Thursday, January 26, 2012

Can Anyone Explain?

There are several things I've been following that I can't make sense of and hope someone can explain. I'm either thick as a brick or missed some things that are key to following the story.

First, the Scottish Independence referendum. Neither The Scotsman nor the Herald has reported exactly what the referendum says, nor what Salmond said yesterday. So I sift through the Guardian website and finally find these, buried well below many other stories. And the take is that the question,
"Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?"
is a "loaded" and "biased" question. Eh? It's a yes or no. You agree or you don't. How is that loaded?

Then, in the same issue, I keep seeing "devo-max", and have no idea what that is. It's dropped here and there with implications but no explanation or context of what it is.

Next, the Davos convention. Why is Cameron talking about the Robin Hood Tax and lobbying for it to be squashed before it's even got teeth? Talk about contraception! It seems to me that from what I've seen about the Davos summaries, it's a big PR meeting for rich Capitalists to plan ways to get richer and stay rich. Is that the purpose?

So if anyone can explain what these are really about, please do so.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm? I believe like most things political these issues are designed as a fuggy fog to blur the skyline and confuse the populace. Seems to be working.

Twisted Scottish Bastard said...

Nope, sorry, haven't got a f*cking clue.

klahanie said...

Well, I'm totally lost in regards to it all. Besides, I thought "devo-max" was an American band, quite big in the late seventies.
'Are we not men? We are 'devo-max'...'

bazza said...

Hi. I think to be completely neutral the referendum question should ask: "Do you agree or disagree that Scotland should be independent?".
As it stands it is asking you to agree and therefore not neutral. It reveals the bias of the questioner!
Click here for Bazza’s Blog ‘To Discover Ice’

paulg said...

The Davos thing sounds like a bilderberger type of thing - same old, same old.

No idea on devo-max (or anything about the Scottish political landscape).
In general this strikes me as akin to asking someone, "are you going to leave your spouse?" in a public forum where it will get back to the spouse what your answer was.
So, in that sense perhaps it's a loaded question? Just guessing.

Austan said...

Well, I haven't sat long enough at the computer to follow up and find out more but I will.

I suppose it can be viewed as slanted. I give the human race more credit for intelligence than I should, I guess.

Gary- Were they not men? Were they max-men?