"In fact it's an open question whether he would continue to even be an EU citizen."

I don't think it is an open question in anyone's mind other than Salmond's. Given that even those within the EU who would be responsible for making such decisions have made it abundantly clear that Salmond would have to reapply, and the likes of Spain's PM have said he'd likely veto them joining then I think it's pretty clear what the stance of Scotland's EU status would be.

No, it's mostly where it is because they wanted to put it somewhere where it's easy to get it out into the deep water of the Atlantic - you can rapidly disperse them to places where they'll be almost impossible to find from the North Western side of the country. Putting it on the East coast like Newcastle isn't ideal because it's much easier for a country like Russia to get it's forces there to start searching, and there's less room for a sub to run.

So most likely places would, given that Ireland gets in the way to much of the West coast would be Wales, or Cornwall.

If you look at a depth map of the world's seas then you'll see that the current location gives some of the quickest access to very deep waters that our coasts offer.

I think Kirchner is too busy ruining her nation's economy to worry about that now. She seems to have dropped that topic now she's realised that it's no longer effective at distracting her populace from the fact that she's making them lose all their jobs and rapidly pushing them to a point where they wont even be able to afford things like bread.

I used to think that, but then I saw the price tag of HS2. We could triple our nuclear deterrent for the price of that and what does it give us? 20 minutes faster journeys to new stations that are 20 minutes from the outskirts of the handful of cities you can visit giving no actual benefit in practice anyway and with no doubt much higher fares to use it on top?

Trident is an absolute bargain compared to some of the wastes of money our government has a love affair with.

Even the handful of trains themselves are going to cost 1.5x more than a 4 acre aircraft carrier. I used to think many military projects were a colossal waste of money until I saw the cost of HS2. Now I think they're a bargain.

"Scotland has only been invaded by one country in the last 1000 years, it's a country to our south."

Why do you think that might be? Do you think, if say, Scotland was independent and the rest of the UK left it to fend for itself that you wouldn't have been attacked by the Nazis?

The whole reason Scotland hasn't been invaded by anyone other than the English in the last 1000 years is because the English have been running the single biggest empire in history for most of it and Scotland has thrived and been protected as a result of that.

"we just don't like the arseholes in Westminster telling us what to do (neither does large areas of England as it happens)"

Sure, and I'm in one of those parts of England where we have even less localism than you because we don't have a devolved parliament, but the idea of independence is far more retarded because we'd be even worse off again - sure we'd have more local politicians but you think someone in Glasgow is really going to be any more represented by a parliament in Edinburgh than they are London? All Salmond is selling you is that he'll get to fuck you over instead of the politicians in London, god only knows if Salmond's deal with Trump to overrule the rights of a Scotsman and his local council so that Trump could build a golf course isn't evidence of that I don't know what is - he doesn't give a shit about you any more than the politicians in Westminster and he's proven that enough times already.

Moving the place the people in control of you sit changes fuck all, increasing the accountability of whoever controls you and changing it to a relationship of serving you rather than controlling you is the only option to achieve what you're after, and you can do that far more prosperously in the union.

But perhaps instead of chasing independence you'd have worked with those of us in England to get that accountability and improved localism for the regions we might have got somewhere, but instead you're taking the worst possible option out of laziness.

Thankfully though, it seems that plenty enough Scots aren't quite retarded enough to take the stupid option that you're pushing so fingers crossed we can soon start focussing on a solution that makes sense, rather than one that's destructive fed by petty populist nationalist rhetoric.

No I didn't. Check GPs numbers, I was following from them.

Well that depends on the species doesn't it? Last I checked birds aren't a single generic type of creature that are entirely interchangeable in their roles in the environment.

Cats killing 200,000,000 common songbirds out of populations in the many billions is far less of a big deal than a solar plant killing 28,000 of a species which has less than 20,000 left in it's entire population.

You do realise there is more than one species of bird right? and that they have different levels of population and different levels of importance in terms of conservation?

I know each time the Assange story comes up you like to jump on it because the whole thing is personal for you (I haven't forgotten the last time you lost the plot on the issue, don't worry), but you seem to be making things up that aren't even there, which is a new low even for you. The story states very clearly that he was convicted in absentia, not simply that he was simply awaiting an appeal when he died, using Swedish translations of common words like "prosecute" doesn't add weight to your case by the way, it just makes you look even more desperate in your argument.

"And the British court system has at every level ruled Assange to be in a state equivalent to charged under the British legal system."

What the British court has ruled is that he can be extradited under the extremely lax checks of the European Arrest Warrant, something which is a major bone of contention in the UK and has been the target of much political preference for removal by MPs and precisely because it's such an utterly stupid piece of law in the first place. Pretending stupid law somehow adds weight to your overriding bias that Assange is a rapist is another example of your further highlighting the stupidity of your argument.

