Scoville Units Unite

So it seems the Yes camp have been ignoring the main issue of the referendum campaign:

What plugs will we use? There may be 650 questions answered in the White Paper, but this wasn’t one of them. Why did the Yes camp not anticipate this particular one and print it? Eh? Eh?

It’s a total fundamental issue, obviously.

Right now the whole of the UK uses the BS1363 adapter

But this is a British standard, used in the UK. If Scotland leaves the UK it leaves the plug too.

So what are the alternatives? What is Fat Alex Salmonds plan B?

Is it the Europlug?

As we all know, there will be millions of months of negotiation before Scotland will be allowed in the Europlug, not the fantasyland immediate entry over 18month time frame by Nicola Fishname.

Is it the American plug?

Obviously not, America won’t be happy over the selfish and irrational decision to remove their weapons of mass destruction er, the UK’s vital independent nuclear deterrent from Faslane, instantly making every person in Scotland unemployed.

Will it be the NZ plug? Used by Australia, New Zealand and other former members of the British Empire whose separatists took the crazy political decision to stop pooling their natural resources with the UK.

So what option is left, a new untested, scary, independent, never tried plug?

Why has this topic not been addressed. Vote No Thanks To New Plugs.

Note: This post is clearly not a satire of the logic and relevance of the garbage being spewed daily by Alistair Darling and his friends in the Orange Order, Tory Party, BNP, Liberal Democrats, Golden Dawn, Labour, UKIP and the Daily Mail.

I managed to catch up on some of the new Mike Judge show Silicon Valley and was quite amused.

This clip shows the reality of remote conferencing type tools. A bunch of nerdy nerds in Silicon Valley with a small start up. Stupid money flows around and everyone has their own ideas for software to make the world a better place. The best being human heaters which blast you with microwaves.

Another clip shows why and how they started Scrum.

It’s full of good references, similar to IT Crowd, with a few howlers that you can let pass for the sake of making the show flow (only one of them knowing Java, yeah right and a disturbing lack of source control). It mocks nerds and nerd culture whilst showing the PR people to be babbling techno-phrases

The Scottish Government has published the interim constitution for Scotland should independence be achieved in September.

The first part deals with the bill itself, so the constitution is off by one in articles

2. Sovereignty of the people

In Scotland, the people are sovereign

Fantabulous.

3. The nature of the people’s sovereignty

State power deriving from the people. Accountability but no mention of how – right of recall etc.

4. Interim constitution for Scotland

That this constitution will be in place until Section 33 has taken place.

5. Name of the State

It’s Scotland. No surprise and obviously doesn’t include any superfluous, usually incorrect titles.

6. The territory of Scotland

at formed the territory of Scotland immediately before Independence Day.

Given the change in sea boundaries up past Carnoustie, this leaves a bit of a gap should Westminster try any dirty tricks.

7. Form of State and government

(1) Scotland is an independent, constitutional monarchy.

Doesn’t seem like this is valid, given Section 2 says that the people are sovereign. How can you then have a sovereign?

8. National flag and anthem

Not quite sure why the Parliament could choose the national anthem. Perhaps in case of some online poll abuse or troll attempt to pick Ricky Martin or something.

9. Head of State

(1)Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is to be Head of State, as Queen.

Fuck right off. What’s the point of campaigning for greater democracy then handing state power over to an unelected monarch.

10. Legislature

The Parliament can change laws, and is subject to the constitution. Not sure yet how amendments are made then?

11. Executive

The Government has Executive power. All normal stuff.

12. State accountability to the people

The Government, Parliament and their members are accountable to the people. No mechanism for this is found. Surely something better than hope people vote them out in 4 years

13. Independence of the judiciary

Judiciary being independent from the parliament.

14. Supreme Court

States the Supreme Court would only be overturnable by European Court of Human Rights (etc) should we be a member of them.

15. The rule of law

We have laws. Seems weird that this appears after 13 and 14.

16. The Scottish civil service

There will be one. Pretty standard stuff.

17. Local government

There will be a layer of local government. Not groundbreaking.

18. Scottish citizenship

Every single person in Scotland with existing UK citizenship will be entitled to Scottish citizenship.

19. International relations and foreign policy

Respect international laws, promote peace etc.

