About 15 months ago, at a conference in Austin aptly titled "Can the Eurozone be saved?", my favorite Greek mathematician/economist Yanis Varoufakis made center stage with his "Modest Proposal".

Now that he's in charge of Greece's finances, the media is firing broadside after broadside at him, trying their best to discredit the man. Doesn't even wear a tie, shaves his head, wears biker jackets, has a temper... the usual ad hominem bullshit. Yet it only took him three days to give the debate a new direction. Calling the austerity program "fiscal waterboarding" was a stroke of genius.

Him and Tsipras created the first crack in this bubble of lunacy that we call Eurozone. Someone might even realize that the Emperor is, in fact, naked.

Oh, and my personal word of the week: Stahlhelmökonom

(lit.: steel helmet economist, as in "a level of denial and ignorance made famous by the German military on the Eastern front" applied to economics)

You obviously have never performed and have some moron jump on stage where stumbling in the wrong pile of amps will cause thousands of euros worth of damage and possibly even dangering peoples lives. You come up on stage uninvited, be prepared to get slammed to the ground and thrown off the venue. The people on stage are there doing their job, you don't let people wonder in behind cash registers in a bank and expected a friendly treatment. You stumble on my stage and you will be flying back to the pit and i don't give a flying fuck if you hurt yourself. I've done it and will do it again and i'm the most docile person you can meet, i have never hit anyone in my life and i've worked as a bouncer...

This is totally different from situations where a fan is invited on stage or that part of performance is to get few people dancing there, then it's MY responsibility so you or others wont get hurt. Come uninvited and you are trespassing and a serious security threat and will be dealt with ASAP..

"A couple of Euros"? Where is this place and how do I order?

Nah. I remember when Williamsburg was actually real instead of full of trust fund kids and euro trash.

This is some rich hipster mom exhibiting her carefully vintage styled daughter for her facebook friends. Probably still high on last nights coke binge

Life of a Williamsburg child is being dragged from one asshole hipster event to another

Bill Mitchell ripped into the language of austerity, particularly with regards to the catastrophe-in-the-making that is the Euro zone.

Because we find it abhorrent and we've been against massive deaths for awhile. After two World Wars Europe came together and basically decided if they have another one it would probably be the absolute death of everyone. So they started communicating, and I know everyone has problems with the Euro, and Politics and the EU and the UN. But this is the result, the end of massive war deaths. So that's Europe.

Second is the US, basically the lone super power after World War 2 controlling about half of all the worlds wealth. After the 1960s there was a civilizing effect because of all the protests. When Vietnam started nobody knew about the body counts, heck nobody knew that we attacked south vietnam at all. So suddenly there was a demand for information about this war where our kids were dying and we were finding out that they were doing a lot of things our consciousness couldn't tolerate.

So after a ton of protesting and upheaval in the country, so much so that troops were being rerouted to come back to the US to deal with the people the government went underground. They had secret wars, which of course are illegal and immoral however much MUCH less death. They just can't do whatever the hell they want anymore, we won't put up with it.

That's why when people try and compare Iraq to Vietnam I just laugh. There are hardly any comparisons that could be justified. The amount of deaths alone and the results aren't even in the same galaxy. And the reason is one thing, public protest and pressure. Iraq was the first war in human history where there was massive protests BEFORE the war even started.

Then even the Iraqi people protested because they weren't getting a chance to choose their own leaders, have their own democracy. There was nothing about us letting them vote for anything, we didn't want to allow though, and tried whatever we could to stop it. But too many people protested, there was too much reporting done on those protests.

So this is what it is, People. We stopped it, we got up and looked at these millions of dead bodies and said ENOUGH. We're not perfect we fuck up a lot, but if you want to look at what has affected the body counts in War more than anything it's peoples reaction to it. You could say weapons caused that reaction if you want but I prefer to give the people their fair do. We know when something is wrong and we're standing up to it. All over the world it's happening now, take part.

Ah, ya caught me, I'm undone... X D

Doesn't actually change anything though, does it? Your established "facts" (ie. made up stuff) do not require any significant research to debunk. You've provided no supporting evidence other than your own beliefs anyway (what, a google search too hard for you? =)

I punched in "Islam is homogenous" and surprise surprise, the entire front page were articles saying it's not. And the next page. And the next... Professors, clerics, scholars, philosophers, random comments, books, absolutely nothing to support your contentions. Hell, I couldn't even turn up one of those classy Euro-white power type pages.

