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1,681 thoughts on “One of the Following is True”

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  • Muscleguy

    Comrade Putin will be a pauper soon if all the people accused of being in the pay of the Kremlin really are.

    I would like to know where I sign up, I could use some extra pin money. Will work to break up the UK for a small consideration Mr President. I’m quite sure you know my bank account.

    • Tony_0pmoc

      Brian, Thanks, very impressed with Puigdemont, and Alex, but skipped the first bit – some girl? demanding equal numbers of women (in men’s bogs?) Girls are different, and make good mums. All this equality bollocks is nonsense. Boys build walls. Girls make cakes and breastfeed, rather than outsourcing the job to a cow.

      Tony

      • BrianFujisan

        Lolz Tony

        Yes the best part for me was the Puigdemont interview… Nothing much against the other parts ( Hope your army of Ladies Don’t Give you Jip on that Note.. 🙂

        A breath of Fresh air to hear Alex in the very last moments..No wonder the MsM are Shitting themselves

        Great Stuff.

  • N_

    I’m smiling at this post! I keep telling the Kremlin not to send cheques drawn on banks registered in Bermuda! Wishing you a speedy recovery from food poisoning.

  • Loony

    …and one black man you you certainly could not trust was Joshua Nkomo, He was after all “like a cobra in the house” and as we all know the “only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head”

    Unfortunately Mr. Mugabe missed the head and inadvertently chopped of the heads of at least 20,000 Ndebele civilians. An easy mistake to make – could happen to almost anyone.

    After all it is not like he made any more mistakes in his illustrious career. Having an exchange rate of ZIM$ 35 quadrillion to 1 US$ must make the economy a lot more competitive – except that it didn’t.

      • Ba'al Zevul

        Still president (21st Nov)….but it’s a slippery slope he’s on.
        Mnangagwa will replace him when he does go, and that’s unlikely to be much of an improvement. Still, he seems to have taken the globalisation bait. There’s loadsamoney to be made from Zim, still, and the hedge funds are only waiting for the come-on. Furthermore Mystic Ba’al predicts Zimbabwe will acquire up to a dozen Blair governance advisors within months of Mugabe’s final flushing. With no discernible effect on governance.

      • Ba'al Zevul

        Apologies. The calendar on Firefox is easy to misread, and without it I don’t know what day it is, or even which way up…

    • Stu

      Hillary has surely set the precedent with not handing over emails.

      It will be wonderful if this investigation moves onto General Flynn’s career as a murder and torturer and Kushner’s Israeli and Saudi connections. Seems doubtful though.

      • Shatnersrug

        Seeing as it’s only Democrats that actually believe this Russia did it business I expect it all to collapse just like the Clinton impeachment.

  • reel guid

    On This Week Andrew Neil, Ed Balls and Portillo were getting a lesson in how to take a mature approach to politics from RT presenter Afshin Rattansi.

    Neil, Balls and Portillo all parroting the party line about Putin and Russia undermining the west.

    In the end Afshin looked as if he was a bit sorry for the fools.

  • reel guid

    Ruth Davidson receives the Herald’s Scottish Politician of the Year award for the second year in a row.
    So encouraging sectarianism and reinstating racist councillors can win you an award in Scotland.

    The Herald also decided ex-Labourite Jenny Laing of Aberdeen City Council was Local Politician of the Year. So you get an award for defying your party to go into coalition with the Tories, instead of seeking a coalition with the by far largest party on the council, the SNP.

    The Herald really has become a sad, hard right rag.

  • reel guid

    You must mean The Sunday Herald. And that paper blows lukewarm and cold about independence.

    I agree with you Ba’al about Colonel Ruth having ability. She one of the most able self-publicists ever seen in These Islands Ltd.

    Also I quite like the idea of being a gentleman amateur.

  • reel guid

    Theresa May phones up Mugabe. “Haw Boab whit’s the secret o’ hingin’ oan tae power?”

    • Loony

      It is quite simple, as you must surely know, you kill a lot of your own people.

      You can do this safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world could not care less – because they are busy dealing with really important issues like Scottish independence.

      • Rob Royston

        Did I read somewhere that our lot have killed over 120,000 sick people since they dealt with Scottish Independence?

