Bill

Sorry to hear you’ve been in a coma for the last year. Now that you’re back with us, a quick scan of any decent news outlet should provide what you’re looking for. Tip - take those blinkers off.

It's not just about a bigger stadium but our ability to evolve as stadium facilities change. I guess with enough money you could do anything but it must be less efficient to try to work around an existing structure built decades ago.

I'm strongly antisemantic and proud of it.

Same as against Australia ... Pakistan have two good openers ... then nothing

Headline in the Herald.......... now what could they possibly be hiding? SNP Government in secrecy row over football sectarianism report

I don't expect a contest. I expect India to slaughter Pakistan. Way too strong. But what do I know. I thought South Africa were going to make an impact!

Young players like Middleton, jones, Docherty, etc are a foundation for the next generation at Ibrox. We always said Rangers should be developing young players and this is us doing that. Some will obviously travel faster than others but I don't think we will be pushing Docherty into our first team next season. Another loan season at a higher level would seem more productive in the long term.

People are generally afraid of change, even for the better, and prefer to invest enormous sentimentality into the familiar. I must admit I would also be reluctant to move from the current stadium but any talk of major improvements without doing so are probably a waste of time. Since we don't have the money anyway it's purely an academic question.

Two newish managers, two teams in transition. As far as I can see everything depends on recruitment this summer and how well each manager can integrate them into their team. For the first time in many years I think we go into the new season with a fair chance of winning the title. Rangers - evens Celtic - evens Aberdeen, etc - don't make me laugh.

Why do we need big screens at all?

How would everyone feel about leaving the current Ibrox and moving to a new site, as we've done in the past?

How little many of us have to complain about. Compassion is all we have to offer those like Fernando who’ve been dealt a poor hand. So very sad.

Touring Europe by Land? Looking for adventure? Try the Islamic Kingdom of Sweden It’s Time for Sweden to Admit Explosions Are a National Emergency Published on June 11, 2019 The bomb exploded shortly after 9 a.m. Friday in a blast that ripped through two apartment buildings and could be heard for miles. Twenty-five people suffered cuts and bruises and 250 apartments were damaged. A nearby kindergarten was evacuated. Hospitals jumped into disaster mode. Photos from the scene show rows of demolished balconies and shattered windows. It was ”absolutely incredible” that no one was severely injured, a police spokesperson said. It is the kind of news we usually associate with war zones, but this bombing took place in Linköping, a peaceful university town in southern Sweden. Remarkably, it was not the only explosion in the country that day; another, seemingly unrelated, blast was reported in a parking lot in the city of Gothenburg earlier in the morning. Three explosions have been reported in Malmö since Tuesday morning. As of this writing, no arrests have been made. Sweden has experienced a sharp rise in explosions in recent years, predominantly related to conflicts between warring criminal gangs. The use of explosives in the Nordic country is now at a level that is unique in the world for a state not at war, according to police. In response, the government issued a first-ever ”amnesty for explosives” in the fall of 2018, allowing people in possession of such weapons to hand them over to police with immunity. But this didn’t stem the tide: some 50 explosions were reported in the first three months of 2019 alone—an average of more than one every other day and an increase over the same period in 2018, a year that saw a record number of more than three blasts per week. While explosives have become a weapon of choice among the country’s gangs, the effects of such violence are hardly confined to criminals. In the past four years, fatalities include a 63-year-old man who unknowingly picked up a hand grenade lying in the street; an 8-year-old boy who was asleep when a hand grenade was thrown into the apartment where he was staying; and a 4-year-old girl killed in a car bombing. There has been a corresponding marked escalation in gang-related shootings, which increasingly take place in broad daylight. Sweden had 45 deadly shootings in what police refer to as ”criminal environments” last year, which is an increase by a factor of 10 in one generation. In contrast, neighbouring Norway has less than three. Deadly shootings per capita in Sweden are now considerably higher than the European average. And systematic witness intimidation, paired with a code of silence in the country’s socio-economically weak immigrant areas, has made this type of crime difficult for the Swedish legal system to tackle. The rise in gang violence and other types of crime—including sexual offensesand a wave of robberies against children—has had far-reaching implications for Swedish society. In a country which boasts ”the world’s first feminist government,” a third of young women now report feeling unsafe going out at night. A recent survey in the country’s three largest cities showed that safety is now the main priority for Swedes who are looking to buy homes. Crime emerged as a top priority among voters ahead of the election to the European Parliament in May. According to the prevailing ideology of the Swedish political establishment, this wave of violence, which is baffling to many European neighbours, should not be happening. A longstanding cornerstone of the country’s political conversation dictates that crime must be understood in socio-economic terms, and that welfare provisions are a cure-all against violence and social unrest. Yet Sweden is one of Europe’s most generous welfare states. Instead of seeking refuge in ideological wishful thinking, the Swedish government should focus on reforming a criminal justice system that was built for a more peaceful society. To name but one issue: young criminals receive remarkably soft sentences. For example, a 16-year-old convicted of an execution-style killing at a Stockholm pizza restaurant in 2018 was sentenced to three years in institutional care for young people. The country also has one of the smallest police forces per capita in the EU. Before any specific issues can be addressed the Swedish government must acknowledge the severity of the matter. In the past few years, the rise in violent crime in Sweden has attracted growing attention from international media. How has the Swedish government responded? By launching an elaborate PR campaign for foreign audiences that plays down the challenges—especially those in the country’s immigrant areas. Nothing will change if the government continues to respond to the reality in the streets with cynical rhetorical spin. https://quillette.com/2019/06/11/its-time-for-sweden-to-admit-explosions-are-a-national-emergency/

What an absolute piece of trash this is. Justice Secretary?

Today the BBC says "Free TV licences cannot be saved with cuts to stars' salaries" Which is a particularly sneaky way to look at it. The truth is that no one has been "funding" free licences for the over-75's. As I understand it, what happens at present is the money that would otherwise have been paid by over-75's is deducted from a notional and entirely theoretical BBC public funding package, with the balance forming the actual working budget of the BBC. In other words, the BBC isn't currently "paying" for these free licences out of monies it has received, as it would like you to believe. Instead, the BBC is simply proposing to increase its future funding by a massive £745 million and to have our elderly population pay for it. Since the BBC appears to have been able to live within its current budget for the last several years, you have to wonder why it cannot now continue to do so. The idea that the elderly citizens of this country should have an additional tax burden of £150 unilaterally imposed on them by the gravy-train addicts at the BBC is risible.