Saturday Steyn

Disunion Jack

 

 

 

 

 

” Further to my note on last week’s UK election, Mark Wilson writes from beautiful County Down:

  Hey there, Mark is of course right when he says that no one outside Northern Ireland cares about the difference between the ‘official ‘ unionists (or their name, since the ‘official’ went out years ago!) and the DUP. Lots of people in Northern Ireland don’t care either and want a united unionist party which can ally with English, Scottish and Welsh parties as our interests coincide. That’s quite a traditional British position, do you not think?

  Anyway, for people like me stuck in the sticks with unrepentent sectarian murderers failing to represent us by refusing to go to Westminister, the greater truth is that it’s better to be represented by any respectable unionist than any nationalist. Sorry for bothering you with trifles – may providence smile on you lot in your battle with the climatologists!

Mark Wilson

  Well, I wouldn’t call the disintegration of the Mother of Parliaments a “trifle”. (I wouldn’t call Michael E Mann a climatologist, either, but that’s another matter.) You allude to Sinn Féin members who won’t go to Westminster because they refuse to take their oath of allegiance to the Queen. But you don’t need to steer clear of Westminster to decline allegiance in a broader sense. When the Kingdom of Scotland votes as overwhelmingly for the SNP as the (southern and western parts of the) Kingdom of Ireland did for Sinn Féin in 1918, they too are refusing allegiance to the existing political arrangements.”

 

Steyn Online

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Amateur Scottish Explorer With Metal Detector Uncovers Million Dollar Viking Treasure

Viking Treasure Haul Unearthed In Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

” A haul of Viking treasure has been unearthed from a field in south west Scotland by an amateur using a metal detector.

  Derek McLennan, a retired businessman from Ayrshire, made the find in Dumfriesshire in September. In total, more than 100 items were recovered, including armbands, a cross and brooches. Experts have said the discovery is one of the most important Viking hoards ever found in Scotland.

   The items are believed to be worth a six-figure sum. Mr McLennan last year uncovered Scotland’s biggest haul of medieval silver coins. “

” ” I unearthed the first piece, initially I didn’t understand what I had found because I thought it was a silver spoon and then I turned it over and wiped my thumb across it and I saw the Saltire-type of design and knew instantly it was Viking.

” Then my senses exploded, I went into shock, endorphins flooded my system and away I went stumbling towards my colleagues waving it in the air.” “

BBC News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tag Along For A Phenomenal Bike Ride On The Isle Of Skye

Danny Macaskill: The Ridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on Oct 2, 2014

” #TheRidge is the brand new film from Danny Macaskill… For the first time in one of his films Danny climbs aboard a mountain bike and returns to his native home of the Isle of Skye in Scotland to take on a death-defying ride along the notorious Cuillin Ridgeline.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Scotland Remains Part Of UK

Scotland Rejects Independence

 

 

 

 

 

” Voters in Scotland rejected a heated bid for independence, providing a narrow escape for a British government that scrambled to dole out promises of new local powers for Edinburgh to head off the breakup of a 307-year- old union.

  Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said early Friday he accepted that the majority of Scottish voters had decided not to become an independent country.

  The tally at around 6:30 a.m. local time, which included results from 31 of the 32 districts in Scotland, showed 55% of voters rejecting the independence question and 45% favoring it. About 3.5 million votes had been counted. More than four million people were registered to vote in the election.

  Mr. Salmond said the fact that around 1.6 million people voted to exit the union was a victory in itself. “I don’t think of any of us…would have thought such a thing could be credible or possible,” he said.

  Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, backed independence by 53% to 47%. The “yes” camp also won Dundee, an industrial town on Scotland’s east coast and the districts of North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire.

  In the early hours of Friday morning, the hundreds of Scottish independence supporters still gathered in the center of Glasgow faced up to defeat, a future as part of a union and substantial hangovers.

