lundi, mars 30, 2015

Angus Robertson MP and Stewart Hosie MP - SNP Conference 2015


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Get GA Ponsonby's Book! 
'LONDON CALLING: 
How the BBC stole the Referendum'

READ CHAPTER 1 HERE:

READ CHAPTER 2 HERE:

Order book HERE
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Salmond Pt 3: Devo Max, The Vow (and the black black oil..?)


Alex Salmond relates the tussle with the Unionist parties over the question of a “Devo Max” option on the referendum ballot paper, in this final 30-minute part of Newsnet.scot’s series of videos recorded in Edinburgh.

The former First Minister told his audience that Prime Minister David Cameron had refused to back the Devo Max question being added because he had been advised that the independence referendum was an opportunity to destroy the SNP.

Salmond said Cameron had been told that a straight Yes: No vote would result in an overwhelming victory for the Union, with just 28 per cent of people likely to back independence.

He believes today that Labour’s big mistake was to take a similar view, refuse to take up the Devo Max option, and throw in their lot with the Tories and Lib Dems within the Better Together campaign.

The response came in a free-ranging question-and-answer session before a 250 strong audience and chaired by Newsnet’s Derek Bateman.

Questions included the impact of social media on modern political campaigning, opinion polls, Gordon Brown, ‘The Vow’ and Salmond's successor as party leader and First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
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Salmond Pt 2: The Dream Shall Never Die


Former First Minister Alex Salmond treated an Edinburgh audience to extracts of his referendum diary – and Newsnet TV was there to share the experience.

Salmond, whose book The Dream Shall Never Die is expected to score prominently in the British bestseller lists next week, offered some insight into his family, his political roots and his Twitter doppelganger, ‘Angry Salmond’.

Personal memoirs quoted in a presentation by Salmond include his feelings on referendum night, his subsequent resignation as SNP party leader and First Minister, and his experiences during the campaign itself.

It is an entertaining account, laced with humour, introduced by Newsnet’s Derek Bateman and before an audience of 250 people.

Newsnet.scot
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samedi, mars 28, 2015

Nicola Sturgeon's speech - SNP Conference Glasgow March 28th 2015


Nicola Sturgeon's speech - SNP Conference Glasgow March 28th 2015
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vendredi, mars 27, 2015

Derek Bateman interviews Alex Salmond


Publiée le 2015-03-26
Former First Minister Alex Salmond talks exclusively to Newsnet TV's Derek Bateman about the referendum, the rise of the SNP and where he thinks the unionist parties got it wrong. 
Recorded in Edinburgh, March 25 2015.
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mardi, mars 24, 2015

Willem J. Ouweneel: Christian Philosophy and Politics

Photo: Pete Bell
Wisdom for Thinkers:
An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Willem J. Ouweneel
Jordan Station, ON: Paideia Press
ISBN 978-0-88815-226-8
Pbk, 208pp, £7.50

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Power in Service:
An Introduction to Christian Political Thought
Willem J. Ouweneel
Jordan Station, ON: Paideia Press, 2014
Isbn:978-0-88815-229-9
Pbk, 146pp, £5.75

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lundi, mars 23, 2015

Darach Ó Scolaí: An tÚrscéal Staire


Labhrann Darach Ó Scolaí faoin úrscéal staire. Leabhar Breac 2013
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Liam Mac Cóil: Teanga an Úrscéil


Labhrann Liam Mac Cóil ar theanga na scríbhneoireachta. Leabhar Breac 2013
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Liam Mac Cóil: An Scéalaíocht


Labhrann Liam Mac Cóil ar an scéalaíocht. Leabhar Breac 2013
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Éilis Ní Anluain: Filleann Seoirse


Labhrann Éilis Ní Anluain ar a húrscéal Filleann Seoirse. Leabhar Breac 2013
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mercredi, mars 11, 2015

Westminster parties wrong-footed on GERS debate

Westminster parties 
wrong-footed on GERS debate
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp (11/03/2015)

GERS, the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland report, was published today and on the surface it contains both good and not so good news for the Scottish economy.

