I'm suffering from serious confirmation bias on this because it agrees with a lot of what I heard around the 2014 revolution and since.

I was in Russia when they invaded Georgia in 2008. Specifically, I was staying with family in Ossetia, which is a mountain state that was split between Russia (North Ossetia) and Georgia (South Ossetia). Russia invaded because Georgia was attacking a Georgian town in South Ossetia. On the day of the invasion I was working in the mountains collecting water samples, and got a very close view of what was happening, got local confirmation of what was being reported, got to talk to refugees, etc.

Without going into it too much, when I got back to Ireland and saw what was being said and how it was being framed it was absolutely laughable and so obviously wrong. Some were worse than others - Sky News in the UK and Fox News being the worst offenders - but no major news media that I saw was giving the side of the story that I saw.

Also, when the UN report on what happened came out several years later it completely matched with my take on what happened.

The point of all this is that when the invasion happened earlier this year I knew there was no way I'd have the time or expertise to find out what's going on, even though I have friends and family in Ireland, Russia, and Ukraine. All sides are pushing their narrative hard. All sides are lying to us and manipulating us to the best of their ability. Depending on where you live you'll hear one side louder than the other, and the people around you will tend towards that narrative.

Personally I believe both sides have committed atrocities. I don't know who's been worse. I've seen both sides, including journalists, manipulating footage to support their narrative.

My only take on this is that invading a sovereign country is absolutely wrong except in extreme circumstances where every practical diplomatic means has been exhausted.

To come back to this video, my instinct was to promote it because it does seem to be a well informed take on the context of what's happening, but I've been hesitant because of my confirmation bias and because it muddies the message of "war is very very very bad".

Feck it, though. *promote

Trump has done literally nothing for his entire term other than fight to cover up his crimes and install his criminal co-conspirators into places of power. He's done feck-all to "drain the swamp". He is the embodiment of the swamp. Even his wife hates him. He's a fickle, petulant child. It's disgusting and embarrassing. I miss having a president.

"I'm orange and gassy ..." A'yup Nobody has more feck! *nsfw

This is not necessarily on topic, but good grief i never realised pictures of someone's face could look so different. The bit at 1:37 with the woman's face was a revelation! I didn't know that happened, and it kind of explains some pictures i've accidentally taken with forward facing cameras (and been horrified by). I always thought i must have good/bad days and look terrible sometimes, but that explains a lot.

In Thailand i had a picture taken on a tree-platform-zipline 80 feet in the air, sweaty, red, disheveled and sleepless... and it's the best picture i've ever seen of me, and my skin looked uniform and nice, not red and damp as it did in a mirror there. Sorry for off-topic, but how the feck does that work? It wasn't airbrushed or anything, they had very little time for processing. I feel like 50% of my mystery has been answered in that one moment of the video!

Feck yeah!

I've not seen any real proof that having a royal family living in the palace is a deal-breaker for tourists. And so I've also never seen any proof that they provide a net gain to the country because they get fecking millions in subsidies, security, and all the land and positions they own 'by divine right'.

They royalty are public servants - you would never catch me bowing to any of them, or treating them any differently than i would a stranger - respectfully, as equals.

As far as i'm concerned, they've got the luckiest life in the world by birthright, which goes completely against everything i believe in. So they better do a lot of charity work and never complain about it - which to be fair they have done, but only because they know they're on thin ice and will be summarily dethroned if they act up. Especially at a time like this.

and would the bundies support the pipeline protest??? feck no

The muslim world? Is that like a less wacky Disneyland? Do you have any idea how many different types of muslim there are in the world?

The notion that they collectively have one agreed view on the west is a pretty big indicator that someone hasn't a fecking clue about the subject. For example, do you think every Catholic has the same views as the pope? Why should muslims be any different?

Do you expect the 'head' muslim to call a press conference?

"Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for attending. As you know I have been appointed spokesperson for all 1.6 billion muslims. I had a chat with all of them this morning and here's what we all think."

And for Peter's sake, if you're going to criticise the example for being unrepresentative of the average muslim meeting a rich celebrity, don't choose fucking Mosul as your counter balance. Occupied as it is by the most fringe religious extremists in the world who think nothing of killing people who agree with them. The overwhelming majority of people in Saudi on the other hand are normal, every day folk going about their lives in pretty much the same way you or i do. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans do.

It's like contrasting someone who believes in social justice with an ultra left wing terrorist. One is an average person with an average person's reactions to, say, meeting celebrities. The other is a lunatic who might do anything to make some obscure point that only makes sense to them. Bullshit argument.

Perhaps it's worth remembering that if we did not eat cows, nor take their milk, nor their calves, that they would be fecking extinct.

