Would you like to be shot with a red gun or blue gun, sir? That is the limit of the choice being offered the UK electorate as New Labour announces it will keep the Coalition public spending plans and the Coalition benefit cuts. Given it will also throw away £100 billion on Trident, and New Labour initiated the rampant privatisation of the Health Service, PFI, Tuition Fees etc., my point could not have been more eloquently proven that the UK electorate is no longer offered any meaningful choice by the neo-con parties.
It also of course demolishes completely the Gordon Brown argument that Scots need to stay in the Union to put New Labour in to power. Who carries out Tory policies is not the question; and why a nation should surrender its freedom just to make sure Ed Balls has a ministerial car and salary while he implements Tory policies, is not a question which to me has an obvious answer.
The only meaningful political choice any part of the UK population will have in the foreseeable future is the Scottish Independence Referendum. If Scots do not take their chance, all they have ahead is economic decline and the collapse of public services. The choice could not be more stark.
O/T (but fun)
Your company’s one-stop PRISM involvement denial statement generator:
http://colingourlay.github.io/deny-prism/
It works too, I typed in GCHQ.
@Fred
“I post it because it is true […]”
This has to be one of the most breathtakingly arrogant comments I’ve ever seen (and there has been some competition), the level of detachment from reality and arrogance there and in most of your bilious comments is disturbing. Something isn’t true, cannot be true simply on the basis of who is saying it. Someone who is so sure that everything they say is inviolable truth, without exception, in the face of so many disagreeing strongly with you and trying to understand your warped viewpoint and your motivation for disseminating it, I would think would begin to entertain doubts. Instead being called out on your hypocrisy and lies seems to entrench your position to the point of absurdity, inviting mockery.
“push their false perspective of reality on the blog.”
That describes your sorry contribution succintly.
I think that was a confession you just made, If continuing to suffer your comments, I must try to read them backwards, they make far more sense that way.
“Let’s use your logic then Fred.
Only 24% want the status quo, therefore 76% want change. As independence is the only change offered, independence is a formality.”
That isn’t logic.
Your poll doesn’t show which way those choosing the other options would vote.
The independent poll does.
The poll was published in the Times so I assume it was commissioned by them, the owner of the Times has voiced his support for Independence.
@Cryptonym
Then post your evidence that Scottish bank notes have been not accepted in England for any other reasons than those I stated.
Post something more than malicious character assassinations and unfounded allegations. I posted the facts and I posted the evidence, you have posted nothing but intimidation and hatemongering.
Fred “That isn’t logic.
Your poll doesn’t show which way those choosing the other options would vote.”
Yet in your previous post, ““The survey shows 35% in favour and 62% against, that’s in line with the last independent survey I saw.”
In your previous post, you had all the other options voting No!
If you are going to spout nonsense, at least keep it consistent.
@Juteman
As how you try to twist it you have posted no evidence whatsoever of how many of those in your poll would vote, I have posted evidence and it’s evidence you can’t accuse of being biassed.
Fred: Why would I want to get into a discussion with you over something so insignificant as banknotes? It is just a microcosm of the issue being discussed, through which you think you can save face; your constant smears of the very idea (how dare they!) of Scotland’s Independence, hiding behind the preposterous notion of a generalised distaste for nationalism, whilst prescribing British nationalism for all whether they like or choose it, is quite a spectacle, but your excuses have worn thin and your comedic value is exhausted.
I cannot account for the non-acceptance of Scottish banknotes, seemingly arbitrarily in some parts of England, I have experienced it but have no interest in or likelihood of determining fully why. I have no means to determine the true reasons, and neither do you, the reasons you give as the only reasons with the religious certainty of a crank are certainly given and might be a part but are not by any means the whole story. A difference between us on this specific issue is I’m not interested, it is of no importance or care to me whatsoever
Juteman, It looks a lovely day out, don’t get bogged down with this Fred and waste it. He’s gone out on a limb so far in thread, that there’s just no way back for him. He’s lost.
