What it is to burn
Posted on
January 04, 2020 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
I live here and I loathe that man beyond all words. He’s the worst of all worlds: a self serving right wing climate change denying politician and a fundamentalist evangelical (if i say Hillsong) “christian”.
One of those so far from Christ-like christians who likes to judge everyone and force them to go along with him.
Did you see him *forcibly* grab and shake the hand of a woman who said “I won’t shake your hand unless you promise to fund the rural fire service”? Or doing it again to one of those fireman who is sitting down looking drained of life. Asking can I shake your hand and the guy goes no thank you so he grabs it anyway! Then has the gall to ask “what’s wrong with him?”
I despise Morrison. I despise Abbott his predecessor (who is now doing the speaking tour circuit talking about the “climate change cult”). Sick fuckers who are fiddling while Australia burns.
[Note: I’m not anti-Christian or religion, or even anti-politician; my dead Dad was a Christian missionary and politician but he was neither judgemental nor self-serving. No, I don’t hate Christians, I hate the pretendy christian pricks like this fella]
Australia burns while Morrison fiddles.
But to show some people can eventually see what’s in front of them.
Even unionists are beginning to think again about Scottish independence
link to archive.is
I truly wonder whether we are near the tipping point. Either the tipping point where environmental disasters accelerate and feed off each other and spiral out of control, such as these bush fires putting so much carbon in the air, or whether we are at a different tipping point, and people like Scott Morrison and Trump, and others in denial about climate change begin to lose traction and credibility.
It would be ironic if Scotland finally secured power over our own Scottish oil just in time to make the decision that it stays underground where it is, but Scotland can and must do precisely that, and develop a new Scottish economy around pioneering renewables and environmental restoration of wild habitat. Fossil fuels are death to us all. We are manufacturing our own extinction level event.
What a disaster engulfing Australia. Like many others, I have relatives there. In Canberra the air is thick with smoke particles making breathing difficult and they’ve run out of smoke masks. Hope you get rid of Morrison and his ilk soon, Andrew Davidson.
Breeks, my thoughts also. If you look back in time at the havoc caused by one Volcano, how much worse will these fires bring. It will move around the World over the next year.
With Brexit, we could all face famine such as hasn’t been seen since the Middle Ages.
A reasoned, less hot headed perspective on why Australia burns…it’s basically a case of years of gross land mismanagement stupid!
link to pushingrubberdownhill.com
Wise Native Australians knew a thing or two about that topic. But what do those ‘primitives’ know.
In England they build houses on flood plains, their ancestors didn’t.
Progress, schmogress…
In the meantime, in Scotland we await, but not holding our collective breath, the cleansing fire of independence. Anybody got a match?
Wonder if Midnight Oil will make a Diesel and Dust 2 album…
Excellent Chris, Australia is now accused by folk in NZ of ‘passive smoking’. The smoke has crossed the Tasman Sea and enveloped NZ. The glaciers and snowbound peaks in the Southern Alps have been stained brown with smoke particles which will mean they will absorb more heat from the sun in the southern summer and melt faster.
Australia is thus ehnancing climate change in New Zealand. I think NZ should take a case in the World Court accusing them of climate vandalism and demanding change and compensation.
Australia will change at the next election.
The fires are a worldwide story now.
Australians won’t be fooled by climate deniers at the next election.
Trump is going out too
He has caused too much anger in USA
People want progress in their lives and the lives of their children
They want stability too
Trump is volatile and that will be his downfall
Abulhaq says:
4 January, 2020 at 8:50 am
A reasoned, less hot headed perspective on why Australia burns…
Maybe not that well reasoned Abulhaq. The burning in the Amazon back in August wasn’t down to the Council banning the collection of firewood. Ditto California. I don’t think the availability of fuel to burn is a causal factor in why the fires are happening on the scale they are.
That’s massive areas of California, Brazil and Australia all experiencing unprecedented wildfires in a single year. What are the odds? St Mark’s Square under water… if we’re not burning, we’re flooding…
We are too far down the pipe to blame poor husbandry at a local level. We need a dramatic change in overall strategic respect for our planet. Pressing pause isn’t going to be enough, we need rewind, and we need it fast.
Scotland should now be charging ahead and pioneering economic growth based on sustainability and renewable energy. Not just being green, but actually reversing the damage. The World NEEDS the icon and leadership of an Oil rich Nation turning it’s back on oil and blazing the trail to a whole next generation of planetary evolution.
We need a world council, pooling expertise, assessing which technologies are most applicable and coming up with the heavy duty investment. How can developed or developing economies be weaned off fossil fuels?
Maybe we need to skip a few chapters,.. like skipping over the era of electric cars and cutting straight to no cars at all, but having a viable and integrated transport system that actually works. Sounds mental, but cars have barely been with us 100 years. It’s a seductive dependency, but it has an alternative.
And on that same trajectory of thought, when steam trains came, there were no rails anywhere. When cars came, there was no network of metalled roads waiting for them. It took tremendous vision to see the bigger picture and work towards achieving it. It is that kind of vision and initiative which Scotland needs right now.
But first, we must shed this harness of a Union. We need rid of this Union, because it isn’t a Union. It’s a straight jacket, and Scotland cannot fly with such a parasite holding us prisoner.
You are one sick fuck!
If you force folk to vote you just might regret what happens.
Climate deniers the world over look at what you are standing alongside.
Cause of Death – Consumption
Soon to make a return to Death Certificates.
As this shit plays out has anyone actually made any significant New Year’s Resolutions which attempt to reduce the rampant consumption of products which cumulatively are a factor in this mess.
Nice one Chris.
The two greatest threats to the survival of humanity, climate change and nuclear war.
The firestorm in the Middle East being stoked up as well!
link to craigmurray.org.uk
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Oh well here goes – has anybody heard of “Black Friday” the bushfires of January 1939 that destroyed 20,000 km sq and killed 71 people?
It led to a Royal Commission on how the forests were managed. The commission noted “It appeared the whole State (Victoria) was alight on Friday, 13 January 1939”.
Or has anybody heard of Peshtigo, Wisconsin? Acknowledged as the worst bushfire in modern history – 1871, 1.2m acres destroyed, 1500-2500 dead.
Oh and St. Mark’s Sq has been regularly going under water since it was built as old paintings of Gondolas sailing about it testify.
27 days until Scotland is forced out of Europe against it’s will.
Our defence strategy is specifically what? Asking for a friend…
This is catastrophic and ‘Scotty from marketing’ as he’s known here couldn’t be more out his depth in a puddle. Not to mention his total disregard from pleas from fire chiefs since April to have a bush fire summit to ensure a national coordinated response.
So far 5 million hectares up in flames, estimated 450 million wildlife incinerated, some species now expected to be extinct, not to mention thousands of homes lost and thank God, at this stage, lives lost have been kept to a minimum due to the amazing efforts of the fire services – these guys are working to the point of collapse – no wonder they won’t shake his hand. For those that don’t know, many of these guys are volunteers, zero pay just protecting their communities.
Imagine BawJaws in a national disaster – well our PM is just as useless.
Please spare a thought for Australia – never before has every State been on fire simultaneoulsy.
Kinda says it all really…
Scotland faces it’s biggest constitutional abuse in decades, with Scotland being dragged out the EU against our will and devolution powers being grabbed to Westminster in a few weeks time and Stu sticks an auld blog post from 2010 on yesterday and today we’re talking about Australia.
Much as I feel sorry for the loss of life, homes, flora and fauna of Australia it seems that Wings has decided: “What’s the point in even talking about Scotland’s current constitutionl and political colonial subjection?”
I suppose the lack of action of the Australian govt with the bushfire tragedy can be compared to the lack of action from the SNP regarding Scotland’s constitutional tragedy.
Poor Colin.
Here’s a repeat from my post of 7.57
Just so you’ve got something else about which to complain!
Even unionists are beginning to think again about Scottish independence
link to archive.is
O.T.so Scottish labour want to break away from the main party at Westminster well the answer is simple independense the thing you have been trying to stop for years no one will be fooled by your conversion fool me once etc.,
Colin Alexander – I’ve never jumped in to give you pelters the way many other wings BLT commentators have. But your comment is just simply lower than a snakes belly as they say here in Oz.
Perhaps Chris is having some compassion for something that’s happening on the other side of the world. And if climate change is a factor in our current crisis then it will come a bite Scotland at some point too.
Abulhaq says:
4 January, 2020 at 8:50 am
A reasoned, less hot headed perspective on why Australia burns…
Your “reasoned, less hot headed perspective” is garbage I’m afraid.
The hazard reduction burns continue and in some cases they are able to get ahead of the game but in others they just can’t because the changes in climate or making the fire season longer, and the lower rain where it’s needed making it harder to safely get rid of the dangerous fuel.
source: link to abc.net.au
source: link to theguardian.com
It’s an oft repeated trope of the right wing in Australia that greenies are the cause of bushfires, that land management is prevented. Not so. The greens are not in power anywhere, have no power anywhere, and land management (in terms of fuel reduction burns) is happening at increasing rates. Just everything else is going ahead of it and making it impossible to stop.
Prof Ross Bradstock, the director of the centre for environmental risk management of bushfires at the University of Wollongong, who has been researching bushfires for 40 years, says:
The ACT had it’s record hottest ever temperature today. Australia had the hottest every temperature across its entire continent two days in a row last week. Record temperatures are happening all over the country. Where my daughter stays in NSW she was freaking out and rejoicing because they’re forecast to have rain tomorrow for the first time in a year. Today it was 47C.
Final word. I think I can speak to how so not a “reasoned, less hot headed” the perspective you posted was by posting this more recent article from that author.
link to pushingrubberdownhill.com
Yes, green terrorists caused the Australian bushfires. I’m not going to quote anything from that shit.
Capella : unfortunately Morrison only just won the election this year so we have him for three more years.
A few weeks back it was bad in Brisbane (though nowhere near as bad as elsewhere in Qld at the time, or elsewhere now). I actually didn’t realise the smoke had come over but found I was actually having difficulty breathing. I have asthma and it’s normally just an inconvenience but for the first time ever I was struggling with it. It was kinda scary.
That was when our air quality was rated the worst of any city in the world for a while and Queensland Health were telling people to stay indoors and not go out unless absolutely necessary; and not just people with conditions. They said it was bad enough to cause harm to anyone. Crazy.
“J Galt says:
4 January, 2020 at 11:27 am
Oh well here goes – has anybody heard of “Black Friday” the bushfires of January 1939 that destroyed 20,000 km sq and killed 71 people?”
J Galt the Australian bushfires had destroyed more that that by 20th Dec 2019, the land destroyed is now heading towards 60,000,000 hectares or 60k sq Km, and they are still going, with today, Saturday, considered the most dangerous day so far.
All the stats you quoted are dwarfed by this crisis, except the immediate death toll, but many 1000’s of people will die in Australian in the next few years because of smoke inhalation.
@ Breeks,
Yes, that thought crossed my mind this morning too. The SNP and Iain Blackford have to come up with something mightily impressive within three weeks to prevent Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will, as they said.
This ought to be good.
`Man`s inhumanity to man`
Firestorms,
the condition was closely studied by the American and British military during World War II to learn how to recreate firestorm conditions for bombing campaigns against cities in Germany and Japan.
The bombing of Dresden and the even more severe bombing of Tokyo by incendiary devices resulted in death tolls comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Scozzie
I’m sorry if my comment sounds too critical of Chris and Wings and cheeses you off but, there’s nothing we can do in Scotland about the disaster consuming Australia except feel sorry for what’s happening.
We COULD do something about the crisis in Scotland. So, I feel that’s where the focus of Wings should be.
mike cassidy
I welcome anybody who is now willing to think about ending the Union. In some ways we are fortunate that the UK Govts now no longer care about appearing blatantly abusive and corrupt. The UK state is now controlled by extreme-right wing British Nationalist Imperial politicians that are so extreme they worry even John Major and Michael Heseltine.
