The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures - "The theory behind outdoor napping is that children exposed to fresh air, whether in summer or the depths of winter, are less likely to catch coughs and colds - and that spending a whole day in one room with 30 other children does them no good at all.Many parents also believe their children sleep better and for longer in the open, and one researcher in Finland - outdoor napping is popular in all the Nordic countries - says she has evidence from a survey of parents to back this up."Babies clearly slept longer outdoors than indoors," says Marjo Tourula. While indoor naps lasted between one and two hours, outdoor naps lasted from 1.5 to three hours."Probably the restriction of movements by clothing could increase the length of sleep, and a cold environment makes swaddling possible without overheating," she says."
MP: 2 months after wedding, frogs divorced to stop rains in Bhopal - "The frogs were wedded on July 19 in drought-stricken Bhopal in a belief that it would please Lord Indra (Hindu god of rains) and bring rains in the region. However, in view of the heavy rains lashing Madhya Pradesh, the, er, "couple" had to be divorced to stop the rains."
Praise Lord Indra!
Shitposting in Asia Ironically™ | Facebook - "Facebook is temporary.
The ZUCC is inevitable."
Archiving a Facebook group before it gets zucced seems a better solution than repeatedly creating new ones
Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa commander fired - "Neary allegedly asked junior Marines how they felt about the N-word while they were conducting physical training with rap music using the word on in the background, “which prompted Neary to ask the junior Marines how they would feel if he said it,” and then said it"
How is the US going to fight the next war?
Of course, the NYT article left out crucial context in its headline and description on Facebook in a bid to manipulate readers into getting upset
Jennifer Schulte, ‘BBQ Becky’: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know - "Snider said the woman told them it was illegal to have a charcoal barbecue in the area where they were having their cookout. According to KRON, an Oakland Parks and Recreation map shows that the area is not a designated charcoal area, but is an area where portable non-charcoal grills can be used. Lake Merritt has three areas with stationary charcoal grills for public use, according to the map"
Being black means that you can flout regulations and anyone who complains is racist
James Lindsay - Posts | Facebook - "Mama, how do we know when we've crossed from the ocean to another?"
"Borders are socially constructed and you should be wary of anyone who takes them too seriously"
"This, from a children's book, says so much more than it means to. Besides the political ramifications, it suggests that social constructs (and what can be called a social construct) shouldn't be taken seriously.Full social constructivism would still be wrong, often dangerously, if it were used responsibly by the social constructivists by studying them for what they really are, but it almost never is (and they lie constantly about this). Mostly, it's done by *critical* constructivists.Borders, for example, are social constructs. In fact, they're political constructs, and a serious study of them would investigate what they do (good and bad), why they exist, what they imply, why they matter, etc., not do critical theory trash talk or postmodern dismissal."
Durex condom sales jump after virus rules relaxed - "The sale of Durex jumped when social-distancing rules were relaxed in the summer, says maker Reckitt Benckiser.The consumer goods giant said growth in its health arm, which includes condoms and "sexual wellbeing products", rose 12.6% in the last three months."
Police mistakenly beat undercover cop during Jambi jobs law protest - National - The Jakarta Post - "A video showing Jambi riot police fighting among themselves after an undercover officer was mistaken for a protester and beaten by a fellow officer has gone viral on social media amid widespread reports of police brutality during the protests... A man in the crowd wearing a grey hoodie, allegedly another undercover police officer, shouts, “Don’t hit him! That’s a police officer!”The man in the hoodie and the officer in riot gear then begin trading blows before being separated by other police officers."
Dominatrix shocks the world after walking man on leash through supermarket - "Shoppers at an LA grocery store were left with their jaws dropped after witnessing a kinky public display of a dominatrix taking her slave on a walk on all fours, to buy some necessities."
Woman Exasperated To Find Out She Has Been Paying Her Neighbour's TNB Bills For 5 Years
Malaysia Boleh!
Maple Ridge Halloween display raises concerns about racism, suicide - "Neighbours in a Maple Ridge area are taking issue with some of the Halloween decorations on display on the front lawn of a home.One woman who prefers not to be named tells NEWS 1130 the grisly display includes two dummies hanging by nooses, a guillotine, and a body cut open that wriggles when a sensor is activated.The woman takes particular issue with setting up a public display featuring hanging bodies, which can be especially painful for Black people to see because of the history of lynching. During a year that has seen a global reckoning on racism sparked by deadly acts of racist violence, the woman says the display is a “slap in the face.”"