Hi all. Looks like the scissors have to come out – feel free to have a bash at each other, but once strong epithets are thrown, it’s a downward spiral from there. Deleted
threefourfive from Fred and one from pictishbeastie (both sides are at it!). Since I was previously discussing with Fred, I will drop out of the discussion.TonyOpmoc, hello! Trust you are well. It’s me that is deleting your posts – we do permit slightly off-topic stuff here, but as you know yours are just meandering notes on your family life. Perhaps you could start your own blog?
@Fred
You mean you tell actual pollsters the truth?
OK. Let’s end elections. Let’s just have polls.
Did you notice the latest poll shows more Scots favour Independence than not? That’s that sorted then isn’t it?
http://wingsoverscotland.com/uninteresting-news-ignored/
I see there was some discussion earlier about how to quote from other sources, so it is clear what is your own prose and what is a quote. To do it, use the {blockquote} tag (but use angle brackets rather than braces). Better yet, wrap with both {blockquote} and {em}. So, use this (substituting angle brackets of course):
{blockquote}{em}Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt{/em}{/blockquote}
And that will look like this:
Easy!
“Fmaing June” writes :
“..having just seen the well fed face of Cameron speaking humbug about 1 billion on this planet going hungry…”
———-
Relevance of “the well fed face”?
Do you have to be starving yourself before you’re allowed to talk about the starving?
Would someone looking at Flaming June’s face conclude that she too eats well and enough?
Craig, sorry to hear you are feeling down. I do hope that some relief from the pain is quickly on its way, and that you are able to get back to your book.
“Did you notice the latest poll shows more Scots favour Independence than not? That’s that sorted then isn’t it? ”
No, I noticed that it didn’t say that because it didn’t offer only the choices which will be available on the ballot form. Your survey does not indicate how 41% of the electorate will vote.
Apparently I heard Gates correctly!
‘Microsoft founder Bill Gates, in London for a Hyde Park rally calling for action to end hunger, said he knew nothing about Prism, adding: “I don’t know any specifics but if there’s a court order for companies to do things it’s typical that they’re obeyed.”‘
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22824379
Interesting (if true) that the Twitter people gave the NSA the elbow.
‘Meanwhile, the BBC has learned that Twitter was invited to join the Prism programme last year, but rejected the approach from US authorities.’
I was trying to find out if Bono (who supports Monsanto) and Geldof are at this ‘hunger summit’. Bono was very active at the 2012 equivalent.
@Cryptonym.
Don’t worry. I’m sitting in the garden enjoying a cold beer or three. 🙂
I’ll have to change my shirt though. This Black one is far too hot. 🙂
O/T, but of possible interest. This didn’t make it to the front page of the Daily Wail for some reason…
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/duncan-smith-face-grilling-mps-over-misuse-statistics
With deceptively little fanfare, the work and pensions select committee has announced that it intends to question Iain Duncan Smith over his misuse of statistics. After IDS was rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority for falsely claiming that 8,000 people had moved into work as a result of the introduction of the benefit cap, the committee has “decided to examine the way DWP releases benefit statistics to the media”.
Arbed
Thanks for the template. I will generate one soon.
A prism is by definition transparent and non-transparent at the same time.
I look forward to Scotland joining the euro.
“…Charles and Camilla, self-styled ‘royalty’…)
you forgot to add, ‘all time’ before self styled Cryptonym, cause here in the stomping ground of the landed Norfolk gentry we know of the consorting that went on when Diana was busy laying her eggs.
But then certain people can do as they like, why should old habits get in the way of things.
@ all those who support Independence. Please educate us to the extend of independence thjats on offer.
What are the constitutional rights proposed to Scottish citizens?
and what are their obligations or responsibilities vis a vis an Independent Scotland, apart from paying taxes?
Will young people, for example, be required to do military/or civilian service? will Scotland’s defence be done by conscription or will it be voluntary? an issue young people might be interested in at the annual Ubuntu Doune the rabbit hole fair.
How will taxation be regulated?, will Holyrood shadow/adopt the British tax regime?, will it be still as easy to bank offshore/evade taxation as it was within the union?