        • Loony

          As you like reading, read this:

          Rhodesia declared UDI in 1965, In 1965 the average life expectancy was 53.3 years. (In the UK it was 71.62)

          Rhodesian UDI came to an end with the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement. In 1979 average life expectancy had risen to 58.8 years – this despite the fact that for most of the 1965-1979 period the country suffered from a bush war. (In the UK it was 73.28)

          10 years later in 1989 Zimbabwean life expectancy was 58,98 years (UK 75.58)

          In 1999 Zimbabwean life expectancy was 45.63 years and in 2009 it was 51.03 years.(UK 77.39 and 80.05)

          Do these numbers tell you anything?

          They tell me that the British are not going around slaughtering their own people, and that there is something seriously wrong with Zimbabwean policy None of this is deny that people (in whatever country they may live) may fall sick and that all people ultimately die.

          • Rob Royston

            What they don’t tell me is that, according to the World Health Organization in 2008, the life expectancy for men in the Calton area of Glasgow was 54 years. I have been in Africa for the last 17 years, it does not compare to living here unless you are rich or in company accommodation and even then you have to medicate and take many precautions.
            So what brought the figures for the Calton down to these levels? Here’s one hypothesis, from Wikipedia,

            ‘The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Harry Burns, referred in 2004 to research suggesting that chronically activated stress responses, especially in children, affect the structure of parts of the frontal lobes of the brain, and that these determine the physical reaction to stress, which could result in chronic ill health. The ability to attain good health, he suggested, depends in part on whether people feel in control of their lives, and whether they see their environments as threatening or supportive.’

          • Habbabkuk

            @ Loony

            Thank you very much for those life expectancy figures, which are very illuminating.

            And as you point out, quite a few sick people do actually die (if there are any MDs in the house they could probably develop this idea at greater length) and in the end all of us do.

      • SA

        Not condoning killing either by dictators or by us but It seems to me that some people worry much more about dictators killing their own people when we can do it better for them and on a larger scale ourselves, directly, by proxy or through starvation through sanctions.
        It’s just that this expression, like barrel bombs in the Syrian context, is one of those used by neocons to discredit without reflection.

    • Republicofscotland

      Loony.

      Yes it’s a difficult situation to deal with especially when it involves minority communities, how to deal with it, without the community feeling persecuted. However I dont understand your singling out of Scotland on this terrible matter. Its a nationwide problem, or hadn’t you noticed.

      I’m sure you have your reasons.

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/30/child-sexual-exploitation-offences-quadruple-report-greater-manchester

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

      • Loony

        It is not hard to deal with – it is very easy to deal with. People simply choose not to deal with it. I have no idea why it is deemed problematic to both prosecute and persecute people who pimp out their own infant children.

        Funny how your normal argument is that Scotland is a separate county but when faced with the hideousness of parental child exploitation Scotland and England suddenly become one and are united in facing “a nationwide problem”

        • Republicofscotland

          Looney.

          Re your first chapter, it could be the case that no one in the Roma community is willing to speak about such matters let alone give any kind of evidence on the matter.

          As for you second chapter, the yes Scotland is a country, however the last I checked it’s still part of the union.

    • Loony

      What?

      You acknowledge that tax avoidance is not illegal. You then claim that the PM is charged by the public to “stamp out such practices” In other words you claim that the PM is required to stamp out lawful activities.

      Would it not be better for everyone if people were left unmolested to go about their lawful business and people committing manifestly illegal acts (like prostituting their own infant children) were held fully accountable for their actions under the law?

      • Republicofscotland

        While forms of tax avoidance which use tax laws in ways not intended by governments may be considered legal, it is almost never considered moral in the court of public opinion.

        I should have probably in hindsight said discourage. One has to say though, how does it look in the eyes of the public, if the accusation turns out to be true

        I see by your comment that morality doesn’t extend to tax laws.

        • Loony

          You are correct. In my opinion morality does not extend to tax laws.

          Much more importantly this is also the opinion of the law, and, for the judgement of the law in this regard the whole of the UK has much to thank Scotland for. It was the Scottish Judge Lord Clyde who opined:

          “No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so as to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow – and quite rightly – to take every advantage which is open to it under the taxing statutes for the purpose of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is, in like manner, entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue.”

          • Republicofscotland

            Loony.

