bmck

it's probably because we have less free-market choice to excert pressure over what they print.

outstanding prize. have entered! now need to figure how to delete the other entries from the server...

me as well. like beowolf or one of the other old english poems, or pound's the seafarer. oh, great piece as well.

works for me, makes everything to the good a bonus i've just been called out gartnaval royal though, so it'll be later than lunchtime when i get back.

hey gazza. one another similar i done recently it was only around half an hour. ours is a little more complicated as we've got extra bits and bobs installed, but hopefully about half an hour unless something awful happens.

it died too much work and study. feel free to take up the mantle

welcome union_city_blue. i'm not quite as cynical as maineflyer, but for me the RST entirely lost its integrity in the way it dealt with the resignations last year. nothing subsequently has convinced me that anything has changed. that said, i believe in democratic supporter representation, and the more positive contributions on all fronts the better. best of luck!

lap it up lads, it's how you know they're hurting

i totally agree. the treatment table at ibrox seemed cursed or incompetently managed for such a long time. it seemed there were too many who never returned from it for it just to be bad luck. this is really encouraging to see. i wonder if naismith will even get in the first 11 now with rothen coming in.

^ shit, we've both said the same thing. that's rehearsed - smacks of conspiracy

saying this he'll probably come along and contradict me, but i'm fairly sure frankie has nothing to do with the assembly's website or the assembly itself (other than through his previous work with the RST and current stuff with the STS meeting, and that he may know people from it). i wouldn't be suprised if they put it up because quite a lot of people will want to know exactly what the deal with it is because they miss TBB. to me it's pretty clear. we got fined for descriminatory chants, TBB is is that chant. if they fined us once, there is some precedent and so they'll do it again; so whether it was either the club, the assembly or uefa, it makes no difference - the outcome is the same, uefa muscle means its best (in a having-to-be-pragmatic sort of way) that we don't sing it.

why shouldn't they, other than that it will annoy the other nations? i guess we could start getting philosophical about natural rights, and such like, but i think in the world of nation states war is basic, because everyone wants their slice of the finite half-time pie. i think it would be great if america could be nice and charitable and russia would, in turn, do something nice and charitable and not take advantage of it. but i don't think that's the case. it's hard to know what's right, but america isn't saying "follow us or we'll slaughter you", they're saying "follow us, or the advantages you get from us will stop". we might not like it, but it's hardly arrogance to play to your strengths. i'm not sure that particular song would get annoying even in those circumstances im not saying america isn't annoying - it clearly is - but they're that kind of annoying the best-and-knows-it is.

i think that's a necessary precondition of the possibility of greatness. where there's room (and affluence) to excel, someone's always losing. the egalitarian ideal promotes equality largerly by lobbing off the peaks and troughs. i'm not sure what is better, though i tend to think the former. anyway, my point was really just that it seems like common wisdom to think of america as some sort of great oppressor; as history's most powerful-nation-in-the-world-at-a-given-time goes, they're not too bad. you don't need to convince me. i think it's ironic that, in a democracy, we can think of the state and the spirit of the free man as independent. if our leaders are crap, visionless, and weak, then it's a reflection of the poverty of the soul of the free voters who voted for them. i prefer freedom to oppression, but excellence to freedom. freedom isn't an end; i think we think freedom is an end, when it should always be a means. freedom to do what? freedom to achieve what? who cares that we have more freedoms than iran? what do those freedoms allow us to do? that's what's important. i think that's what you're getting at - we've got tons of freedom here and we use it pettily. most scots nationalists are fuds anyway, tangent over, back to work

i take your point, but remember it's not just because of them. if we'd had someone take a dr-reid-style strong stance, either in the media or at ibrox, we could've shrugged it off. i'm quite happy for celtic fans to have the right to sing their vile shit, even if it disgusts me. the last thing i want is more bourgeois-moralistic regulation of football.

