Various unionist nutters have tried to claim that the outrageous BBC/MOD propaganda lie of 35,000 people at Armed Forces Day in Stirling is true. This picture was taken at 1.30pm when the crowd was largest.
There is a lot to give scale in this photo. Look at the vehicles. Look at the marquees.
Look at the marquee closest to the top on the left. There is a van parked right in front of it. From that van, we can measure that it is a sixty foot by forty foot marquee.
Using simple measurement techniques, it is easy to see that the entire crowd could fit into three – or at most four – of those marquees. Perspective is on the side of crowd overestimate as the marquee is further away from the camera than any of the crowd.
If you observe rationally, and look at the clues as to scale, it is not difficult to work it out. That the MOD can claim 35,000 people is a lie by a factor of about twenty times. That the BBC repeats this state propaganda is worse than anything I have seen recently on Russia Today or Chinese state CCTV.
And here is the crowd by the climax – the Red Arrows fly past at 5pm. I have seen more people at a garden fete.
“I for one did not watch it. Who wants to listen to a load of old has beens?”
Well, you read this blog! 🙂
Anon. 1 11pm
“…there were certainly many thousands watching the Red Arrows, more than your photograph would suggest.”
Hello Grownups.
I’ve been a bit too tied up with getting to the bottom of all that EU stuff to comment here for a while. But I’m back home briefly to tidy a few things up, change Dad’s litter tray and make a few last minute adjustments before heading off in search of the mysterious…
I don’t want to waste too much space here on Uncle Craig’s blog so I’ll be brief.
The agitation around the notion of an electrically dynamic caused by my question, “Where does all the charge go?” stirred me to go and check it out for myself. So I adapted some plans I found in an old DIY book and cobbled together an Adams Infinite Improbability Drive. That big pile of old gin crates by Dad’s shed and a few boxes of odds and ends turned out to be just the job and by last weekend I was running a few tests on “The Spirit of Gordon”.
It all was going well and I’m sure I’d have reached the Enceladus Plumes had not an unexpectedly strong field from the BBc’s massive improbability drive sucked me into a strange and rather disturbing backwater of space/time known as Stirling.
There, sheltering from the rain under a 40 acre camoflage sheet, dressed in strange costumes and looking rather disoriented, was a seething mass of at least 35 thousand human-like lifeforms. If you look hard at Craig’s photos I’m sure you will see the tell-tale signs.
I hope that clears the matter up once and for all.
…
Now that the test runs are completed I’m off again, for how long I don’t know.
I’ve drugged a few of the regulars and bundled them on board. I’ll let you know what duties have been allocated later and, since I’m a fair-minded kind of troll I’m open to suggestions, aside that is, from Fred manning the forward Vrebal Blasters for defence against who knows what we’ll meet, A Node looking after the Main Logic Circuit, Ba’al using his irresistable charms in the Alien Interface Suite and Mary at the other end of the ship running the Library and PA System.
So, off we go…!
I complained to a senior home office spook a few years ago about the declining trust in the BBC and he/she/it confessed to also watching RT today!
Meanwhile did anyone catch the MI5 – JK Rowling thread? [NZ Herald]
The allegation, or possibility, is that when JKR offered £1M to ‘No-Together’ – then attack Trolls from ‘YES-independence’ were highly abusive [BBC]
Todays theory, according to the NZ Herald, is that the attack Trolls could have been fake MI5 twitter accounts? False Flag twittering from the Human Science Operations Cell??
Oops!
Correction.
…electrically dynamic universe…
One thing that Blair did get right was keeping armed forces celebrations “low key” because he knew the extent of the opposition. It was a highly crass decision by Brown to try to stoke up the political war machine when he came to office. Trying to take us back, it would seem to the “Empire Day” celebrations that my parents told me about from their youth.
In times of austerity, and continuing public opposition to neocon wars it seems like a bad idea to try to make political capital out of the armed forces, and the only way they can do this at such times is by telling lies. We know politicians tell lies, but the BBC certainly shouldn’t! Car sticker anyone?