???
Rapidly declining body temperature in a tropical human population - "Normal human body temperature (BT) has long been considered to be 37.0°C. Yet, BTs have declined over the past two centuries in the United States, coinciding with reductions in infection and increasing life expectancy. The generality of and reasons behind this phenomenon have not yet been well studied. Here, we show that Bolivian forager-farmers (n = 17,958 observations of 5481 adults age 15+ years) inhabiting a pathogen-rich environment exhibited higher BT when first examined in the early 21st century (~37.0°C). BT subsequently declined by ~0.05°C/year over 16 years of socioeconomic and epidemiological change to ~36.5°C by 2018. As predicted, infections and other lifestyle factors explain variation in BT, but these factors do not account for the temporal declines. Changes in physical activity, body composition, antibiotic usage, and thermal environment are potential causes of the temporal decline."
City Of Paris Is Fined 90,000 Euros For Naming Too Many Women To Senior Positions - "In 2018, 11 women and five men became senior officials. That meant 69% of the appointments were women — in violation of a rule that dictated at least 40% of government positions should go to people of each gender."
Most people on the NPR Facebook were upset about this. The law doesn't matter when you want to fulfil progressive ends. And sexism is only bad when it's against women
Kim Iversen - Posts | Facebook - "In the past 4 years, the only thing Trump did that directly impacted my life was lower my corporate tax (which was unnecessary). Democrats, on the other hand, have shut down the businesses around me, shut down the businesses of my family and have actively censored me. Why would I continue to flank with a party that actively works against my best interests?"
Meme - "The children, Orwell writes in 1984, "were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The family has become in effect an extension of the Thought Police."
"Maybe if they didn't think shitty thoughts, we wouldn't need to police them, If they are doing nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear."
The left, once again, taking 1984 as an instruction manual
Meme - "College Sophomore: "Eat the rich!"
The house they grew up in"
Comment (elsewhere): "Aint it funny how the most staunchly zealous communists come from rich, well-off means? It's almost like the entire ideology requires you to be disconnected from reality to make any sense at all."
Raj🇲🇾 on Twitter - "why do men start podcasts instead of going to therapy"
"The same reason females start an OnlyFans instead of dealing with daddy issues"
‘Bonjour-Ho’ Might Not Be The Great Greeting The Bloc Quebecois Thinks It Is - "In Quebec, it’s considered controversial to greet people by saying “Bonjour-Hi,” because many politicians believe that using the English word — even after the French one — is too much of a concession to anglophones.So the Bloc Québécois found a completely clear and uncontroversial holiday alternative: “Bonjour-Ho.”"
James Lindsay - Posts | Facebook - "Jesus of Nazareth, real victim of cruel injustice: "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do."
Wokie of Harvard, pretend victim of imaginary injustice: "Cancel them."
Wokeness carries an inverted cross."
Seattle weighs 'poverty defense' for misdemeanor crimes - "Seattle lawmakers are considering a law that would excuse suspects from most misdemeanor crimes if they can be linked to poverty or mental illness... The push comes as crime has spiked in Seattle this year, including during the Capitol Hill Occupied Zone protests in the city"
The crime rate is going to soar again
Peru: Police conduct drugs raid dressed as Santa Claus and elf - "The country's police have used disguises during raids for some time and say the method is an effective tactic.They have been known to dress up as homeless people and street sweepers in the past"
Scotland's deficit seven times higher than UK as a whole last year - "Scotland ran a deficit seven times higher than the UK as a whole last year, despite again cutting its overspend on public services... Mackay suggested the SNP would not try to cut public spending after independence but would instead focus on economic growth to cut the revenue gap. However, he was unable to say how quickly GDP would need to grow to avoid spending cuts."