It is that situation that is causing former NO voters to re-consider, rather than anything the SNP have done to persuade people of the merits of dissolving the Union.
It’s such a shame that voters appear unlikely to be given a chance to vote YES for independence or elect an SNP politician to give them a mandate to dissolve the Union.
Such a shame that, with the most optimistic scenario, they will subjected to Indyref2 / Project Fear2 where the UK State will set the agenda and rig the process from start to finish. Just as they did in Indyref1, while the SNP continue to trumpet this as the “gold standard” of British democracy.
Colin Alexander – I know you can’t do anything back home in Scotland. And I’m sorry if I come across as pissy.
But as you and I know the SNP have sat on their arses doing hee-haw for these last few years to advance independence and the chances of them growing a pair in the next 3 weeks is non-existent.
I can’t speak for Chris’s motivation for his cartoon. Perhaps he’s drawing attention to the politics of disaster management. Let’s face it there will be disaster management required in the UK in one form or another in the not too distant future.
I’m probably just a bit emotional about things here at the moment.
Funny how easy it was to get rid of an Australian PM when their policies didn’t square with Anglo-American ideals.
Perhaps this one just needs dragged into the street and dealt with by the people themselves…
Scozzie
Clearly there’s been a lack of action and long-term failures to do more from the respective govts in Oz and Scotland.
So, I think many of us are feeling anger and frustration about things and rightly so.
Plan D/E/F, again: offer London 100% of all North Sea oil and gas revenue in exchange for independence. Then rejoin the EU.
Result: Scotland independent, richer than we’d be inside the post-Brexit Union, and no longer reliant on a resource that’s ending life on earth.
Colin Alexander @ 14:23,
And there’s plenty of us already fed up in this new year with your relentless Mitigation Mania, Lord Hee Haw.
There’s no mistaking you for a ray of sunshine. And what makes it far worse is that it’s all so very deliberate and calculated.
Sorry if I appear pushy and intent on forcing my world-view on others. That approach to achieving social change, is morally the least favoured of my available options. Just wait till I get my devices. 😉
From a multi-disciplinary perspective that is respectful of ethical rationalism, it would be morally irresponsible of me not to attempt to share this knowledge. The denial of science is obviously not restricted to the denial of climate change, as switched-on women in Scotland, and their supporters, will tell you.
link to sciencedirect.com
Sustainable management of humanity’s relationship with nature, was the flip side to the post-colonialism and gender-critical nature of my training.
Contemporary British nationalism and gender-ideology in law, both deny empirical reality and, subsequently, undermine the potential for social justice to occur. I’m sure Scotland’s legal scholars will confirm there ain’t no justice without social justice.
Full text.
link to journals.sagepub.com
Robert J. Sutherland
I’m respectfully trying to encourage people and highlight the need for the SNP and others to assert Scotland’s sovereignty and dissolve the Union, instead of the focus on promoting the SNP and playing the British Westminster politics game.
What are you doing ?
@Unionist Media BDSM Club
That’s got to be one of the daftest suggestions I’ve ever heard. I’m assuming it was meant to be ironic or something…
Why would an independent Scotland willingly cede resources when these would be regarded as ours to exploit (or leave in the ground) by international law? Why would any country do that?
Why offer them something they’re probably going to attempt to steal anyway, either by force or some legal shenanigans? They’ll probably suggest we compensate them for prior investment or some such. I’ve heard Yoons use that exact argument.
Might as well say “let them have the border tory constituencies” or the sub base.
I wonder how many on here who blame mankind’s continued use of carbon based fuels on our indisputable impending doom.
Have any knowledge of the science that designates CO2 a “Greenhouse Gas”.
How it can effect the transmission of heat into and out of the planet.
What percentage of the heat wishing to leave the planet is likely to be hampered by specific increases in atmospheric CO2.
What percentage of this extra CO2 can be attributed to us burning stuff
What that level of “extra” heat is liable to do to average temperatures.
Whether the projected temperature changes would be harmful, beneficial or negligible to the planet as a whole.
Or paused to think what the other 20/30 relevant questions might be, far less made any attempt to find the answers.
Before deciding to become “believers” and follow the herd to become fully paid up members of a Cult complete with a crazy wee Joan of Arc-alike Patron Saint.
Andrew Davidson.
I sympathise with you. You’ve got Morrison, Scotland has the unwanted Johnson. Both educated idiots. They don’t have the basics, ie, common sense. We may be geographically at extremes but suffer from the same “I’m alright, Jack” ideology.
Let’s hope they land solidly on their respective arses ASAP.
Does anyone see the irony in Dominic Cummings who orchestrated the Vote Leave campaign and where one of the arguments for Leaving the EU was to be rid of supposed unelected bureaucrats….only for him now to be calling the shots in No 10 as an unelected bureaucrat….the Machiavellian Organ Grinder controlling the Monkey that is the PM.
Thinking out loud… dangerous thing to do on Wings, but genuinely not meaning to ask the question in an inflammatory way, and also taking it for granted they’d never admit it,…. for all those caveats, do you think it might actually help the SNP if there was a Constitutional Test Case lodged with either the EU or UN which effectively compelled the SNP to be more vigorous in defending Scotland’s Constitution? A feint, like a kind of stalking horse legal action if you follow me…
If the SNP has indeed painted itself into a corner, “something” needs to happen just to throw the runes in the air again. The question is, what, and when?
I’m not talking about bringing our Government down or making life awkward, but just giving them a wee shove, and the right kind of shove which “might” even be considered helpful.
Any thoughts?
Dominic Cummings lacks basic awareness and respect for our relationship with the environment, and can’t be considered a supporter of the “Precautionary Principle”, which is definitely a target of Brexit, IMHO.
One of my devices. 🙂
link
link to jcom.sissa.it
Isn’t it terrible that the Maldives, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean just refuse to conform to the SCIENCE.
Sadly, our very own “Labor” party (think blairite Labour) is exactly as shithouse on the topic – except they pretend much better that they are really concerned.
Don’t be fooled, Morrison is not one iota worse than the alternative ALP PM would have been.
This is from a US diplomatic cable from 2009 when we had some of our worst ever fires:
“Summary
——-
1. (SBU) A Royal Commission into the deadly February 7 wild fires
which cost 173 lives released its interim report on August 17. We
provide a snapshot of key recommendations. The Victorian government
has informed post that it will likely ask for another U.S. wild fire
liaison officer to facilitate future U.S. personnel deployments as
the state gears up for another dry and hot fire season. End
Summary.”
and later in the same cable under “key findings” and the US comments:
“– Regular contact between federal and state entities is
recommended. (Comment: Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Bushfire
Reconstruction Bill Shorten told us earlier this year that the
Commonwealth has no interest in usurping state precedence in wild
fire management. End Comment.)”
For those who don’t know, the US informant “Bill Shorten” was the twice failed Labor challenger against some of the worst Tory PMs this country has ever had. So, while Cairn’s Toon is funny and accurate to some extent, as with your country Labor is actually far more to blame for the governments we have than the party they keep failing to beat in the elections.
Hi Scot Finlayson on 4 January, 2020 at 1:13 pm
You typed,
“`Man`s inhumanity to man`
Firestorms,
the condition was closely studied by the American and British military during World War II to learn how to recreate firestorm conditions for bombing campaigns against cities in Germany and Japan.
The bombing of Dresden and the even more severe bombing of Tokyo by incendiary devices resulted in death tolls comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
I started studying German in 1964. In 1968, I travelled to Würzburg on a school exchange trip, to stay with my penpal for three weeks.
At no time during that three weeks, was any mention made of what happened on 16th March 1945. I didn’t actually find out about this until the 50th anniversary in 1995. (Dundee has been twinned with Würzburg since the early 60s.)
It was shocking. Würzburg was chosen for firebombing because it had a medieval (wooden) town centre and was an easy target on the way to the likes of Nuremburg and Munich.
Have a look at these links…
link to en.wikipedia.org
“The incendiaries started a firestorm in the old wooden houses that eventually consumed nearly 90 percent of the city. The total civilian casualties will never be known, but numbered at least 3000, and perhaps as many as 5000. When the U.S. Army entered Würzburg on 3 April 1945, the soldiers found little more than a ruin of rubble and ashes (see Part 2).” That’s from,
link to thirdreichruins.com
This video was shot by the Americans when they entered Würzburg in April 1945. German commentary.
link to youtube.com
cunner says:
4 January, 2020 at 3:10 pm
@Unionist Media BDSM Club
“Why would an independent Scotland willingly cede resources when these would be regarded as ours to exploit (or leave in the ground) by international law?”
Of course an independent Scotland shouldn’t do that. It would be insane.
But in case you haven’t noticed
1. We’re not independent (sorry if this is news to you).
2. The proposal above says nothing about an independent Scotland handing over anything. The proposal is that if Plans A, B and C fail, then this offer would be made *in exchange for* independence. Big difference. Please tell me you can see that now.
“Why offer them something they’re probably going to attempt to steal anyway, either by force or some legal shenanigans?”
Um, you do see that’s actually an argument in favour of this idea, and not against it, don’t you, scunner? If they’re going to steal it anyway, why not try to use it as leverage to achieve independence?
Before jumping in to describe comments as stupid, you might want to take care that you’ve read them properly and understood them.
Choose one, scunner:
1. Scotland independent in the EU, richer than we’d be inside the post-Brexit Union, and no longer reliant on a resource that’s ending life on earth.
2. Scotland in the economic devastation of a post-hard-Brexit Union, with a hope of one day gaining independence and keeping the oil.
PS: Bill Shorten was the leader of the ALP (Labor) and lost the May 2019 Federal election to our current PM Scott Morrison – the guy in the toon. He also managed to lose the last election in 2016. He was also instrumental in bringing down the last popularly elected Labor PM (Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007 and removed in a coup orchestrated by the US informant here, Bill Shorten, in 2009. Shorten replaced him with Julia Gillard who didn’t win the 2010 election but managed to put together a minority government. Then, in 2013, Shorten pulled another coup against her and re-installed Rudd just in time to lose an election to the conservatives).
Then he put in new rules to make it difficult to remove sitting leaders of the party – and he became the leader.
Re the above cartoon, I’ve looked hard but cant quite see the Aussie in the background with the box of matches starting the fire. Perhaps he did a runner… He might get caught though… they have already got 200 arsonists this year already. It might be dry but if their own people didnt light the fires, then the country might not be ablaze. Just saying like…
link to smh.com.au
link to thedailychrenk.com
J Galt
My comments made no attempt to define climate change or the scope of its likely social impacts. I left that up to the experts.
Are you suggesting the earth’s climate does not regularly experiences periods of heating and cooling, and that there is no empirical evidence to that physical fact? Or that it may be sensible to assume humanity’s carbon consumption and addiction to “disposable consumerism”, may have significant, irreversible, consequences?
Col Blimp IV, good post, if seemingly intelligent people would apply some critical thinking to the supposed CO2 hypothesis it would be a refreshing change. As you point out some understanding of the thermal dynamics would open eyes, let alone the GCR hypothesis from Svensmark et al. And then if they found out that the most potent greenhouse gas is Dihydrogen monoxide… the gas that must not be named.
I thought this might interest those with a concern for Scotland’s future, another device of mine. A wee peek into the minds of those living in the south of England. 🙁
doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/5345/mrdoc/pdf/5345thesis.pdf
@Brian Doonthetoon,
I remember Brutish Labour MP Hilary Benn giving a blood and fire speech in the Brutish parliament for the bombing by RAF of Syria,
all the Tory and Labour MPs were on their feet cheering and waving papers,
over 300,000 have died in Syria since with little reporting on the Brutish input from BBC,
you would think an educated man like Benn would understand the horrific consequences of airial bombing on civilians.
Tony Benn v Hilary Benn,
link to youtube.com
Hi Scott.
