Butterflies - Simon's Cat (A Valentine's Special!) has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Smitten - Simon's Cat (A Valentine's Special) has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Smitten-Simons-Cat-A-Valentines-Special

Unfortunatly, it's not just Merkel and her cabinet. It's the press, it's the economics departments at universities, it's politicians at all levels. Call it an economic nationalism, hell-bent to defend what they know to be the moral way of doing business. Everything left of this special flavour of market fundamentalism has been systematically attacked and suppressed for at least 30 years.

For instance, our socialist party, still referred to as the fringe of what is acceptable, runs on what is basically a carbon-copy of social-democrat programmes from the '70s. Similar to the British Green Party and Labour. Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, Wolff, DeLong -- they'd all be on the fringe in Germany. Even the likes of Simon Johnson (IMF) or Willem Buiters (City Group).

If you speak out in favour of higher inflation (wage growth) to ease the pressure on our brothers and sisters in southern Europe, you'll be charged with waging a war against German saver. "You want to devalue what little savings a nurse can accrue? Don't you support blue collar workers?"

The same blue collar workers have been stripped of their savings by 15 years of wage suppression, the same blue collar workers are looking at poverty when they retire, because the PAYGO pension system was turned into a capital-based system that only works to your benefit if you never lose your job, always pay your dues and reach at least age 95. The previous system survived two world wars without a problem, yet was deemed flawed when they realized how much money could be channeled into the financial system – only to disappear at the first sight of a crisis, eg every five to ten years.

Similarly, you could point out that a focus on trade surpluses might not be the greatest of ideas, given the dependence it creates on foreign demand, a weak currency and restricted wage growth domestically. But they'll call you a looney. "The trade surplus is a result of just how industrious our workers, how creative our scientists and how skilled our engineers are. It's all innovation, mate! Are you saying we force the others to buy our stuff? That's madness."

You simply cannot have an open discussion about macroeconomics in Germany. Do I have to mention how schizophrenic it makes me feel to read contradictory descriptions of reality every day? It's bonkers and everyone's better off NOT reading both German and international sources on these matters.


Any compromise would have to work with this in mind. They'd have to package in a way that doesn't smell like debt relief of any kind. People know that stretching the payment out over 100 years equals debt relief, but it might just be enough of a lie to get beyond the level of self-deception that is simply part of politics. If they manage to paint Varoufakis' idea of growth-based levels of payment as the best way to get German funds back, people might go for it. Not sure if our government would, but you could sell it to the public. And with enough pressure from Greece, Spain, Italy, and France most of all, maybe Merkel could be "persuaded" to agree to a deal.

As for Syriza's domestic problems: it's a one-way ticket to hell. Undoing decades of nepotism under external pressure, with insolvency knocking on your door? Best of luck.

Italy is hard on Greece's heels in terms of institutional corruption. Southern Italy, in particular, is an absolute mess. Given the size of the Italian economy, Syriza better succeed, so their work can be used as a blueprint. Otherwise we're going to need a whole lot of popcorn in the next decade...


Edit: Case in point, German position paper, as described by Reuters. As if the elections in Greece never took place.

*discard for dupes:

http://videosift.com/video/Christmas-Presence-Simons-Cat
http://videosift.com/video/Christmas-Presence-Part-2-Simons-Cat

The ancestry of living beings isn't just traceable through the fossil record. The study of genetics shows us a huge and utterly overwhelming amount of evidence for the common ancestor idea. Common genes can be traced back to show the lineage of different animals and plants and groups of animals and plants.

Homology is a complex subject..it would take awhile to get into. I found a good link that illustrates the argument against it being a proof that macroevolution occured. If you want to take a look we could discuss further:

http://creation.com/does-homology-provide-evidence-of-evolutionary-naturalism

Ring species show that small changes can indeed lead to separate species. Antibiotic resistant bacteria are evolution in progress. You say that just because small changes can be seen it doesn't follow that big changes can evolve but that's stupid. Big changes are just a series of connected little changes.

I guess it depends on who you ask?

Erwin, D.H. (2000) Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution. Evol. & Devel. 2:78-84.

the independence of macroevolution is affirmed not only by species selection but also by other processes such as effect sorting among species.