The good news is that Scotland’s public finances have improved according to the latest GERS. The country’s deficit in 2013/14 was £12.4bn, this is an improvement on £14.3bn for the previous year. This is a smaller deficit drop in percentage terms than for the rest of the UK and is partly because of tax falls from North Sea revenues, due largely to tax incentives for oil companies who hit record levels of investment in exploration and new field development.
___________________________________________
Get GA Ponsonby's Book! 
'LONDON CALLING: 
How the BBC stole the Referendum'

READ CHAPTER 1 HERE:

READ CHAPTER 2 HERE:

Order book HERE
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BROADCAST NEWS 14: Immigration coverage is playing with fire

BROADCAST NEWS 14: 
Immigration coverage 
is playing with fire
by Professor John Robertson, 
University of the West of Scotland, 11th March 2015

This is just awful. BBC Scotland interferes in the run up to the election with an unwanted survey on the attitudes of Scots to immigration. The willingness to fuel racism to influence the result of an election is the behaviour of a psychopath, in my view.

The March 7-9 broadcasts are reported in the second half of this report because they pale into insignificance with what happened on the 10th. I still can’t believe this is happening now. I didn’t think they’d do this. It’s not just anti-democratic, it’s fascist!

[...]BBC Scotland may pay a very heavy price for this mistake. Let’s hope the rest of us do not find ourselves witness to acts of violence against our good friends in Scotland’s minority groups. This is the most emotional I’ve been since September. Damn you BBC Scotland News and Current Affairs Department!
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Get GA Ponsonby's Book! 
'LONDON CALLING: 
How the BBC stole the Referendum'

READ CHAPTER 1 HERE:

READ CHAPTER 2 HERE:

Order book HERE
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Get GA Ponsonby's Book! LONDON CALLING - How the BBC stole the Referendum

'LONDON CALLING: How the BBC stole the Referendum'
Order book HERE

Political commentary:
'London Calling – How the BBC stole the Referendum', chronicles the descent of the BBC in Scotland from that of a trusted broadcaster bringing news into homes throughout Scotland, to an institutionally corrupt organisation so despised that thousands of ordinary Scots marched on its Scottish HQ in protest at its anti-independence bias.

The book takes the reader on a meandering tour beginning with the arrival of devolution and culminating in the No campaign's triumph in the independence referendum on September 18th 2014. The journey is signposted by significant political events all covered by the BBC. But lying beneath each news bulletin and broadcast was a pro-Union culture that was eating away at the broadcaster's integrity.

The book reveals how Donald Trump, Megrahi and Rupert Murdoch were used by the broadcaster in an attempt at promoting an anti-SNP narrative. It also reveals how headlines were altered, video footage edited, stories suppressed and debates loaded as the state broadcaster resisted the political change taking place throughout Scotland.

'London Calling - How the BBC stole the Referendum' will shock those who read it. But even more shocking is the realisation that the institutional corruption it exposes ... is still going on.
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More about the author: 
In 2010 G.A.Ponsonby created one of Scotland's most influential new media websites - Newsnet Scotland. The outlet, set up before the SNP's 2011 win which guaranteed a referendum on independence, was the first to directly challenge main stream media coverage of Scottish politics. Newsnet was also the first daily news outlet to officially back Scottish independence.

Ponsonby has written extensively on the BBC's coverage of Scottish politics for Newsnet and has helped expose many of the more questionable practices employed by the broadcaster.
In 2014, shortly after the independence referendum, he announced he was writing a book about the BBC and its role in the independence referendum. The book is based on almost seven years of experience monitoring the BBC in Scotland.
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READ CHAPTER 1 HERE:
Turning Yes into No

READ CHAPTER 2 HERE:
 The Impossible Referendum and a Trumped Up Smear
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Order book HERE
(Published early April)

Questions for the BBC and the agenda behind its “immigration poll”

Questions for the BBC and the agenda behind its “immigration poll”
By G.A. Ponsonby (11 March 2015)

This week I completed the eleventh chapter in my forthcoming book: ‘London Calling: How the BBC stole the Referendum'.

The chapter’s working title is rather dramatic: Anti-English, Nazis and Crackpots. It focuses on the demonisation of Yes supporters throughout the referendum campaign.

The chapter draws on examples from the past which sought to portray those who backed independence as anti-English and their political leaders as Nazis & intolerant racists. BBC Scotland, although not specifically driving this agenda, played a significant role in promoting the narrative.

The theme of the chapter was prescient. No sooner had I filed it than race and intolerance exploded into and onto the airwaves and pages of our news media.