it's more of a nightmare. it's pathetic beyond belief. i'd kill myself, or, at least, stop being a rangers fan if we started becoming so obssessed with celtic as to start this sort of nonsense. i find it hard to read an article about celtic, or anything celtic related, even if it's a wind-up one on a rangers site. they exist only as something to beat at football. if i could work up mock outrage as well as they could, i wouldn't waste it on their petty shennagins.

i agree. a large part of america understands, still, citizenry. calling them arrogant because they are the best at almost everything is just jealousy. i like america; i would rather they were the most powerful nation on earth than any of the other contenders.

don't be daft. privacy in non public-interest contracts is a pretty fundamental premise of law. people can be relaxed about it if they want, but it's their legal right not to be.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrC1pnHHtiw]YouTube - Rothen au PSG[/ame] [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4wBmoF7XRE]YouTube - Rothen "brilliant passer"[/ame] few videos.

absinthe rocks. wormwood is supposed to be slightly hallucinogenic. a favourite of rimbaud

famine's over is anti catholic now? thought it was racist?

dm's newspaper?

it's all relative. love of maggie is relatively radical for our times. even the tories want to play it down besides, it's fun to be a radical :spl:

it's interesting that about ten years later a guy called fairclough released a book showing how new labour's use of collocational patterning (repeating the word 'new' in a million different contexts and combinations) in interviews and press releases totally manipulated the media into creating the impression that the labour government was all about the new, and change, and reform. it seems they learned their lesson, and perhaps we should too. a wise approach. i'm not sure why we can't just take the spanish approach and give up all pretense of objectivity. they have pro-madrid and anti-madrid papers, who are quite open about it, and don't bother masking their hate or love. i'd rather read someone who honestly hates rangers than one who disguises it behind nonsense, or fantasies of fighting sectarianism.

sorry i like swear words, i think they're descriptive, but i really should keep them for the pub and out of writing but i agree - i don't see the point in reading people who are paid to disguise their love or hate of our club and their opinions. the only difference between fans who write and journalists is first-hand access to news. i think this is one of the big reasons why the papers are quick to ridicule online fans as radicals so often - if i can read b_s, s_a, frankie, or cammy for free, why would i pay to read mcnee or one of his ilk? i'll only over get to have seen henderson on video memories like that are probably bigger than football as a whole, especially in it's modern state. there's too big a gap between players and fans now to produce those sort of memories, i tend to think.

i don't think that's what RFC are doing, though i do think it's increasingly what we are doing. the "rangers for me" boycott is a solid example, but i would imagine as many people failed to buy it because they couldn't endure spiersian anti-prose for more than a few paragraphs. to get loosely to the point, i think the best way to keep away from petty, reactionary, digs is to have strong leadership. for various reasons the RST, DM and the assembly don't have the clout or will to take a decorous but teethy stance on all this. i think that's a pitty, because strong leadership has unifying qualities, it provides a strong model that the lowest common denominator can aspire to. without this, i think most of our attempts will be dispirate and easily dismisable. spiersy probably got hit in the pocket a bit, but i'm quite sure the bbc organisations/petitions almost had a negative effect. that said, my own personal point of view is yours. i would've been one of the ones in athens defending perciles, i imagine. i don't care what the BBC, or the media in general, say about rangers fans because it's impossible for me to feel marginalised or victimised or dishonoured by idiocy. i don't buy their papers, i don't pay a telly license. and i think, unlike pericles, you might be right that even just maintaining the high ground will win out in the end, even if we didn't hit back. the number one rebel rule: when you don't have any political or physical power or success, you adopt the moral high ground to win some back. i think there's a danger of us doing that which your stance avoids. celtic have been doing this for years, but now that they have the mighty pen, eventually all that "we're so hard done by, we're the victims of such abuse" is going to fall in on itself. rebellion is only romantic while you're oppressed; it's hard to play the rebel, or oppressed, when you're in fashion. eventually society'll see through it. that and the fact that europe's moved right a bit - the liberal-pluralism that hunts out oppressed people everywhere to love isn't as cool anymore. i think if we can maintain the high ground just a little bit longer it'll all fall in on itself. anyway, enough amblings. i better get back to work.