Interesting to see Corbyn (nodding away to senior) to the left of the speaker in both segments…
On the topic of out of touch ‘leaders’ … what about Boris Johnson in a £20k a week villa on Mustique? That is just flaunting wealth and privilege.
Everyone is entitled to a break/holiday, but accommodation like that sends a message even Tory voters should be questioning.
Sickening.
Sorry – “Scot”…
@galamcennalath 5:00pm
David Cameron’s only got a shed tae sit in poor man
Colin Alexander @ 15:09,
My name on here is my real name. What’s yours…?
Our friends from YES Cymru are organising a bus or buses to come to Scotland for a visit on the 11th to walk with us, look out for them and give them a cheer or by them a beer if you see them in our refreshment parlours
@Alan Mackintosh 4.33: interesting but enigmatic post. Would you care to expand, you big teaser?
Asking for a planet.
Climate change is as old as the Earth itself and mostly linked to the milankovitch cycles proven by core sampling at the Poles, but now it is being used as a catch all.
What should be questioned is global warming (ave temps have hovered around 57 degrees Fahrenheit for the last 170 years) and rising sea levels which I was warned about at school for Gods sake (or why would anyone in Florida, Holland, SE England possibly be able to secure a 25 year mortgage). So, where’s the emergency?
Peter Ridd has blown the ‘death of coral’ argument to pieces and the hottest day ever recorded in Australia was in 1909 (before we all drove 4 litre Hummers), but was discounted because, what for it, it was a Sunday. Doesn’t that fit nicely with todays little scam.
I might get on board and start selling plastic bags at COP26 this year with a 10,000 year guarantee on them! – I am sure I can get a ‘funded’ scientist to back up the shelf life of placky bags fae tescos.
Hi Alan Mackintosh at 4:33 pm.
You mentioned,
“Dihydrogen monoxide… the gas that must not be named.”
I flagged up the dangers with this substance with our Med School Health & Safety Officer at least 10 years ago. No action has been taken.
I see the major problem as that it can be found as a solid, liquid and gas, at average household temperatures.
link to dhmo.org
Breeks @ 15:40,
Well, just in case it helps, anticipating the Boris version of the Withdrawal Bill would get through WM sooner or later, in October last I submitted a petition to the EU Parliament requesting that it block any Withdrawal Agreement brought to it which provided for differential trading conditions within the existing UK (the so-called UK “single market” the Tories kept mentioning), since this would be in direct violation of the UK constitution as established by The Treaty of Union 1707 (plus subsequent Irish legislation), and which would therefore be a manifest breach of Art.50 of the Treaty of Lisbon.
My contention therein was that any such EU Parliamentary blessing could only be forthcoming after Irish reunification and/or Scottish independence, whereupon the Agreement would apply to England+Wales alone.
I have not mentioned this before now because the petition status is not yet decided (EU bureaucracy grinds exceeding slow) and because the petition, due to an apparent substantial backlog (or possibly a systems problem), can’t as yet be found on the petitions website, despite being marked as open for public support.
The petition registration number is 0989/2019, if anyone cares to enquire of it. =grin=
I have my own doubts as to its likely influence, being supremely inconvenient for almost everyone concerned, but as you say, someone has to stand up and assert some kind of constitutional challenge somehow.
Brian Doonthetoon @ 17:35,
The worst aspect of all is that this vile chemical is being actively pushed into every home in the land, and our children threatened with life-endangering cleanliness, by public authorities everywhere.
There oughta-be-a-lor.
Cracking “toon” Chris,
Question.
What if Mr Putin had carried out the assassination, would the Western media/leaders call him a war hero or war criminal?
Should be an easy answer.
J Galt says:
4 January, 2020 at 3:47 pm
Isn’t it terrible that the Maldives, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean just refuse to conform to the SCIENCE.
The Maldives are at the forefront of climate action because the are threatened with extinction, Greenland’s ice sheet is disappearing at a frightening rate and all the northern hemisphere countries see the disappearance of artic ice as an economic windfall.
What planet are you on????
J Galt. 1127…heard of them all
The difference between those and now is that those fires were fought by ill equipped people who had to do it all on foot , carry water on land they couldn’t stop it they had to let it burn out.
The fires we see now are being fought by modern firefighters well equipped with unlimited water and chemicals and air planes 24 hrs a day if the fires of today were being fought by firefighters of yesteryear we would see much much more damage
As for St marks sq Venice you fail to note that repairs have been going on since the city was built and it is being raised higher too.
What a foolish case you make
Wake up and listen to the thousands of scientists who verify global warming
Less than 0.1% of scientists support your view
@Unionist Media BDSM Club
4:07pm
But in case you haven’t noticed
1. We’re not independent (sorry if this is news to you).
2. The proposal above says nothing about an independent Scotland handing over anything. The proposal is that if Plans A, B and C fail, then this offer would be made *in exchange for* independence. Big difference. Please tell me you can see that now.
1. I really meant “in order to attain independence” so I guess I should thank you for making me clarify. The sarcasm was unnecessary.
2. While I understand your point horse-trading for Indy something you believe is a burden (ecologic as opposed to Yoon economic), I simply don’t believe we need to “grease the wheels” using a resource that should belong to the nation and our descendants under wider international law.
Could they be persuaded with just North Sea resources though? Water could be the key future commodity.
Choose one, scunner:
1. Scotland independent in the EU, richer than we’d be inside the post-Brexit Union, and no longer reliant on a resource that’s ending life on earth.
2. Scotland in the economic devastation of a post-hard-Brexit Union, with a hope of one day gaining independence and keeping the oil.
1. THIS, Subject to referendum on Europe (yes another). A proper educational campaign on the benefits of being a full EU member, with EFTA membership a choice.
Being richer sounds fantastic though I never bought the “land of Milk & Honey” yoon jibe – a fairer country with an actual constitution would be a start.
Depends on what you mean by “reliant”. Economically or technologically? I never believed we’d rely on it for economic survival and we’re some ways away on the technological front.
2. Unfortunately this outcome is far more likely. Maybe my kids might see independence. Oil a memory by then, either depleted or supplanted.
Alan Mackintosh
Living in a country where nearly everyone who could afford to, exited as often as they could to places where they would experience a week or two of temperatures 10C/20C higher than those that prevailed here … I was pretty much unconcerned when Global Warming reared its ugly head back in the 80’s CFC’s were the dragons and they were swiftly dispatched.
Now CO2 is the Demon and figures suggest that it’s presence in the atmosphere has gone up by as much as 0.01% since the War
(WW II), in the same timescale the population of the earth has increased 350%, the amount of domesticated animals by at least as much and the deforestation to support agriculture, building and fuel supplies exponentially.
When I was a child smoke belched from the coal fires in every house and the skyline was dominated by the Chimneys of long-gone factories and foundries, the motor vehicles were fewer but their MPG much lower and emission levels vastly in excess of their modern counterparts,The buildings were all jet black because of the soot and fish did not swim in the rivers and canals that had been claimed by industry. When you went to places like London, Glasgow or Manchester – you could not only taste the “air”, you could cut it with knife and spread it on a sandwich.
If anthropological CO2 production is indeed a bad thing and on the rise – without genocide and/or mass compulsory sterilisation and conversion to Veganism, we are powerless to stop it.
Not a cult I am in any hurry to join – We could always put a “Gonnae no dae that” add in the Asian, African and South American Newspapers – FUCK OFF WHITEY – would be the deserved response.
Can’t quite work out why transforming CO2 captured at fossil fueled power stations into a solid compound has not become a priority for the boffins – maybe it can’t be done without generating a lot of hot Dihydrogen monoxide – LoL.
ahundredthidiot
I’ve pointed to the milankovitch cycles as being the primary cause of climate change myself, a good while back. Awareness of this doesn’t really excuse not taking a precautionary approach to how human culture moves forward though. Is it? At least until there is social consensus on what is and isn’t evidentially robust.
link to tandfonline.com
The precautionary principle: a new approach to public decision-making?
link to academic.oup.com
The precautionary principle and environmental risk management: contributions and limitations of economic models
link to scielo.br
J Galt 3.47…
link to nytimes.com
A hundred years ago sailors would have met arctic ice 60 miles further south that now.
This has come from records made in ships captains logs that are now being used to gauge global warming
The places you mention are all experiencing increasing sea level rises and will be severely affected as their land increasingly disappears below water
Brian doonthetoon
Alan mackintosh
Are you referring to acid rain ?
terence callachan
“Wake up and listen to the thousands of scientists…”
I listened to a scientist pal who worked a Dounreay once – He told me that the best way to deal with nuclear waste was to drill a hole deep in the rocks somewhere in Scotland, fling the stuff in the hole and forget about it.
That was of course the cheapest and therefor preferred option of
the people who paid his wages and the wages of the experts who came up with this solution.
The next best method of disposal was to vitrify the stuff, put it in a barrel encased it in concrete and chuck the thing in the sea.
I don’t know about you but I was relieved when public opinion forced the government to ignore their own “scientific experts” advice on that matter.
Terence Callachan and Ian Anderson have a look at realclimatescience.com
The Maldives were supposed to be underwater by now, they are not, they are being invested in at record levels by moneyed interests much more likely to be acquainted with the facts than me, or with respect, you.
Most “scientists”, particularly in climate science are basically “repeaters”, good enough to administer research and compile statistics – which is essentially what climate science is.
The keenest skill these repeaters have is knowing on which side their bread is buttered, express scepticism and your career and income is destroyed, if I was one I’d probably go along wit it too!
@scunner
Well, if you’re happy to lay off the ‘one of the daftest suggestions I’ve ever heard’, I’ll happily lay aside the sarcasm.
Glad to see you chose 1. over 2. above, and I appreciate your honesty. I’d choose the same.
Obviously the best scenario, economically at least, is 3. independence where we get to keep the oil.
But what if that’s not possible? What if Plans A, B and C all fail? And D and E. Those are the circumstances in which I’m inviting you to consider this proposal. And as you’ve acknowledged, in such circumstances the proposal above is preferable to a status quo in a Brexity and possibly neo-fascist UK wasteland. IMO it would be vastly preferable.
And the other point is that if we rejoin the EU, even if we gave up the oil and gas we’d still be better off economically than in a post-hard-Brexit EU.
The main issue here isn’t really the environmental one — that would just be a bonus. The main issue is if all other plans fail, how can we leverage London into releasing their grip on us?
Another thought experiment, then: you’re Nicola Sturgeon and Johnson says to you tomorrow that he’ll grant Scottish independence in exchange for 100% of NS oil and gas. Would you accept the offer?
*than in a post-hard-Brexit UK.
If memory serves the bit of the sea in question was that deep ditch between Stranraer and Northern Ireland where they dumped all the surplus artillery shells from two world wars in.
J Galt
I hope you don’t think I’m picking on you but you don’t appear concerned that humanity faces an existential threat related to the earth’s climate. Perhaps I’m wrong on that count, but I’m not wrong in claiming a precautionary approach is the preferred choice of ethical rationalists.
I think it is also a reasonable claim to suggest Scotland faces an existential threat, as Westminster has lost sight of the British constitution’s moral law foundations. I’m sure Scotland’s legal experts will confirm justice is next to impossible to achieve, without a respect of natural law and the natural justice it enables.
link to tandfonline.com
J Galt @ 19:27,
I have long had a saying: “for every situation there is an idiot”, to which now can clearly be appended a modern sequel: “for every idiot there is a website”.
Burn me kangaroo down mate.
Col.Blimp IV says:
4 January, 2020 at 7:35 pm
If memory serves the bit of the sea in question was that deep ditch between Stranraer and Northern Ireland where they dumped all the surplus artillery shells from two world wars in.
Beaufort’s Dyke.
J Galt says:
4 January, 2020 at 11:27 am
Mr Galt I fear they hear you not.
I think the situation down under has precipitated the desired outcome for our southern hemisphere cousins. Cue a demand for the gubberment to save us all!