[...]But little attention seems to have been paid to a ‘poll’ apparently commissioned by the BBC. This broadcaster has been promoting results of a Yougov poll that it claims reveals the views of Scots. The subject of the poll is immigration and BBC Scotland is covering the poll not just for one day, but a full week.
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Risk to votes as Scottish Government minister finds he is missing from electoral register

Risk to votes as Scottish Government minister finds he is missing from electoral register
by Janice Burns, The National 11 March 2015

SCOTTISH Cabinet Secretary Alex Neil and an MSP were forced to provide proof of their identity in order to vote in the General Election ... despite the fact they have both been registered at their home address for nearly 30 years.

Alex Neil, Minister for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights and former health secretary, said he was astounded that he “didn’t exist” on the electoral register even though he has voted in every election and the Scottish independence referendum last September.

The revelations sparked an investigation by The National which uncovered a crisis within Scotland’s voting registration system and mass confusion which could lead to thousands of voters missing their chance to have their say in the May 7 General Election.

A new Individual Electoral Registration structure was introduced in Scotland a day after the independence referendum on September 19 and every voter was sent a letter last November informing them of the change. However, many have had major problems registering their vote.

Previously, one person in every household was responsible for registering everyone else who lives at that address.

Under the new system, each person is now required to register to vote individually, rather than by household.

Individual voters must provide ‘‘identifying information’’, such as date of birth and national insurance number, when applying to register and applications will need to be verified before a person is added to the register. The deadline is April 20.
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lundi, mars 09, 2015

Hating modernity, hating the Jews: a reckoning with Heidegger

by Tim Black, Deputy editor, Spiked!

"But in an important way, the eternally recurring Heidegger controversy always misses the point. There is no doubt he was a Nazi. There is no doubt he was an unapologetic anti-Semite, right to the last. He was ‘a small man’, lamented George Steiner. But the point at issue, the point that we must grapple with, is the relationship between his anti-Semitism and the thought that has entranced so many. Because make no mistake, Heidegger is one of the most compelling and formidable thinkers of the twentieth century."
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samedi, mars 07, 2015

DOES GOD EXIST? 1985 Debate between Greg Bahnsen (Christian) & Gordon Stein (Atheist)


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Following alternate source has poor sound quality but good active transcript:

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Third optional source for quality comparison:

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The Bastardisation of the BBC

The Bastardisation of the BBC
by Grouse Beater (Dec 2, 2014)

Did Sarah Smith, well-meaning presenter of BBC Scotland’s  genteel political chatabout, ‘Scotland 2015,’ really trail her interview with retiring Gordon Brown as, ‘tonight, my interview with titanic Gordon Brown,’ when she meant titan?

If so, what Freudian slip of epic proportion. As it was, she gave him all the adulation he expected for selling out his country with the help of her employer, BBC.

‘Bastardisation’ is my creation but it conveys exactly a process over a number of years. In no special order:  the complete discarding of integrity, the diminution of funds, the contraction of output, the withdrawal of decision-making to London, the sacking of talented staff in place of competitive submissions from freelancers and independent production companies UK-wide, the elevation of the second-rate, and the betrayal of a nation it purported to serve.

The BBC’s own respected Newsnight journalist, Paul Mason, felt so moved he went public on the reason for his resignation, his disgust at the way the BBC has turned itself into a purveyor of half-truths and deceptions. It deserves a paragraph all to itself. He tweeted:

“Not since Iraq have I seen the BBC working at propaganda strength like this. So glad to be out of there.”

Sarah Smith’s ‘Titanic’ was an unintentionally amusing moment, the only one, in a pathetic litany of despicable propaganda organised by the BBC to derail the result of the Referendum. As a former executive employee I am ashamed to have thought that place the apogee of  a writer’s career. In fact, it is difficult to write about the BBC with any degree of impartiality  and still hold back rage and disgust. The BBC proved itself a stalwart of Westminster ideology,  a mouthpiece for the anti-democracy lobby.
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jeudi, mars 05, 2015

NewsShaft: 05/03/15


NewsShaft: 05/03/15
'Our special guest this week was described by The Times as "one of Scotland's leading digital consultants". He is the former head of digital at Yes Scotland, Stewart Kirkpatrick.  We're discussing all the hot topics this week in Scottish politics, as well as reaction to today's First Minister's Questions.'