Rod1877

Are Celtic not playing Dundee at Dens with a 3pm kick-off on the Sunday while we play Rangers at 12.30 the same day?

I don't think they released half of the final block in the top tier, nor the first 4 rows of the lower tier blocks. So probably a few hundred less than this at the moment.

For accuracy, the attendance at the most recent St Mirren v Celtic premiership fixture was 6,943.

Yup, as I suggested in my post. If it wasn't over the line at that point, it wasn't over at any point. Anyway, I don't believe that it can be definitive in that situation any more than it can be for offside, regardless of the supposed compensating thickness of the red and blue lines.

I should probably have paid more attention in geometry and trigonometry (although in my defence it was a long time ago) ... but if you can't use indirect angles to determine if a ball is behind a line at a fixed moment, then it seems absurd to use them to determine if a player is millimetres in front of another player. In the case of St Mirren's non-goal against Dundee (which, by the way, I don't think could be definitively determined) you would surely just choose the frame (or three possible frames) that might represent the point of contact with Joe Shaughnessy's boot. Re the bits in bold, judgement is being applied at each stage. All the while, the multiple points of reference (the players) are in rapid motion and the precise point of contact with the ball may be somewhat obscured since the camera could be behind the player making contact. If determination of the moment of contact even has a 0.5 second margin of error, that could represent 25 frames of footage.

If the VAR system is as accurate and conclusive as you make out, it should be perfectly capable of determining whether a ball is over the goal line or not. You have fixed points of reference in the posts, cross bar and goal line. You wouldn't even need to worry about which frame to choose since any frame that shows a line drawn from the ball as being behind the goal line would be definitive. Tight offside calls on the other hand involve fluid points of reference and they require extreme precision in determining which frame exactly corresponds with the point of contact when the ball is played. They are also often affected by the presence of other players obscuring the image and require perspective judgement since the freeze frame images are rarely in line and aren't 3D so can't accurately convey body shape.

Ignoring Eriskay, the next "big" island up is South Uist. Not too many Rangers fans about there either ... North Uist on the other hand ... bluenose central.

Interesting pick of Mark O'Hara at right centre back. "Jonners" making a play for inclusion in the "journalists who know their stuff" category.

In sharp contrast to Jamie Murphy who was described by Kheredine Idessane on Sportsound last night as, "the former Rangers man." Even allowing for a Wikipedia margin of error, in a 526 game career, Murphy played a mere 29 times for Rangers (most of them while on loan from Brighton). His contributions to other Scottish clubs seem a little more significant with 215 appearances for Motherwell and, most recently, 50 for Hibs. A reasonable pitch from Kheredine for inclusion in both the Terrible Journalism, etc and the Sportsound Watch threads.

It could be both. Private companies can be not for profit. Any profit (surplus) is normally reinvested in the company and not paid out to shareholders.

There's zero chance that you'll be getting any points on Saturday.

If collective responsibility is the test, why is HY not being slated for "trashing" her record as finance secretary by accusing her of leaving £600m on the table during budget negotiations with the UK government? Why did he not resign in protest? Why, when he knew all along that she was not suitably "progressive" did he not protest her appointment or resign his post in protest?

Did Kate Forbes really "trash the SNP's record in government"? Or did she just suggest that Humza Yousaf's personal record in his cabinet roles, as distinct from the record of the government as a whole, has been less than stellar? I'm not sure that it's how I'd have gone about it, but it doesn't seem too out of place in that particular form of debate when candidates are trying to demonstrate that they're more suited to the job than others. It's not as if any of it hasn't been said before and it seems to me that she gave him a perfect opportunity to defend his record. The fact that he was unable to do so with any kind of conviction was more telling.

Arguments for what? You said that Kate Forbes' church thinks that adulterers should face the death penalty. It doesn't. So, again, if you want the rest of what you say to be taken seriously refrain from indulging in palpable nonsense. As for your subsequent anecdotes, the first sounds incredibly unlikely, and Lord Mackay was not a member of the Free Church.

If you want to be taken seriously, don't include nonsense like this. The openDemocracy article is also sensationalised drivel with its claims of "shadowy" Christian groups, "dark money" and the startling revelation that Kate Forbes had an internship with an MSP five years before becoming an MSP.