Col Blimp IV…
Your scientist friend at dounreay came up with the expert advice of the time I remember it well
Bury it under ancient granite rocks that don’t suffer much movement
Alternatives at the time were
Ship it to west Africa
Drop it in the deep sea
Make nuclear bombs
Send it into space
We have come a long way since then ….scientists have played a big part
Your argument for ignoring scientists is silly
Eventually scientists decided to store nuclear waste at dounreay above ground at dounreay as well as send some for processing in sellafield so they regularly send it by train I see it passing my sons house in Dundee , not a safe choice is it ?
But the truth is there is no safe choice with nuclear waste
Your example of why to not trust science is poor
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to en.wikipedia.org
Robert J. Sutherland
Perhaps its the Scientists, Experts and their keen followers who throughout the 1990s and early 2000s were confidently predicting the Maldives would be underwater by 2020 who should be having their intelligence questioned.
Armitage Shanks at 2013
At least Mr Campbell still allows climate “denialist” views to be heard which is more than can be said for certain other sites!
Unionist Media BDSM Club says:
4 January, 2020 at 7:27 pm
Another thought experiment, then: you’re Nicola Sturgeon and Johnson says to you tomorrow that he’ll grant Scottish independence in exchange for 100% of NS oil and gas. Would you accept the offer.
First, it isn’t his to “grant”, unless he wants to arbitrarily dissolve the Union from the English side.
Second, no I wouldn’t forfeit Scotland’s oil or gas, because Scottish Independence is fundamentally righting a wrong, and bringing a false injustice to it’s end. To “buy” that Independence by forfeiting Scotland’s resources is just the same colonial exploitation we have suffered for 300 years, simply choosing to fly a different flag of convenience. Scotland’s resources belong to Scotland, and the Scottish people.
Thirdly, it isn’t just a matter of finance, but a matter of trust. Would I trust an English Nation plundering resource off Scotland’s coast to respect Scotland’s Environmental sensibilities? No, is the short answer to that.
A bit tasteless.
I would advise investment in the renewable energy sector. BP, Shell, Total and ENI have put a lot of work and money into it. Don’t make their efforts be in vain.
Robert J. Sutherland
I’m happily attached, so no point chatting me up. But thanks anyway.
terence callachan
“Your argument for ignoring scientists is silly”
As two of the most outspoken opponents of the sponsored scientists who pedaled those views found out … Hilda Murrell and Willie MacRae.
@Breeks
Fair enough.
So imagine your own favoured strategies to achieve indy have all been tried and come to nothing. Scotland faces decades in a hard-Brexit economic wasteland and English continues to edge towards fascism. At that point would you exchange the oil and gas for independence?
This is just a hypothetical, remember. AFAIK Boris Johnson has no intention of offering independence to Breeks in exchange for independence. So ‘trust’ doesn’t come into it. This isn’t a real scenario. The point is to establish in principle at what point, if any, losing oil and gas revenues is preferable to decades in this increasingly nightmarish Union.
Are you saying that for you there’s no such point, even hypothetically? Would you for instance prefer remaining in a fully fascist UK if it meant not sacrificing potential oil revenues in an independent Scotland?
Cheers.
* and England continues to edge towards
* offering independence to Breeks in exchange for oil and gas.
It’s been a long day. 🙂
Colin Alexander @ 20:39,
You wish.
The only thing to which you seem obsessively attached is the goal of persuading the rapidly-dwindling band who will listen that Scotland is congenitally incapable of organising its own affairs.
And your dodging the name challenge once again only further proves my point: FAKE, FAKE, FAKE!
J Galt @ 20:22,
Yeah, we’ve heard this story all too often of late, “who needs experts?” when all we really need =cough= in this “New Order Democracy” is people management by organised confusion; lies, distortions and reality bent in favour of a very privileged few.
(Oh, and to hell with the weather. The rich & privileged can always get themselves anywhere.)
One for all those out there who believe science is what they want it to mean. Too many folk think that lay-knowledge is of comparable value to scientific expertise. Though lay-knowledge should not be dismissed out-of-hand, its ethical probity can not be redily esablished.
Guidelines for research ethics in science and technology
Issued by The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (2016).
link to etikkom.no
I’d promise them the oil … then renege.
Invade England liberate Berwick, subjugate Cumbria then invite the Northumbrians to join in a confederation. Leaving Westmoreland and Durham as a desolate, scorched earth, forbidden zone no mans land. .
Whether you agree with climate change or not, is it not sensible to live efficently and try to reduce the pollutants and the waste we generate whenever possible seeing as we live on a planet with finite resources.
Why would anyone object to adapting how we live as and when new information and technology makes it possible to produce energy in cleaner, safer ways.
A friend of the family was involved in the international process of funding the new sarcophagus that now covers the Chernobyl reactor. That structure is now in place over the old reactor and the protracted work of decommissioning / decontaminating the site over many decades is in progress.
There is a good documentary about the project which is worth a watch.
Nuclear incidents like that and the ones at Fukushima should be a warning to the risks of embracing highly complex and dangerous methods of producing our power, and the legacy they leave, when alternatives are available.
I’m pretty aligned with the vision of Breeks earlier post.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Are we just going to continue with magnolia tweaks and adjustments to what we have now because our crop of politicians have only ever known law, finance and politics, and therefore lack vision or the ability to comprehend what is actually possible.
Do they only see what is served up to them by their advisors and lobby groups.
We live in a country that cannot properly process the waste we generate. That is an embarrassing indictment of where we are.
I’ve heard of a company that buys their empty glass bottles from abroad because the economics of the transaction make it cheaper, completely ignoring the lorry haulage and ships burning bunker fuel to transport them across the continent.
Similar situation to that of businesses importing firewood from Estonia, how can that be sensible in environmental terms.
Col.Blimp IV says:
4 January, 2020 at 9:40 pm
“I’d promise them the oil … then renege.”
Now we’re talking!
London accepting or even considering such a deal would kill off forever any pro-Union arguments and would let the staunch Unionists see exactly how much they mean to their lords and masters, and so help keep them quiet in the early years of an indy Scotland.
Making the offer, or at least making the possibility part of the conversation, would also stir the shit among English Tories who believe they currently subsidise us. Would they really want to turn down ending that supposed subsidy, England becoming a one-party Tory state, and getting bribed billions at the same time?
It is of course extremely unlikely that any of this would actually unfold. But everyone needs to stop pretending that London’s real interest in the Union is anything other than our North Sea resources. This hypothetical offer is one way of drawing attention to that elephant in the room.
CBB
Can the ethical probity of “science” be readily established?
Science, politics and religion have been taking the piss for millennia – they are the three cards in a never-ending game of Find the Lady, who take it in turn to call the shots.
Kings, Presidents, Priests, Prophets, Astrologers, Climate Scientists – They thrive on our credulity
How many more decades/centuries will we have to wait without so much as a manned orbit of the moon before some will start to doubt that the Ancient Trumpianns went there and brought back a handful of magic sand?
Please somebody say “I have seen that Magic Sand!”
So have I bits of it were touted round nearly every school in the known Universe (mostly Planet Earth).
Later day Holy Relics, with similar levels of provenance.
Col.Blimp IV
“Can the ethical probity of “science” be readily established?”
From the perspective of ethical rationalism, yes, though not necessarily readily. Unless one posses specific expertise in scientific method and the philosophy of science, that is. 😉
Realism, Rationalism and Scientific Method
link to cambridge.org
@ Andrew Davidson – just catching up with the thread – thanks for posting links, I’ll read them tomorrow.
I read that smoke particles in Canberra were at 800 ppm when 80 ppm are considered too high. It’s a very dangerous environment for anyone, let alone someone with asthma. So I do hope you can cope somehow.
Also, is it possible for humans to live in 45° heat? I heard it was reaching 50° in the west.
Pity nobody can find a way to sack Morrison for gross negligence.
Much is said about the US attitude to climate change, poor farming practices, dodgy food, unbridled fracking, waste, etc.. It’s an environmental nightmare which über rightwing Tory Brexiteers are desperate to sign up to.
Here’s one aspect of the United States attitudes to public health … they have no widespread plans to replace the many lead pipes found in water supplies, both in mains and within buildings. Yes, astonishing. This was a health threat in Scotland half a century ago. We fixed it. Huge numbers of Americans still are exposed to lead piping.
Their ‘solution’ is to tweek drinking water chemistry to minimise leeching of lead from pipes.
A first world country? Not if you live in a poor urban neighbourhood of older housing.
Scotland must be the only country in the world to have more oil than Norway,AbuDabi etc and still have beggars and homeless at every corner not having a foodbank.
Yet HS2 railway not coming anywhere near Scotland is sucking p the Scottish oil wealth after the Chanel Tunnel and Cross rail etc sucked our resources not dry but not for the good of our people.
Perhaps we are too stupid or perhaps we are brainwashed.
Who runs the BBC,Daily Mail etc? Yea brainwashed.
CameronB Brodie
I’m sure that most of us do not.
I can only guess that in a study on say, coral and the effects of changing sea temperatures on it, will be by necessity compartmentalised between the students and unpaid volunteers gathering the information, the academic on site collating the data, the representatives of the sponsoring body assessing the data and whoever is delegated to write the report.
Also that unless it runs unchanged for several years it will be of dubious value and all I am ever likely to hear of it is a couple of cherry picked points designed to give the impression the commentator wishes to project.
And all I will have to compare that against is my memory of an old episode of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.
Meanwhile on a planet very near …. “Trump warns Iran if it hits any Americans or American assets ‘we have targeted 52 Iranian sites'”
link to edition.cnn.com
Some people suggest the Iranians will mourn for three days before doing anything. Maybe.
And we have total plonkers running things in London who will be completely out of their depth in a major international crisis.
2020 now and Scotland needs to go our own way, soon.
Famous15@11.11
I’ve been saying it for years. I got the “wrong oil” garbage thrown at me 30 years ago.
And as for London and the south east, that is an oasis well past its sell by date, but rather than move the wealth out of the dried up oasis, its been allowed to destroy the rest of the UK for the benefit of the few.
And that is why we had Brexit and the shit that is following.
“Brainwashed”? the UK is not bright enough!!
Indy is the only answer, will we get it this year? your guess is as good as mine.
As you know I lived in Spain for around 12 years and one year the temperature was over 40 degrees every day and still amost 30 degrees at midnight for 3 months and it was hell, even the dogs were refusing to go out and old folk and folk with breathing difficulties were dying, so what these folk in Australia are suffering is a nightmare unimaginable to us who whip our taps aff at 20 degrees and our water is still cold when we turn it on
I agree 100% with the first comment on this thread by Andrew Davidson about Scott Morrison.
The full scale of Morrison’s failure as a leader during the bush fire crisis is outlined here in this interview on Friday 3rd January with Greg Mullins, former NSW Fire Commissioner:
link to abc.net.au
It’s worth a listen for the raw anger that is felt at the way Morrison has behaved.
Unionist Media BDSM Club
It took a while to get to the point – but it was a good one.
As far as I’m concerned, and most of my understanding was guided by the Royal Town Planning Institute, open society is under serious threat in Scotland. As is Scotland’s democracy. Liberal constitutional only remains liberal, if law, particularly constitutional law, remains coherent with empirical reality.
Radical constructivism plays an important role in proper science, but strong social constructavism does not provide a sufficiently rational base on which to ground ethical moral public policy. So that’s contemporary British nationalism and gender-ideology in law fecked as moral codes of living.
Science, Technology and Society:
A Philosophical Perspective
link to core.ac.uk
Liberal constitutionalism
galamcennalath says:
4 January, 2020 at 11:23 pm
“Meanwhile on a planet very near …. “Trump warns Iran if it hits any Americans or American assets ‘we have targeted 52 Iranian sites’”
Just like the the old days:
The Partisans shoot a German soldier – The Gestapo rounds up 50 villagers, lock them in the church and set fire to it.