20. International organisations

Try to join existing organisations we are members of, presumably everything from NATO and the EU to the International Olympic Committee.

21. Ratification of international agreements

Scottish Parliament must sign off on international agreements

22. Incorporation of international agreements

How international law interacts with Scots Law.

23. Nuclear disarmament

Fuck off Trident

24. Incorporation of European law

EU law interacting with Scots Law

25. European citizenship

Scots citizens are EU citizens. 24 and 25 do seem to depend on Scotland being in the EU.

26. Respect for human rights

Comply with European Convention on Human Rights

27. References to the European Convention on Human Rights

How it interacts with Scots Law.

28. Equality

Every person is equal before the law in relation to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.

29. Children’s wellbeing

Children are those under the age of 18, the State must support children.

30. Island communities

Take in account that Island life is different from mainland life.

31. The environment

Conserve different species and tackle Climate Change

32. Natural resources

Use our natural resources sustainably.

33. Provision for a permanent constitution

A Convention to be set up but no details yet of how and who’s involved. I would obviously be in favour of everyone.

34. Continuity of laws

The laws currently in force will stay after independence day until they are changed/repealed

35. Repeal of the Act of Union

Repeal of the Act of Union 1707. Hopefully a section here can be added for the Repeal of Union of the Crowns 1603

36. Commencement

Timeline for sections of this document coming into force.

37. Short title

Call this Scottish Independence Act 2015

A few great sections, lots of legalese boilerplate and space for changes to be made. Overall seems alright if not very inspiring. My biggest concern would be the lack of detail over who will be involved in drafting the proper constitution. Having said that it’s not a deal-breaker, becoming a country with a Constitution is more important than staying as one of the three without one.

With one area still to declare the result, it looks certain that an organisation which doesn’t exist on the ground, has no elected councillors, MPs or MSPs will have an MEP elected with around 10% of the pitifully low vote.

UKIPs David Coburn was parachuted in from London after a fight in Scotlands UKIP group led to most of the leadership resigning. He proved himself an utter embarrassment on every show he took part in. Interrupting people, talking over them, getting peoples names wrong. As well as the usual terrible pish you expect from the mentalists of UKIP – the SNP are fascists, Salmond is like Mugabe and the like.

Even this morning he was incapable of naming a law he wanted abolished when pushed about it. He went to the new UKIP go-to excuse, of being tired. I won’t be surprised if it’s not long before he is found tired and emotional and has to resign, as around a third of their MEPs resign or are jailed before their term ends.

What caused them to be elected?

The number one reason has to be from the ridiculous amount of media coverage they have received over the past year in both the UK and in Scotland. The most embarrassing being the Question Time independence show which had George Galloway and Nigel Farage, even though neither have any elected members in Scotland at any level whilst the Greens who have councillors and MSPs were not included.

From the results as they stand, just 25K people who voted Green voting SNP would have excluded UKIP. Similarly, just 35K voting Green instead of SNP would have done the same.

The SNP or the Greens convincing 35K people who didn’t vote to turn up and vote for them would have also changed the outcome.

This is bad right?

Well if you think giving some Walter Mitty (read it, seriously!) a million pounds a year to froth about minorities bad then yeah.

It could we worse though?

Course it could be, in France the Front National have won. Openly racist parties have won in Hungary and Denmark. It also looks likely an actual Nazi has won a seat in Germany. In Greece the fascist Golden Dawn have won a large chunk of votes.

Any silver lining?

The BNP have been wiped out with Griffin claiming that they lost because the racist vote went to UKIP instead.

GUE/NGL seem to have increased from 35 with at least 41 so far including big gains in Greece (SYRZIA) and Spain. The Feminist Initiative have also as expected won a seat in Sweden.

It’s almost time for the most low-key elections in the UK, the election for Members of the European Parliament.

As you are no doubt aware (cough) our 6 current MEP’s are:
SNP: Ian Hudghton, Alyn Smith
Labour: David Martin, Catherine Stihler
Tory: Struan Stevenson
Lib Dem: George Lyon

I’ve occasionally emailed them when hassling all elected members and found them all to be a bit useless. So now it’s time to elect some more. In the d’Hont system the SNP would need to lose about 100,000 and Labour about 50,000 votes to change lose an MEP so the actual battle will be for the final place. Last time the Lib Dems got the last one with 11.5% of the vote with the Greens closest at 7.3%.