That would be a valid concern if the Free Church (or Kate Forbes) believed in theocracy. They don't!

A major problem in this whole debate is that you need a reference point or some sort of definition for 'sin'. When most people hear something being described (by a Christian) as a sin, they think that what is being said is that anyone who does that thing must be a terrible person doing a terrible thing (equivalent to something like murder). However, that's not what the Christian hears as they say it and it's not what they mean. Sin, as understood by a Christian, only makes sense with God as a reference point. It's anything at all that is opposed to God and his law (see previous long winded post) and that breaks relationship with him. So, greed is sin. Wishing harm on someone else is sin. Lying is sin. Therefore, a Christian with any sort of self awareness looks at themselves and recognises that they commit all sorts of sins every day. They have no basis for any feeling of moral superiority. They simply fall back on God for forgiveness. If someone doesn't believe in God, then that understanding of sin as something that comes between them and God makes absolutely no sense. They have to find the basis for their behaviour and moral judgements somewhere else. But to pick up on the point in bold above, she probably thinks this ... "Are you so dull?” [Jesus] asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) Mark 7: 18-19

I miss the Bartlett presidency. However, this clip is simply trotting out the straw man stuff seen elsewhere on this thread. There are undoubtedly many things in Old Testament laws that are strange to the ears of modern readers but the laws around things like shellfish eating, mixed threads and so on present no issue for Christians. Very roughly, you have three categories: Judicial laws - these are the codification of an entire legal system for a brand new nation living among people groups that were involved in all sorts of practices that God wanted Israel to distance themselves from. Some of the laws that we think sound terrible are actually radical protections against some of the worst excesses of the time. God basically wanted his people to be well governed, orderly and different. Ceremonial laws/sacrifices - these were designed to highlight the holiness of God and the lengths that sinful people had to go to for their worship to be acceptable to him. They needed constant repetition (for repeated sinning!), were always intended to be symbolic and always pointed towards an ultimate once for all sacrifice for sins - the death of Jesus Christ. Once that final sacrifice was made, the others were no longer needed. Moral laws - these were about how people should live in relation to God and their fellow human beings and are summarised in the 10 commandments. Jesus summarised this as loving God and loving our neighbour. There remains some debate about overlaps between the moral law and some of the judicial laws. Eating shellfish is not one of those overlaps! The New Testament makes clear that the first two categories are not binding on Christians, whereas its teaching on all sorts of things from human sexuality to greed to treatment of the poor, lying and so on indicates that the moral law continues to apply. Even then, salvation doesn't come from adherence to the moral law but from trust in Jesus Christ. Apologies, maybe this should have gone on the Christian theology thread!

Everyone falls back on their beliefs for guidance. Everyone has a worldview. Nobody is neutral.

It's not.

It's fairly obvious that the exchange was about oral presentation of the case in court and nothing to do with written submissions or Daily Mail reporting. Even if you did miss the original post and its commentary on the Lord Advocate's performance, it's very difficult to see why you would think that the post you actually replied to was referring to earlier written submissions by the Advocate General. You replied ... ... in response to this ...

The Lord Advocate presented the SG's case and the UK Government's case was presented by Sir James Eadie. I'm not aware of the Advocate General for Scotland having any involvement. The initial poster referred to Dorothy Bain's submissions and followed that up by saying that they'd have been as well having Donald Findlay presenting the SG's case.

Dorothy Bain isn't the Advocate General and isn't an appointment of HM Government. She's the Lord Advocate, a minister in the Scottish Government, appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the First Minister with the approval of the Scottish Parliament.

More successful in the pool because they're an island nation ... according to Mark Foster.

Absolutely delighted with the 3 points but it was a pretty terrible game of football throughout. The second half was probably marginally better than the first in terms of any football being played. I thought we were excellent off the ball but really struggled to keep any meaningful possession. When we won it back we were wasteful with some good counter attack opportunities. However, the goal was a thing of beauty. I was really surprised how pedestrian Aberdeen were. Loads of possession without any apparent purpose and didn't really threaten at any point. I've seldom watched us see out the last half hour of a game so comfortably while holding onto a lead. It was a really strange performance from the Dons. Our defence will rarely have a quieter evening. We weren't great, but we didn't need to be.