I hope they become independent, because they'll go bankrupt. Even after they're forced to tap North Sea oil despite their virtue signalling
Trident costs a fraction of Scotland’s deficit - "Every time clear evidence appears, such as the annual GERS report, of the deficit Gordian Knot that an independent Scotland would face, rather than face the reality of massive cuts and tax rises, SNP ministers, spin doctors and apologists trot out the old canards of “we wouldn’t have the cost of Trident or the new aircraft carriers and we could grow the economy to close the deficit gap”. In fact the annual running costs of Trident will be around £2 billion a year and £200 million for the aircraft carriers.Scotland’s share of this will be less than £200 million, compared to a total budget spend of £71bn.This is equivalent to £40 per year, or two cigarettes (80p a week) per inhabitant, or six days of the annual £13bn NHS budget.And as for trebling economic growth to get our deficit down from 8.5% of GDP to the EU entry benchmark of 3%, Scotland’s GDP would need to be more than £400bn, not the current £160bn.This would take almost 35 years on current growth rates, or 10 years at 11%, a level which only China and India have ever achieved."
Higher income taxes and public spending in Scotland? - "The overall tax burden in Scotland is indeed higher... devolved public spending is around £1,300 per capita higher in Scotland than equivalent spending in the UK as a whole... in the past three years, growth has been more buoyant in rUK than it has been in Scotland. So whilst the Scottish Government has increased Scottish tax rates, the tax base has grown relatively more weakly than the rUK tax base... But if the Scottish income tax policy is contributing only around £8 per capita to the spending differential of more than £1,400, what accounts for the remainder?The answer is that the block grant provides Scotland with a relatively more generous settlement."
Scotland already has higher taxes and higher spending than the rest of the UK. Good luck raising taxes even more and/or lowering spending without English money, especially given a weaker economy (I checked and it's been the case for a lot more than 3 years)
Devolved spending excludes Scotland's share of Trident or debt, so that excuse is invalid
An independent Scotland? The economics point to brutal austerity and a trade hit bigger than Brexit - "The case against independence after Brexit rests on Scotland’s deep trading ties with the rest of the UK and its dreadful public finances. In 2014 independence would have meant little change on trade but the UK’s exit from the EU means friction would be almost inevitable.“The two economies are so interlinked it would make Brexit seem like a walk in the park,” warns Thomas Pugh, economist at Capital Economics.Scottish exports to the rest of the UK are more than three times higher than those to the 27 EU countries... “If trade barriers and a lack of access to your biggest trading partner is a problem, then leaving the UK and rejoining the EU to have trade barriers with the UK surely causes an economic hit,” warns David Phillips, IFS economist. “In the short to medium that is likely to be larger than the hit to Scotland from having trade barriers with the rest of the EU.”... GDP – could be aided by allowing higher immigration or pursuing a more pro-business and growth-friendly agenda. The latter could be politically difficult for the left-wing SNP. Big spending giveaways by the SNP and a plunge in revenue from North Sea oil have caused Scotland to lag behind the rest of the UK on deficit reduction in recent years.The 2014 independence referendum was held against a backdrop of Brent crude prices close to $100 a barrel.In the year after the referendum oil prices collapsed and have failed to recover fully. A referendum held now would mean prices 43pc below where they were at the last vote. Government revenue from North Sea oil has completely collapsed from £12.5bn in 2008/09 to just £1.2bn in 2018/19... Tough choices would therefore have to be made by the Scottish government after independence, according to Pugh: “Scotland would either have to cut spending, raise taxes or run a really, really big deficit, which for a small, newly-independent country doesn’t necessarily make sense.”That could wipe the shine off the SNP if it is forced to scrap or water down its flagship policies, such as free university tuition and free care for the elderly... For Sturgeon that could mean imposing austerity measures on Scotland despite blasting the Conservatives’ spending cuts.However, the IFS' Phillips says the SNP has shown “more realism” by setting up the Sustainable Growth Commission, which suggested keeping spending increases capped at 0.5pc for the next decade.He says there would “be austerity for many parts of the public sector” as costs elsewhere rise, such as health and social care. An independent Scotland would face tough spending decisions.Rejoining the EU does not make the economic case for Scottish independence add up as the nationalists are likely to claim"
Scotland Will Be The First Country To Make Period Products Free
Good luck financing this if they declare independence
How come men don't get free stuff?
