FREEDOM!!!!

I'm Pro-Gay and Anti-Religion. If you're Gay accept it, and get on with it, like heterosexuals have to. If you're religious, good luck to you, but please stop minding other people's business. Sheesh!

I don't consider myself a Quaker anymore- Eldo

I've been doing some reading on the Quakers of late and as religions go I quite like them.

Sadly there are anti-gay factions amongst Quakers (generally in the more conservative meetings) but I was fortunate enough to be raised in one of the most progressive and gay-friendly Yearly Meetings in America. They're so progressive that some of the people I know stretch the traditional definition of Christian a little bit, but I suppose that's inevitable in a decentralized and mostly non-dogmatic religion. I'm not saying it's a bad thing either. My understanding is that the British Yearly Meetings are also quite progressive.

I'v got to admit I was quite suprised when I started reading up on Quakers- does however make it clearer how you managed to be raised in a religous group and yet turned out such a well adjusted, sane human being (for an American )

I suppose I was pretty lucky in that respect.

Are all Quakers 'scouts', Eldo? I've often wondered about that uniform you wear, you know. At Our Lady's I am Master of our "Muffins" troupe. "Girl Scouts" you'd call them. Our nickname for them is "Call Girls". A rather unexciting unimaginative name, of course, but we Needleholian Our Lady types are a bucolic bunch as you know. Anyway, we send them around calling in at holes and houses, selling their hot muffins to raise money for the Poor.

Do you Odo? How come I never get any round my barrel then? Not like they can miss it the way it sticks out.

They go out raising FUNDS, Mr Tyrant! And as you live in a barrel, we presume you have NO funds to GIVE. Anyway word about Forumshire has it that you spend any funds you have on your buckie addiction, which also shows you are one of Eru's Lost and Damned Ones. Your barrell is no place for one of our sweet little Muffins.

FUNDS, Mr Tyrant!- Odo

open my sporran to young ladies? Never!!! You keep them away from me Odo do you hear?

No, not all Quakers are scouts, Odo, though my brother and I both were. Although my brother often got in trouble because Quakers don't believe in taking oaths so he would refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance, which greatly upset some of the troop's adult volunteers.

{{{ This whole exchange made more sense before I changed my avatar, but I saw Leelee's request before I noticed this. }}}

The BNP (British National Party- basically white supremitists in a very thin disguise) tried to hijack a protest march in a Scottish town.
The result? The locals chased them out of town!

'BNP leader Nick Griffin cowered behind his security heavies — as his fanatics clashed with protesters.
Police were forced to wade in and separate the two groups after furious residents branded smirking Griffin and his mob “fascist scum” and “Nazis”.
A protester said: “We don’t want people like that in our community. They are the kind of people who just come and cause trouble and take away from what we are actually protesting against."
They were trailed by officers from Lothian and Borders Police as they slunk off. '- Scottish Sun

Good on the folks of Dalkeith- we dont need their hate mongering up here, its bad enough they have any sort of foothold in England.

he looks like Treebeard in a hat.

He looks like grandpaw Tyrant, only cleaner and not so smelly.

Wasn't sure at first if this belonged here on the sports thread- btut on balance, as its using sport to make a thinly vieled political arguement, Ive put it here.
From todays Scottish Sun

SCOTS sporting heroes have made an astonishing contribution to Team GB’s medal haul — bagging more than a THIRD of the 16 golds.
Despite making up just ten per cent of the squad, our athletes have won the top gong in six events.
And overall our haul accounts for ten of GB’s 37 medals — more than a quarter of the total.
Last night Sports Minister Shona Robison hailed the achievement as “fantastic” adding: “It’s been a tremendous honour to be in London and see the tremendous dedication of our athletes.
“I’ve been cheering them on all the way and their athleticism, courage and determination has been inspirational.
“What a wonderful springboard for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The whole nation has been watching with great pride.”
With 55 athletes in the 542-person group, it means Scotland’s heroes are winning at a much higher rate than the rest of the team.'


Deviisve or fair enough to point out which of the nations in team GB is doing best?

Good for the Scots! Good for Team GB in general, actually. I'm glad to see them rising up the medal chart. I was a bit worried for them after the first few days...

Not sure what the political point here is supposed to be but it's a nice feather in the cap of Scotland's athletes.

The Scottish Sun supports the SNP and Independence.
The Unionist Parties have been using the Olympics and the Jubillee before it to say 'look how great we are as a single nation'. This is the reason the Unionists pushed so hard to start with to try to get the SNP to have the referendum this year- they figured with all the national pride and big British events it would help their case. And of course its also why the SNP refused and were determined to hold it later in 2014 when all the propoganda for those events has died down.
(Although they are not above such tactics themselves as 2014 is when Glasgow hosts the Commonwealth Games).

For the Sun to specifically heighlight that Scotland as a part of team GB is punching above its weight is their way of saying 'look how well we would do on our own.'

Also it is Team GB- regardless of politics its a single Team, not one made up of individual nation states. For the Sun to compare one part of the team against the other could be seen as devisive.

Yeah, I can see how that would be divisive.