Not in our name they don’t anything short of outright condemnation of Trump from the UK Government is reason enough for the Scottish Government to declare Independence.
I don’t know how much I could be charging for this consultancy work? 🙂
Full text.
Evidence and morality in harm-reduction debates: can we use value-neutral arguments to achieve value-driven goals?
link to nature.com
“ Lies, the Bethlehem Doctrine, and the Illegal Murder of Soleimani”
link to craigmurray.org.uk
And the Greehouse Gas being touted is Water Vapour
link to climate.nasa.gov
Hi terence callachan at 7:01 pm
You typed,
“Brian doonthetoon
Alan mackintosh
Are you referring to acid rain ?”
Not at all.
I raised the issue with your wife’s pal, Carol, years ago but she ignored it and never got back to me with a response. This stuff is all over the place and is not addressed. This substance is fed into our homes daily. We don’t know enough about it to complain.
It is being used to placate patients in Ninewells Hospital as I type.
Really, check it out…
Hi terence callachan.
This may help…
link to en.wikipedia.org
Oh dear all this lampooning of Scott Morrison – how unfair.
I mean the guy was on holiday when it all went wrong.
Go your holidays, things get worse, and he gets the blame – c’mon?
Seriously though, if it is global warming, and these are fires that never happened before, every one of us needs to look at our way of life.
That said a good rip roaring WW3 and a bit of population control might cool the planet down. Just saying like!
Jockanese Wind Talker
A very powerful piece and great quote :
“That is why, if I finish up in the bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing about the experience will be the company of Daniel Bethlehem.”
I suppose he thinks that Blair, Straw and Browns presence there will cheer him up somewhat.
did I just hear the sound of a penny dropping?
Yes, and while we’re blaming Scott Morrison do we not recognise all great work our arms industry does.
I mean what pride our workers must have manufacturing all the lethal high tech weaponry that so effectively kills – and especially from a distance.
Never a thought about the carnage they spread isn’t it great that we can find so many places to use them. Just saying like.
Robert J. Sutherland
Your name might be genuine but your accusations are false. I fully believe Scotland’s people are capable of running their own affairs and already have the right of self-determination as a sovereign nation.
Scottish *self-determination* speaks for itself: self-determination means the UK state should not have been invited to decide if, when and how we decide the constitutional, economic and polital future for Scotland. That should be for Scotland’s people only. Just because Alex Salmond’s govt made serious strategic mistakes previously does not mean we should use them as a precedent and repeat those same mistakes in the hope that somehow the result will turn out different next time – if we want to win.
Sadly, the SNP leadership appear to love the “honour” of being the UK state’s colonial administrators for Scotland, so play by the “British Rulebook of Colonial Servitude”. Hence the latest s30 begging letter and the FM’s insistence that only a UK state authorised indyref is the legal and “gold standard” of democracy and self-determination for Scotland.
Despite the FM’s admission (if you blinked you might have missed it) that that is only her personal opinion that a s30 order is needed, as there has never been any legal decision made as to the requirement of a s30 order for Scotland to hold an indyref.
For approximately the last almost three years, the SNP have repeatedly promised the people of Scotland they won’t allow us to be dragged out of the EU against our will and have repeatedly been re-elected on that basis, winning election after election.
We’re still waiting on the SNP delivering on that promise as the clock again ticks down and the EU flags are taken down and the top SNP MEP jumps gravy train to Westminster, clearly expecting Scottish MPs at WM to be a long-term career prospect.
All i can say is we are all like a bunch a weans waiting fer christmas ,it will only happen when we all believe it at the same time .
Next week we can all stand together and tell the SNP and the westmonster government that WE as a wee colony of england can no longer be a colony and rise up together and be a nation , if we shite werselfs then hell mend us, together we are strong ,split us and we are nothing but wee auntie aggy and uncle wullie arguing over uncle tom touching auntie aggys’ arse.
Get rid of uncle tom and be UNCLE WULLIE…. SAVE HER ARSE….and OORS.
Right thats ma last wee uttering tae wer independent , Liz g, Ian b, wee silver, ( mr peffers wherever ye are) and no forgetting Smallaxe,(miss Heid) . Never met any of ye but ye are all my Indy family. Ill be the wan hovering next week on the wings stand wi ma daughter wondering who ye all are .
Alex PNR miss ye tae. 😉
Unionist Media BDSM Club says:
4 January, 2020 at 9:17 pm
* and England continues to edge towards
* offering independence to Breeks in exchange for oil and gas.
It’s been a long day. ?
Hey, you asked the question, and I took the trouble to answer your question, speaking for the only person I can speak for.
That was clearly a mistake which I won’t repeat.
Colin Alexander @ 02:51,
Your name is a fake (which you repeatedly dodge but never deny) and you can blether all you like about your intentions, but they are transparently clear from your actions. The common denominator is evidently an aim to confuse, disengage and sow as much supporter disenchantment about any weakness in the SNP that you either perceive or can manufacture, all the while earnestly (but falsely) proclaiming your good intentions.
Your declared political preferences have been all over the place. You have taken up so many different conflicting positions since you appeared on here that one would suspect mental instability if one didn’t believe that it was all deliberate. (Or possibly the efforts of a somewhat disparate collective.)
You are the Iago of the independence movement. We have learnt from experience that nothing you write here is worthy of any serious consideration, a consequence you have brought entirely upon yourself.
@jockanese @galamcennalath
re the Iran situation, Brisinski (neo con) said this to a senate committee in Feb, 2007….
“If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
I see Pete ‘wishy-washy’ wishart is at it again, spouting his views on indyref. He says he doesn’t understand why folk want the SNP to take a different approach. Well, Pete, maybe it is because your party has been handed mandate after mandate after mandate to do something, yet in just a few weeks every single Scot will forcibly have their EU citizenship stripped from them. YOUR party should have spent the last three years preparing for indy to keep us in the EU, but instead it tried to prevent England having brexit – something which you had no mandate at all for. AND FOLK ARE ANGRY.
Angry at the lying English Prime minister, for doing this, angry at the liars and cowards in Westminster who have gone along with it, angry at the SNP MP’s (including Pete), who seem to have become far, far, far too comfortable in London, with their second homes, expense accounts and free flights to London. ‘For London’s gold….’
Does any of that ring a bell Pete? You in particular, announcing you were going to stand for speaker, or getting excited over becoming ‘father of the house’, that kind of thing? Would you ever see any self respecting Sinn Fein MP doing the same? No.
But above all that, what is making folk really angry, is the simple fact that the SNP seem to want to talk about ANYTHING but independence, and even then, going down on bended knee to ask London’s permission, FFS. How utterly pathetic and craven. Has the SNP leadership no self respect? Have they no Knowledge of, or respect for Scotland’s constitutional rights?
Scotland is in a union with England, that EITHER party can end. The mandarins in London must be laughing their socks off behind the scenes, wondering just WHY NS feels the need to constantly beg permission from London. How pathetic.
How long will NS wait to hear back from Johnson over a section 30? a day? a week?. Any sense of urgency at all??? No????
Start standing up for our country, Pete. Talk is cheap. Your party talks the talk, but does not walk the walk. Now is the time for action, NOW. The time for slowly slowly ‘building support’ is over. Call the freaking referendum, stop dithering. Look at what is being done to Scotland. Where is your outrage?
And how about every single SNP MP, MSP and councillor gets off their lardy arses next saturday, and together with the SNP leader, actually nail their colours to the mast, and attend the indy march. Or is that too much to ask?
Maybe they need to ask London’s permission first?
Robert Louis is completely wrong as we still need to build the case for independence and bring the majority of voters on board. That needs more strategic thinking. Marching is fine but it won’t persuade many undecided similarly holding a referendum without following normal democratic and legal Guidelines.
@Robert Louis 08.02
It took the Irish 800 years to free themselves, maybe the SNP under Ms Sturgeon is thinking exceeding long term.
Many Scots seem to lack the ability to see themselves as others see them. Do they ever travel outside the comfort zone?
If they did the very existential shame of their situation would drive them screaming into independence.
The SNP ought to hold a mirror up to these types so they can see what a collection of snivelling, compliant, complaisant, complacent, third raters they are.
A similar device within the SNP ranks might be useful too. We need wily wolves not sheep.
How many true nationalists among the SNP’s msps and wmps?
In politics, nice is dog meat.
Sinky says:
5 January, 2020 at 8:24 am
Robert Louis is completely wrong….
No, no he isn’t.
The SNP are blowing this. They are idling in their complacency because they lack initiative and innovative planning. There plans are one dimensional and Westminster heads them off at the pass every time. We are “contained”. Scotland’s Brexit in less than 4 weeks is soul destroying, not just because it is a manifestation of defeat, but it is also a manifestation of our weak and anaemic capitulation. Our Nation will have squandered the greatest possible Constitutional mandate to halt Westminster’s colonial arrogance in it’s tracks, thereby doing the greatest possible service to Scotland, Europe, and even the deluded English themselves. Yet here we are, bracing ourselves for abject humiliation. Not in my name.
If Scotland is permitted to fall out of Europe, the SNP will have destroyed itself as far as my vote is concerned. How many more mandates should we waste upon the SNP when only one mandate is required? We are electing a lamb then expecting it to act like a lion. We must stop electing lambs, and find some inspired Constitutional protocol or legal device which might yet salvage something from Brexit, but so much time has been frittered away so cheaply.
Washington claims was necessary to prevent attacks on American citizens. Tehran vowed it would avenge the death of the popular general
Personally I think the best way to prevent attacks on American citizens in Iraq
Is to get them out of Iraq
Why are American military still there anyway ?
They started a war with lies of weapons of mass destruction
Murdered half a million civilian men women and children
Destroyed towns and cities and industry
Then when the country is broken
They keep thousands of oldies and weapons there saying they are helping the new Iraqi government to stabilise and rebuild
USA is the warmongering sickness in the world
Some EU countries have gone along with it and soldiers there too albeit small numbers under the badge of the UN
But they should pull out and condemn USA for what it is doing
All for control of oil
So USA citizens can fill their tanks for a a few dollars
Yes, out of Europe in three weeks.
Well done Nicola. You’ve used your mandates well to the extent we’re going backwards.
The SNP have become a spent force I’m afraid. And now Boris is going to crap all over you.
Breeks…WRONG
Stop guessing
You don’t know what SNP strategy is
The SNP haven’t being doing nothing with their mandate over the past few years……..they declared a climate emergency……on the back of a scam.
Meanwhile, we remain under the jack boot of London.
Talk about losing focus.
Ouch!
So far, the silence is deafening from the SNP regarding, as Craig Murray puts it: the USA’s “state terrorism” regarding their assassination of Iran’s top general.
Now, if someone had written or re-tweeted an article about certain subjects, rather than murder people by drone strike and potentially provoking all-out war in the middle-east, I bet the SNP would have been tweeting their unreserved condemnation.
Too many on here gripping about SNP and the First Minister.
They are our only chance for independence and very likely we are working on the
Last chance we have in my lifetime.
Unbelievable for me after all the Tories and Boris has done over the last decade
We find ourselves still without a majority ready to vote YES.
With the UK media entirely behind NO and the very deep dark money pockets of
the Tories the odds are at this time still against us.
We need to give Bojo more rope to hang himself and drive more people toward YES.
He will try to refuse our democratic right to Indy Ref 2.
He will take us out of Europe against our will.
He will support Trump in his unnecessary war with the Arabs spending fortunes and killing innocents.
He will fail in his EU negations and drive up dramatically our cost of living.
He will build HS2 for England it will over run and cost Scotland £Billions
He will lose jobs and take away workers rights.
All these factors will fuel the machinery we require to drive us toward independence.
Patience is a virtue and timing is everything.
Breeks@9.32…who needs enemies when we have (supposed)SNP supporters like you!
TheBuchanLoony says:
5 January, 2020 at 10:54 am
Breeks@9.32…who needs enemies when we have (supposed)SNP supporters like you!