"But do you somehow know more about Swedish and British law..."

What I know is that not all these things are in agreement, so to try and stack them together to add weight to your argument is again, a further example of the weakness of your argument. I know for example that the prosecutor your refer to when stating her case in British court actually admitted that Assange could indeed be interviewed and charged here under the MLA framework (exactly like they did for this guy in Serbia: http://www.expressen.se/nyhete...), but simply insisted that she be able to do so in person in Sweden regardless.

What I also know is that whilst I may not be a professor of Swedish law, that professors of Swedish law also completely disagree with you, so your appeal to authority fallacy fails miserably in the face of a similar but opposite appeal to authority:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/a...

Another thing I know is that the British courts regularly get such human rights issues wrong, they spent 10 years restricting the liberties of Abu Qatada only for him to be found innocent when he finally got to Jordan, and there have been many other cases where British courts got such issues wrong. The idea you're pushing that they consistently get such issues right, and aren't ever swayed by politics is demonstrable false, again, as in the Abu Qatada case. The British justice system is imperfect and easily manipulated by politics, in fact, the whole reason we have a Supreme Court is because politicians wanted an overriding court with a politically appointed judge panel precisely so that politics could play a part in justice, which is yet one more thing that shows how utterly laughable your appeal to authority fallacy is in this respect.

So Rei, I think you should accept what you accepted last time this discussion came up, that this issue is one that is too personal for you, and that in Rei land a man accused is a man guilty is a man convicted is not how things should work in the real world. In the real world we like justice and due process, if that isn't being followed, which it isn't - because the Swedish prosecution are insisting on avoiding processes that could resolve this issue fairly and objectively, then there's a problem.

I really could not care if Assange is found guilty or not, I have no presumption of innocence unlike your presumption and insistence of guilt, I think there's a fair chance he may well be guilty all the same. I appreciate some of the things he has talked about and some of his goals, but that's by the by, I appreciated some of the things Rolf Harris did but it doesn't change the fact it's all overshadowed by him being a child molester - the same is true of Assange, if he is guilty regardless of what I think of his political views he needs to be dealt with over that. But none of that changes the fact that Sweden isn't interested in charging Assange, they're not interested in trying Assange - they've had options to do this over the last two years based on existing Swedish law and based on the MLA framework if they wish to investigate him or speak to him further, all they're interested in is getting him on Swedish soil, and this is where my problem lies, because they're not just wasting my money as a tax payer as a result, but they're implying that they don't want to solve an alleged sexual assault case due to the artificial barriers they've built.

You may think you can slip your dishonest arguments past people, you may think your obvious bias whilst proclaiming objectivity aren't noticeable, but I'm afraid neither is the case. On the bright side at least you can take solace in the fact that the likes of the British justice system is horribly broken, such that you'll probably get what you want. None of which will however get you the revenge you're seeking for what happened to you - you'll still have to get past that in another way regardless and it's a shame you've decided to let it twist you in this way such that you apparently think that arguing on the internet for subversion of the justice system (even if what you said was true, that procedure was being followed and had been exhausted, it's _still_ an affront to justice all the same) will somehow make it better. Your time would be better spent actually dealing with your problems, rather than wishing for poor implementations of justice to be cast upon people you politically disagree with.

Sure, and we took the same line with Abu Qatada - we watched his family 24/7, we held him in detention without trial, and we did this for 10 years whilst trying to send him to Jordan but requiring Jordan guarantee him a fair trial. We just had to spend millions trying to get him sent there and monitoring his family in the meantime, carrying out defacto punishments and restrictions on his freedom, because he "technically" skipped bail once or twice, we had to do this because he was accused by Jordan.

Luckily we finally were able to get Jordan to guarantee him a fair trial, we finally managed to ship him off after being good to our laws in restriction his freedoms for 10 years. This year Jordan was finally able to bring judgement on this man accused of terrorism and restricted in the UK for so long.

Oh, but turns out, in fair trial, he was found not guilty.

Seriously, UK law is completely broken on this sort of issue, the fact a person can be in and out of jail, can be constantly watched, can have his family tracked and pursued, all without charge because of accusations by a foreign nation only to be found to be not guilty all along is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Though it's also been the case in the past that people who skipped bail but are found not guilty or have had charges dropped do in fact have punishments for skipping bail dropped because they should never have been held on bail in the first place because they were never guilty of the crime.

So if Sweden did drop the charges, how Assange would be treated for skipping bail would be quite telling - there's no reason a judge couldn't accept his argument that he believed the charges were politically motivated and that in the fact of them being dropped he could be let go without further punishment. If they decide to pursue punishment for skipping bail in light of there being no case to answer though, that'd actually be quite unusual.