Is it confirmed that the referendum will be in 2014? I thought that was still up in the air.

Confirmed no. But Westminister has stopped objecting to it and accepted that as the 'likely' time for it.
It is when the SNP, since before they were elected, have always said sometime in the Autumn of 2014.
They say its much more important to get all the legal stuff (for us to even have a referendum we have to get permission from Westminister) and what the question or quetions will be before they announce the exact date in Autumn 2014.

Salmond is a canny operator. The date thing was a classic example.
Although why Cameron actually fell for it is another matter- it shows great neivity to me to enter a battle he could not possibly win. He seems to be prone to this Cameron, as his losing of his temper publicly at Prime Ministers Questions several times has shown.

Salmond played on this aspect of Camerons personalty like he was a violin- Salmond touted when the referendum would be as the SNP leading the way, making the decisions (even though he know he needed Westminister to first grant the powers to hold it so they were going to make the actual decision not the SNP).
But Cameron fell for it and tried to enforce an earlier date (for the reasons I gave above and so as the SNP did not look like it was running the show) but he was never going to win.

Nobody in Scotland had worried much about the date- we voted the SNP in knowing roughly when they were going to hold the referendum. The UK Parliament trying to force an earlier date on us was never going to wash with the Scottish people and of course it makes the SNP's case for them- that England will do as they please whether the people of Scotland want it or not.

Also as we have a devoloved Parliament with a SNP majority any attempts by Westminister to push a date on us was never going to get anywhere and make England look increasingly like a bully.
Yet Cameron fell for this hook line and sinker. Its hard to know how he didnt see it. In the end he had to do a complete public climbdown and say they had accepted a likely date of autumn 2014.

What the question will be is another Salmond classic. There is a big argument over whether there should be 1 question or 2.
The SNP say they want 1 quesion on devolution but as polls consistently show about a third of the country want the option of more powers, devo-max as its been called, so the SNP say it is only demcratcic to consider if there should be a devomax question too.

Unionists say the SNP really want 2 questions so they get a fall back position if they lose independence. And it shows that Salmond has no confidence he will win a refrendum on a single question.
They are wrong- this is not what Salmond is doing at all. Apart from anything else a choice between devo-max and independence may split the vote- what happens if one or the other wins by only a percent or two? Not enough of a majority under the rules for either to win- which would mean by default the status quo would win- which nobody would have voted for. No Salmond does not want a 2nd question? So why promote one?
What he is doing is forcing the Unionists into a corner.

Cameron brought this on himself. He said, in what seemed an off the cuff statement when under pressure at a Scottish media event, that if Scots voted no to independnece he would give the Scottish Parliament more devolved powers. When pressed later on what these powers might be he incredibly replied that we would be told after we had voted no to independence.
By keeping the 2nd question issue in the air Salmond can say either "Cameron is offering you jam tomorrow but he wont really give you it", or he can attack the Unionists by saying "tell us what these extra powers will be before we have to decide to vote for them or not".
Its a no win for the Unionists- they cant tell us what the powers will be because Cameron thought it up on the spot in a defensive moment and Westminister has no intention of giving the sort of powers we need- like changing business rates, as that would put us in direct competion for investment with England.
And so neither can he deliver the 'jam' if we vote no. Which makes it look like Salmonds accusation that he wont deliver on the promise is right (which it is- Cameron cannot even guarantee the coaltion will still be in power by late 2014 and one governement cannot bind the next govenrment to a promise he made).

So far, regardless of how the actual vote turns out if politics was boxing the ref would have stopped the fight by now Cameron has been so inept.

This gets my goat!

"Cannabis plants with an estimated street value of £750,000 have been found at an industrial estate in East Dunbartonshire."



Look at that! The industrial estate obviously is sitting empty in this recession. No work to do.
The tax payer will have payed for the police raid as all policing is via the taxpayer.
The courts and lawyers to try the people involved will come out the tax payers purse.
And when they are convicted that too will be paid for by the tax payer.

Yet with a more sane approach this industrial estate could be doing this legally, paying their business taxes ect- taking on workers who then pay in tax.
And then there is extra work generated by packing, delivery ect. And finally the product itself could be taxed.
No different from a brewery or a cigarrette plant. (except for not having as many health risks as either of those products).

This could be a good news story in a recession if this was a sane world.

Further to the above figures for drug related deaths in Scotland were released today:

Heroin and/or morphine was linked to 206 deaths (35%)

Methadone was linked to 275 deaths (47%)

Benzodiazepines, like diazepam, were linked to 185 deaths (32%)

Alcohol was linked to 129 deaths (22%)

Cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines were liked to 36, eight and 24 deaths respectively.


Could someone remind me again what the apparently very good reasons are for why I can be locked up and have all my rights removed for smoking cannabis?
Maybe the death by cannabis figures fell off the bottom- or maybe, as in every country in the world the death toll from cannabis remains 0!

I'm not so sure, Petty. I think this man is solid evidence that marijuana has a lasting negative impact on the brain.

Spoiler:

Nah hiphop and rap does that to you.

All drugs - except legalized drugs, of course - are bad, Petty.