How embarrassing. Even the open and unashamed bigots don't seem to support you...

But it doesn't actually matter if the evidence comes from a simple google search looking for articles, or from noted and lauded professors who have spent their lives researching the issue. You are a classic fundamentalist, as bad as any Muslim or Christian extremist. Your world view is uncompromising, based on belief and completely resistant to alteration when factual information is presented that undermines your propaganda.

I loved this line though...

It's tedious to have to continually restate the case against islam in every discussion where the lazy and dishonest leap to the defence of an ideology they've failed to adequately research.

Oh ya poor bloody princess, do you need a lie down?

What I'm opposing is rampant bigotry dressed up as intellectualism. As an atheist, as long as they do no harm, they can believe whatever the hell they want to, it doesn't bother me. You can also believe whatever you want to, but actively promoting the idea of Muslims as one big group who share responsibility for the acts of the minority can do harm. It makes innocents a target for reprisal, and ironically drives moderates towards extremism.

Economically, it'd be really counter-productive for them to leave.

They currently receive more in revenue that they pay in taxes and receive more generous social programs than England. Like mentioned, they'll get full control over their oil reserves just as output begins to decline. Also their banking sector (relative to their economy/tax take) is huge and will have to shrink as investors will see it as a risk and divest otherwise.

They'll most likely retain the pound as the currency by default (at least in the short term), but lose control over interest rates. If the economy sours they will have the same problem that indebted Mediterranean countries had, in that all the pressure will fall on wages and job cuts rather than being eased by lower rates or currency depreciation. If they join the euro, they will of course have same issue.

Speaking of which, an interesting point is that with a large liberal wing of the UK leaving, this will strengthen conservative arguments to leave the EU.

Smoke DMT. Stop being weaklings and DO IT. Yes, it will be "the most intense experience of your life". But, at least you'll have a good understanding of what is actually possible.

Most "secular" or "Religious" people have not had this experience. But, once you have seen "The Light" you will understand the symbolism is everywhere. I'd also say - go read some Lanza - a respected astrophysicist that has controversial ideas on this which he calls "Biocentrism". I do not believe that I understand anything and remain humble to the fact that what I have seen is so bizarre and beyond anyone's imagination or lives themselves. As far as I can see... HELL YES when you die you will go to a non-material realm in another Universe. But, how do we prove that to our monkey brains that believe in Standard Models that have only existed for 1 second and cost 55 Billion Euros to create to prove the centerpiece of the model even exists?

Since they mention it's based on a Google DB, I will go out on a limb and say it is probably quite euro-centric. A more fully-featured data set would most likely show much more movements in the Middle-East (Persian empire, Muslim golden age having preceded the Renaissance) and around China (because you don't get to be the largest economy in the world for 18 of the last 20 centuries by standing still and doing nothing).

I have mixed feelings about the UK plug. 1) they are HUGE. therefore power strips are also quite large, and the wall outlets only have place for one device. 2) I've seen plenty of UK plugs where the conductor goes all the way to the housing, not halfway like he shows as a feature. I've seen Euro-plugs with both types as well. 3) putting fuses on the plug instead of part of the house means that too many <13A devices could be plugged in, and (if used simultaneously) cause a fire in your walls and burn your house down (I assume UK requires circuit breakers and branch circuits nowadays). 4) the same safety device that requires ground to be plugged in first makes it really-hard to plug into cheaply made outlets or power strips (the plastic cover doesn't slide easily).
That said, another safety feature that he didn't mention in the video was that most wall outlets have their own switch on the outlet itself. Turn-off ; plug-in ; turn-on. This prevents arcing, which is easier with the higher 240V.

Euro outlets' holes are too small to fit most screwdrivers, knives, fingers into, and they have both grounded and ungrounded (smaller) variety.

My favorite are the IEC-60309 plugs/outlets, but are only for bigger amperages - 20,30,50,60, etc.

Open up your wallet for this one. Apparently it costs 4800 Euro (~$6500 USD).

Hey was looking for a fix for this video(vimeo says needs a password). Am i barking up the right tree.
http://videosift.com/video/EURO-SIFTUP-2009

Well at a certain cascading point your science example goes flying right out the fucking window when you consider that anyone with fucking ocular prowess and at least a 90 I.Q. can see (at age 2) that Lawrence Fish-burn and Sam Jackson look no fucking alike whatsoever...Try that formula on any euro-mutt hybrids...