LongTimeLurker

Also worth noting perhaps that there was a time when members of the loyal orders tended to back William Wolfe of the SNP against Tam Dayell of Labour in West Lothian. Later on once Alex Salmond was the SNP leader, the Monklands East by-election was probably the last high profile example of SNP electoral support being fueled by a working class Protestant backlash against the perceived sectarian leanings of the Labour party, but anecdotally I heard of at least some people aligned with the loyal orders preferring to vote SNP rather than Labour around the time when Jack McConnell was holding his sectarianism summits and many/most of Labour's Scottish MPs could be found at Parkhead reasonably regularly. If you are old enough to remember those things the "Scottish Nhationalism" angle above seems a bit odd. Worth bearing in mind that the main reason some people who are very much not of a red, white and blue persuasion like George Galloway are still very much opposed to independence is that Scotland is viewed as still being too Protestant to be trusted with a fully sovereign parliament in case it turns into another pre-1972 Stormont. Seamus Mallon, an SDLP politician probably best remembered for describing the Good Friday Agreement as "Sunningdale for slow learners", was not too impressed when Alex Salmond tried to link Scottish independence to the history of Irish nationalism in the run up to the 2014 referendum: https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-independence-referendum-salmond-claims-links-to-irish-freedom-struggle-2506592 ...Seamus Mallon, a former leader of the moderate, mainly nationalist SDLP, suggested Mr Salmond should brush up on his history, saying many Scots were members of the Black and Tans, the notorious British militia that gained a reputation for violence in Ireland after the Great War. Mr Mallon said: “Scotland was part of the bullying that took place in Ireland. People from Scotland were the cornerstone of the plantation of Ulster. I think Alex is a very able performer, but his knowledge of history is a little weak. “As recently as 15 years ago, you had Scottish regiments here, enforcing the writ of Britain so, I think I could recommend a good history of Ireland for him.”...

Germany and Vlad still wanted to do Nordstream 2 right up until the start of his SMO so think "full madman" has to be viewed as a much more recent development than that. If he had full on invaded Ukraine in 2014 to reinstall Yanukovych he would likely have won easily at that point and arguably would have had some justification in terms of international law given the Maidan protests were a coup against democratically elected authorities. He still wanted to sell natural gas to Germany though. What appears to have made him flip his lid is that the Minsk accords did not work as he expected and Ukraine began to emerge as a firmly pro-western state with an ever strengthening and NATO-aligned military. A deal with Turkey over Bayraktar drones immediately preceded the military build up that led to the Feb 24 2022 invasion.

Apparently the Americans discovered they had more ATACMS than they realized in deep storage waiting for disposal that can be made operational again:

Maybe Forthbank has better facilities set up for broadcasters than some of the other possibilities.

Elsewhere: East Kilbride beat Edinburgh City 4-1 in the Challenge Cup, but Stirling Uni lost 3-2 to Airdrie, and East Fife beat Albion Rovers 2-1.

....and every time this has been reported on before like this, and that has been several times now, Joe Biden has bottled it. Suspect it may be related to the Grain Deal negotiations in a renew it or we will start giving the Ukrainians missiles that can hit the Kerch bridge sort of way.

The rules in place now are that they could opt for the LL and if either the HL or LL didn't agree to that then the SFA board would ultimately decide. Nothing officially announced on that but people on here apparently have been told privately that they opted for the HL, which should be non-controversial. The SFA forced a change in exchange for signing off on rule changes that were needed to accommodate the Old Firm B teams.

There's a fair to middling chance there will be no relegation this season, if for example East Kilbride beat Elgin City in the playoffs. A club being relegated to the Highland League is looking more likely at this point than it normally does, especially if Forfar Athletic are also officially confirmed (this hasn't happened publicly yet but appears to be what's happening) to be relegated to the HL if they are club 42.

Camelon v Dunipace derbies were one of the things Dunipace moved east for by all accounts.

Looks like they went after this dude today in the part of Luhansk oblast that has been under Russian control since 2014:

It's on youtube if anyone needs a nostalgia trip:

^^^no actual interest in the topic. Just using it as a way to ridicule somebody he has pigeonholed as the enemy where constitutional politics are concerned. Been a while since I was last in Shetland but having spent plenty of time there when I was younger I never had any doubt that Faroese style tunnels to Yell, Unst, Whalsay and Bressay would be something that would have widespread support there. The first minister is talking about it: but feels a need to balance what will go over well with a Shetland audience with highlighting the cost no doubt because of the who's gonnae pay fur ma methadone if aw that money gets spent on the teuchters response this is likely to provoke from certain parts of the central belt. The reality is that the costs of fixed links that can be used 24/7 are comparable in the long run to the costs of ferry replacements and subsidies for services that often lack the necessary capacity, have limited operating hours and sometimes have to be booked in advance.

No idea why you think this adds anything to a Bo'ness United thread. Another 3-0 victory over Darvel would do nicely like in the game I remember watching what is scarily close to 50 years ago now. Maybe part of the problem with dwindling interest in the club is that you almost have to be the wrong side of 50 to properly remember even the Ballieston final. A cup run and ideally doing something like what Darvel did to Aberdeen would be just what the doctor ordered to provide some new memories up there with those games.

Can almost predict who is going to get worked up by something like that. Perhaps worth bearing in mind that in Bo'ness United's case the past in terms of the other Scottish Cup still provides memories that are well worth savouring including a victorious final at Hampden against Darvel.

Only nutters think Faroese style fixed links rather than ferries should be looked at in a Scottish context: https://local.fo/suduroy-tunnel-the-big-one-is-officially-underway/

Jeanfield Swifts vs Cupar Hearts

Technically if the EoS, SoS and WoS champions are all unlicensed there would not be. Unlikely right now, but would be good if they ditched the requirement that the club entering the playoff has to be the champion

Think the Ukrainians normally call the initial line of contact the first line and the so called Surovikin line where they are now the second line. There's a third line a few more kilometres back from that and after that the path to the Sea of Azov is said to be a lot easier. People on Twitter make a big fuss about a Hill 166 like it's the north face of the Eiger: But gradients from where they started out appear to be about 1 in 40 so not sure that's really so important.

TV cameras at Newtown Park maybe if the first round is televised? Not the same team now as played Aberdeen because many/most of the players moved to East Kilbride with Mick Kennedy.

This shows both halves of that graphic:

Definitely useful for people like this to have reparations for slavery portrayed as something the UK should do on a national basis rather than something that should apply to them individually. Robert Mugabe basically had the right idea on what to do with the assets of people still benefiting in a hereditary sort of way from the ill-gotten gains of colonialism even if his methods were clearly far from kosher. Thing is though the western world were not going to allow Zimbabwe to get away with that and imposed crippling sanctions as a consequence so there's only so much a country like Barbados can do even with what looks on paper like sovereign independence.

He's also the future king of the country England beat in the semi-finals. Think the Windsors knew what they were doing on that one.

This was always likely to be a challenging season given what happened with Ian Little leaving unexpectedly. Having 15 points in the bag from the first 5 games is the sort of thing that sometimes happens when a new manager comes in until the other teams figure out his tactics.

Meanwhile back on topic: Kind of begs the question of why these were not supplied along with these: Before the Zaporizhzhia offensive started that the Americans apparently think is proceeding too slowly.