The hollowness of Scottish independence - "Come Friday, this one-time party of cranks, having been confined to the margins of Scottish politics for much of its 80-odd years of existence, will have won its fourth successive parliamentary election. Its opponents are nowhere... The SNP’s electoral success is even more remarkable when one considers how dismal its governance has been, especially in those key areas of devolved policymaking: education and health. It has overseen a seemingly inexorable fall in standards of literacy and numeracy, with Scotland now the worst performing educationally of the home nations, continuing to slip down the PISA rankings. And the attainment gap between well-off and poor pupils, which it had promised to tackle in 2016, remains as wide as it has ever been. The SNP has also managed the decline of ‘our NHS’, as it insists on calling it, spending far less on it than even the parsimonious Tories down south, and allowing waiting-times targets to be repeatedly missed. And as reported in The Economist, Scotland’s drug-death rate per person is now three times higher than the rest of the UK, and 10 times that of Europe. Even its pandemic response has not been the success the SNP’s cheerleaders would have you believe. Yes, first minister Nicola Sturgeon has proven a more convincing communicator than prime minister Boris Johnson – largely because the authoritarian regulation of everyday life sits more easily with the nanny-statish instincts of Sturgeon than it does with the liberal-ish sentiments of Johnson. But the SNP was still guilty of making the same egregious mistakes as the Tories in England, in particular the shameful decision to discharge vulnerable elderly people from hospitals into care homes at the peak of the first wave. Not that this poor record in government will hurt the SNP. It continues to do what it has always done since it came to power in 2007 — play the blame game. Its failings are always those of hated ‘Westminster’; its struggles the product of its membership of the Union; its failings the fault of the English Tory establishment. The SNP may be in power in Scotland, but it is in its opposition to power in England that its appeal lies. Even more so, of course, since Brexit – which the SNP presents as an English, Tory imposition on a largely Remain-supporting Scotland, and the main justification for its pledge to hold a new independence referendum within the first half of its prospective five-year term. And it has worked. Brexit has fuelled the SNP’s continued ascendancy north of the border... ‘To escape Brexit.’ That is how it conceives of the value of independence. Not positively, in terms of the potential of self-determination and of the possibilities of nationhood, but negatively, in terms of freedom from evil Tories and from Brexit and all those who voted for it. Independence, for the SNP, has become merely another way for it to express its opposition to Westminster and English voters; another way for it to continue to mine its long-standing anti-political vein, while expressing its equally long-standing anti-democratic tendencies. But then, the SNP – certainly in its post-devolution incarnation (the SNP opposed European Communities membership in the 1975 referendum) – has never really taken independence seriously. If it had, it would not be committed to leaving one Union only to subsume itself within the far larger, far more undemocratic European Union. It is a commitment that makes a mockery of the SNP’s claims to want economic control, as a means to resist, as Sturgeon put it recently, Tory austerity measures. After all, not only would EU membership entail entry into the Eurozone and a loss of monetary control; the EU is also a long-standing champion of, well, austerity measures. Just look at what it has done to Greece. Worse still, by framing independence predominantly as a way to ‘escape Brexit’, the SNP avoids having to debate or outline its vision of an independent Scotland. When harder questions of currency or borders, let alone democratic deficits in the EU, are raised, the SNP and other so-called nationalists dismiss them as daft or as scaremongering. But perhaps the ultimate exposure of just how hollow is the SNP’s independence talk lies in its treatment of the Scottish people themselves. From the moment it assumed power all those years ago, it has subjected them to sin taxes on booze, nudges on food, endless lectures about their lifestyles, and increasingly brazen attacks on their freedom of speech. It has repeatedly shown that it doesn’t trust people to make basic decisions about their own lives, or even to have private conversations. No wonder it doesn’t really trust people to govern an independent nation, preferring instead the managerial embrace of Brussels."