There’s been quite a few soldiers getting vocal on how AFD was hijacked for political purposes.There’s the orders from above to let propaganda filter down and a big push on to have the enlisted men register for a proxy vote.
My question Craig is ,what will happen to all those proxy votes ? Will they be collected by the Army first and then forwarded on for counting ? Or will they simply be normal post and collected and counted with the rest of us ?
Forces Proxy votes must be open to massive fraud.
@Youknowmyname: Probably wouldn’t be a first. Harold Wilson seemed to be suggesting that such people were influencing opinion regarding the second 1974 election. I don’t know whether that was just sour grapes/paranoia or that there really was something going on at that time.
Of course the security services are already very involved in the referendum, including through cyber activity. Between GCHQ, MI5, MI6 and SO15 there are 60,000 of’em. What do you think they do all day?
The BBC lied about the AFD and there will be no correction or apology. The lie is barely even plausible: the entire population of Stirling is only 41,000.
There is a useful concept called Gell-Mann Amnesia. You are reading a newspaper and the article is about a topic you know a good deal about. You realise the writer knows nothing about it, has misunderstood the main ideas and, perhaps deliberately, misrepresented everything. What a pity. You turn the page and read the next article, something about the Middle East, and believe it all, forgetting what you learned on the previous page.
“I for one did not watch it. Who wants to listen to a load of old has beens?”
Well, you read this blog! 🙂
Not sure which way to take that Craig 😉 I think it is one of those double edged thingies.
LOL
Sofia made me laugh so much I nearly fell off my climbing frame.28
28 was my captcha answer needless to say. I got it right for a change!
“What do you think they do all day?”
In the mornings they get dirt on influential people. In the afternoon they let them know.
“Of course your secret is safe with us, sir. Lucky we found out before anyone else. Now about that…”
30 June at 14:00 in UTC+01.
Starts in about 1 hour · 19°C Partly Cloudy
Glasgow Sherriff Court
Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Show Solidarity at Court!
Show solidarity with four anti-militarism activists this Monday outside Glasgow Sheriff Court to denounce and protest the charges they are facing as a result of their action on Saturday June 28, Armed Forces Day.
The four audaciously occupied the Finnieston Crane and unfurled banners reading ‘Resist Militarism’ and ‘#WhiteFeather’ in dissent of the glorification of war and increasingly US style culture of militarism.
Come and support them in recognition of their heavy-handed treatment over the weekend being refused bail and to demand that their charges are dropped. Please bring placards and banners!
Proportionality should be the order of the day here, Mary. What was handed out to Lindus Percy for her endeavours, and repeat endeavour? What happened to the Greenpeace activists who climbed Big Ben before an anti-war march?
The current activities were embarrassing to the establishment, and would therefore be perceived as requiring discouragement, but “in proportion”. My concern is that Westminster will try to lean on local decision-making, but that itself could backfire.
60000 Craig? That seems a little excessive. Can we afford it?
“The BBC lied about the AFD and there will be no correction or apology. The lie is barely even plausible: the entire population of Stirling is only 41,000. ”
The BBC didn’t lie about anything, the MOD say there were over 35,000 there. Many of them would not be residents of Stirling, though I would expect most residents of Stirling will have called in at some time during the day it being free.
Craig’s claim of 20,000 for the Bannockburn event is a different matter, the organisers never made that claim, the arena was only licensed for 10,000. That would class as a lie.
Vronsky 30 Jun, 2014 – 12:20 pm
“There is a useful concept called Gell-Mann Amnesia. You are reading a newspaper…”
Very good. More Here
“What do you think they do all day?”
Protect us from terrorists.
You were being ironic there Peacewisher on the country’s ability to employ all those spooks? Replacements are recruited from Universities.
The country can afford £6.2bn, and counting, for two aircraft carriers, redundant before they are even commissioned. I understand that we have no aircraft to put on them. Is that correct?
