Germany vs Italy last night, Zaza's penalty... I'm dying here, bloody RedCafe.

The penaly: https://streamable.com/ooi8?t=2.3

Now...
- https://media.giphy.com/media/bLDc0I7ys2YN2/giphy.gif
- https://twitter.com/Perrinho/status/749357072341409792
- https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13529049_1069980763038818_6356986931617660465_n.jpg?oh=925b134bc8364b93acf7db9345649faa&oe=5833A2EA
- https://66.media.tumblr.com/0e57df39b131caf5678ce99305125c3c/tumblr_o9pkoekP6d1qz6z2wo1_540.gif
- https://streamable.com/zia0?t=5.4

And last but not least:
https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4-mobile/p02v.mp4

My comment was rather egocentric in nature. Few countries have the means to upset the balance of power within the EU and a (vote for) Brexit might just be the least horrific way of poking the EU. Next down the line would be a Le Pen-administration in France, which most people would rather avoid. Or some unforseen poltical kerfuffle in Italy.

Bad options, all of them. But austerity will lead to even worse outcomes, so German hegemony must be curbed and broken -- or the EU as a whole must be reduced to countries whose economies work the same parasitic way.

The best of all options, of course, would be political change in Germany, away from this anal fixation on austerity. But looking at our parliament, I see 630 seats, 566 of which belong to parties in support of austerity. So no, not gonna happen.

My hopes, as always, are on the French people. Recent actions have made me hopeful that they will once again come to our rescue.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the referendum is not legally binding, is it?

So what happens if the plebs vote in favor of Brexit?

Brussels dispatches men in finely-tailored suits to London, with goodies in their suitcases. Politicians become supremely motivated to convince the plebs of the wrongness of their views -- or they take their continental brethren as an example and just ignore the plebs altogether.

Jokes aside, it might very well be a vote to leave a sinking ship.

Anyone here really think the EU can survive the groupthink-induced fixation on austerity? Anyone seen the economics data coming from Italy lately? Greece? Spain? France? Anyone think Italy can be in a single currency with Germany under German control? Anyone think the EU can survive the fall of the Euro or the departure of significant member countries?

The way I see it, the EU cannot survive economic orthodoxy. Greece is dying, Italy is bleeding from every orifice. Even as a strong supporter of a unified Europe, including Russia(!), I cannot support the EU in its current form -- it's rotten to the core and dominated by groupthink.

And with all that in mind, the fact still remains that the EU kept the Tories somewhat in check in many regards. What a disheartening situation...

Description (partial) from this yt video:
"This is Rima Baransi with her family in Trieste, Italy.
This is her father Assad Baransi recording the video and encouraging her to dance to the music. They were visiting the town as tourists.

The song being performed is entitled “Comptine D'un Autre Eté: l'Après Midi” by Yann Tiersen: https://youtu.be/W5_xFH5wqKM

English translation of what is said:

Dad: C'mon Rima! c'mon! Here I am filming, c'mon Rima for god's sake! For my sake! For my sake! C'mon start! [Do it!], C'mon Daddy (here its normal for the Dad to call his offspring "Dad", and the Mom calls them "Mom")"



i did find one video with her dancing. Start @2:40 https://youtu.be/dnfG75sRZXw

@bareboards2

I've been operational in a war-zone. Shot at twice, and in a Mexican standoff once, but I never fired my own weapon.

Fact is, other developed nations manage just fine (for the most part) when it comes to things like this. It doesn't help that the US has never and probably will never allow any member of the forces to be prosecuted internationally for war crimes.

I know someone who was in Italy many years ago when a US plane decided to buzz underneath the wires of a gondola (the mountain kind, not the Venice kind, obviously). The tail of the plane caught on the wire and 12 people died, including a few children. There was no criminal prosecution for the pilot, crew, or commanding officers. I mean, just look at all the Wikileaks files on war crimes committed by US soldiers, barely any of them received any kind of judicial review (if any at all did, I never heard of them) including indiscriminate killing of random civilians.

Like it or not, that's a part of the US military culture and they worked hard to make things that way. In Vietnam it was estimated that one in a million shots fired from small arms actually HIT an enemy combatant. They learned it was because fewer than one in ten soldiers even TRIED to hit.