So who are the group of parties we have the option of voting for?

Britain First: Defending the Union 2014

Who they? You might say. A bunch of racist mentalists, cos there aren’t enough of those. Bankrolled by Jim Dowson who previously threw loads of money at the BNP after he got bored of sending photos of miscarried babies to teenage girls campaigning for womens rights. Creators of some awful, lying meme-style photos you may have seen random aquaintances post onto facebook/twitter before pointing out they are sharing fascist propaganda.

They are defending the union somehow, maybe confusing this election with the referendum.

Vote for them if: the BNP are a bit too wishy washy for you.

British National Party: Because we can make Scotland better

Your favourite bunch of knuckle dragging holocaust deniers are back. Having had another purge in Scotland and lost almost all their councillors to defection, incompetence or jailing, this time the split of votes amongst all the parties who hate non-white people might even see them lose their MEPs. Let’s hope so.

Vote for them if: you would normally sign your name with the X you put in the box.

Conservative Party: Scottish Conservatives Vote No to Independence

Not even using a pretendy name to try and look Scottish, their tagline is however amusing. It’s a statement. The Tories vote no to independence. None of us were surprised by this. Might as well have been Scottish Conservatives Vote To fuck over the poor. Unless it’s meant to be a call to arms or something. Who knows. Their youth wing cancel their AGMs having sold 12 tickets (haha), so hopefully this bunch of aresholes will toddle off soon.

I did receive a mailshot from them which also had a fair chunk about the Referendum. Do they not know what day it is?

Vote for them if: you are part of the blue hair brigade and love Maggie (dead dead dead).

Labour Party

Too lazy to pretend to be a Scottish Party, or to even have a slogan. Maybe they think the appeal of their candidates will be enough. In Brussels they amusingly sit in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group. So if you take out the words which don’t describe them they would be the Alliance of and.

Vote for them if: you are worried that the Tories will get 50K more votes to take their seat or are confident that they can get 150K more votes to take a third seat.

Liberal Democrats: Scottish Liberal Democrats

Everyones favourite chameleon party are back and as shit as ever. This is where the real fun begins. Their seat is up for grabs by either the Greens or UKIP.

Vote for them if: your head is zipped up the back and you believe anything these shysters say.

NO2EU: Yes to Workers’ Rights

NO2EU are back and appear as silly as ever. I was at a meeting hosted by the CPB the other month and their speaker insisted that if Scotland was independent it would join Europe. He probably wasn’t told Scotland is already in Europe and his parties head in Scotland was standing for the parliament the next month. As far as I can tell they still contain the Liberal Party who recently had a member arrested on suspicion of racial or religious harassment. Quoting some book by misogynistic racist areshole Winston Churchill.

Haven’t seen any material by them this year but last time they jumped on the let’s play dog whistle politics bandwagon by railing against social dumping instead of showing solidarity with exploited labour.

Vote for them if: you don’t like the EU but don’t want to vote for fascists.

Scottish Green Party

No slogan or nonsense from the Greens. Probably closest to sniping the Lib Dem seat and hopefully from UKIP. Maggie Chapman is the lead candidate. Certainly better at the RIC conference than on Newsnight the other day (not helped by rude constant interruptions from the UKIP candidate amongst others).

Vote for them if: you would prefer a socialist than a UKIP member to represent you.

Scottish National Party (SNP): Make Scotland’s Mark in Europe

Unlike 2 of the Unionist parties, the SNP are focusing on Europe in their slogan for the European elections and not the referendum. They already have two MEPs so a vote here will be thrown away.

Vote for them if: you want to throw your vote away. They will get 2 MEPs, no more no less needing a highly improbably number of votes to change.

UK Independence Party (UKIP)

Current media darlings. There’s been a coup in Scotland. Out with the swivel-eyed loon Lord Monckton, in with boorish carpetbagger David Coburn. Purveyors of dog-whistle politics and hypocrisy they are puffed up in a media bubble by right wing rags who have chosen to cover their every fart and statement instead of just printing BNP propoganda. In a bit of a bind as when anyone other than Farage makes a public statement they end up being a rotten apple in the barrel and they are resigned.

