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[Descan]

You know you've fuckin' fallen when the fuckin' Tories are more progressive than you. :I

[Owlbread]

I don't want to make sweeping statements but, interestingly, the Tories in England have historically (in the last 20 years or so) had pretty decent LGBT representation. I haven't got the facts and figures in front of me but that's just my impression based on the number of influential gay Tory MPs I've seen - Crispin Blunt, Michael Portillo, Alan Duncan, in recent times Nigel Evans etc. I don't know why that was the case historically. Certainly it must have been a lot harder for them when they opposed the repeal of Section 28. During the 1990s there was, unfortunately, a tendency at one point for newspapers like the News of the World to try to portray the Tories as the party of "secret sleaze" so that entailed outing gay MPs and running lots of sex scandal stories.

[TD1]

Some reflection on the Yes movement and Scottish nationalism:

Here are 9 images taken from the closing days of the campaign last week that illustrate the kind of people the Yes movement brought together. I can provide corroboration for the conclusions the blog comes to with my own experiences. Perhaps this may challenge any preconceptions you fellows may have about Scottish nationalism, who knows.

Here are some words from RIC, the Radical Independence Campaign, who take a different perspective on whether or not we campaigners and Yes voters really were "nationalists" in the end. I know I was, and I always will be; but you may find their perspective interesting.

I recall seeing images of flag burnings as well, which would suggest a certain extremist aspect. Aspect, I say, not majority, before you leap down my throat

[nanomage]

second, there's a law that all personal information on Russian citizens is to be stored on the servers located on Russian soil. Personal info is defined very vaguely in the law so it's pretty much anything: mails profiles hashes etc. This is the new one, coming into effect in the new year. The only obvious use I see here is that govt can always get physical hold of any data stored on Russian soil by confiscating the equipment.

That would mean Russia can no longer use Windows, google products, or any other internet products that have their company base in America. American law obliges these companies to store, and provide such information, as described by the Russian law, to the American government, if it asks them to. This means that any Russian using software made by such companies in breaking the law, because his personal data will be stored on American soil.

EDIT: it would be friggin awesome if every last Russian switched to using Linux

Well in a nutshell that's probably not how it's gonna work. Although the law is declared to be protecting the privacy of Russian users from foreign intelligence, in practice the applications will be quite different. It will be used in two way I think:
1. If any information implicating a Russian govt official in crimes of corruption of stuff like that is published on a foreign server, the law may be used to block access to it from Russian users.
2. If Russian police requires any data on regular Russians the law enables them to demand it from service providers and they'll have no excuse of it being stored elsewhere.
So, our govt won't really care if there is any data on Russian users in America or elsewhere, as long as their own demands are catered to.
However, as I've already mentioned, these effects add little to the overall picture here in Russia.
What's more important is that yet another similar law was adopted on Friday, outlawing the newspapers and other media where foreigners own more that 20% of the business. Most of what I've read on it agrees that this targets Russian Forbes magazine and Vedomosti business newspaper, although a bunch of stuff like Cosmopolitan look like they're now banned too. This is planned to come into effect in 2016, though the date can be left-shifted as Putin wishes, of course.

[Sheb]

Wait, all data on Russian users has to be stored only on Russian soils? That's incredibly dumb: any website too small to have a server farm in Russia would be in breach of that law. No more Bay12 for you, Russian users. :/

[MonkeyHead]

I get the feeling that it would be one of those laws normally not enforced, but invoked in specific cases to silence or mute anyone offering any kind of dissent.

[WarRoot]

Some reflection on the Yes movement and Scottish nationalism:

Here are 9 images taken from the closing days of the campaign last week that illustrate the kind of people the Yes movement brought together. I can provide corroboration for the conclusions the blog comes to with my own experiences. Perhaps this may challenge any preconceptions you fellows may have about Scottish nationalism, who knows.

Did anyone here have preconceptions about it? As far as I know everyone was chill with Scottish nationalism, the only time a couple of eyebrows were raised when you wanted to go on a rampage against the latin alphabet, or when you laid out your cultural assimilation plans for the world.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I get the feeling that it would be one of those laws normally not enforced, but invoked in specific cases to silence or mute anyone offering any kind of dissent.

Khm. This thread is full of anti-Russian propaganda
Should I write an email to Russian officials?

[Graknorke]

Some reflection on the Yes movement and Scottish nationalism:

Here are 9 images taken from the closing days of the campaign last week that illustrate the kind of people the Yes movement brought together. I can provide corroboration for the conclusions the blog comes to with my own experiences. Perhaps this may challenge any preconceptions you fellows may have about Scottish nationalism, who knows.

Did anyone here have preconceptions about it? As far as I know everyone was chill with Scottish nationalism, the only time a couple of eyebrows were raised when you wanted to go on a rampage against the latin alphabet, or when you laid out your cultural assimilation plans for the world.

I disagree with the article's statement that the independence movement isn't anti-English.
Because of course it is.

[Sheb]

[LordSlowpoke]

[Graknorke]

Yes indeed, I am a Master Debater.
Sometimes greatorder and I get together and have a big circlejerk.




Those puns were far too easy to make.

[Owlbread]

The Scottish National Party now have 70,000 members. Considering they had 25,000 on Thursday, September the 18th that means they've nearly tripled their membership in 10 days. Scottish Labour in contrast have around 14,000 members in total at the most. The new members will basically turn the SNP into a massive grassroots movement rather than the streamlined campaigning machine they used to be; in my opinion that can only be a good thing as long as the seasoned campaigners remain in the driving seat.

[LordSlowpoke]

m8 it's nice that you have a lot of members but can you come back in a month and tell me that these guys are still active

it really feels that this is a kneejerk reaction to the referendum turning out as it did but if it isn't then good for you

also, question: are you part of the snp

it'd make sense for you to be

[Owlbread]

I am, but I joined several months ago earlier this year. This is of course a kneejerk reaction to the referendum turning out as it did but that's not necessarily a bad thing. People were joining other parties like the SSP and the Greens - the Greens are nearly as big as Scottish Labour about now, coming up for the 14,000 member mark at least.

For one thing all of the new members are paying monthly subscriptions of a minimum of £1, though many will pay £5 and more. I think I heard that at the lowest the SNP is going to get an extra £840,000 a year if every one of the new members only pays £1 a month; if every new member pays £5 a month it would be an additional £4,200,000 every year. So it's going to be at least around the million/two million pounds figure in addition to their previous revenue figures - I don't know what those are, but they only had 25,000 members last Thursday, so you get the picture.

EDIT: I've just realised I messed up the figures by including the original 25,000. The point is that regardless of how many new SNP members there are exactly;  there's about enough to say the SNP are going to get another million pounds or so every year as a result of the membership surge of the last ten days.

The new members are also, I believe, from the central belt of Scotland mostly, so around the Glasgow/Edinburgh area. That's an area where we can make big gains over the next year or so, so it's very handy we've got them on board.