smaller areas see the biggest change first.
Republicofscotland @ 9:59 am
“Probably the flooding of Scotland by English folk was part of the reason the census was a year late”
Population displacement has aye been part of the British state’s colonial policy. I hear the population of Scotland may now exceed 6 million, which is a substantial increase of some 1 million (20%) over just the past two decades, mostly due to in-migration from England.
The essential fact remains that the Scottish property market today is determined by, and is designed, primarily to meet the needs of our much larger populated neighbour. It is not intended to meet the needs of the Scottish people, and it clearly does not meet our needs, it falls well short.
This is what happens in a colonial society where the indigenous people have no control over their own land and affairs; they are ‘out of the game’, merely ‘bystanders’, many unable to even find a decent hoose they can afford to live in.
Ebenezer Scroggie says (12:08):
‘They want serried rows of alien trees at a crazy close spacing (3m for deciduous, 2.5m for coniferous). The resultant woodland will never ever be or look ‘natural’, not even after Birnam Wood marches on Dunsinane.’
3m is perfectly fine for deciduous trees and if you look in ancient natural woodland they are often closer together than that. I have lived in Wales in the rare temperate rain forest areas and the woodlands there are quite dense and trees certainly 3m or less apart. Trees like to be fairly close together as it is a great defence against wind / storm damage and also helps keep the woodland moist.
I have been planting deciduous trees for 25 years and now can easily see the results of such planting spacing in wonderful developing woodlands and it is fine. In fact in more exposed areas where they struggle, 2.5 metres works better as otherwise they can often fail to establish. Some non-natives can be helpful here too like Italian alder as they grow fast and help to protect the slower oak and the like. Scots pine is good for this too. I agree about the serried rows, no need for that.
Alf, so what of all those people across many different parts of England who are suffering exactly the same and are ‘unable to even find a decent hoose they can afford to live in’? They also are at the mercy of richer people moving in and causing price rises and house shortages.
You have to see beyond your colonial anti-English blinkers, they are blinding you to the deeper problem, which is class and the major uneven distribution of wealth. You are basically looking at the problem and blaming ‘foreigners’, ‘coming over here’. Now where have we heard that before?
The viaplay TV deal for Scottish football has collapsed. The channel has gone bust.
As a result all Scottish cup. Scottish National team and Scottish league cup games have to broadcaster.
Someone get big Eck on the phone. Immediately. The Scottish National team is riding high.
What can the Scottish Government do to make these games free to air?
I see they want to spend £8.5 million on giving convicts telephones in jail.
What about something we can all enjoy. The Scottish National team?
Get big Eck on the phone. We need him to save Scottish sport.
Scottish Football is part of the national psyche and concience.
We need to be able to see the games.
The government needs to step in now the broadcaster has gone bust.
Get big Eck on the phone. Again. To save the day!
I want to see my country play football
I want to see the football on the TV like the Welsh and the English.
We need to make a massive deal about this. The TV broadcaster viaplay has gone bust.
The government spoke recently about making the games free to air.
Get them on the tele. Get the money spend. Put the money into the national game.
Let the country enjoy Steve Clarke’s heroes on the road to Germany.
Get it sorted Scottish government.
Southernbystander @ 11:11 am
Has England’s population increased by 20% – i.e. 10 million+ – over the past two decades through migration primarily from Scotland?
@ Southernbystander
Well that is one way of framing the situation, but again it just highlights the utter failure of London Rule to adequately manage the UK for those that live in its constituent parts.
Some might say the English folk should stay in their homeland, suck up the adversity they purportedly endure, and use it as a motivating force to address their political situation rather than de-camping to elsewhere and being the cause and spreading the very issue they perceive to endured at home.
The Kingdom of England has approximately ten times the population of the Kingdom of Scotland. England therefore really needs to get its shit together and stop dragging Scotland into all its woes.
Good news about deadline for SNP conference resolutions: Iain Lawson says that the deadline has been extended to the middle of August.
The original deadline was issued on 15th July giving members just 2 weeks with the deadline being 31st July. Iain blogged to encourage members to demand the deadline be extended to 31st August. In the SNP’s now-usual grudging and petty way they have extended to mid-August.
If they could get this useless lump of lard oot we could plant a billion trees instead of wasting more money on this grifter.