Zombie Farage

Vote for them if: you are a racist areshole who is too cowardly to just vote for the BNP instead/you want Scotland to be an embarrassment with one of these loons in power.

Conclusion

The last seat is all up for grabs. The choices are a campaigning councilor who cares about grassroots democracy, a Lib Dem who has been invisible in parliament and a carpetbagger shipped in using racist propaganda. It’s clear the Greens are the only vote for anyone progressive.

This weekend saw a bit of a diversion at Kage, a play taking part in the bar: The Hard Man. With live music accompaniment from the Victorian Trout Conspiracy.

It was written by Tom McGrath/Jimmy Boyle and this performance was by In Your Face Theatre.

The play started as soon as you arrived at the venue, continuing through the interval. You were greeted by Danny, the manager of The Wee Red Bar. The sleazy bar manager has a name which could be a mix of Dave and Kenny which obviously has no relevance at all ;). Trying to go up the stairs there’s a wee nyaff blocking it (in character).

I had arrived a bit before friends so the actors were all milling about, approaching people and chatting to them. It helped you get the characters you were away to see and helped them get in character too.

The Victorian Trout Conspiracy were playing and the part where the play starts isn’t completely clear. The actors start to have a fight whilst watching the band and then the dialogue kicks off. It was really cool, much more immersive than watching a play with the lights come on and queued MP3s of music/effects. Kenny also provided some scabby stools to be used as props for the fight scenes. One of the actresses was behind the bar pretending to work.

I was giggling slightly at the Richard Herring-esque scam idea of hosting a play in a bar, insert some scenes where you get beers and you save virtually pounds whilst spending hundreds of pounds touring.

The troupe must have been about 10 people, playing various characters, centred around the story of Johnny Byrne. The real story starts with him looking back telling you how he will show you what has happened to him, from his perspective.

Starting off as a 14 year old, bunking off school with his 2 pals, they start working for a club owner who has his fingers in drug dealing, prostitution and loan sharking. The eventual ascent to violence by Johnny is shown, with him gaining a reputation as the hard man. The depiction of Johnny’s life being punctuated with others perspective of what is going on. People gossiping in a bar about their antics. His girlfriend, he brutalises through threats, emotional abuse and violence. His friends he treats as minions with constant psychological battles with his No1. His victims he takes pleasure in meting out punishment to from beatings, disfigurement and sexual assault of their loved ones, usually accompanied by the band playing appropriate music.

The fourth wall is consistently broken, interaction with and comments on the audience, pulling you into the play. You really do feel like an observer as to what is going on rather than an audience member of the play.

Eventually the violence leads to guns and murder.

The final act shows Johnny adapting to life in prison. Beaten up by sadistic guards, he is repeatedly left a physically broken man. Grim elements of sectarianism and prison rape are introduced with large numbers of scenes liable to trigger anxiety.

The worst of the guards, Paisley, contrasts Byrne to himself. Society has produced both of these men. He sees himself as the only way to deal with Byrnes type. A cycle of violence and torture continues. The punishment route of justice is shown in it’s raw form and I would challenge anyone to not be sold on rehabilitation instead after seeing this play.

Once it ends the band carried on playing for a short while and then the actors/crew mingled with the audience speaking to us. There was someone with a camera filming the show and interviewing audience members and everyone seemed really down to earth and friendly. They had performed at the Fringe last year and are bringing Trainspotting to it this year, so I intend to pop through to see it.

It was coming up to the end of the year and I had a chunk of holidays left so decided to take two weeks at the end of March. I didn’t get done everything I wanted to do but managed:

House

Managed to entirely gut the house. Cleaned every room, washed every cup, plate and piece of cutlery. Cleared out loads of old crap too. Bought some replacement bits and bobs for things that had broken or gone missing.

Music

Carried on ripping through a big chunk of my albums in preparation for Get the Funk Out. Now up to K. Eurgh so much to do and then singles etc too.

With co-hort Sean Cairns had another evening of Funkness at Kage which was awesomeness.

Computer Games

Got the South Park game and Papers Please, both of which seem fun. Played a bit of Hearthstone and Cockatrice too.

Books

Took a trip to Edinburgh for a day and scoured some charity/book shops. Managed to pick up some interesting looking things and read an analysis of Electoral Systems. Finished Finding Arthur which was very interesting. Started again on Game of Thrones in excitement of the new season starting.

