Brae Farts

[MajGenl.Meade]

[rubato]

People love a romantic historical fantasy. Just look at the SCA. Or the Indian encampments in Germany every year where Germans dress up like plains Indians and live in tepees for a week at a a time.


Yrs,
Rubato

[RayThom]

[MajGenl.Meade]

Shame on you Ray - that's a copyrighted image from AP (which is why I never ended up using it - they wanted $450 for a quarter page on my book cover). It is a pretty durn good picture too.

[RayThom]

... Scotland will rise again. Yeah, right -- both ill-timed and ill-planned.

Good luck with their fledgling monetary systems after they make the break.

[Daisy]

Yep good luck to them...

Good luck with finding the extra £1500 per capita spending on services without the subsidy from rUK, whilst finding money to pay for things like their own Driver and vehicle licensing agency, Passport agency and Passport production facilities, their own armed services, their own security services, their own border and immigration control agency, and a myriad other things that are funded centrally.

Oh and they want to continue to use Sterling as their currency, rUK have said no currency union will happen. Scotland have said they'll continue to use the £ as their currency and will default on their share of the national debt. This decision will junk Scotlands credit rating so they won't be able to borrow to pay for all that stuff either.

Guess their just going to have to sell the Scottish crown jewels and tax the population more.

See I'm all for self determination so giving them a referendum is good thing. Part of me want them to go their own way and see how they fare... but an even bigger part of me wants them to vote against independence just so I can see the look on that angry fat bastard Salmond's face when he realises he no longer has a purpose.

[Gob]

Give the Scots it, then the Cornish. Loads of great, and very cheap houses in lovely places on the market soon!!

[Lord Jim]

but an even bigger part of me wants them to vote against independence just so I can see the look on that angry fat bastard Salmond's face when he realises he no longer has a purpose.

A good reason to be sure Daze, but if I were a leftie Non-Scot Brit, (you know, such as your own good self... ) my biggest reason for not wanting the Scots to vote for independence would be the fact that if they did, I would wake up as a citizen of a country whose political center had moved over night substantially to the right...

When you look at the math, (as I pointed out in the OP) and the loss of 40 seats for the Labour Party, versus the one seat lost by the Tories in The House Of Commons, it's difficult to imagine how the Labourites win a majority in a national election any time soon ("soon" being defined as within the lifetime of anyone currently over the age of 10 ) without the Scots...

[Guinevere]

Give the Scots it, then the Cornish. Loads of great, and very cheap houses in lovely places on the market soon!!

Then the Welsh would surely follow.

I'm somewhat skeptical of the doomsday scenarios, I don't think it's really in anyone's interests to isolate Scotland if they do decide for independence. And now that Andy Murray has declared himself a Scot first and for dis-union, well, that's all she wrote.....

[RayThom]

The prevailing mood out of Sheffield and Manchester England is that this referendum is going somewhat toward the "NO" side. Maybe 54% to 46%. The factor most hard to flesh out is how the normally politically apathetic, parent dependent, 16 and 17 year old voters are gravitating. It appears that many have been overwhelmed by a sense of national pride and may very well tip the scales toward independence. Economics is the key issue here. The kids know how to spend, just not how to earn. This is going to be interesting.

Regardless, the sun seems to be setting more and more on the British Empire. "Rue, Britannia," may soon be the new national anthem.

[Daisy]

They'll still be part of Great Britain (unless we can figure a way of chopping them off the island), they wont be part of The United Kingdom.

And Brenda will still be their queen, so will they have God Save the Queen or a 1960's folk song as their national anthem?

[Joe Guy]

[Sue U]

[Big RR]

That was a good one.

[RayThom]

Funny stuff. I have a paralyzed vocal cord and have yet to encounter a VRS that doesn't leave me just as frustrated. You should see me in my car when I'm trying to place a "hands free" call. People outside looking in during one of these violent episodes see a purple-faced, madman spraying saliva toward the car's headliner.

I then pull over into the next parking lot and make the call manually. Damned technology will kill us all... some sooner than others.

[Lord Jim]

"Are you from the same part of England as Dick Van Dyke?"

[Long Run]

It is a bit odd, when you think about it, that a vote can be held, voted on only by those now eligible and who show up this year, that in an instant and forever undoes centuries of partnership and history. Obviously, this happens all the time, but it is not a very good way to make fundamental choices. There could be a momentary set of factors that creates a temporary movement and then it is all done; where such a major change in alignment would never pass in a normal time. It does not appear that that is what is happening here, but there is one moment of Scots who will decide on one day this fundamental question.

In the U.S., there is a tortured process for changing the Constitution that allows for a long period of consideration and positive steps that have to be taken. There is some merit to that when you consider the alternative.

[Lord Jim]

The polls close in about a half an hour...

I've been seeing turnout predictions in the 80-90 per cent range, based on polling place activity...

Apparently there is no exit polling in Scotland, so there won't be any scientifically designed early predictions based on selected precinct results...(which there might not be in this case anyway, if the vote actually winds up being as close as the final polls indicate.)

I saw one election official a little while ago saying they should have the final results by "breakfast time" Since the polls close at 10 PM local time, I guess that means they expect to have all the votes counted within 8-10 hours...

However even without scientific exit polling, an early indication of which way it's headed will be possible. If there are "yes" strongholds or "no" strongholds that report their results before the final tally, where the turnout is lighter than expected or where the margin of victory is less than anticipated by the polling, that will be a good indication.

[Gob]

A good turn out would favour the Yes campaign as it would mean the "I'm as dumb as a bag of rocks, but want my freedom" brigade have got sober enough to leave their couches to vote while on their way to the chippy for a deep fried pizza treat..

[MajGenl.Meade]

OFF KILTER: Male models display the betting odds for the Scottish independence referendum in a publicity stunt organised by a bookmaker outside the Scottish parliament building in Edinburgh. The vote takes place today