Will an Independent Scotland be applying to be a EU member?
Finally, will there be a tax raised on best Norfolk brewing barley, a quintessential English stiff upper lip initiative one could imagine in response.
Surely by now all party politicians should have some sort of manifesto ready for a sustainable Scotland, leaving it to the last minute, when many of Scotland’s Tory’s will want to vote by post, if that is allowed at all, so why don’t the supporters of Independence not put some meat on the table, so we all sit down and chat over it?
“Let him be violated by a hairy Scotsman for three days hence, make ablutions, and return to this blog a pardoned man.” Giles.
Giles, thank you for sharing your erotic fantasies with us all. 🙂
Btw, did you, or indeed anyone here, manage to watch the All Hill documentary? I’ve not had time – rushing, as always – is it still on i-player or the equivalent? Thanks again for correcting me on that score. Science moves forward by seeking errors in its own fabric. Likewise, with thought.
Incidentally, wrt your comment on the supposed ‘orthodoxy’ here, actually, I thought it was fairly UKIP-friendly here. Also, I regularly make attacks on Islamists here, there and indeed everywhere and yet in general I have not faced opprobrium from what you describe as those who promote this supposed ‘orthodoxy’. People might disagree on this or that, but that’s fine with me.
Komodo, as some people may recall, was criticised on one thread some time ago on account of other things, not for simply saying he was against unlimited immigration – a bit of a straw argument, that, since there has never been unlimited immigration.
You know, if the UK had to take in as many refugees per head of population as Jordan or Turkey recently have taken in (from Syria), we’d be taking in 16 million people, right now, this minute (say, French/German). Now that would be “unlimted immigration”. What the UK has experienced, even in terms of proportionate numbers, is nothing close and has never been close. So this scare idea of “unlimited immigration” is just that – a scare tactic, designed to corall people into social subservience and/or internecine fighting while the men-in-pinstripes laugh all the way to the eternally “recapitalised” bank. Divide-and-rule, in other words. And that is why the EDL is useful to the powerful. They wouldn’t want it to become too strong, but one suspects that they would like it, or an equivalent jackbooted mob (the BNP became useless as an instrument), to remain active and always pointing the finger at ‘Muslims’ and ‘immigrants’ and (best of all), ‘Muslim immigrants’ and ‘those who breed faster than us’ and so on. UKIP too is useful, as it is the de facto political wing of the EDL and perhaps unlike the EDL, appeals to some middle-class English voters. So, UKIP-EDL helps to drive the political agenda to the Right, making the mainstream parties look centrist or even liberal and yet facilitating their acquiescence in maintaining the focus away from the systemic economic rape of the citizens – ALL the citizens – of this country by Wall Street/City of London. What a really liberatory political movement would do would be to press for immediate and stringent financial regulation of the sector and if the onshore robber-barons want to leave (since they are not ‘here’ in any case and actually are more of a drain than anything else), then good riddance!
Btw, everyone, say a big ‘hello’ to Prism/ the doughnut! Perhaps we should do a football wave to GCHQ? Cheltenham FC. What division are they in? Or maybe make that a baseball wave, since it’s via the USA? Prism. Triangle. Octagon. Polygon. Googly. Hoogly. Gone.
Re. the above post, at 5:29pm today: I meant ‘Jordan and Lebanon’, not ‘Jordan and Turkey’.
Good one Suhayl. I had been thinking of Miss Prism!
http://www.shmoop.com/importance-of-being-earnest/miss-prism.html
The Al Hilli Murders
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-alps-murders/4od
28 days left to view. I watched most of it. Nothing new. Some of the detail was given more depth. A little like the children’s rhyme – ‘Round and round the garden…..’ The aerial view of the house reveals the contents piled up in a heap at the back of the house. A real mess.
The little girls are still in the care of social services. Especially terrible for them.
Enhancing Privacy or Shattering the Prism
Most e-mail applications can be made to work with cryptography. Mozilla ‘Thunderbird’ is free software and has easy-to-use cryptography options.