” People die for self-determination,” said Ally Gray, a 23-year-old data analyst as he lay on the floor. “All we had to do was cross a box and we couldn’t even do that.” “

 

 

Continued 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Live Blogging And Lot’s Of Live Links To Scotland’s Independence Vote

Scottish Independence Referendum Live: Latest News As Scotland Decides Yes Or No

 

 

Click the pic for live blogging Of Scotland’s Landmark vote

 

 

” People in Scotland have begun voting on independence today. If Scotland votes Yes, the United Kingdom will split and Scots will go their own way, ending a 307-year-old union. The crucial ballot is expected to go down to the wire, with polls showing the contest is too close to call. Here is a summary of the latest developments and analysis:

• Andy Murray backs Scottish independence
• Final polls show undecided voters could swing the result either way
• The NO comment: We cannot risk our children’s future
• The YES comment: A fairer Scotland is within our grasp
• Almost half of ‘No’ voters have felt ‘personally threatened’ by the ‘Yes’ campaign
• When will the result be announced “

 

 

 

   The Independent is live blogging the voting and below are some links to other popular means of keeping up to date on the Scot’s vote for independence .

 

 

Twitter feed: #Scotland

Twitter feed: #indyref

Twitter feed: #YesScotland

Twitter feed: #bettertogether

 

Facebook: Scotland’s Independence Referendum 2014

Facebook: Yes Scotland

 

EuroNews.com: Live Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Independence Movement Making Big Gains In Scotland

Scottish Independence: Yes Camp Closes The Poll Gap

 

 

 

 

 

” Support for Scottish independence has risen eight points in a month, according to a new poll.

  The No camp are now six points ahead of the Yes campaign, down from 14 points in mid-August and 22 points early last month, excluding undecided voters.

  The latest YouGov poll found that, excluding ”don’t knows”, 53% of those questioned planned to vote No, while 47% would back Yes.

  This compares to 57% for No and 43% for Yes in mid August and 61% for No and 39% for Yes at the beginning of last month.

  Blair Jenkins, Chief Executive of Yes Scotland, said: ”This breakthrough poll shows that Yes has the big momentum – it’s an all-time high for Yes support in a YouGov survey so far, and an eight-point swing from No to Yes in just three weeks. We only need another three-point swing to achieve a Yes for Scotland on September 18.

” Scotland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. More and more people are beginning to realise that a Yes vote is Scotland’s one opportunity to make that enormous wealth work better for everybody who lives and works here, create more jobs here, and protect vital services such as the NHS from the damaging effects of Westminster privatisation.

” While the No campaign press the panic button and blame each other for a series of blunders, Yes will get on with the job of persuading more of our fellow citizens – both No and undecided voters – that we need a Yes vote to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.” ” 

 

The Telegraph

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edinburgh Garage Owner Pranks Google Street View With Fake Murder

Man Stages Fake Murder In Front Of Google Street View Van

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” A garage owner spotted one of those Google Street View vehicles and decided it was the perfect opportunity to stage a fake murder.  (Via Flickr / phossil, Ben Smith)

   with that garage owner, Dan Thompson. He explains how he created the scene.

” I whiffled into the garage, grabbed Gary, one of my mechanics, and a pickaxe handle. Came out, laid down in the street, and he stood over me, pretending to give me a leaf massage with the pickaxe handle.”

  The 56-year-old has since apologized.

  This was after someone finally spotted the image a year later and called the cops, likely fearing it was real, according to The Telegraph. “

 

More here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Did These Men Uncover The Real Loch Ness Monster With Apple Satellite App ?

Has Apple Maps Found The Loch Ness Monster?

 

 

 

 

 

” Since its inception in the sixth century, the legend of the Loch Ness Monster has endured unreliable sightings, doctored photos and faked footprints, but a mysterious satellite image has given fresh hope to believers of the elusive Scottish sea creature.

  The image, taken by an Apple map satellite, depicts a shadowy form of around 100 feet in length with something akin to flippers in the water of the Loch Ness.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

” We’ve been looking at it for a long time trying to work out exactly what it is,” Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, told the Daily Mail.

” It looks like a boat wake, but the boat is missing. We’ve shown it to boat experts and they don’t know what it is.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” After studying the image for six months, and with apparently no other obvious explanation, the Club has concluded that shadow is probably the Loch Ness Monster.”

 

The Telegraph has more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ghost Ship With Cannibal Rat Crew Headed For UK

Rat-Infested Ghost Ship May Be Heading For Britain

 

 

” It sounds like a plotline to a Stephen King story — a ghost ship afloat on the high seas is drifting toward the British Isles; its only passengers are cannibal rats who have had nothing to eat but each other since the ship was set adrift.