Lieberman, B.S. and Vrba, E.S. (2005) Gould on species selection. in MACROEVOLUTION: Diversity, Disparity, Contingency. E.S. Vrba and N. Eldredge eds. supplement to Paleobiology vol. 31(2) The Paleontological Society, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

Micro- and macroevolution are thus different levels of analysis of the same phenomenon: evolution. Macroevolution cannot solely be reduced to microevolution because it encompasses so many other phenomena: adaptive radiation, for example, cannot be reduced only to natural selection, though natural selection helps bring it about.

Scott, E.C. (2004) Evolution vs. creationism: an introduction. (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press).

Macroevolution is decoupled from microevolution, and we must envision the process governing its course as being analogous to natural selection but operating at a higher level of organization.

Stanley, S. M. (1975) A theory of evolution above the species level. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 72: 646-650.

In conclusion, then, macroevolutionary processes are underlain by microevolutionary phenomena and are compatible with microevolutionary theories, but macroevolutionary studies require the formulation of autonomous hypotheses and models (which must be tested using macroevolutionary evidence). In this (epistemologically) very important sense, macroevolution is decoupled from microevolution: macroevolution is an autonomous field of evolutionary study.

Ayala, F.J. (1983) Beyond Darwinism? The Challenge of Macroevolution to the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. reprinted in PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY, M. Ruse ed. p. 118-133.

When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd. -(Simon Conway Morris, [palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK], "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11)

Relevant:
http://www.theguardian.com/membership/video/2014/oct/16/david-simon-the-wire-video

The politicians are allowed to "boo and hiss" here in Canada. It is impossible to be held LEGALLY accountable for ANYTHING said in there. You can get in trouble in the Court of Popular Opinion, or demoted by the Prime Minister, but you can literally say "Prime Minister Harper blows goats." as long as you say "Mr. Speaker" first.

It's a lot like Simon Says or Jeopardy...

Your video, Hot Water - Simon's Cat, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 47 Badge!

Not entirely cut and dry.
+ Gun suicide fell
+ Mass shootings fell.
- Gun homicide in general didn't fall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#Measuring_the_effects_of_firearms_laws_in_Australia

"Some researchers have found a significant change in the rate of firearm suicides after the legislative changes. For example, Ozanne-Smith et al. (2004)[33] in the journal Injury Prevention found a reduction in firearm suicides in Victoria, however this study did not consider non-firearm suicide rates. Others have argued that alternative methods of suicide have been substituted. De Leo, Dwyer, Firman & Neulinger,[34] studied suicide methods in men from 1979 to 1998 and found a rise in hanging suicides that started slightly before the fall in gun suicides. As hanging suicides rose at about the same rate as gun suicides fell, it is possible that there was some substitution of suicide methods. It has been noted that drawing strong conclusions about possible impacts of gun laws on suicides is challenging, because a number of suicide prevention programs were implemented from the mid-1990s onwards, and non-firearm suicides also began falling.[35]

In 2005 the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[36] noted that the level of legal gun ownership in New South Wales increased in recent years, and that the 1996 legislation had had little to no effect on violence. Professor Simon Chapman, former co-convenor of the Coalition for Gun Control, complained that his words "will henceforth be cited by every gun-lusting lobby group throughout the world in their perverse efforts to stall reforms that could save thousands of lives".[37] Weatherburn responded, "The fact is that the introduction of those laws did not result in any acceleration of the downward trend in gun homicide. They may have reduced the risk of mass shootings but we cannot be sure because no one has done the rigorous statistical work required to verify this possibility. It is always unpleasant to acknowledge facts that are inconsistent with your own point of view. But I thought that was what distinguished science from popular prejudice."[38]"

-scheherazade

Let me just say that I hate talent shows and I despise Simon Cowell, but I'm still upvoting this.

There are some people doing some pretty incredible illusions at the moment. If you like this kinda thing, check out Dynamo. He does some amazing stuff.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'sound of silence, simon and garfunkel, guitar, voice' to 'sound of silence, simon and garfunkel, guitar, voice, 1967' - edited by eric3579

Here:

http://www.amazon.com/Wednesday-Morning-A-M-Simon-Garfunkel/dp/B00160ANTG/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018Q4G5A/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk6

(it's also available on international Amazon sites)

Why in the fuck is Nick Frost trying to look respectable? You think you don't need Simon Pegg mother fucker? You Better Watch it!!