            That’s all fine and dandy, however in this day and age there’s far more scrutiny by the press, and then there’s widespread public opinion on the matter, especially if you’re in the public eye.

            Just ask Jimmy Carr, who took a fair bit of stick over tax avoidance.

            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18537051

          • Loony

            What you say is true – although it is doubtful whether either the press or the public are motivated by morality. The press has long since ceased to serve any positive purpose, although it retains the power to whip up a lynch mob mentality.

            The law serves to provide protection from the basest aspects of the human condition – and should be understood and respected on that basis. The consequences of a failure to apply the law are wholly negative for the children allegedly being prostituted by their own parents, and all of society suffers when such activities are tolerated. The pitiful condition of the mass of the Zimbabwean population is to a large extent explicable by an institutionalized disregard for the law.

            Ignoring the law in order to persecute the husband of the British Prime Minister will not lead to any positive outcome for anyone. Only anarchists and communists can possibly benefit. Zimbabwe provides today’s example of the consequences of allowing such people to disregard the law.

      • Habbabkuk

        Loony

        “Would it not be better for everyone if people were left unmolested to go about their lawful business and people committing manifestly illegal acts (like prostituting their own infant children) were held fully accountable for their actions under the law?”
        ___________________

        I don’t know if it would be “better” but it would certainly be easier. After all, the fight against tax avoidance requires multilateral action and agreement whereas the fight against the sort of phenomenon you describe is entirely within the remit and powers of the individual governments (including the Scottish govt).

        Let us hope that now the matter is out in the open the Scottish govt will act to enforce the law. I’m sure they will 🙂

    • Sharp Ears

      No surprise that yet another Tory is in the frame for tax avoidance. We knew all about that in the Panama Papers – Agent Cameron, etc. Could Ree-Smog be included via the Somerset Capital outfit. There must be dozens of them at it and what about Blair?

      New kind of politics, huh? Theresa May’s husband linked to Paradise Papers
      https://www.rt.com/uk/410146-philip-may-paradise-papers/

      This is the main board of Philip May’s Capital outfit. The blurb reads
      ‘Create tomorrow… Start today.
      IN A WORLD OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES, HOW DO YOU BUILD THE FUTURE YOU WANT?
      At Capital International Group we use our decades of experience to help your clients achieve their short and long term financial goals, whatever they may be. We have provided generations of investors with opportunities to grow and protect their wealth as well as the peace of mind that comes with our commitment to innovation, integrity and excellence.’

      There are a lorra lorra lot of ‘Longs’. The founder is said to be Peter Long.
      https://www.capital-iom.com/about-us/team/

      Their head office is based in Douglas, Isle of Man and another office in Capetown!
      https://www.capital-iom.com/about-us/regions/

      Companies within.
      https://www.capital-iom.com/legal-information/

      A swanky website. Is it an offshoot of this American Capital Group?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_Group_Companies

  • Kempe

    More to the point can anyone explain why Russia keeps using it’s veto to prevent investigation of an alleged war crime?

    • Republicofscotland

      While forms of tax avoidance which use tax laws in ways not intended by governments may be considered legal, it is almost never considered moral in the court of public opinion.

      I should have probably in hindsight said discourage. One has to say though, how does it look in the eyes of the public, if the accusation turns out to be true

      I see by your comment that morality doesn’t extend to tax laws.

      Now correct me if I’m wrong Kempe, and I’m sure you will, but wasn’t the evidence of chemical attacks in Syria removed from the country to be tested thus negating the validity of the testers.

      Under those circumstances I’m not surprised Russia vetoed it.

      • Republicofscotland

        Kempe please ignore the top half of my comment to you @15.41, I seem to have somehow managed to double post that bit.

        Apologies.

      • Kempe

        ” Now correct me if I’m wrong Kempe, and I’m sure you will, but wasn’t the evidence of chemical attacks in Syria removed from the country to be tested thus negating the validity of the testers. ”

        Don’t follow your logic. It’s like saying evidence from a crime scene is invalid if sent to a forensic lab for examination.

        • SA

          Kemp’s

          The chain of custody was not verified and most of the protagonists who provided the sample and the social media posts came from the Al Qaeda associated White Helmets. Moreover some of the alleged victims were admitted to hospitals, some quite a long distance away from the scene, BEFORE the time of the alleged incident. There are other inconsistencies but the major criticism is that the inspectors refused to visit either the scene of the crime in khan sheikhoun for security reasons, but also the airbase in Syria, bombed by the Trump regime, where the attacks allegedly came from.