There’s a thot.
link to msn.com
Thought control.
Have you ever tried it?
I have and it isn’t easy, but after a bit of practice you should start to see some encouraging results.
The Stargate Project was a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1978 at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to investigate the possible use of psychic phenomena in military operations and intelligence gathering.
It’s crazy stuff. So crazy that the CIA took over the project and funded it for nearly 20 years – it probably still does in some way.
Hollywood even made a movie about it based on a book by Jon Robson called “Men Who Stare at Goats”, starring George Clooney.
The title comes from one of the phenomenon being tested whereby special forces soldiers attempted to kill goats using only their minds.
The book is based on the testaments of some of the people involved in the programme at the time.
However, you’ll be relieved to know that the Stargate project isn’t the kind of mind control I’m referring to.
I’m talking about the ability to control your own thoughts – a skill that’s much more difficult to acquire than you might first think. But it’s an important skill and we should all learn how to use it in our everyday activities.
Because once you learn how to control your own thoughts, and identify where they originate, you’ll be in a much stronger position to resist other people putting their thoughts into your head and making you think they’re your own.
There are techniques and methods that can help folk get started on ‘thought control’.
But if you’re mainly interested in learning how to kill goats by staring at them, the DIA’s Stargate project is probably the best place to get started, or watch the movie – George is very good in it.
maybe if parts of england felt aggrieved and exploited by “london rule” they could form
secessionist movements
and find allies among the scottish nationalists. Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia? Yorkshire, on its own. The north-south divide is a real thing, even has some genetic component, having more celtic admixture, than the purer anglo saxon of south east.
But no – will never happen, the english are a servile people and tug the forelock when push comes to shove and like their rulers to ride them hard, the more animalistic the beast the better – henry 8, good queen bess, longshanks, monsters all. Go easy on them, like the Stuarts, they throw you.
The trouble with english nationalism, which is theoretically a legitimate expression, is that within a millisecond it reverts to british empire loyalism, because they can perceive no history or culture outside of that. The british empire was a business enterprise, an organised crime syndicate, which brought wealth to the city of london and impoverished everyone else.
– the english are too dumb to realise this, and I won’t waste my time talking to them.
In the past something along these lines could be done via the concept of “class” but socialism is dead and class is never talked of.
“the working class of glasgow and liverpool … ”
no one cares about that shite anymnore. The guardian says the working class do not exist, only “white racists” and “gammons”, and that they never existed, it was -always- a rainbow flag, never a red one.
Re conversation yesterday,
Re wild Scotland with Scots. And perhaps those wild parts of Scotland will look heathy again with a natural enviroment and natural animals that had evolved in Scotland over thousands of years,
Those hills used to be the homes and lands of people in Scotland before the big estates pushed them of from all sorts of aggression.
The only people wanting Scotland rewilded are the rich and the globalists whom benefit from taking over someone elses country for ideological social experiments,
Stuart MacKay I am surprised that you are on that band wagon that places Scots as a native Species of Scotland last on you list.
Scotland is not a bloody parkland for visitors
Stuart Mackay,
I was raised in the remotest envoroment in Scotland, we had no road to our house,
we had no electric until I was in my teens,
No washing machines,
No closer neighbours than a few miles away,
No modern electric cookers.
No television only a radio.
No bin collection,
No school bus .
And no vehicle in the family until much later on.
No local shops,
Industries were local.
No doctor unless he managed to come up the loch in his canoe on fine weather.
From children as young as four and a half we walked to school without our parents through the woods and along the shore line for three miles and three miles back home,
Safe from bears in the summer , wild hogs and wolves in dark winter,
There was no litter, no junk, the air was pristine clean and the loch was clear and cold even in the summer.
The enviroment needed modernising I agree,
But the tourists and incomers that happened a few years later on in droves devastated the natural habitat of all animals and turned it into the worlds rubbish bin.
Changing the countryside into the town,
With great sadness I saw what the with my own eyes what a public parkland looks like and does to a enviroment when incomers decide to build multiple cabins with jacussie’s. Tarmac wildlife areas, leave rubbish and dirt floating on the edge of lochs, and trails and parking lots cut through forests with natural habitat species,
No more scottish wild cat, no more big red stags walking in front of your window as natural as the day is long, no more seeing a white stoat in winter, so many things have gone because someone arrogently thought they knew better on how to improve Scotland, to their ideals.