 

  Many people would probably pay good money to read such a story or watch it on the large screen, but they can watch it play out on the small screen — in the news. It’s a real happening involving a real ship — the Lyubov Orlova — cut loose off the coast of Canada in January 2013. It is believed to be infested with rats that have nothing to eat but other rats in order to survive their high-seas ordeal. And, it’s unaccounted for.

  Built in the former Yugoslavia, the Ice-class passenger cruise ship (featuring a strengthened hull to withstand impacts with ice) has seen duty as on Antarctic and Arctic expeditions. It was seized in Newfoundland in 2010 due to outstanding money owed to a cruise charterer and it was revealed the crew had not been paid in five months. To settle debts, the ship was sold off and towed to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped. However, the tow rope snapped in stormy seas and the ship began to drift eastward off Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula (near the Hibernia oil fields).

   Under contract from Husky Oil, the offshore supply vessel Atlantic Hawk regained control of the derelict ship but was ordered to set her adrift once in international waters because it “no longer poses a threat to the safety of offshore oil installations, their personnel or the marine environment.”

 

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Hear The World’s Longest Echo … Sort Of

Listen To The World’s Longest Echo

 

 

 

” You probably can’t hear most of it, but this over one-minute-long recording is proof of the world’s longest echo. Set by a group of scientists inside an abandoned wartime fuel bunker, The Independent reports that it was created by firing off a pistol loaded with blanks. “I started off just playing around, whooping and hollering. The sound just goes on and on and on,” Trevor Cox, the record setter, tells The Independent while describing the tunnels. “Then when we fired the pistol my initial reaction was disbelief; the reverberation times were just too long. I knew immediately we had a new world record.” “

Read the rest of the story at The Verge

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Thousand Year Old Viking Assembly Hall Unearthed In Scotland

Viking ‘Thing’ Excavated Beneath Parking Lot In Scotland

 

 

 

 

” A Viking parliamentary site that dates to the 11th century has been found beneath a parking lot in Scotland.

The site, located in the town of Dingwall, Scotland, was dubbed a “Thing” site, referring to its name in antiquity. Like other Thing sites, this one was likely a place where ancient Norsemen gathered to settle legal disputes, uphold laws and make key political decisions.

“It’s a fantastic find, really,” said Oliver J. T. O’Grady, the director of the site’s excavations and an archaeologist who runs an consulting firm called OJT Heritage. “No one’s had dating [information] from a Thing site in Scotland.”

Historians had long wondered whether Dingwall was a site of a Viking parliamentary gathering known as the Thing because the word Dingwall probably originated from the word thingvellir, which means “the field of the assembly.”  “

 

You can expand you knowledge of these unique gathering places at Thingsites.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Scotland’s National Dish , Haggis Understood

Ode to a Haggis: The History of Scotland’s National Dish

 

 

 

” Perhaps more than any other food, haggis has an exceptionally bad reputation. This Scottish national dish—a mix of sheep’s innards, oatmeal and spices, all wrapped up in a sheep stomach—has been the butt of jokes for years. It’s a dish that people love to hate, even if some of those critics haven’t had a chance to taste it in over 40 years. That’s because importing real Scottish haggis to the United States has been illegal since 1971, thanks to a ban on foods containing sheep’s lungs.

But while the dish’s exact provenance remains in doubt, food historians agree that it was a peasant food. Encasing hard-to-cook cuts like lungs and intestines along with undesirable muscle meats like liver and kidneys into a convenient stomach packaging would have been a wonderful way to feed a group—while making sure no meat went to waste.

Haggis languished uncelebrated until 1787, when poet Robert Burns penned his great ode “Address to a Haggis.” In his poem, Burns declares his love for the “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” and glorifies what was a poor man’s food into a dish greater than any French ragout or fricassee.”

Related articles

• haggis flavoured snack anyone? (elainemcnulty.wordpress.com)
• Haggis Games (frankiefarkal.wordpress.com)
• About Scotland (tohuwabohujoeblog.wordpress.com)
• Still No Traditional-Recipe Haggis for US Scots (Repost) (expertscolumn.com)
• Yorkshire Pudding (lostsentences.wordpress.com)
• Food and Drink to Try: Ireland/Scotland (scarlettfriesen.wordpress.com)

 

 

 

 

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NRSC Helps Out Ashley Judd With A Campaign E-mail

ASHLEY JUDD FUNDRAISING EMAIL

 

 

 

 

 

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