I support Independence and the Constitutional Sovereignty of Scotland. When the SNP do likewise, we will perhaps have something in common.
My advice for what is’t worth, just scroll past the bullshitters.
Robert Louis, Breeks and the Rev Stu are as cheesed off with the antics of the SNP “leadership” as quite a lot of us here.
It’s utterly devoid of any inspiration or sign of direction apart from slogans like “Scotland won’t be dragged out of the EU against our will”. Please, please …..
They’ve asked for and got majorities/mandates to fight for and lead Scotland to independence. It won’t happen overnight but it will come.
In three weeks however, unless a miracle occurs, exactly that what we don’t want, will happen. “Scotland WILL be dragged out of the EU against our will”.
We’ll be treated as vassels, the cottonpickers of the English Empire.
FGS, have we no pride anymore.
There is only one possible redeeming act left; on the 1st of February the Scot. Gov. has to tell the Nation of Scotland that the other equal “Partner” of the Treaty of Union has willfully and against our will, broken the ToU and that we are terminating our partnership.
We will go our own way and we expect 100% full support from the EU to accept Scotland as the new/follow-up member in the EU.
Do that and all will be forgiven, if not, you blew it….
I have a genuine fear and I hope I am wrong. In the next few days, I expect an SNP Privy Counsellor to emerge from a Top Secret MI6 briefing in 10 Downing Street, chuffed with pride at being a trusted member of the British Establishment, and say that they have been shown “intelligence” that legally justifies the assassination of Soleimani.
It happened exactly like that over the Skripals.
I joined the SNP in 2011. Prior to that I was a Liberal Democrat. My friend – and I make zero apologies for it – Charlie Kennedy told me that he had never been so scared in his life as when he was being shown into No. 10 for his Top Secret MI6 briefing on Iraqi WMD. He was scared there would be real evidence and he would have to support the war.
He was delighted to find that the “evidence” looked like a pack of lies, and he told them so to their face. Contrast that to SNP behaviour over the Skripals.
I can find no evidence that the SNP has condemned the Soleimani assassination as illegal. Have I missed it? Or if not, why not?
It goes without saying that Charlie was a million miles to the left of the current LibDems, who are just a bunch of Tory chancers
Indeed Craig,
I was very much dismayed when the SNP climbed onto the anti-Russian bandwagon.
However, as you have said, I hope you are wrong about the SNP supporting this assassination.
Breeks says:
5 January, 2020 at 4:07 am
Unionist Media BDSM Club says:
4 January, 2020 at 9:17 pm
* and England continues to edge towards
* offering independence to Breeks in exchange for oil and gas.
It’s been a long day. ?
Hey, you asked the question, and I took the trouble to answer your question, speaking for the only person I can speak for.
That was clearly a mistake which I won’t repeat.
——————–
I think we have crossed wires, Breeks. Those words after the asterisks were simply corrections to my previous comment. No ill-will was intended towards you at all.
And I’m still genuinely interested to hear your response to this stuff:
So imagine your own favoured strategies to achieve indy have all been tried and come to nothing. Scotland faces decades in a hard-Brexit economic wasteland and English continues to edge towards fascism. At that point would you exchange the oil and gas for independence?
The point is to establish in principle at what point, if any, losing oil and gas revenues is preferable to decades in this increasingly nightmarish Union.
Are you saying that for you there’s no such point, even hypothetically? Would you for instance prefer remaining in a fully fascist UK if it meant not sacrificing potential oil revenues in an independent Scotland?
Cheers.
This SNP are letting us down and not persuing Indy Meme is slowly turning into a Unionist shibboleth.
It is being used to sow dissension in the ranks. They are too comfortable in Westminster, they have gone native, they achieve nothing, that are after their pensions, they only care about Brexit.
And truth be told it all revolves around that tornado of deceit that is Brexit!
Firstly you have to accept one simple truth… our right to another referendum is based on one thing only! Our forced departure from Europe! There may be others but this is our “ got too proof” that the terms of the previous referendum have been broken.
Now if you accept that then this proof only becomes real when it is actually real I.e. when we have been forced to leave.
Now if the SNP had not done everything in their power to try to enforce the mandate of the Scottish people to remain in the EU they would have been betraying their own mandate and the EU referendum mandate.
So they were and are in a hard place locked between their desire for Indy and their need to fight for Scotland’s place in Europe. One of which naturally excludes the other.
But had they not fought for Europe they would now be seen and labled as cynically manipulating a bad situation solely for party political gain. In fact even though they chose the hard path and kept firmly to the moral highlands they have been slandered on this very point.
So can yo imagine that the press would have been able to do with an SNP voting for exit and an immediate Brexit/Referendum?
This has run on for far longer than anybody could have reasonably imagined and I understand the frustration because I feel it too. But where else would we be if we had taken another track?
When has the UK government ever played fair. They will do anything to undermine and discredit The Indy movement. And the current memes are effective because there is an element of truth. Empires did not use device and conquer because it fails, they use it because it is incredibly successful. So please do not fall for it they are using our frustrations against us.
Does the Government have people inside the SNP, they have had since it’s inception, though current records are not declassified their presence is proven in all the documents that have been. So now we are a real threat to the Union would you expect those tasked with its protection to do nothing?
This battle will get bloodier expect them to use every trick in the book, up to and including violence. We cannot and must not descend to their gutter, for they will beat us with centuries of experience in the gutter, it is their chosen battlefield.
Now we are approaching the moment when the die is cast, where the only route to preserve our place in Europe is through Indy. The let’s work out compromise and reconcile our fears have been rebuffed and sneered at. The high ground is still our and the shit is still firmly in the bucket. Brexit is still to happen we are still in the EU but come February that all changes.
The EU becomes a third party negotiator not an ally, and as we have seen the Brits have lost their negotiation skill. The negotiations between a third party are are driven by different imperatives than those between member states. The EU will be documenting and publishing every move… they have to as they have to inform all member states. Fishing and farming are going to be interesting, two core Tory heartlands who as far as I can see must bear the brunt of exit. It will be interesting to see how it is spun! Damn Eurocrats punishing plucky Brits would be my guess!
To put it in Jingoistic Imperialist terms we are at Rorke’s Drift outnumbered and terrified the hordes of manky shirted unionist pour over the rise, They shout an jeer at us hoping to break our will and deep down some of us falter, yet still we stand our ground. Now today they are closing in on us , still out of range of the real battle but formidable all the same. They shout their “ tunes” and we reply with “men of Harlech”… it is where we are now, so courage brothers and keep your powder dry we will engage in the real battle soon and it is one for hearts and minds, not blood and guts.
And on Hearts and Minds we hold all the aces, it is why they don’t want to engage with us at all.
@Robert Louis 8:02 “… How long will NS wait to hear back from Johnson over a section 30? a day? a week?. Any sense of urgency at all??? …”
I think it is time to come to come down from Sinai and speak to the nation.
Unionist Media BDSM Club
Isn’t it the case that the SNP kept talking about taking on a portion of UK debt to indy-Scotland ( and continue to suggest this) despite the UK (in 2014) arguing indy-Scotland would be a new state, so nothing to do with the former UK, and so would inherit no UK assets and no UK debts?
Also, why would the UK be willing to negotiate any deal for a portion of Scottish natural assets when it’s intention is to do as now and keep 100% of them as UK State national assets?
Gerry@6.12 am
Spot on,
Only a few weeks ago the “orange assassin” was threatening the EU members to increase their defence budgets, and then stormed off in the huff when laughed at.
Any coincidence the EU mainland will be an easier target,(ie closer)whilst the yanks sit across the other side of the pond baiting.
The world has to stand up the American / Israeli inbred aggression.
I think the PM has a month to reply upon receipt of requested S30.
@ donnywho – well said. I am sick and tired of the anti-SNP whinging that goes on here. Sure they have faults, of course we are all frustrated by the long delay over BREXIT, but sniping from behind is pretty desperate. Some comments are undoubtedly intended to spread division and defeatism.
The Observer today is publishing revelations about the work of the Integrity Initiative over the past few years. So far we were told (via HoC Committee questions to Chris Wiley) they were very active up to 2013, then active since 2015, but took a year off in 2014. Let’s see if any journalist is curious enough to ask what they were doing in 2014 from their base in a disused mill in Fife.
The SNP response to the killing of Gen. Suleimani will probably come from Stewart McDonald. So there is little hope of an independent statement from him. But let’s see what happens.
I’ve repeatedly argued the position of Scotland / England / UK as to who inherits assets / debts and the other legal positions should be considered by courts and / or settled by negotiation BEFORE any indy v Union vote.
Also, the arguments for indy v the Union should be based on known facts, such as improving Scottish democracy and asserting sovereignty; not based on who can predict the best / worst economic case for some unspecified date for *Scotland in the future*, such as worthless promises / arguments about who will build the most warships on the Clyde: indy-Scotland or UK colonial Scotland?
Oops – Chris Wylie –
link to archive.md
cynicalHighlander said:
“I think the PM has a month to reply upon receipt of requested” S30.
Do you mean reply as in saying, Aye or No?
How do you “think” that?
Meanwhile, Russia, China and Iran conduct joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman.
link to aljazeera.com
I have the need to say this again, so I will. This is what I wrote during July 2019 and NOTHING has happened since to change my feelings:
“20:39 15/06/2019
I voted Brexit and I’m fucking FURIOUS. Not because of what was written on the side of a bus, Boris, or any of that lot. I’m FURIOUS with Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. It was obvious to a blind mans dog that Brexit was THE golden opportunity for Scottish Independence, so I thought I’d be helping the cause.
Instead I’ve spent the time since watching Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP fighting to overturn the democratic result of a UK referendum when instead they should have spent that time fighting to overturn the democratic result of a Scottish referendum.
Words cannot express how angry I am at them. THEY conned people and are continuing to con people. I let my SNP membership lapse and I will NEVER vote for them again so long as I live.”
So for people who go on about anti-SNP whinging and how criticism of the SNP shouldn’t be happening or allowed on this board, then I have news for them.
I and others like me, have every damned right to be furious at Sturgeon and the SNP. They have let me down personally and have let Scotland down altogether.
Although I said I would never vote SNP for as long as I live, I actually did in the last GE simply because there was no choice. Fortunately, my 15 years as an overseas voter are soon due to expire so that’ll no longer be an issue for me.
I think I’ll probably stop contributing to the cause of Scottish independence too because I can only bang my head against a brick wall for so long and it’s getting to that stage.
Scotland appears to all intents and purposes to be a country of donkeys led by arseholes in Bute House.
link to www2.gov.scot
link to legislation.gov.uk
15 October 2012: Edinburgh Agreement which includes agreement about a s30
12 February 2013 when the s30 Order became law. Approximately FOUR MONTHS later and that was with full cooperation between the Scottish and UK Govts to get it done.
07/08/2012: “A committee of MPs has called on the UK government to hand the Scottish Parliament new legal powers to hold a referendum.
The Scottish Affairs Committee said a section 30 order (S30) should be used to ensure the referendum is “legally and morally watertight”.
It claimed “overwhelming evidence” showed Holyrood did not have the power to hold a legally binding referendum.
The Scottish government said it had “no objection” to an S30 being used.
But it said it would only be acceptable if there were “no Westminster strings attached”.
link to bbc.co.uk
Once in a generation, once in a lifetime, you said it you said it squeal the media, and the FM gives them a reasonable reply and still they don’t accept it
Why isn’t Boris Johnson dead, he promised us he would die and he said it in parliament, shouted it even, I want to know why Boris Johnson has refused to honour his word and die in a ditch like he promised and I refuse to accept arguments to the contrary
Hurry up and die Mr Johnson and honour your solemn word
Why are *journalists* not demanding that he die and die now
Or are they accepting that what Johnson said was a just figure of speech
Despite the Scot Govt insisting there can be “no Westminster strings attached”.