  • reel guid

    The US Senate approves a $700 billion defence budget.

    A couple of days later a US Navy pilot in the state of Washington is supposedly in trouble for drawing a giant knob in the sky using his jet contrails.

    The US elite really knows how to deflect the attention of the public with something humorous about the military.

    Back in the 1950s they used Sgt Bilko.

  • Republicofscotland

    “The Belgian judge presiding over the extradition
    case of dismissed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his four former ministers has decided to adjourn the hearing until December 4.”

    “Puigdemont and the ministers – Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí, Meritxell Serret and Lluís Puig – testified in the Palace of Justice in Brussels on Friday for about an hour.”

    “Puigdemont’s lawyer, Jaume Alonso Cuevillas, considers the adjournment positive and said the Belgian legal system “provides a lot of guarantees” compared with the “hastiness we are used to from Spanish courts.”

    http://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/belgian-judge-adjourns-puigdemont-extradition-hearing-until-december-4

    Could be the Belgian judge, doesn’t quite see eye-to-eye with the Spain on the charges.

    Meanwhile Spain’s equivalent of Boris Johnson denies that the October 1st vote in Catalonia, wasn’t handled excessively, with regards to police violence, even though there were almost a 1000 casualties.

    Alfonso Dastis admits not having read Human Rights Watch report, denouncing the attacks to citizens during the referendum.

    http://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/october-1-police-violence-not-excessive-despite-1000-injured-spanish-minister-says

    • Habbabkuk

      “Could be the Belgian judge, doesn’t quite see eye-to-eye with the Spain on the charges.”
      ________________________

      Actually one can infer no such thing.

      Mr Puigdemont is subject to the procedures which in Belgium (and elsewhere ) apply to anyone contesting a European Arrest Warrant.

  • reel guid

    Labour’s Andrew Adonis tweeted that Alex Salmond is “legitimising Putin’s propaganda machine” and demeaning the high office of FM that he held.

    Adonis was the head of the No.10 Policy Unit at the time of the Iraq War. And according to Andrew Rawnsley in his book The End of the Party, Adonis was opposed to Blair going to war. But by remaining with Blair surely Adonis was helping to legitimise Blair’s propaganda machine. Continuing to serve a Prime Minister who had demeaned his high office by launching an illegal and destructive war by means of dishonest claims.

    Tony Blair launched an illegal, vicious and wholly needless war.

    Alex Salmond launched a legal, liberal and editorially independent TV show.

    Yet Adonis thinks Salmond is the villain.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Now, now. Adonis is a Remainer, so the SNP has to love him. Mind you. when the opposition starts comparing you to Nazis, you know they’ve lost the argument…

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-nazis-appease-lord-andrew-adonis-labour-peer-1930s-adolf-hitler-uk-leave-eu-a7840501.html

      Safest thing to do with Adonis is forget him. If he wasn’t a Blairite opportunist with a demagnetised moral compass, he wouldn’t be advising the Tories in the first place.

      To be fair, looking at it from the point of view of the SNP, Salmond is certainly advancing his cause by taking advantage of Russia’s proven willingness to stir the shit whenever an opportunity to divide western opinion presents itself. From any other point of view, however, it looks like collaboration. Regardless of how craftily his show has been structured.

    • fred

      “Alex Salmond launched a legal, liberal and editorially independent TV show.”

      I’ve noticed that on RT there is a constant steam of messages along the bottom of the screen.

      Does Alex Salmond control what is on them? If they say that a decision made by the World Anti-Doping agency was political is that because it is Alex Salmond’s opinion?

    • BrianFujisan

      Just to Say

      No one on this Blog is A fan of Women. More than Tony…. His Satire on my Alex link.. If you felt that I am sexist..Nothing could be Futher from Truth.. I Full heartdly apologise..I expect Tony will Follow

  • Clydebuilt

    Irish, UK Border Precedent for Independent Scotland”
    On BBC Radio Shortbread, Irish Journalist, ” the Irish Government are being very careful to ensure that whatever agreement is arrived at between Ireland and the UK can’t be seen as a precedent for an Independent Scotland’s border with RUK” . . . . . So why can’t this border arrangement deal be seen as a precedent for Scotland. . . . For no reason other than . . . . . They are going to say it can’t!