Perhaps it wont die because it's not actually a myth? What you quote, and state, states that the prosecution would like to pursue 4 specific charges, but there's the problem, all they're doing is saying they'd like to, they're not actually doing it.

The point is, that if they want to actually press charges then they should just do it. Yes, yes, I know the argument is that they can't because of a magical clause that prevents Sweden charging and trying in absentia. Oh wait, they can do exactly fucking that when it suits:

http://www.thelocal.se/2010052...

All the lies about Sweden having a "different" legal system that prevents them doing things that every other country in the world manages to do are exactly that, lies. Sweden can and does do things exactly like everyone else, they're just making an exception in lying about it in Assange's case.

Actually it happens a lot, Jordan and the UK were involved in years of negotiations to get Abu Qatada extradited to Jordan and it involved Jordan making outright changes to their legal system to accomodate and ensure Qatada would not be held to trial with evidence obtained via torture.

After many tens of millions were spent on the case, and Qatada was extradited to Jordan with a guarantee of a fair trial, he was a few months ago found not guilty.

It's a prime example of a case whereby governments try to bypass fair trials to get the outcome they want but are thwarted by human rights law, only for the individual to be found to be innocent all along when they finally get the fair trial they deserve.

Sweden's actions are out of the ordinary in that they both insist the case is important enough to pursue and not be dropped, but not important enough to focus on public interest reduction of prosecution costs by either questioning Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy which is something Sweden has done in other cases, or to give him a legal guarantee of no onwards extradition to the US. These are both things that contrary to the lies floating round otherwise they can and have done previously in other cases.

In situations like this countries make one of two choices - they decide a case is worth pursuing and do everything in their power, such as the option of giving certain legal guarantees as in the Jordan-UK Abu Qatada case, or they decide the case isn't important enough to pursue and drop it. What is abnormal is to just have the costs continue to rack up indefinitely whilst there are many means available to stop that happening and to resolve the issue.

I've done exactly what you say and have seen no such thing. I have however seen people like Domscheit-Berg carry out strong defamation and sabotage campaigns against him and Wikileaks, and who also seems to have gone oddly quite now that such character assassination is mission complete.

But more importantly I prefer to judge people not on what others say about them, but what they themselves say and do, and having listened to Assange's talks in-context (rather than all the out of context quotes that are often used to defame him) it's pretty fucking clear that that guy is really little different to Snowden - a largely rational well meaning intelligent individual.

But I know this is lost on you cold fjord, given that you love submitting your life and existence to the whims of the US government, whether right or wrong.

Sure but it's not merely violent crime I'm talking about, even things like burglary of empty homes has decreased. The only real increases have been sexual offences and most of these are because of mass revelations of historic abuse in the 70s/80s such that much of the increase is actual down to historic crimes, rather than recent crimes.

"Yes, that means punishing the victim. Whereas the victim here is a facilitator for the culprit. It's like leaving your car unlocked and open on the main road and someone using it for a bank heist. I don't know about yours, in my country, if that's your car you're due for facilitating a crime."

I actually agree that some victims should be left to suffer the consequences - god only knows there's been enough TV and newspaper articles aimed at every age range now that means anyone who is victim of a phishing scam deserves what they get.

But I have to ask, what the fuck kind of backwards country do you live in whereby you're guilty of facilitating a crime just because you did something stupid like left your car wide open? It's one thing to suggest the person not be covered by insurance (which is normally what happens in just about every sane country I'm aware of the laws of) but to hold them partially responsible for a further crime committed with their vehicle? what the fuck? Unless there's proof of intent that they did so with the intention of helping facilitate the crime (but then it's not stupidity is it? it's malice) then I don't think this is the case in just about any western nation.

That's the sort of twisted logic that implies a girl who wears a short skirt and gets raped is guilty of facilitating a rape, and someone who runs a Tor node should sign a sex offenders register if someone transits something dodgy across it. The only places I'm aware of such things happening are nations with really backwards laws like some parts of India, tribal areas of Pakistan, and some African nations.

It's one thing to not compensate someone who suffered financially for their own stupidity to ensure that there's a cost to such stupidity to act as a deterrent, but to hold people liable for other people's crimes just because they were stupid? That's really not a thing I hope to see in any country I ever have to transit through.

Interestingly since the UK changed governments to an austerity oriented government in 2010 and since the police saw large reductions in funding crime in the UK has actually dropped to the lowest point it's ever been in recorded history such that the UK is now one of the lowest crime countries in Europe (just over 10 years on from it being the highest).

Now, it's not that the cuts were the cause of this - it was trending in that direction anyway, but it's pretty clear that the cuts didn't stop or reverse the trend - a reduction in funding did not translate to a reduction in policing effectiveness.