Latest Polls and Latest Odds

[Taza]

Democracy clearly has it's flaws, when you're allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum.

There were lots of ways to define who should be given the vote. I think in the end, they just opted for the easiest and cheapest. Looking at it now, I'm of the opinion that there perhaps should have been a minimum residency period - say 10yrs - applied to those not born in Scotland. It does seem strange that someone just here for a couple of college terms, short work contract or otherwise here on a short term basis, should have a say on an issue with such long term consequences for the Country.

[Confidemus]

There were lots of ways to define who should be given the vote. I think in the end, they just opted for the easiest and cheapest. Looking at it now, I'm of the opinion that there perhaps should have been a minimum residency period - say 10yrs - applied to those not born in Scotland. It does seem strange that someone just here for a couple of college terms, short work contract or otherwise here on a short term basis, should have a say on an issue with such long term consequences for the Country.

ESPECIALLY someone who is only voting No because they support Rangers.

[RedRob72]

Will be interesting to see how the performance from either side of the debate tonight will impact on the latest odds at the Bookies

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/scottish-independence/referendum-outcome

Would have expected a little more momentum for a Yes vote by now and by guaging some of the noise on sites like P&B!

Seems like its on the drift again?

[thepundit]

Democracy clearly has it's flaws, when you're allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum.

Typical Nationalist, wanting people silenced because they have a different opinion.

Ironic, given you want a Scotland which is free to make its own decisions.

Edited August 5, 2014 by thepundit

[P45]

People that are here for only a short period of time probably won't bother registering to vote.

It's also before the uni's start so their won't be many students around.

Everyone in Scotland should be offered the chance to vote in the referendum even the homeless and people in jail.

It affects everyone.

[Confidemus]

Typical Nationalist, wanting people silenced but they have a different opinion.

Ironic, given you want a Scotland which is free to make its own decisions.

Ironic. coming from a nationalist such as yourself.

You're voting No based on the football team you support. Mix that up how you want, in my eyes that makes you a fanny.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Mr Bairn in 5 simple steps

1. write something outrageously stupid/provocative/offensive

2. wait for the condemnation

3. take one non controversial point from the original offensive pile of effluence and express wonderment that anyone should see the problem

4. sit and giggle and tickle yourself at getting the reaction

5. rinse and repeat

On the off-chance that you do actually mean all of this;

condemnation of the Israeli Govt is not support for Hamas

believing that the current assualt on Gaza is a war crime is not support for Hamas

support for the peopleof Gaza is not support for Hamas

My main gripe is the anti-semitic nature of some of the anti-war comments - language one usually hears from the far left or far right.

Imho I don't particularly think it's going to influence the Muslim community to any extent apart from a very small minority of Jihadists.

[H_B]

My main gripe is the anti-semitic nature of some of the anti-war comments - language one usually hears from the far left or far right.

It's almost Stop Kone style in simplistic stupidity.

"Hamas good guys" - "IDF bad guys"

[Reynard]

Big difference between the condemnation of the Israeli government and condemnation of Israelis themselves. I'm not exactly keen on the Knesset and find myself supportive of a two state solution. The problem is that the British left wing (not a purely Scottish problem) automatically support the Islamic side of whatever argument is going on at the time for want of being PC. There's always something going on: the West invading Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, Israel and Gaza, India and Pakistan, al-Qaeda attacking the West, Iran's nuclear weapon program. Basically whatever wee tiff is happening, the far left will side with whatever side is predominantly Muslim for the sole reason that they don't want to be seen as islamophobes.

It's the same kind of logic employed by CND types who would literally rather die themselves than see someone killed by a British nuke.

The war crime stuff is a funny one. I mean, in ww2 our RAF carpet bombed Dresden, we had our Dambusters out firing bombs into Germany, these guys are seen as heroes these days. Many German civilians died but Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill were never seen as war criminals. Yet British forces kill some Afghan civilians and the left wing want to put Tony Blair's head on a spike.

The French lost 50,000 civilians during the allied bombing of Normandy. Thankfully they don't hold a grudge and got wired in to kick out the Nazis.

As for a two state solution between Israel and the arabs. Fine, but difficult when one of the sides refuses to recognise Israel as a state. They never have done, hence the attempt in 1948 to obliterate it a day after it was created. If they had recognised Israel at the time then there would have been a two state solution from the off and somewhere for the displaced arabs to go instead of being kicked from pillar to post and not being allowed to settle in other arab lands. They have attempted to obliterate Israel three times and failed in each attempt. Gaza gets more aid per head than virtually any other part of the planet, they spend it on rockets and building tunnels. When Gaza was handed over to their control the first thing they did was to elect Hamas idiots where they then set about any dissenters, murdering them. They havent had an election since so we probably wont get to find out whether the punterdom are still happy with their choice. They are all pawns in a bigger game unfortunately for them.