Thunderbird will run on Linux, Macs and Windows systems. It can be a full replacement or used alongside another mail program (MailApp on Mac or Outlook on Windows).
On Ubuntu Thunderbird can be installed through the ‘Ubuntu Software Center’ (under the ‘Applications’ menu)
Mac & Windows users can download ‘Thunderbird’ at: http://mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/
For configuring your mail account go to this Help document for Gmail – https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=180189
If your mail is running with another provider or system consult their websites.
For using Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) cryptography or (GPG) with MailApp see http://www.gpgtools.org/gpgmail/index.html. Outlook and various other Windows programs here: http://www.vanheusden.com/pgp.php#plugins
Mail client setup with Gmail.
I do not recommend using non-free versions of PGP crypto software because of the impossibility to audit these systems for technical mistakes or hidden back-doors.
Software – GPG and Enigmal
The GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) is a free software version of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). It is already installed by default on all Linux systems.
Mac Users go here: http://macgpg.sourceforge.net/
Windows users go here: ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/gnupg-w32cli-1.4.11.exe
To make using GPG easier in combination with Thunderbird use the Enigmail plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/enigmail/
Setting up Enigmail is described in detail here: http://enigmail.mozdev.org/documentation/quickstart.php.html
For more extreme use it is possible to create a whole PC for specific usage on a USB-drive or (micro)SD-card: http://www.gendo.nl/en/content/ubuntu-on-a-stick
Such a system can be small enough to physically hide and cheap enough to use-and-destroy if the situation warrants it. Using a system-on-a-stick is slower than a normal PC/laptop but for email and light surfing this may not matter that much. The TAILS bootable operating system has the same forefather as Ubuntu (Debian Linux) and is designed for this purpose: https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/usb_installation/
Having this on a USB-drive or microSD-card is a really secure option. This will take a bit more effort.
Using insecure mail services in a secure manner
Many of us will have a Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail accounts. Please be aware that the mail-servers of these parties are owned and operated by US companies and usually are on US soil. Therefore the data on them falls under US jurisdiction and various agencies can access your information for various reasons without the need to prove any wrongdoing on your part. When allowing US government agencies access to your information, the companies in question may be blocked from informing you of this fact. More about this here: http://www.gendo.nl/en/blog/arjen/unsuitable
This limits the range of functions these type of accounts can be used for without using strong crypto for unimportant things.
Ideally we would all run our own mail-servers and in the future this may be possible; today this requires a much higher level of technical knowledge than most of us have.
The second best option is to rent capacity on a mail-server with a small provider whose employees you can know and that will look out for your interests. Smaller internet companies in Sweden, Germany and Switzerland seem to taking their clients privacy seriously and these locations have at least some working legal protection for citizens against the state. This will cost something between 5-10 euros per month plus a possible onetime set-up fee.
The cheapest but least desirable option is to continue to use a service like Gmail but to use it with Crypto for anything important. This requires discipline on your part and on the part of anyone you are communicating with to always use cryptography when communicating about anything important. Another major disadvantage of using Gmail-type services even with crypto is that it allows for analysis of the patterns in your communications (who are are you mailing, when are you mailing them and possibly from what location). This pattern can reveal as much about you and your group as the contents of the mail itself.
Article with thanks to Annie Machon
The Hydro opening was rescheduled. Now today there has been a big fire in the roof.
£125m. Where is the money coming from?
http://www.clydewaterfront.com/projects/pacific-quay–secc/leisure/secc_arena
Suhayl
Assad took in millions of Sunni refugees from Iraq.
Nevermind: One thing that pleased me immensely was the introduction of non-means tested, free, healthy school meals with choice and variety for primary school children: universality, available to all without stigmatisation. Successive Labour councils could have introduced this or a variant of it at any time in the last 40 or 50 years to tackle in a small way chronic malnutrition or poor-nutrition in younger children, impacting on their adult lives and health. Measures like this could only have come from the SNP and the Independence supporting Green Party and many small socialist parties that bubble under having inconsistent electoral results but are an accepted and welcome part of the political scene. Nothing could be more responsible than facing this problem and making the necessary decisions to alleviate this, knowing the payoff and result was long term but the need to act had immediate short-term costs and the carping from unionist parties would be and was shameful but would have to be borne and the measure seen through, till established as now irreversible such that anything less than such provision is unthinkable.