Television Shows

Finished How I Met Your Mother (at last, goodbye and fuck off) and Walking Dead (series will go on, learning from HIMYM I’m not sticking it out). Managed to get not so far behind on Castle, still 1 season behind though. Watched True Detective which was pretty epic. It was one of many shows people recommend but with backlog I hadn’t added to my queue.

Gaming

Won my first constructed Magic event at Highlander which was pretty awesome. Bought Lords of Waterdeep which is just fantastic, and hopefully doesn’t put anyone off due to the Dungeons and Dragons branding as it is irrelevant to game play and bloody good. Played a lot of DC Deckbuilder. Played a mashup of both DC and Lord of the Rings deckbuilders which was as big a trainwreck as it looked to be.

I’ve spent a fair chunk of the year so far playing games so haven’t really written much more substantial than those posts over at JoyStuckInThePast.

Appropriate for here though is a game I just backed on Kickstarter.

Scoville

An Euro game about farming chilli peppers which takes into account colour blindness. Couldn’t not back that one!

After seeing her performance on the TV debate I was offered tickets to a Q&A with her at Dundee Uni hosted by 5million questions.

So I popped along with @mariettarosetta (Anna) and her dad to see what was going to be discussed.

The turnout was impressive in a large lecture theatre, although I suspected a large portion of the crowd was made up of the sizable local SNP. This was later confirmed when Nicola knew the names of a number of the audience and questioners.

This may seem a bit disjointed but it’s a short thing about various notes I made about Sturgeons quotes/responses. Stuff in quotes is probably paraphrases as I was scribbling down as fast as I could, trying to note the spirit if not the exact quote. I also added my own comments at the time so hope they aren’t interspersed although I may have cocked up.

Firstly she answered a question about no poll bounce by saying the white paper was written for the public, not the media. She expected no bounce as you have to read it, so it’s too soon to find out reaction/effect. She expects it to aid to a small drip feed in the polls over the coming months.

On John Majors doubts over independence she hadn’t expected him to read it and be converted.

She described the document as Common sense, reasonable, rational.

A number of points were made about the Better Together negativity, and their attacks on weaknesses of the White Paper. She pointed out that If independence happens those in the No camp opposing currency union will be scrambling to argue for it, like other things they oppose now – they’ll want what’s best for Scotland.. Which seems a fair point.

When asked if she was left – right – centre, she affirmed that she sees herself as centre-left, stating that the SNP are Social Democrats

On the tax gap she pointed out the £32 billion tax gap in UK. It does seem bizarre that considering the state of the UKs finances what seems like minor amounts claimed by the No camp to exist are black holes whilst the UK sinks ever further into debt.

There was a query about tuition fees and the way students from England pay to attend Scottish universities. To paraphrase, she doesn’t want anyone to pay tuition fees, if Westminster stopped charging we would immediately but can’t as the unis would be overwhelmed and Scottish students couldn’t attend. Westminster is stupid for forcing graduates to leave to go to home countries and not stay using their skills in Scotland which has just educated them.. Which seems a reasonable explanation of the governments position. Forced into a policy they claim to oppose by another government body.

On the turnout and expected result she expects turn out to be higher than 70%, people who don’t/have never voted are saying now they definitely will vote.. Which is definitely encouraging. No matter the result, a higher turnout and a decent gap between options should cut down the call for further referendums in the near future.

A question was asked about democracy which covered some of what I intended to ask. Her reply was: there will be a constitutional convention. We want power fed down from Holyrood to Councils – devolve power to local communities.

I hadn’t read the paper yet so didn’t know of the SNP plans for a Constitutional Convention which is definitely encouraging

A modern constitution

Independence provides an opportunity to modernise Scottish democracy on the basis of a written constitution setting out the way the country is governed and the rights of its citizens. The Scottish Government believes a constitutional convention will ensure a participative and inclusive process by which the people of Scotland, as well as politicians, civic society organisations, business interests, trade unions, local authorities and others, can have a direct role in shaping the constitution.