‘When the last government signed the contract to build two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers in 2007, the costs were estimated at £3.65 billion. This week, the Government is due to announce that the price has nearly doubled, to £6.2 billion.’
Will the costly aircraft carriers be fit for purpose? – Telegraph Nov 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/10425200/Will-the-costly-aircraft-carriers-be-fit-for-purpose.html
I always quote that figure when people say we cannot afford the NHS, that is when they are saying it is all the immigrants’ fault.
“I hope that clears the matter up once and for all.”
A natural mistake, sofia. I thought it was over yesterday, but we carry on.
Please don’t think we are on the subject of Electric Universe when we use the acronym EU. Another example of counter-intuitive thinking.
Enjoy the Holidays.
@Mary: You mean it’s work experience?
Fred- the Bannockburn show was 10,000 each day. Armed forces day was one day, and as the photos show, certainly never made 35k, even with people coming and going. Simple as that. Moreover, the bannockburn one was ticketed, which means that the organisers scanned the tickets and could tell you exactly how many people were in there. But AFD was unticketed, so you’ll have to rely on whoever was trying to count people at the gates or other, more error prone methods of estimation.
However Craig is just being stupid with his insistence on only 1600 folk at AFD. Quite a few will have just popped along from town to see what it was like for an hour or two then gone away again. I doubt many would have stayed all afternoon, but either way, you’d be surprised how many people can be in one area at once.
@ Captain Sofia (Cosmic Explorer)
Stardate: 30 Jun, 2014 – 11:58 am
“A Node looking after the Main Logic Circuit”
Permission to speak freely, Captain?
I have analysed your father’s contribution to this voyage. His weight : utility ratio < pencil sharpener. I believe you have been swayed by what you humans call "sentiment." His continued presence on board is illogical.
Permission to recycle?
@Fred: That is as bad a lie as when Margaret Thatcher, before an election (at times of inflation) said that child benefit will in future be paid as now. No-one took that to mean there wouldn’t be an annual increase, but the next annual increase was indeed 0%, and those who complained were referred to the text of the manifesto.
This, and your interpretation of the BBC’s claim of 35000 can be classified as the nasty. Not just lying, but deliberate manipulation through (mis)truth. And I suppose you think you are being clever!
@Peacewisher
Craig Claimed 20,000 people attended the Bannockburn event. We can say with reasonable certainty that that just is not true, he was telling porkies.
It’s as simple as that. No need to download any google images, no need to spend hours analysing photographs, it’s a provable fact.
Not that you ever let reality influence what you believe.
@Guthrie
To tell you the truth I think the very notion of treating the numbers at the events as some sort of competition is incredibly juvenile and a worrying aspect of the Nationalist mentality.
The people marching were insulted by the unionists’ decision to deliberately use afd in such a blatantly political manner.
“@Guthrie
To tell you the truth I think the very notion of treating the numbers at the events as some sort of competition is incredibly juvenile and a worrying aspect of the Nationalist mentality.”
____________________
I’d certainly agree with Fred on that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I also find the ~Scottish nationalists’ fascination with the Battle of Bannockburn…..rather curious.
Almost as curious as the Serbs’ fascination with another 700 year old battle
(the Battle of Kosovo)…..
Fred: Then tell that to the unionist media, the BBC especially, for lieing about the Armed Forces Day attendance, it is their ‘fascination’ and fantasy numbers that have produced this reaction. And call them out for scheduling the AFD events to coincide and collide with and disrupt the long-planned and publicised Bannockburn Event at the same location. Get busy, the BBC are over that way –> somewhere and I’m sure they’ll take you seriously.
You’ve really shown your hand with this nonsense, it’s not just contrariness, there’s an agenda I doubt you even understand yourself, it is deliberate and malicious, no-one could be so stupid, and continually acting so long ago got overly wearing.
I see too that you’ve got a new friend, or are you and ‘it’ already acquainted?