The much referred to McCrone report contains many suggested measures to offset rising support for the SNP and for independence, none of these actions were taken. These include alleviating housing, unemployment and disastrous health issues and high mortality in and around Glasgow and west central Scotland, the McCrone report highlighted these problems as they were acute there but by no means unique to that area or indeed to Scotland alone. Advising that if it was not resolved there would be political consequences for Labour particularly. Instead of taking this advice Labour ignored it, decided to lie about the scale of expected income from oil, cooked the books, pleaded poverty and took an IMF loan with gruesome conditions, quite unnecessarily in order to plead poverty, as a PR stunt, when they knew they were rolling in it, and whilst gutting public sector pay as a further cruelty. Denis Healey has all but admitted this -only very recently, no-one else senior in the Labour Party and none in Scotland dare admit the dastardly games Labour had afoot all through the seventies. It was to Thatcher’s delight in 1979, when she realised the true, sound state of the economy she inherited, but may have been aware, as many Tories must have guessed at Labour’s calculated deception and probably found it an agreeable wheeze. Thatcher worsened the problem, exterminating what industry there was left, preferring a pre-emptive strike against the future viabilty of an independent Scotland, with a savage de-industrialisation, not seen perhaps since the Russian pillaging of their acquired western territories including East Germany, than attempting to alleviate the problems which to her were away in some far foreign Scotland of which she knew nothing and cared less. A start has been made on these issues, but it is only with independence that anything like a solution can be found or is possible, the union precludes, militates against any mitigation.
Another issue Independence alone can solve or reduce is emigration, net population loss, of the bright and the talented, the desperate and the deprived, driven out and away from their friends and their families, their support networks and their communities, by providing opportunities to stay, to give and to receive and to build the better Scotland that is rising from the union’s dusty bones. No-one likes or would choose unnecessarily the life of a permanent exile without good reason, likewise the experience of exile, of the stranger in a strange town is so recognised and understood here that anyone coming here, visiting here, making a home and a life for themselves and their family in Scotland is eternally welcome.
I doubt there will ever be conscription, for one thing there is need to maintain such large defence forces, a disproportionate number of Scots serve in UK forces and voluntary recruitment for reformed Scottish services inheriting the traditions of old and recognised formations would be more than adequate for defence and civil needs. Residual-UK might face some shortfall, is having some at present, though it could instead rein in its belligerence and refrain from launching half-cocked into resource grabbing illegal conflicts or having its foreign policy determined by a deranged clique including the US and Israeli far right.
Scotland is an EU member country, and expects to seamlessly remain so, that doesn’t mean that all is rosy with that institution, the view that reforms are needed is shared by most of the constituent countries peoples, the French the Spanish the Germans the English, all must be who they are, no-one wants a smothering one-size fits all Europe, but a Europe of independent nations like Scotland is what we of each country want and can only but attain.
The meat on the Independence table is coming, it is being exquisitely prepared for a banquet of delights but the unionist parties and their attack dogs in rage have ground their teeth to the gums and cannot, refuse to, partake; instead offer only the foulest of tired offal.
Beautiful days like today, that transition from late spring to high summer are like Scotland’s dramatic shift towards self-determination, independence is in the air suddenly, everywhere, people sense it, it assails and delights the senses and the expectation, the anticipation is palpable. Bring on this referendum, it can’t come a moment too soon.
“Assad took in millions of Sunni refugees from Iraq.” Guano.
Indeed. Good point.
Mark; I have mixed emotions about anonymizers and encryption (Like my mother in law going off a cliff in my Maserati).
To me it’s like the lead shields I used to use to protect film from the airport X-ray. All they do is ramp up power until they can see.
Isn’t it better to get lost in the crowd, versus drawing attention to one’s self?
Good timeline on spooky surveillance.
http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/surveillance-timeline