But yes, Israel. Terrible people.

[SodjesSixteenIncher]

It's almost Stop Kone style in simplistic stupidity.

"Hamas good guys" - "IDF bad guys"

Pretending people are actually saying this really has become the one and only remaining tactic of those who insist on condoning the actions of "we sit at the top table" Britain's bezzies Israel.

"But, but Hamas are bad"

"100% agree. The actions of Israel need to be immediately condemnded though, seeing as they're currently killing thousands of people with our support."

"Hamas supporter!!!"

Pathetic

[H_B]

Pretending people are actually saying this really has become the one and only remaining tactic of those who insist on condoning the actions of "we sit at the top table" Britain's bezzies Israel.

"But, but Hamas are bad"

"100% agree. The actions of Israel need to be immediately condemnded though, seeing as they're currently killing thousands of people with our support."

"Hamas supporter!!!"

Pathetic

What on earth is this rambling nonsense supposed to mean?

[MarkoRaj]

What on earth is this rambling nonsense supposed to mean?

It means those who speak out against israel are always accused of supporting Hamas when in reality they never actually speak positively about them and most go out their way to criticise them. Meaning your inane post was bollocks basically

[Blaven]

The French lost 50,000 civilians during the allied bombing of Normandy. Thankfully they don't hold a grudge and got wired in to kick out the Nazis.

As for a two state solution between Israel and the arabs. Fine, but difficult when one of the sides refuses to recognise Israel as a state. They never have done, hence the attempt in 1948 to obliterate it a day after it was created. If they had recognised Israel at the time then there would have been a two state solution from the off and somewhere for the displaced arabs to go instead of being kicked from pillar to post and not being allowed to settle in other arab lands. They have attempted to obliterate Israel three times and failed in each attempt. Gaza gets more aid per head than virtually any other part of the planet, they spend it on rockets and building tunnels. When Gaza was handed over to their control the first thing they did was to elect Hamas idiots where they then set about any dissenters, murdering them. They havent had an election since so we probably wont get to find out whether the punterdom are still happy with their choice. They are all pawns in a bigger game unfortunately for them.

But yes, Israel. Terrible people.

Yes, roll over you peasant scum and accept your overlords and rightfull owners of your land.

Bloody hell. I sounded like a unionist there.

[H_B]

It means those who speak out against israel are always accused of supporting Hamas when in reality they never actually speak positively about them and most go out their way to criticise them.

This is just incoherent gibberish and arrant nonsense.

It is perfectly possible to criticise both Israel and Hamas. Many of those decrying Israel are doing so whilst mumbling into their sleeve about Hamas. there's unquestionably an anti-Semitic tone to this debate.

Which is why you have idiocy such as "Muslims in Scotland are moving to Yes from No because of this issue". lolwut?

There are no good guys and bad guys here. It's scumbag terrorists versus indiscriminate slaughter.

[H_B]

You only have to go back a page to find idiocy like :-

"Since when were the Palestinians terrorists ?"

!!!!!!!!!!!

[H_B]

One thing you can guarantee - Hamas' leadership is not in any way disappointed with the current position in Gaza.

Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal and Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum recently called on the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs to perpetrate attacks against Israel. Last week Barhum implored Palestinians who have knives and vehicles to "hurt the Jews and the settlers and to run them over; those who do not do this can no longer call themselves Palestinian."

It's the innocent population that suffers, as always here.

[Mr. Bojangles]

We really need a new poll to talk about.

[Ad Lib]

There's no question that Israeli actions in Gaza have been completely disproportionate to the scale and nature of the threat posed to their people. There are several prima face instances which violate international law and which may even be war crimes (though there is not sufficient evidence that they are committing genocide, contrary to what some have claimed).

Hardly anyone actively disputes this save the Israeli government, their internal supporters, and a minority of sympathetic voices in the pro-Israel lobby in the West, which is pretty small outside the US.

What is equally clear, however, is that the moral outrage from a lot of people on the left is selective, inconsistent, and whether deliberately or otherwise serves to legitimise and support the utterly inexcusable and oppressive actions of Hamas. This makes it more difficult for groups like Fatah to convince ordinary Palestinians that they will only get peace and statehood if Israel, one of the most (in some cases, rightly) paranoid states in the world, is also guaranteed its right to exist and is not perpetually attacked with rockets.