How would Scotland work inside the EU? Five years on from Brexit, nationalists still don’t have a clue - "Seven years ago it was uncertain whether the Scottish government could have maintained a single market and customs union as well as the Common Travel Area with rUK by securing Scottish EU membership on the same terms as the UK. Now, the choices are painfully clear: since the UK is outside the EU, Scotland and the rUK can only share a single market and customs union as the United Kingdom. Faith in future oil and gas revenues has also evaporated. Global oil prices are a third lower than in 2014 and investment in the oil sector is in crisis. Rather than banking on a fossil fuel fiscal bonanza, the Scottish government has a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target for 2045. The 2014 referendum defeat also proved consequential for Scotland’s internal politics. Most of those pressing for Scottish secession have concluded that ongoing monetary union with rUK is a non-starter. Since a post-independence currency, EU membership and Scotland’s fiscal position are all connected, everything around Scottish independence has had to be rethought... For Sturgeon, Scotland must become a member of the EU while forsaking any monetary sovereignty. This would leave the Scottish government free to borrow in sterling but without a future Scottish central bank having the capacity to enact a programme of quantitative easing to support that debt. Without a national currency that could be placed in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, it would also mean trying to negotiate EU membership with an opt-out from joining the euro. Leading his new breakaway party, Alba, Salmond damns this form of independence as strategically hopeless, as if Sturgeon is not serious about obtaining anything other than more fiscal resources from Westminster. He thinks Scotland should do the opposite of what his successor proposes: start devising its own currency and give up on the idea of EU membership... It was the start of the eurozone crisis in 2009 that dissuaded the SNP from betting on the euro as Scotland’s future currency. It was the same crisis that unravelled David Cameron’s attempts to reboot the UK’s EU membership with a referendum. Brexit, then, increased the desire in Scotland for secession but made any version of independence inside the EU more difficult to realise – it created the spectre of an economic border running from the Solway Firth to Berwick... Compared to 2014, the Anglo-Scottish Union is now part of the political contest at Westminster."
Scottish households 'will lose £5,200 a year' under Alex Salmond's debt ultimatum - "Scottish households would be forced to pay £5,200 more a year in mortgage payments if Alex Salmond implements his threat not to take any UK debt after independence, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said yesterday. Danny Alexander cited analysis by Jefferies investment bank that found a separate Scotland would face far higher interest rates on borrowing in a backlash from financial markets. He warned that even if Scotland did take its share of UK public debt there would be a £1,700 increase in annual mortgage payments for Scots after independence... An independent analysis by Jefferies bank released yesterday found the damage to Scotland’s reputation with the international markets would see interest rates on bond yields increase by five percentage points... Cathy Jamieson, Scottish Labour's treasury spokesperson, said that “everyone knows” failing to pay debts triggers an increase in the cost of future borrowing."
From 2014. Relevant given Salmond's renewed threat
Can Scotland afford independence? - "As a second independence vote becomes more likely (be it legal or otherwise), any image of how the economy of an independent Scotland would look remains murky. Since 2014, Scotland’s deficit has increased, it has lost EU membership status and a worldwide recession has been caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Alongside this, what was once perhaps the great hope of an independent Scottish economy – oil and gas – is no longer a safe bet to be relied upon to see the country through any turbulence. Oil prices have been volatile at best in recent years and there is a growing global appetite for renewable energy for ethical and quota-fulfilling purposes... A study done by Hanwei Huang, Thomas Sampson and Patrick Schneider from the London School of Economics (LSE) found that Scotland’s income per capita is set to decline by at least 2% from the ramifications of Brexit alone. That is before any calculations regarding a potential independence are taken into account... The LSE team also ran both a high and low-cost scenario – with the high-cost being more pessimistic and expecting a 30% increase for Scotland in trading costs with the rest of the UK. The low-cost was estimating half of that, with a 15% increase. Both scenarios in the report predicted that Scottish independence would cost two to three times more than Brexit alone, in terms of income per capita. It should also be noted that the report’s predictions rely heavily on the assumption that the rest of the UK would continue to be Scotland’s most important trade partner, which is not something that should be taken for granted. Predictions aside, Scotland’s budget deficit has grown since 2014. Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) figures show that Scotland’s budget deficit increased to 8.6% of GDP in 2019–20, about six percentage points higher than the UK average... although Covid-19 has had an impact, this disparity between Scotland’s deficit – particularly in comparison with other regions in the UK – is set to continue. The report credits higher levels of public spending per capita (largely into public services) and slightly lower than average levels of tax as the main reasons for this. The report then advises that should Scotland become independent, tax rises and spending cuts would be required to offset the imbalance... “The EU is eight to ten times bigger than the UK, that is true, but the fact of the matter remains that Scotland sells most of its goods and services to the rest of the UK,” he says. “It hasn’t yet really penetrated Europe – it is still fairly marginal to its export drive.”