The Never-Ending Always-Changing Off-Topic Thread

[msshendo]

I honestly didn't notice the pun. Thanks Wetters. Have a happy Friday!!!!

[Inconinmiss]

I would like to congratulate the people of Scotland for having the good sense not to separate from the United Kingdom.

[msshendo]

Agreed on the Scottland thing. That just would have mucked things up. Especially for the sterling.

[Rope_Wrench]

I would like to hear what wheels5894 has to say since that is his home. Other then the history and the he fact that most Britain's look down on the Scots( so I have heard), I'm curious what other issues there were.

[wheels5894]

Ah, the referendum thingy? Well, yes, I live in Scotland. I have done for 22 years. I have only another 100 years to go and I might be thought of as a local!:-) We moved up from England.

Really, Scotland is quite different from England - we have our ow legal system, education system which are different from England. Since we got a parliament of our own we have been doing our own thing rather well. The trouble is that Westminster, the UK parliament still controls taxes, benefits and such like and the Scots have had a bad deal out of this stuff. Thus the movement to gain independence from the UK and go it alone like Norway.

I voted 'yes' yesterday but, at my age of 65, I was in a minority of 27% who did. The older end of the population apparently seemed to either think that 'no' meant things would not change or that they believed the 'promises' the Westminster party leaders made. Either way, we lost the vote and are now about to become worse off - when anyone gets round to it.

Wait until 2018 when the Conservatives take us out of the EU and we will be back for another vote!

[msshendo]

Wheels,

Do you Scot's have representation in Westminster or are we harkening back to the other side of the pond around the late 1700's? There's a lot to be said for independence and there is a lot to be said for stying in the fold so to speak.

[wheels5894]

Wheels,

Do you Scot's have representation in Westminster or are we hearkening back to the other side of the pond around the late 1700's? There's a lot to be said for independence and there is a lot to be said for staying in the fold so to speak.

Oh, yes, we have 59 MPs at Westminster but the other some 590 are not from Scotland so Scots matters are not that well dealt with - expect collecting the taxes on our oil, whisky and for the fishing of course.

[msshendo]

What do you all think about how America is handling ISIS?

[WetDad]

What do you all think about how America is handling ISIS?

So much to say, so little time...

ISIS/ISIL/AlQueada/Whatever. Different groups around the world have been trying to kill each other since the beginning of recorded history. Right now, it's the Muslim extremists in the middle east. Sunnis vs. Shiites vs. Jews vs. Christians, but mostly just Sunnis vs Shiites. Those yelling loudest for the US to get involved are NOT from that part of the world- it's the petro-firms who long ago left the US saying our taxes were too high. So why do we care about them? When Arabia/Egypt/Jordan/Syria/Iraq/Iran all come begging to us with open checkbooks, we should reconsider. Till then, we should stay out, IMO. It serves us no good to get involved where we are not wanted. We are seen around the world as meddling in affairs we know little about. They may well be right.

[msshendo]

I completely agre WetDad. As a country we do meddle in too much. I disagree with the strategy presented, training moderate rebels to fight the extremist rebels. Does no one remember the Taliban that we armed and trained to fight Russia out of Afghanistan and then we ended up fighting them in the gulf war?