Hamas is an organisation whose charter specifically dedicates it towards the eradication of Israel, of Judaism and of Jews. It is a charter for genocide. They call upon every state bordering Israel to open their borders to Jihadis to facilitate the systemic extermination of the state of Israel and its non-Islamic citizens. The mere fact that they have significantly less military strength than the state of Israel and that Israel has, on the whole, become quite good at shooting down their rockets, does not make them any less of a vile organisation with which the international community should have no truck.

For all that Israel has been increasingly criminally negligent in its attitude towards civilian casualties, it's still worth remembering that the IDF, to borrow a line from the West Wing, measure the success of a military mission by whether the objective was achieved and by how few civilian casualties there were. Hamas measure their success by how many civilian casualties they cause. Their rockets overwhelmingly are fired with their primary cause being to kill civilians and to inflict damage on civilian infrastructure. If those were the primary objectives of Israel Gaza would not exist. The only thing holding Hamas back is lack of military strength.

Given the evidence that Hamas has been storing rockets in UN schools, and has wasted scarce resources like cement, which could have been used in the last 8 or so years to build Gazan infrastructure on building underground tunnels to store and move weapons, it's pretty clear that they see even Palestinian casualties at the hands of Israelis as in some way desirable, because it excites Jihadism and encourages the kind of extremist politics, not just in Gaza but also within Israel too, that sustains an environment for war instead of prolonged armistice or peace.

Simply condemning Israel, while failing explicitly and vocally also to condemn the war criminals in Hamas, both for their crimes and for their systemic betrayal of the interests of the Palestinian people, does not create an atmosphere where peace and prosperity for Palestine is possible. It does completely the opposite.

[Confidemus]

There's no question that Israeli actions in Gaza have been completely disproportionate to the scale and nature of the threat posed to their people. There are several prima face instances which violate international law and which may even be war crimes (though there is not sufficient evidence that they are committing genocide, contrary to what some have claimed).

Hardly anyone actively disputes this save the Israeli government, their internal supporters, and a minority of sympathetic voices in the pro-Israel lobby in the West, which is pretty small outside the US.

What is equally clear, however, is that the moral outrage from a lot of people on the left is selective, inconsistent, and whether deliberately or otherwise serves to legitimise and support the utterly inexcusable and oppressive actions of Hamas. This makes it more difficult for groups like Fatah to convince ordinary Palestinians that they will only get peace and statehood if Israel, one of the most (in some cases, rightly) paranoid states in the world, is also guaranteed its right to exist and is not perpetually attacked with rockets.

Hamas is an organisation whose charter specifically dedicates it towards the eradication of Israel, of Judaism and of Jews. It is a charter for genocide. They call upon every state bordering Israel to open their borders to Jihadis to facilitate the systemic extermination of the state of Israel and its non-Islamic citizens. The mere fact that they have significantly less military strength than the state of Israel and that Israel has, on the whole, become quite good at shooting down their rockets, does not make them any less of a vile organisation with which the international community should have no truck.

For all that Israel has been increasingly criminally negligent in its attitude towards civilian casualties, it's still worth remembering that the IDF, to borrow a line from the West Wing, measure the success of a military mission by whether the objective was achieved and by how few civilian casualties there were. Hamas measure their success by how many civilian casualties they cause. Their rockets overwhelmingly are fired with their primary cause being to kill civilians and to inflict damage on civilian infrastructure. If those were the primary objectives of Israel Gaza would not exist. The only thing holding Hamas back is lack of military strength.

Given the evidence that Hamas has been storing rockets in UN schools, and has wasted scarce resources like cement, which could have been used in the last 8 or so years to build Gazan infrastructure on building underground tunnels to store and move weapons, it's pretty clear that they see even Palestinian casualties at the hands of Israelis as in some way desirable, because it excites Jihadism and encourages the kind of extremist politics, not just in Gaza but also within Israel too, that sustains an environment for war instead of prolonged armistice or peace.

Simply condemning Israel, while failing explicitly and vocally also to condemn the war criminals in Hamas, both for their crimes and for their systemic betrayal of the interests of the Palestinian people, does not create an atmosphere where peace and prosperity for Palestine is possible. It does completely the opposite.

tl;dr

Off topic, it's good to see the law squad get about their business again. Where have you and H_B been? A romantic holiday for 2 in the Office for National Statistics?

[H_B]

Given the evidence that Hamas has been storing rockets in UN schools, and has wasted scarce resources like cement, which could have been used in the last 8 or so years to build Gazan infrastructure on building underground tunnels to store and move weapons, it's pretty clear that they see even Palestinian casualties at the hands of Israelis as in some way desirable, because it excites Jihadism and encourages the kind of extremist politics, not just in Gaza but also within Israel too, that sustains an environment for war instead of prolonged armistice or peace.

Hamas - "We love death like our enemies love life"

Edited August 5, 2014 by H_B