Perhaps she thinks she is a rook?

  The latest media spur on Lamont and her "no to everything Scotland stands for" is most welcome. The twit-o-sphere is a abuzz with taking her apart. I do enjoy it when politicians foul up. I even saw dissent last night on Labour Hame, the site where comments are ruled with a gloriously fascist, iron fist, that's how bad  it is! (Though if it still there today I have not checked.)

  One has to wonder if this truly is a cock up. I have heard claims that she is trying to create a strong labour character, a labour that makes tough choices and has the edge as it doesn't "flit" about the issues; but has ultimately failed due to the fact they have nothing to actually bring to the table.  I can entertain this idea, I suspect that is what they told Lamont when they handed her this speech, but I wonder if there is more to it than that.

  Here's a notion I wish for you to entertain, Lamont is a nobody. Not too hard is it? But I must emphasise how much of a nobody she is, to her masters in the central London offices she and her comrades in the Scots' wee pretendy-parliament are nothing more than upjumped councillors, pawns, a sacrifice.

  The powers that be do not care for Scottish Labour, when Ed Milliband says jump, they should all jump in unison and thank him kindly for the honour. Deviation from the master plan will cause funds to be removed post haste, and these wings of the main Westminster parties do not have the support in Scotland available to keep themselves afloat. If New Labour say "do us a speech on New Labour values," Lamont will not hesitate to shed the lies the Scottish branch have been spreading, pretending to be the party of the people, party of the unions, the churches, and the hard working Glaswegian. They will deny any knowledge of there being anything in Scotland called Red Clydeside. "What's is that anyway? A night out?" Lamont would ask. All previous pretences can and have been removed at the drop of a hat 400 miles away.

  But why? Why would Westminster demand the destruction of the lies that have served for so well in the past? With the media at their backs, why should Labour fear being caught-out as being more extremist than the SNP? The "tartan tories" has a ring to it, doesn't it? Why stop?

  Quite simply, the Westminster branch have no intention of winning the Scottish Parliament, they have absolutely no interest at this point at all. Labour in Scotland is a goat to be sacrificed for the No Campaign. The most important thing at stake is keeping Scotland in the union, it is imperative Scotland must stay and pay for Trident, for Atos, for the pensions of every fat bureaucrat out there. London must have Scots money to stay afloat. Who cares about the elections of a pretendy-parliament? Westminster is the real prize. Lamont had to give a speech on how poor, wee and stupid Scotland is to perpetuate the lie we can not go it alone.

  With today's backtracking, I'm beginning to feel that Lamont didn't have a brain in her head when she spoke, I even wonder if she believed it when she was told she would be making a strong case that paints her party in a positive light.

  To be a fly on the wall of Labour in Scotland headquarters when it all hit the fan - now that would've been glorious.

  But do not fear Labourites, the Scottish Elections are far away, and the General Elections even further. 3-4 years is a very long time in politics, I'm sure everyone will have forgotten about your massive betrayal by then. After all, who cares when Scotland's still in the UK?

Cybernat Bingo

Original Story of Cybernat Bingo here.

  I jab the unionists a lot - and I mean a lot, usually on issues of policy and recent events. Sadly I've never taken to name calling, and have not called someone insane or an idiot (even when they deserve it.) I hope to follow down this path, but never say never, I suppose.  

  I have always found that attacking someone, no matter how mercilessly, will always leave you with the moral high ground if you omit the name calling. For those on the fence of the independence debate that can mean the difference between night and day. Every action on the internet is, indeed, public, scrutinized, and should be treated as such. 

  Sadly, while both sides of the debate do resort to name calling and will continue to do so, I can't help but feeling I've been looking in the wrong places for all these degenerate phrases; it'll be a cold day in hell before the Unionists fill in this bingo card! They've being using the wrong number of insults entirely. In-fact, I see plenty of fascist remarks from their side, but none from ours. Are they confused about who is campaigning for who? Clearly along with Bingo they're also bad at the game Eye-Spy-Nazi-Comparison. As-such I have refilled their card so that they can play Cybernat bingo much more effectively, and will hopefully win this round at the end of the week.