  • reel guid

    Kezia Dugdale to do a reality telly show. One of the range of cringe benefits for bring a unionist politico. House of Lordingit next.

    • Republicofscotland

      He has firmly ruled out any prospect of a future coalition with the SNP, saying “there will be no ground ceded to nationalism at the expense of progressive socialism under my leadership”.

      The former GMB union official was born and raised in England, and had a private education – which some critics have claimed could prove problematic for him.

      There you have it a privately educated leader, who will not cede any ground to nationalism or the SNP, is Richard Leonard, Theresa May in disguise?

      • reel guid

        Ros

        Leonard’s now going to have to justify his party’s pro-brexit stance to Scotland. Justify us being taken out the EU against our majority vote. Justify Scotland’s likely enforced exclusion from the single market. Justify Labour’s lack of opposition to the Tory downgrading of Holyrood.

        Even a charismatic politician would find all that impossible. A charmless party apparatchik like Leonard will be at sea.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      It is indeed wonderful that Scottish nationalists still believe that the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation should favour their movement. Still, you can be sure that Scottish Labour will pull back some seats without the BBC’s aid.

  • reel guid

    One of those upbeat BBC trailers extolling the virtue of BBC news coverage by using music and fast moving images. The voiceover says “reporting an increasingly dangerous world” and immediately the fast moving pictures are of Putin and the Kremlin followed quickly by images of Kim Jong-un and some missiles. So the subliminal message is that Putin is on a par with the North Korean leader.

    The BBC never do propaganda. Oh no. That’s for RT.

    • Habbabkuk

      The reason could be that Mr Putin and the Dear Leader represent rather different threats in different geographical areasto the world community.

          • Republicofscotland

            Okay Israel invading Lebanon, looks likely, Israel and Saudi Arabia attacking Iran, that looks likely.

            Trump and his coerced minions in Nato and the EU, causing a conflict with China a possibility.

            Saudi Arabia, causing mass famine and disease in Yemen, oops sorry that’s already happening.

            The collapsing of Venezuela’s economy due to a USA, staged civil war, oh sorry already underway.

          • Habbabkuk

            “The collapsing of Venezuela’s economy due to a USA, staged civil war,…”
            _______________________

            Don’t be so silly. The economic collapse of Venezuela was caused uniquely by economic and political bungling on the part of the Venezuelan government under Presidents Chavez and Maduro. In the same way as the economic hardships of Zimbabwe are due to the corrupt crony dictatorial policies of Comrade President Mugabe and the ZANU government. Blaming everything on foreign governments is a well known trope from West-haters.

  • reel guid

    Ireland’s Taoiseach has given May a deadline of a month to explain her border plans or he’ll scupper the trade talks.

    Doesn’t Varadkar get it yet? The UK government doesn’t have plans. They’re way too dysfunctional for plans.

    • Kerch'ee Kerch'ee Coup

      And what makes you think they give a shit about anyone other than themselves and their patrons?Or that Varadkar speaks for the plain people of Ireland? John Ward at the Slog today hints at the shepherd and dog technique being used by the EU and Ireland that may well get even the English back within the fold with a little help from an old bell-wether after the coming election.

    • Salford Lad

      Russia uses it veto in the Syria chemical attacks ,because the OPCW inspectors ,did not go to the sites of attack or the air base from which the planes are based.
      The samples tested were from an unreliable 3rd Party.
      It is understandable that the did not go to the atrocity site as it was controlled by ISIS. I fail to understand why they did not go to the Air base to test the area.
      The truth would not fit in with the Official Western version and cause embarrassment to POTUS, who bombed the Air base and killed innocent civilians ans military personnel.

  • reel guid

    STV News are reporting that Richard Leonard has told them he will be meeting with Labour MSPs to discuss suspending Kezia Dugdale!

    The promise of reconciliation didn’t last long.

    Unless the rumour about Kez being about to declare for indy is true.

    • Republicofscotland

      The infighting goes on, the branch office in Scotland is not fit for purpose.

      If I recall correctly Richard Leonard, spent years at the GMB, a pro-Trident, unionist lobby group, I think Leonard was a political officer.

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