Cows have evolved to be food.

Unknown.

If the ECB pulls ELA, the Greek banking system goes belly up. Again, consequences unknown, but Deutsche Bank for instance didn't seem particularly stable during the last months, so the denial of any contagion risk might have been premature. Additionally, Draghi is tasked with maintaining the stability of the Euro and taking away Greece's last lifeline might just be too far out of his mandate, even for him. Keeping ELA up without increasing the limit will achieve the same result within days though.

If Greece fails to make its payment to the IMF tomorrow, it's at the discretion of Lagarde whether she pulls the plug. Info has been somewhat contradictory, but there should be a 30 day window before the board has to call it a default.

If a default is triggered this week, it's up to the ECB and the EC again. They have shown unwillingness to let things go bust, all the recent months of muddling through should be testament to that.

They cannot have a failed state within Europe without feeding right into the anti-European parties on both ends of the spectrum; they cannot throw Greece out of the EZ; they cannot revitalise the Greek economy without doing a 180 against their own ideology; they cannot let Syriza pull Greece out of the shit without encouraging Podemos. It's an impasse alright.

Should the Greek people vote against the proposal, a proposal that is no longer on the table, it'll be back to negotiations. Should they vote in favour of it, and should it still be available to them at that time in the first place, Tsipras might even get a majority for it in parliament, but Syriza will blow apart right then and there. The left wing cannot agree to further enslavement.

If, however, everything goes sour and Greece does indeed exit the EZ, introduce a new Drachma, the whole shebang, then we're in uncharted terrorities. The situation in Greece would deteriorate even further, given how much they rely on imports, especially of fuel. And the EU, already shaky from the tens of thousands of bodies floating in the Med, the falling standard of living for tens of millions and the sustained unemployment of an entire generation; this fecking union cannot turn the cradle of democracy into a failed state and survive. The governments might be ok with it, but the French people would rip this shit to shreds one way or another, and rightfully so.

The devil is in the details, isn't it?

For instance, what kind of guaranteed minimum income are we talking about?

The context they used (automatisation, labour supply) suggests to me something along the lines of an unconditional basic income. If that's the case, it cannot be compared to a minimum wage at all, since it has effects that go far beyond the labour market and the income situation. It's a massive reshaping of how we organise society. And it becomes a pain in the ass to even conceptualise properly once you talk about how to finance it...

A minimum wage, no matter how decent it is, doesn't even put a dent into the disparity between income from labour and income from capital. It makes life less horrible for those it applies to and it somewhat curtails the welfare queens among corporations who like their wage slaves being paid for by society. Yes, I'm looking at you, Walmart! Still, on its own, it does very little about income inequality, and nothing at all about wealth inequality.

How would I address income inequality?

In German, the words for taxes and steering are the same: "Steuern". If you want to steer the income towards a more equal distribution, taxation might be the easiest way to go about it. Treat all forms of income equally in terms of taxation. Or go one step further and treat wages preferentially to support employment.

However, redistribution will only get you so far. So why not address it at an earlier stage: distribution. Mondragon serves as a successful example of how a cooperative structure puts democratic checks and balances on the wage structure within a corporation. One person, one vote puts the lid on any attempts by higher-ups to rake in 300 times as much as the peasants on the factory floor.

Yet it doesn't do anything about the inequality between wages and capital income. Even a combination of progressive taxation and fixed income-ratios doesn't do much about it. Especially since non-wage income can evade taxation in a million different ways and most politicians in every country in the world seem more than eager to protect what loopholes they created over the decades.

So what's my suggestion? Well, progressive taxation of both income and wealth, living wage plus job guarantee, support of democratic structures at the workplace, international pressure on tax havens (which includes my own fecking country). Realistic? No. But neither was our welfare system until it was implemented.

Thanks for the thumbnail fix.

Getting the fecking embed to work in the first place took me several minutes and I just couldn't be bothered anymore.

Feck, I wondered why Manzarek videos were on here. Hell. That's a bitch.

What a keyboardist and what a band. Love The Doors.

I call B.S. She's just some dumb ass that's trying to act cool in her little emo, vampire, look at me, whatever the feck kind of way.

The Celtic channel is for Celtic stuff, from the channel description "Anything Celtic from anywhere Celtic. Music, Art, Film, Politics etc...". Liam Neeson is from Ireland so its seems an appropriate use of the channel to me.

>> ^papple:

What is the Celtic channel for? If it's supposed to be for Irish content, then call the channel Irish. The term "Celtic" is not exclusive to Ireland. It includes Scotland, Wales and Brittany. Celts originated in Central Europe for fecks sake!