Remember Unionists! There's only a limited amount of time left before people stop talking about the Olympics entirely, so you best get that British pride in now so a nationalist can fall into your bingo trap.

Wind Farm Proposals and SNP Tyranny

Heavens forbid! That wily Scottish Government has overturned a completely legitimate wind-farm denial from god-fearing locally elected council.

Apparently according to the good ole' Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, the Scottish Government is the SNP, but hey ho' let's not nitpick, I blame the Tories for everything when I'm actually referring to the Lib-Con Westminster Coalition under the undemocratic FTP system. It's just that saying that is quite a mouthful.

The article revolves around a few points.

1. Dumfries and Galloway  refused the application for a wind farm. The Scottish Government SNP overturned the application.

2. Moray Council refused the application for a wind farm. The Scottish Government SNP overturned the application.

3.  Aberdeenshire Council and Scottish Natural Heritage voiced concerns about the Moray windfarm, though not what about specifically.

Dumfries and Galloway tried to block a wind farm on the grounds of...well, no grounds, in-fact, apart from the visuals. In-fact the council were incredibly misinformed  that the proposed site was not in an Area of Search for wind turbines. It was, it was not even on the border of an Area of Search, it was smack bang in the middle. Let us note that an Area of Search is an area drawn up within the council's own Wind Energy Policy Guidance.
The councillors then claimed that Wind Turbines caused road safety concerns without evidence to back it up. The Principal Reporter Timothy Brian found the council's behaviour unreasonable enough to incur liability costs.

Moray's final report is a lot more detailed and deals with visual, landscape, natural heritage and trunk road concerns, of which there are 18 pages of glorious bullet-points. It should be worth noting this quote from the Conservative website:

Moray Council refused the application for the windfarm in Keith, while nearby Aberdeenshire Council and Scottish Natural Heritage also voiced concerns about the development.

Is something I'd like to deal with, here is the actual concern the quote fails to go into:

I note the reservations of SNH and Aberdeenshire Council about aspects of the
methodology used for the landscape and visual impact assessment which formed part of
the Environmental Statement (ES). However, I am satisfied that the assessment conforms
with established best practice outlined in the Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact
Assessment, and that the updated cumulative assessment, together with the residential
amenity survey, address any gaps in the original assessment.

Ah, so when we say reservations, we are actually failing to say exactly what, are we? As it turns out SNH were worried about aspects of the methodology used for the assessment. The conservative website seems to fail to mention all the plethora of evidence that shows that Scottish Natural Heritage is quite happy with other aspects of the Wind Farm:

The appeal site is not subject to any special natural heritage
designations.

SNH’s broad overview of where there is likely to be greatest scope for windfarm 

development, and where there are the most significant constraints, in natural heritage
terms. The appeal site lies within Zone 1, which “identifies areas at the broad scale with
least sensitivity to windfarms, with the greatest opportunity for development, within which
overall a large number of developments could be acceptable in natural heritage terms, so
long as they are undertaken sensitively and with due regard to cumulative impact.”

There are no objections to the proposal on nature conservation or historic
environment grounds. SNH raised no objection to the proposal, which would not affect any
site designated for its ecological or nature conservation interest.

I recommend reading the report yourself if you've got the time, it makes for an interesting read into all the considerations put into windfarm placement and development, and deals with Aberdeenshire Council's concerns some more. 

But what should become abundantly clear is the fact that local democracy is not being destroyed, it is not the SNP taking away the will of the people (why would they overthrow the will of one of their own minority councils?) These are sites for wind farms, all of them were in proposed areas for wind farm development. When a reporter goes in and says a council is unjustified, or even wrong, perhaps you should point your finger at the actual one in trouble.

Unionist Referendum Question, World Rejoices.