Strings were attached by WM:
eg
It had to be held by a certain date
It could be one question only ( no Devo-Max allowed on the ballot paper).
We all know what happened next. eg The Vow.
Mist 101 would you have prefered that the SNP had done it differently? How do you think that would have turned out?
As i stated before the Unionist on here would be shreeking that tha SNP had abandoned the 62% who voted remain for cheap political gain. And they would have been right!
And how may i ask you would Nicola manage to effect the three years of farting arround and internicine slaughter between the hard right and facist wings of the Tory party?
What are your solutions as a “concerned Indy”, supporter?
And has the change in circumstance yet been triggered? If not then how do we have any right to proceed? I fear you are falling for the unionist trap, that wants us to create strife before we legitimately have a right to do so!
hope that adresses your concerns!
The change in circumstance happened three years ago when the Brexit result was returned in case you hadn’t fucking noticed.
Stop being a fucking apologist for that shower of shits in Bute House and start getting ANGRY.
On 28 March 2017 Holyrood agreed:
“That the Parliament acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs and therefore mandates the Scottish Government
to take forward discussions with the UK Government on the details of an order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 to ensure that the Scottish Parliament can legislate for a
referendum to be held that will give the people of Scotland a choice over the future direction and governance of their country at a time, and with a question and franchise, determined by the
Scottish Parliament, which would most appropriately be between the autumn of 2018, when there is clarity over the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, and around the point at which the
UK leaves the EU in spring 2019; believes that this gives people in Scotland a choice at a time when there is both the most information and most opportunity to act; further believes that 16 and 17-year-olds and EU citizens, who were excluded from the EU referendum, should be entitled to vote, and considers that this referendum is necessary given the Prime Minister’s
decision to negotiate a hard exit from the EU, including leaving the single market, which conflicts with assurances given by the UK Government and prominent Leave campaigners, and which
takes no account of the overwhelming Remain vote in Scotland”.
No, no he isn’t.
Remember Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which suggests he may be, or he may not. It is difficult to gage the properties of a moving target (see the British constitution, if you can locate it). Anyway, has he asked Sajid Javid? I don’t think so.
#AskSajid
National and constitutional identity before and after Lisbon
link to utrechtlawreview.org
I couldn’t agree more with Craig Murray when he draws the image of an SNP privy councillor being taken in for an MI6 briefing and then exiting with the pride of being accorded the importance of being a trusted establishment figure.
The allegory is just perfect. Anyone who has been in the SNP for a long time can now see that it is a party full of time served swanks earning a living. Yes they may cry independence but gone is th3 hunger. Their focus is to stay as a devolved institution taking the money.
Mandate after mandate, just give us one more mandate with 2021 the next target. Just give us another four of five years paid employment.Jam tomorrow. It’s coming.
Establishment devolutionist parties, like night following day, inevitably always fail. That’s what happened in Ireland and it is what will happen hear. Nicola and the gang don’t have a monopoly on the nationalist or the centre ground vote. Yes it may be a hiccup to the SNP if it loses ground to another Independence Party, but it might be for the better, and the only way we can secure independence. There are enough disenchanted members and elected representatives to overturn the apple cart – and sink the SNP time servers.
I think that the time is coming, and coming sooner than we think.
Breeks and Craig Murray…If not the SNP then WHO in the next five years, and even the next fifty years, will make Scotland an independent nation again?…tell me that!
Next week we will see a multitude of white crosses on blue backgrounds displayed in Glasgow.
Will it mean that the people of Scotland are on the march to freedom?
Or that our vessel(the SNP) has stopped, and we are making no headway?
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_maritime_signal_flags
sorry
link to en.wikipedia.org
Craig Murray’s hypothetical MI6 briefing for the SNP – wouldn’t it be great if the SNP came out and said
NO IRANIAN EVER CALLED ME -SUBSIDY JUNKIE-
That Pete Wishart is a bit of a buzzkill – does he EVER get invited to parties?
TheBuchanLoony
Us. You and me. And the rest of the Scottish people/
If nature can get its legal personality recognised in law, why can’t those of us living in Scotland?
Nature as a legal person
link to journals.openedition.org
Colin Alexander says:
5 January, 2020 at 12:45 pm
Unionist Media BDSM Club
>Isn’t it the case that the SNP kept talking about taking on a portion of UK debt to indy-Scotland ( and continue to suggest this) despite the UK (in 2014) arguing indy-Scotland would be a new state, so nothing to do with the former UK, and so would inherit no UK assets and no UK debts?
Yes, but that doesn’t really seem to have great relevance for the hypothetical proposal.
>Also, why would the UK be willing to negotiate any deal for a portion of Scottish natural assets when it’s intention is to do as now and keep 100% of them as UK State national assets?
This is a perfectly valid question.
When I finally got to the point above (!) I said that rather than arguing that such an offer actually be made anytime soon, I’m mainly interested for now in introducing it as a topic of discussion with fellow Yessers, and as online bait for Daily Mail-style English Tories. You won’t be surprised to hear that the latter love the idea, at least partly because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking England subsidises us. Those are the Tories this proposal is for just now, not the Tory leadership.
As for the hypothetical deal itself, the proposal isn’t that London gets to keep ‘a portion’ of North Sea oil and gas – it’s that they keep the lot, 100% (though of course the initial offer might be 50/75%). How might Dominic Cummings view such a deal?
1. Guaranteed 100% of oil and gas revenues for decades. All uncertainty over their possible loss post-indy ended.
2. An immediate benefit of roughly £1 billion because Scotland now gets zero income from NS oil.
3. England post-indy a one-party Tory state.
4. I honestly think this deal would appeal to Cummings and Tories in general because they’d view it as England shafting Scotland. From their POV no longer would it be Scotland deserting them, but instead dear old imperial England getting the upper hand again (which would make selling the end of the Union far easier down south).
And in any circumstances other than the current ones, they’d be right. But as well as changing everything else, Brexit opens up this one-off opportunity to bribe London to end the Union and then by rejoining the EU we’d end up richer than we’d be remaining in the Union.
I suspect this aspect rubs a lot of Yessers up the wrong way. They hate the idea of London gloating that they’ve shafted us yet again. Personally I DGAF if it means we’ve used the English establishment’s love of gloating to get free of them forever. Can you see that, Colin? This proposal might exploit that weakness in the imperialist psyche.
It’s a classic win-win, which in turn might help keep London honest during discussions about the practicalities of independence and in the early years of Scotland’s independence.
Is it ideal to have to pay the guards a fortune to let you escape their prison? Of course not. But what if all your other attempts at escape have failed?
So as wacky as it sounds at first, this swap IS an option that Yessers should consider if Plans A, B and C come to nothing.
Same questions I asked Breeks, then:
1. Imagine your own favoured strategies to achieve indy have all been tried and come to nothing. Scotland faces decades in a hard-Brexit economic wasteland and England continues to edge towards fascism. At that point would you exchange the oil and gas for independence?
2. Would you prefer remaining in a fully fascist UK if it meant not sacrificing potential oil revenues in a hoped-for independent Scotland?
Willie and Craig Murray…what political or even any benefit to the cause of Scotland’s independence would the SNP supporting Russia in the Skripal poisoning have produced? Why get inevitably involved in a tabloid shitstorm for no reason to gain anything?
Craig Murray…Us. You and me. And the rest of the Scottish people.
Really! Please tell me how you are going to do that!
The old ones are the best ones.
LEGAL PERSONALITY
digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3259&context=ylj
It is my humble opinion that the SNP’s legal advisors simply aren’t up to the task.
Popular sovereignty facing the deep state. The rule of recognition and the powers of the people
link to tandfonline.com
@CameronB Brodie: have they asked Joanna Cherry, do you think? Or J Maugham?
“The west did not take our mentality into account,” said Putin’s election campaign spokesman, referring to the large voter turnout which the Skripal affair apparently helped mobilize.
D’oh! What an enigma.
Sarah
I doubt it. 😉
NATURAL PERSONS, JURIDICAL PERSONS AND LEGAL PERSONHOOD
link to researchgate.net
TheBuchanLoony
Yes … You, me Us the rest of the Scottish People.
The SNP are stuck in a rut of their own making.
Once they were wee and their support was small.
They needed MP’s Councillors and the like to give them a presence that could be seen and a voice that would be heard.
They became a party of protest that people would come to in order to give the usual suspects a kick up the backside.
They won the odd bi-election and eventually started winning FPTP seats which individuals sometimes held onto by “being a good MP” … “lend us your vote” and we will do our best for you was the battle-cry.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since these days … but still the SNP has stopped short of saying…
Give us your vote and we will deliver Independence!
Once they do, EVERY election is an Independence Referendum.
and its outcome is in the hands of You, Me and all the rest .
It is our duty to ensure that the SNP becomes THE PARTY THAT DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN.
“Once in a generation Referendums”, S30’s, Double Dunked mandates, being torn out of the EU against our will … is all bullshit.
And unless the people who support independence let the “Holyrood and Westminster Bubble-Dwellers know, that we are no longer prepared to stand by watching them tread water…AND THEY LISTEN.
They will go the way of the Labour Party…A few good men and women, swamped by a multitude of career politicians, spivs and impostors.
@CB B: I’d better suggest it, then!! Though it seems the obvious first step to take if high in the SNP.
Col Blimp IV…’we are no longer prepared to stand by watching them tread water’…so what are you going to do about it? Who in the next five years(or even fifty years) is going to be the political party to deliver Scotland’s independence?…there is nobody out there but the SNP. There is never going to be a perfect political party but they are at 48mps and 48.5% yes in the polls so they are doing pretty well. The mandate is being dragged out of the EU…we’re not out of the EU yet!…after the 31st things will change dramatically.
General Soleimani, the man who fought Islamic State, is allied with Russia and supports the Syrian government and stands up for his country, he just had to go.
The Americans are said not to understand irony.
The killing of a man in the pursuit of peace is, Mr Trump, an example of the type.
Bit like calling a gun ‘peacemaker’.
Quite sickening.
Breeks , Craig Murray , Willie and others …..
I see where you are coming from
But you have all said at one time or another
That SNP can not possibly be all things to all people
I say SNP cannot be all things to all people
I would be disappointed if SNP came out and said they agree with Westminster and USA that the Iranian general had to be assassinated
But it’s not as important as Scottish independence
SNP is the only route to Scottish independence available at this time
Please either get behind it fully
Or put your other political views elsewhere in a more appropriate place
This forum is supposed to be about Scottish independence
We should concentrate on that and not be distracted by Westminster and USA behaviour elsewhere in the world and then somehow attach USA and Westminster bad behaviours to Scottish independence.
You may say
Do I expect you to ignore SNP agreeing with Westminster and USA on such important worldwide issues ?
My answer is no I don’t expect you to ignore it
But I do expect you to avoid inflating it to the detriment of the Scottish independent cause
Does that mean only discussing SNP actions and SNP comments that are about Scottish independence ?
Well on here I would say yes it does
Otherwise this Scottish independence stronghold of a blog will be weakened by a subject matter that is not going to do anything there than damage the drive for Scottish independence
If you are looking for SNP to deliver worldwide policies and comments that suit your personal view
and you believe that the SNP cannot deliver Scottish independence without that
You are lost already
I’m possibly being unfair to ‘Duffus and Dolt’, but they don’t appear to know what the purpose of the law is, or how to defend the legal rights of those living in Scotland.
link to sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu
SNP cannot affect what Westminster decides to do in the Middle East
We didn’t even get a say on brexit
What SNP day about the general being assassinated is irrelevant it affects nothing it’s just a point of view it might be a point of view you agree with or not but until you have your own government in Scotland you cannot do anything nor can SNP
The time for discussions like this about whether or not you agree with the SNP or Scottish government is when we are an independent country and you can actually vote the government out of power.
Westminster controls foreign policy for Scotland , they tell us what to do and what not to do .