... Andrew Marr interviewed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and questioned her policies regarding trade and borders. Sturgeon replied: “It is not the SNP that raises the issues of borders, this issue only transpires because of the UK government’s Brexit obsession and the fact that we have ripped Scotland out of the EU against our will… Of course we want to keep trade flowing between Scotland and the rest of the UK.”... “She says no one wants a hard border,” he says. “Well, she should have thought of that before because the fact of a hard border is that it will be the result of her party’s policy. England and the rest of the UK are not imposing a hard border, the result of leaving the UK will impose a hard border, and we just don’t know what losses that will lead to.”... “[If Scotland rejoined the EU] it would have access to the bloc’s markets. European countries, like countries everywhere, will be trying to recover from the effects of Covid in different ways and at different speeds. That will mean that EU countries will tend to look inward, and to favour their own projects rather than going for big export drives... “While it is legally part of the UK, the Scottish government cannot negotiate with the EU. But the EU can declare that, because Scotland has already long been part of the EU, should it become legally and democratically independent, it need not apply as a ‘new’ accession candidate. Instead, the EU and its member states should make a unilateral and open offer of membership – an exceptional proposal to match Scotland’s exceptional circumstances.” Lloyd is dubious about the letter’s content. “[The letter and this strategy] will not work,” he says. “It is not that the EU necessarily wants to keep Scotland out, I think it is mostly ambivalent about it. It is largely because it doesn’t want to encourage other breakaways in Belgium or Spain or elsewhere. “Also, the other 27 members will immediately object if one country is getting special deals or subsidies that they are not – it simply won’t work. So, Scotland will have a difficult task, and a lengthy one, to get into the EU. There will be some kind of hard border, at least initially. Maybe later on Scotland can have some kind of Norway-style agreement with the EU. Hopefully that would happen.” If Scotland were to rejoin the EU, the question of whether it would adopt the euro as its currency would again be raised. Murphy believes that Scotland adopting the euro is highly unlikely. “The idea of the euro has died,” he says. “I think that people realise that it is never going to be enforced. Look at Sweden – it gave a commitment to join the euro in 1995, and here we are in 2021 with the country making no effort to honour the commitment. It never will. For Scotland, I would strongly recommend EU membership, but not the euro.” Which leaves Scotland with yet another question to ponder: if Boris Johnson is unlikely to grant Scots a second referendum, would he (or any successor) be likely to allow the newly independent country permission to use the pound. What, then, would line the pockets of Scots after independence?... Murphy believes that if Scotland were to continue using sterling, or indeed any other currency, it would leave the country’s economy vulnerable to the power of the money markets. Indeed, these money markets, and Scotland’s banks, create yet another complex issue for independence, that of banking. Lloyd highlights that Scotland no longer owns its largest banks. “Both the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland had to be saved with enormous injection of funds from the UK government, ironically by two Scots in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling,” he says. “They have, to a degree at least, recovered but both have been swallowed up by larger banks.”... Despite this growth in financial services GVA, Lloyd says: “Scotland’s economy is quite diverse. There is no real central motor of the economy, which can drive Scotland’s success. If and when it went independent, it would have quite a difficult job, in the short and medium term, to become a successful economy. It possibly could do it; there are good universities, good research centres and a talented workforce, but it will take some time, and it would take a number of policies quite different from those that the SNP is presently [putting forward].” In 2014, Scotland’s oil and gas reserves were the safeguard of the country’s economy. That is no longer the case. Oil prices have been dropping alongside demand and a global desire to embrace renewable energy over climate-harming fossil fuels has left the industry with an uncertain future. Lloyd believes that this adds to the ‘no central motor’ economic problem Scotland would face as an independent country... Outside renewable energy, there are a diverse range of sectors in Scotland that have seen promising growth in the past decade, such as life sciences, advanced manufacturing, construction, financial services and creative industries such as video games. All of these sectors have the advantage of doing business in a domestic market that is 66 million people strong, and stands as the sixth-largest economy in the world. Independence would cut this domestic market to 5.5 million and the economy would dramatically shrink. So is Scotland too small to survive and thrive on its own?"
It's interesting how Brexit is supposed to be a bad thing because of how expensive it is, but Scottish independence isn't