With the advent of the long awaited referendum question from the panel of elite, unionist intellects, we now have a question capable of being fair, palpable, groundbreaking, and cures cancer.


So here's the Nationalists dangerously worded referendum question that will open the gates to Hell and bring back Shub-Niggurath , the black goat of the woods with a thousand young.

Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?

Yes []

No []

And then the other one which on reading cured my prostate and allowed me to once again copulate with my wife:

Scotland should become an independent state:

I agree []

I disagree []

So on first glance it seems that for all the unionists humming and hawing, they were completely unable to come up with a question for the referendum that would prevent them from being accused of pro-UK bias. So a bit-of rewording and hey presto! "This! This must be the question," they say, "because it removes all the bias of Yes/No wording, take that Nationalists, you monsters."

Cute, but nonetheless when push came to shove they put themselves on the spot, and chose pretty much the same question as the nationalist camp did. It'll be interesting to see how much they'll inflate this as if it was actually the second coming. The Scotsman is already trumpeting how much better it is.

Labour/SNP coalition accused of faking petition signatures.

Catchy title, shame about the content.
I'm a killjoy.

Hypocrisy Countdown

Our world is filled with smoke and mirrors, but you'd be surprised how much of it seems to make Scotland a proverbial moorland of doublethink and outright lying. I thought I'd round up all the fine double standards of the Unionist bloc I have seen in the past few days alone.


This Thursday Michael Kelly decided that protests are a waste of time for everyone. I'm sure many fundamental human rights such as free thought are a waste of time to Michael. Obviously Michael had decided that the public had forgotten, or he himself had forgotten his own party's stance on the Orange Order.

This Friday Anas Sarwar has outright demanded that the Scottish Celebrations for the Olympic Homecoming should encompass all Olympic Athletes, not just Scottish ones. He seems to be under the impression Scottish people celebrating Scottish things is politically motivated. This is despite the fact that the Labour Council did the exact same Scottish Olympic celebrations during the Beijing Olympics, and Labour in Wales are doing a Welsh homecoming. Is this a case of Anas Sarwar thinking we forgot, or him forgetting himself?

Today, Saturday, the TwitSphere is abuzz with Tony Benn's archaic look on Nationality. Apparently it is fine to be Scottish within the British Isles if you are under the heel of Westminster, but you can't call yourself British and be from the British Isles if you use a different mode of Government to the status-quo.


I look forward to Sunday.

How to Lose Friends and Make Enemies with Willie Rennie

It's old news on the interblags that Alison Elliot has given poor Willie a run for his money. Apparently the convener of SVCO doesn't take too kindly to the old tactic of "Alex Salmond sent an E-mail, let's blow it out of proportion" so often used within the Unionist Wing. Suddenly Willie has an opponent not used to the rulebook the Lib Dems live by, dubbed "Student Politics for Dummies."

One look at Willie's twitter however, shows that he is ploughing on ahead as is, dissenters are not to be seen upon his page. Today's news is how he is off to Peterhead fish auction. Addressing the twit-o-sphere, or in-fact the world at large - comes second.

I'm still waiting patiently for some sort of reply, even something in the range of 140 Unicode characters.

We may be waiting until Hell freezes over.

EDIT: Hoorah! Found a response!

“I've clearly touched a raw nerve. These are serious concerns about the impartiality of the Chief Executive of SCVO and clearly deserve a better response.
"I think people will be concerned that SCVO has taken one side of a highly polarised, political debate. First we had the attempt to undermine the launch of Better Together and now hard evidence of collusion with one of Alex Salmond's close advisers.
"SCVO are in serious danger of undermining their reputation."
- Willie Rennie


Oh dear Willie, I didn't know that "touched a raw nerve" was a phrase for "baseless, groundless accustations." Have you even read the letter?

This load of waffle still counts as burrying your head in the sand. You haven't addressed a thing, and you were so full of vigor and pomp a few days ago.