Icelandic Football Commentator Goes Crazy As Iceland Score has been added as a related post - related requested by Nephelimdream on that post.

Iceland announcer goes crazy has been added as a related post - related requested by Nephelimdream.

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I really don't think 50 ft from what looks to be at least an F3 is "safe distance", but that's just, like, my opinion, man. ;-)
I really hope the rental car insurance doesn't cover driving into a tornado. In Iceland, rental car companies offer a separate coverage for wind damage (hail, sand, debris, etc) but it's NOT covered with just the basic insurance normally offered.

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Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson Resigns in the Wake of "Panama Papers" Scandal

It sounds like the PM of Iceland may be the first casualty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/europe/panama-papers-leaks-put-iceland-leader-under-pressure-to-quit.html?_r=0

A tourist here in Iceland died a couple of days ago in an incident like that. He was standing on a beach that is known to have these big waves come that can pull people in but tourists either don't notice the warning signs or ignore them because it doesn't look dangerous. Until the big wave hits, that is.
It's the first death since 2007 but I have heard many news stories about people barely escaping.

Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

It's not exactly easy to move to Canada anyhow. Like most countries they want only people with very limited skill sets, which sadly I don't have. I can't move to New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland or any of the places my ex-wife and I looked to move to ages ago. But yeah, semi-moot point about Harper now that Canada finally ousted him and his brand of crazy. They sadly didn't go far enough and still have a guy who favors things like the Keystone Pipeline (though I hear even Alberta itself no longer wants it).

I find it more amusing when Republicans voters threaten to move to Canada or the UK if a Democrat wins... everything they hate about the Democrats is there, times 10 or more. Leaving the US because of our crazy slide further and further to the right nearly makes sense (not the reason we were looking to leave, we genuinely wanted to move to New Zealand, and the others were secondary thoughts just to really change things up).

I'm not a historian so i might be getting this wrong, but i'd been led to believe:

a) Germany itself was in debt after WW1, and the economic hardship forced on them in the form of reparations has been postulated as a reason why the Nazi party rose to power in the first place. When people are desperate, they look for someone to blame. Over in the UK, the government have ensured that we're blaming immigrants and anyone on welfare for these economic hardships that were caused by the rich elite and ruling classes, corrupt to the very core and no longer working in the interests of the country and its people.

b) European countries agreed to forget large portions of Germany's debts, because back then we seemed to know that is was pointless to wreck a country and cause untold misery, pain and death to the residents all in the name of profiting off them.

I am so disgusted and overwhelmed by how badly everything is being run, and how obviously it is being run for the benefit of a minority. I hope Greece sticks two fingers up to the lot of them and does an Iceland, followed by every other European country doing something similar. We can't hope to carry on like this, we can't let power hungry psychopaths control the world... we won't survive like this.

An Icelandic guy with an issue
Made a film that made me reach for tissue.
Was so fucking dark,
You could hear Stallone bark
But not see you, poor doggie, I miss you.

Some interesting Rankings that weren't shown:
Canada 12th
Australia 14th
United States 21st

Brazil 49th
Mexico 66th
Saudi Arabia 92nd
Qatar 111th
Iraq 123rd
Lybia 125th


Some interesting Stats:

#1 Science & Technology = United Kingdom
#1 Culture = Belgium
#1 Int'l Peace and Security = Egypt
#1 World Order = Germany
#1 Planet & Climate = Iceland
#1 Prosperity & Equality = Ireland
#1 Health & Well Being = Spain

http://www.goodcountry.org/overall

Árstíðir is the band from Iceland singing the 13th century Icelandic hymn “Heyr himna smiður” at the train station in Wuppertal, Germany.

Happy Birthday Icelander!