The Scottish Government will be just one of many voices contributing to the debate and helping to shape Scotland’s written constitution. However, there are certain provisions that the Government believes should be considered by the constitutional convention, such as equality of opportunity and the right to live free of discrimination and prejudice, a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons being based in Scotland, and certain social and economic

She stressed that it’s Not [governments/SNPs] to write, its for the country, only UK, NZ and Israel have no written constitution., also Saudi Arabia and Qatar which is frankly embaressing. It’s clear the SNP are too scared to even address the Monarchy though, so all the calls for a modern democracy seem a bit like posturing. Any and every constitutional convention should demand an elected head of state as a basic democratic principle.

An audience member summed up the Better Together campaign as basically FUD. Looking at their page today, the recent stories are:
UK Single Market keeps costs down, say supermarket bosses – shown to be lies
The Grassroots team is now recruiting – recruitment
Independence Black Hole Getting Deeper – fear
White Paper: The experts’ verdict – uncertainty
UK’s first Green Parliamentarian and Former Scottish Greens Co-Convenor backs Better Together – recruitment
‘Turning inwards would reduce chances for Scots to change the world’ – doubt

No positive case for the Union. No mention of Alasdair Darling

When there was a question about Better Together publishing their white paper, she pointed out that the UK government had produced over 800 pages about independence so they don’t think they have to. This is a point which seems to be missed. Whilst Unionists demand the SNP pay for the paper as it’s an SNP document and the taxpayer shouldn’t subsidise it, the SNP are acknowledging that the UK government documents are seen by Better Together as their side of the argument. Why not highlight this?

Finally she closed by saying that the vote for independence is not a vote for the SNP, there would later be a general election where she provoked laughter by saying I dont care what way you vote in an independent scotland, before realising what she said.

The event was covered in the Courier quoting Sturgeon on expected turn out. Also a piece about the generational gap between referendums. There was also a photo in one of the print editions showing me. Infamy.

So after the release of the independence white paper it appears the gloves are off. From ministers dismissing it before they could have read it, nitpicking over the detail or demanding why particular questions are not answered the No camp have pulled out all the stops except producing any document of their own.

The highlights so far have been the Wright stuff show, Sturgeon demolishing Carmichael on STV, and of course James Kelly who scores a hilarious own goal in Holyrood.

I started off with an open mind, willing to be swayed either way, but nothing, nothing has moved me a single millimetre towards No from their campaign. The Yes camp have repeatedly released information or debated in a mature enough fashion so solidify my intention to vote Yes. I can certainly see myself being persuaded to spoil ballot between now and September but can see nothing so far to compel me to vote No.

To briefly explain why let’s take a look at the stooshie over EU membership. The No camp position is that on independence Scotland would be ejected from the EU and have to reapply for membership, taking around 9 years. The Yes camp position is that Scotland would stay within the EU and negotiate membership terms between referendum day and independence day.

So what are some of the factors to influence which camp you believe?

• Ruth Davidson yesterday in Holyrood said if a country becomes independent it is a new state and that if there is a new state, of course, that state has to apply for membership and negotiate the conditions with other member states.. Of course, she should then support that happenning, as clearly the remaining UK would then also be a new state and need to apply for membership too. As it was pointed out to her, the Conservatives want to leave the EU. So not only does her argument apply to the UK too if true, but she is clearly being disingenuous in her statement.
• The Spanish Prime Minister has stated Scotland will have to apply for membership from outside the EU, no mention at all about Catalonia whilst discussing the region of Scotland. No hidden message there at all. The Prime Minister of a country, currently saber rattling with Westminster over the sovereignty of Gibralter supports the Better Together position on sovereignty .
• Every person in Scotland currently eligible to have a British Passport is also an EU citizen. Duel citizenship is pretty guaranteed to apply to anyone who wants a Scottish passport the day after independence. Is it really credible that you can have a country where the vast majority of residents are also EU citizens where the EU will not want that country to be a member state?
• The only conceivable way that Scotland would be refused entry to the EU are if the following are true. Scottish government makes bonkers demands when negotiating to join, it’s far more likely it will give more than take given how much they want to ensure membership. the remaining UK/Spain/other countries facing internal crises of self-determination will block to deter those groups in their own state. If the UK government is seriously wanting to block Scotlands membership whilst also advocating leaving the EU, they should flat out say so now, so we can see them for the petty spiteful hypocritical idiots they are.

For me the biggest stand-out factor is that the No camp start from a position of opposition and then scramble to find arguments to support that position, no matter how inconsistent or mental they are.