Its all very well being brainwashed and acting like you own the world and are god of wild,
Leave it alone and take those colonial interference ideologies of control back to your own doorstep,
Because like midas you destroy what you touch for the want of gold,
I do not mind that incomers come to Scotland for a new home, but the reality is that they forget to blend in,
When in Rome, do as the Romamans do is a famous saying,
So when in Scotland you would be accepted much better if you followed suit,
However the people who’s country you come to has been fenced off, gated with private property signs, littered with rubbish from plastic bags to beer cans thrown in grass verges, stuck hanging like shred of cloth in trees and floating on the edges of lochs.
Holiday cabins galore with up to date Wifi and outdoor jacussies on every bit of natural Scotland.
Turn Scotland into a junkie paradise.
Now you want to change the natural wildlife of our Country as well,
What happened to living with nature in all its natural enviroment, why are you never satisfied,
To view this new perception of Scotland through the prism of incomers all I can do is pretend that I am some sort of spoilt child who isnot happy until I get everything I want and convert the world to my satisfactory selfishness to suit my needs .
It is difficult for me to maintain that spoilt child to adult version of Scotland for very long without tears welling up inside me for the state of someone else modern mind, that they are never satisfied with the way things are, never satisfied with all they have been given, never satisfied that gods Country is not good enough for them,
That they wish to kill Scotlands animals to try another kind from far away, distupting the ecology for a experiment of which they cannot give assurances for towards the future of Scotland,
Spoilt brats never satisfied with the bounty they were given at their feet,
James Che @2:31pm
You paint a powerful and poignant image, James.
An image of a childhood and a way of life long lost. Lost to a flawed idea of progress.
I remember, on very rare occasions, escaping with my family to the countryside of that time you so vividly describe – just for the odd day trip.
What an adventure it was for me – like visiting an alien planet. And the air was so fresh and sharp it almost hurt my lungs until I’d grown accustomed to it.
My parents would have skelped my arse raw if they’d caught me leaving rubbish lying around in my wake.
WTF.
US House of Representatives voted on Tuesday by 412 to 9 passing a resolution that Israel IS NOT a racist and apartheid regime.
Unbelievable.
But then it must be like looking in a mirror.
That’s quite a number of Iain Andersons both in and out of the bag. As much as they try to contain the outrageous acts and discipline of their party associates, the nature of the beast will always find a way to get out and create havoc.
Humza’s looking a bit podgy… is he wearing a nappy?
North code.
Aye north code it seems ideology breeds to much money and not enough brains, causing a imbalance and destruction to the planet.
If I would mention the war but once, it would to have these spoilt brats conscripted to the front line
Immediately, as the lowest rank, then perhaps if they survived the utter destruction, the world being blown to pieces, body parts miles away from the torso, large holes where homes and families used to be,
Raw knowledge, the reality
when they came back home they may apprecate the quiet natural peace of where they live without wanting to change that enviroment.
A false world from a false and spoilt mind that has never experienced hardship on a paycheck to destroy elvolution and diversity of Countries to make one identical Country into a giant parkland for rich globalist.
Changing the animals of a country in a god like fashion is only step one, wait until they change and expel the humans animals as step two,
They do not change the evolution of our world for us, it is for them, we have lived here for thousands of years with the way our evolution has taken us.
Diverse and individual as a country, happy with our kind of natural nature,
It is the rich kill every thing that moves that want to eliminate our habitat. And you have to ask WHY?
For that world, our natural safe pristine world and habitat, will heal the soul and the mind after being traumatised time after time,
To sit quitely on a hill top or mountain and view the valley below with natural trees , the sound of the streams and the breeze.
To experience a still misty day when you can hear the nothing but senses are filled with smell the earth while damp.
And watch a spiders web covered in dew drops sparkling in the morning sun like jewels.
That is not a dream, I grew up in that safe world,
Until some rich ideologists wanted to change something that was already a gem in nature, ,because they could not see that the world was already perfect.
It was they that could not adapt, so they try changing the world to suit there own inability to adapt.
I am glad that you had that experience when you were young north code, it obviously made a enjoyable memory that has travelled through time with you.