SNP have zero control zero input.
SNPs opinion or statements affect nothing and for all we know might just be a way of containing the bubbling subject of Scottish independence we don’t need Westminster’s permission to have a Scottish independence referendum but we certainly do want their agreement and cooperation to divide assets and structure new arrangements once we are independent so pushing wedges further widening the gulf between us will do no good.
So should SNP just say they agree with Westminster and USA ? Just to keep the peace ? Just to avoid further bad feeling ?
Why not ?
What does it matter
Will it affect how other countries see Scotland now ? Don’t think so most other countries already see us as just a part of england anyway
Will it affect how other countries see Scotland in future once it’s independent ? Perhaps , but all we will say is it wasn’t Scottish policy it was Westminster policy at the time and SNP was not talking on behalf of the new independent nation of Scotland .
All been done before
You guys are making a storm in a “wings over Scotland” tea cup
This assassination and SNP,s opinion of it is not a Scottish independence matter
@Terence Callachan
True the SNP cannot be a political catchall, hence the need for more options.
Independence stands above the party political conventions we have inherited from Westminster.
We do need to jettison the colonial baggage. For that we must have new thinking, radically new thinking.
TheBuchanLoony
I did not say that I thought that the SNP were beyond redemption.
I hope that you are right about the 31st but the conditions were met and the iron was hot enough, for enacting what ever (if anything) the SNP pull out of the hat on that day…The moment the EU referendum result was announced.
Three years of waiting to see … what if there is nothing to see beyond more of the same pleading and posturing?
An other lend us your vote, Holyrood election that is not about Independence but mandate number five for talking about a referendum as the Unionists and MSM, with some justification, yell – stop boring us and “Get on with your day Job!
IT IS NOT THEIR FUCKING DAY JOB!
It is a task that they agreed to take on, in order to gain the boon of being paid to do what everyone else has to do in their own time and at their own expense.
Generations of nationalists who’s toil made it possible for these people to live high on the Hog in Holyrood and Westminster
are their graves now … I’m sure I can hear the more impatient among them starting to spin.
1. Imagine your own favoured strategies to achieve indy have all been tried and come to nothing. Scotland faces decades in a hard-Brexit economic wasteland and England continues to edge towards fascism. At that point would you exchange the oil and gas for independence?
2. Would you prefer remaining in a fully fascist UK if it meant not sacrificing potential oil revenues in a hoped-for independent Scotland?
Personally:
1. When Scotland is self-sufficient in renewable energy sources and has no need for oil and gas.
2. No, I wouldn’t. But there are many in Scotland where money is their godfully would be willing to support a fascist state if they gain personally from supporting or tolerating it. In a fully fascist UK state Scotland wouldn’t have any chance of indy anyway without foreign intervention, as the army and police would be used to kill and terrify the population into total submission.
Just look what the UK state already did to the miners etc.
So some of us see humanity as being part of nature, with our actions having social and environmental impacts. Others consider humanity as being separate and above nature. This outlook is not concerned with humanity’s footprint on earth, or with social justice (see the New Right or gender-ideology in law).
Here’s another of my devices, a bit of legal bioethics.
Of Elephants and Embryos: A Proposed Framework for Legal
Personhood
link to pdfs.semanticscholar.org
Watched Saturdays indy car Gordon Ross video , he has always been supportive of NS approach but in the video approx 16.40 min in he also feels like a lot of us that NS is being toooo cautious , he also says that a senior member of the SNP is now pushing a possible alternative of December for a ref .
Is this some more marching up to the top of the hill
—————————
Capella I usually agree with most of your postings but don’t fall into targeting people who disagree with the SNP and Nicola’s approach as trolls or brit nats, and terrence C this is an independence supporting site not a SNP luvvies site , there is only one person able to tell others to go elsewhere and that is Stu Campbell , many others who didn’t like the topics being discussed or the comments btl were free to find other sites which held their views , which they did .
I and my wife intend going on the march on Saturday , can I ask will there be a section set aside for people who just want Nicola to GET IT DONE URGENTLY or are the speakers and marchers just going to show solidarity to the cause
Col Blimp IV…Let me stick my neck out and give you a scenario that I(to a varying degree) expect will happen after 31st Jan and it will not be coming from the SNP but seeing Nicola’s confidence lately I would not be surprised if she knows its coming…If I were the EU beginning the negotiations with the Westminster Boris government, the first thing I would demand to know is what can they actually deliver as part of any ‘deal’. i.e. Can they cast iron guarantee Scotland’s resources to be included in any future ‘UK’ scenario…AND THEY CANNOT until the Indyref2 problem is sorted. The EU are not daft and they will not sign anything until they know exactly what they are getting in any deal. They know Westminster, Boris and the Tories are all liars. That is why I believe there will be a second Scottish independence referendum around September this year!
Buchan Loony “The EU are not daft and they will not sign anything until they know exactly what they are getting in any deal”
That wont necessarily force johnson’s hand as he seems perfectly happy to exit with no deal, and has seemed that way all along. A number of commenters have suggested that no-deal is still his plan anyway, even at the end of the 2020 discussions. So I am not convinced that the lack of EU signatures will provide pressure on him to agree the S30.
Fionan…even with ‘no deal’ he has to get a deal of some sort with the EU or there will be chaos. Boris has to get Indyref2 sorted for any ‘deal’ with whoever. The US will demand to know what Scottish resources he can really deliver. The problem is not going away till Indyref2 is voted on.
Abulhaq….I agree with what you say
But I think the time for radical new thinking is once we have voted as a majority in Scotland for Scottish independence
Until that majority vote I think we have to stand by SNP they ar the only route to Scottish independence
What we don’t want is a gradual deterioration in support for SNP for this that and the next reason because there is nothing that can fill their shoes
A gradual deterioration of SNP support and a gradual rise of some other party will not keep Scottish independence on the cusp of success it will turn it into a has been hope
Twathater…..
An independence supporter and an SNP supporter have to be the same thing
This idea that you can support Scottish independence but don’t support the SNP is just nonsense and cannot work
That is because the SNP and only the SNP can get us Scottish independence
If you don’t support SNP you won’t get Scottish independence
You can call it SNP luvvies all you want but make no mistake about it every time you people who say I will hold my nose and vote for SNP for Scottish independence
you do the Scottish independence cause harm
And that is because harm to the SNP harms the Scottish independence cause
It gives the opposition ammunition to criticise the Scottish independence cause by saying
there is infighting
There is a split in the Scottish independence support
Your personal likes or dislikes are really of little or no interest to others
You indulge yourself by criticising the SNP for policies comments opinions that are nothing directly to do with Scottish independence
Who on here cares what you think about those other things ?
We are all here on this site to support Scottish independence
If we all do what you do
And start openly criticising the bits of SNP we don’t like
And there will be many
Every political party has many
Then there will actually be real infighting and a split and that will end this current push for Scottish independence until another party builds the strong base required to get it
Wake up to the reality of U.K. politics
Keep your personal criticisms of SNP to yourself
You don’t have to stop having them
But for goodness sake realise that putting them out on a Scottish independence site like this will only do damage to the cause
And what for ?
For your glory ?
So everyone on here knows what a good honest person you are ?
Or everyone knows you and not the SNP have the answers to today’s problems ?
What we all want to hear is support of Scottish independence and that is more likely if we shout about these good bits and quiet the rest
It seems to me axiomatic that if you support Scottish Independence you don’t support Britnat foreign policy and don’t want Scotland to be in this stupid anti-Iranian, anti-Russian, pro-USA, Pro-Israel stance.
If you just want to support UK foreign policy, what do you want Independence for? Do you want actual Independence – which is being a state in relation to other states with its own role in international affairs – or do you really just want more devolution?
There are people who claim to be SNP but actually do want to keep a common foreign policy with the UK, have shared Embassies, stay with the British Army etc. That’s not Independence.
Has anyone else seen messages on Twitter or elsewhere about a gathering outside the Scottish Parliament on Jan 31st to mark the lowering of the EU flag?
Scottish independence does not need a definition
When it happens you will know it
There will be no mistaking it
Scotland will have declared itself an independent country
Once Scotland is an independent country
It might share embassies or armed forces and other things
It might do this from the outset it might not
It might do it with the EU
The thing is
If we the people don’t like what our Scottish government do
We will replace them
Those battles and decisions lie ahead
All new nations have them
Scotland will too
Let’s not burden SNP or cramp their style even if we don’t agree with them on things like this
Because it will have a negative effect on Scottish independence
A lot of Scottish people support the armed forces and support close ties with England
We can fine tune all that so much more easily when scotland is independent and our votes actually put people in and out of power
What is important right noe is Scottish independence
And if Scottish independence just looks like more devolution I will gladly take it
Because the stuff that looks like more devolution
Will be voted for or against by five and a half million people who live in Scotland
And not th
Scottish independence does not need a definition
When it happens you will know it
There will be no mistaking it
Scotland will have declared itself an independent country
Once Scotland is an independent country
It might share embassies or armed forces and other things
It might do this from the outset it might not
It might do it with the EU
The thing is
If we the people don’t like what our Scottish government do
We will replace them
Those battles and decisions lie ahead
All new nations have them
Scotland will too
Let’s not burden SNP or cramp their style even if we don’t agree with them on things like this
Because it will have a negative effect on Scottish independence
A lot of Scottish people support the armed forces and support close ties with England
We can fine tune all that so much more easily when scotland is independent and our votes actually put people in and out of power
What is important right noe is Scottish independence
And if Scottish independence just looks like more devolution I will gladly take it
Because the stuff that looks like more devolution
Will be voted for or against by five and a half million people who live in Scotland
And not the sixty million living in England
Scottish independence will give us the power to change everything in Scotland in the future
What SNPs idea of the future is after independence is secured
matters very little
I have no doubt that once Scotland is independent there will be a rush of niceties issued by the first few independent Scottish governments as they heed the voting public’s demands
But eventually world politics will dampen that down with other commitments and duties
If SNP agree to share armed forces and embassies with England it won’t be for long because Scottish people will vote that out
Just like trident and other connections weigh england
That will be ended
Terence,
I’m playing catch up in the comments but I believe I’m one of the people that has criticised the SNP that you are having a go at.
Firstly, I have only ever voted for the SNP ever since I was able to vote and over quite a few decades have persuaded all of my family and many of my friends to do the same.
My argument was never about good governance but always and only about about independence.
I differ from Craig Murray in that I don’t care if the SNP follow a moral code or not, what I care about is independence. It is my belief then, and only then that Scotland can afford to voice our opinions safely.
What I mean by that is that Newton’s 3rd Law should be used as a code of ethics as a pathway to independence. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
For instance the SNP policy is to keep the Queen and Royalty in place after independence, I believe this is a smart policy that won’t frighten too many horses as there’s little or no change. I agree with the SNP policy here but I want rid of the royal scroungers ASAP after independence but the SNP strategically, in my view, have got it right.
My point is ‘don’t upset the apple cart amongst our own independence supporters’ is a good credo.
Many people in the Independence movement have differing opinions about our royalty but that is a bridge to be crossed at another time.
I was dismayed about the SNP anti-Russian stance after the Skripal affair, not because as you have suggested I wanted them to support Russia or Putin but because strategically it was far easier to sit on the fence and say nothing. Likewise they should offer no official opinion on the Soleimani assassination.
Anything that hinders independence is a negative as far as I’m concerned.
I understand that some people see criticism of the SNP as detrimental to our goal of self determination but I see it as a reminder to them to deliver what was promised, an independence referendum.
So Terence, I’m like you, Independence first with no distractions, we want the same thing, we just disagree about how to go get there but I’m OK with that.
I don’t mean to be overly critical of the SNP, and I certainly don’t wish them harm. We are at limits of British constitutional thought and practice folks, I’m simply trying to help inform strategy. And remember, I’m not a legal professional and I’ve not looked at this stuff in donkey’s years.
link to corteidh.or.cr