On top of that, the pay is so terrible, it's mostly those desperate to lift themselves and their family out of abject poverty that apply for enlisted positions. They are not well-educated and they are certainly not (for the most part) intelligent, hard-working individuals. The US chooses to spend the vast bulk of military spending on technology, rather than people (after all, it's easier to give kickbacks to your political donors that way).

Well, this is the result. A military with no fear of repercussions unless you're one of the poor scapegoats at Abu Ghraib (and if you think they represent even one tenth of the total personnel involved, you're out to lunch) and you're dumb enough to take pictures of yourself, there's pretty much nothing you can do to the 'enemy' that will get you in serious trouble.

Why do you think the Brits insisted on their own zones of Iraq for the second gulf war? In the first one they fought alongside Americans and suffered more casualties from American fire than they did from Iraqi fire. I talked to a Brit armored officer who was in the first gulf war. He went to introduce himself to the colonel of the American unit next to them, the Colonel stared in amazement at the Scorpion light tank and said, "What the hell kind of Bradley is that?" I can guarantee you, every soldier, from Private to the Colonel of my regiment could have identified every armored vehicle on the battlefield.

Never been to Italy, but as someone of Italian heritage I can say with 100% conviction that if something can be done wrong, it is my fellow Italians that can figure out a way to do it. Plus, it did look like his underwear had a bit of a issue. I hesitate to speculate further.

It's Italy; there will be a beautiful view, something tasty to eat or drink, and if you are lucky, pleasant people with a tremendous love of life who persevere despite the fact that their country is a little bit broken.

Your video, The Strangest Elevator In Italy, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'TDS, daily show, hash, fire, italy' to 'TDS, daily show, hash, fire, italy, John Stewart' - edited by Gratefulmom

I wonder how the USA would fare if every tax eligible citizen did as thorough job at tax avoidance as many multi-nationals that are happy to lobby to keep the status-quo?

Ask Italy, UK, Australia, and many other progressive countries what they think their shifting profits strategy.

Some people may look up to their valid strategy, but they are in fact thieving from the regular citizen who does not have their accounting capability. The government who also equally supports the multinational needs to make up their shortfall, and therefore the regular citizen suffers.

I own plenty of Apple stock, but they are also not citizen friendly in any way.

3:00 "do you think this conversation is happening in any other country?"

FFS, does anyone really think that the US has a monopoly on political conversation?

The same conversation (well, a less retarded version of it anyway) is happening in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. And that's just in English. There are political debates in Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Hell, I bet no talks about anything ELSE in Greece!

@newtboy
If it was about safety, they would have illegally immigrated to the multiple neighboring countries

Right, as if you don't know how well fleeing from Germany to neighbours like Poland or France or Italy would have worked out for them... Seriously?

If the Syrians all went to Belgium, installed their own laws and government supplanting the local Belgians', made the Belgians non-citizens, took their lands and properties, pushed them into one small corner ghetto, then complained about how bad the Belgians are...

Are you suggesting that Jews did all this prior to the outbreak of civil war in Palestine? That doesn't reflect reality in any way shape or form.

it was close to 5% before the invasion.

When do you count Jewish immigration to Palestine as becoming an invasion? Palestine was already 8% Jewish by demographics in 1890. That's enough time for almost a 3rd generation to be born by 1940. Slowest, invasion, ever.

The leap was from 1930-1940, with an additional 450k Jewish Palestinians. In that same time the Arab population grew by 420k, so I guess they were both invading???

The alliance of Arab nations that fought them was much SMALLER militarily, you know this.

Right, Israel's initial standing army was 10k, matching Egypt's 10k. But Egypt wasn't the only one in the alliance of course, Jordan had that many as well. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the remaining alliance members represented another 10k together too. Sure, in hindsight we know they don't jointly commit their entire forces to the task an outnumber the Jewish military 3 to 1. I'm not quite sure how the Jewish people planning a defense were supposed to anticipate that and 'hold back' accordingly.

Honestly, I just can not comprehend what you expect Jewish people fleeing Europe to have done instead. Fleeing to other parts of Europe still left them in Nazi controlled territory and on a train back to Poland. Standing to fight in other European countries meant getting shot at, defeated, and then on a train to Poland. Crossing the ocean was a far sight harder than going to the middle east. Of all the middle east countries, Palestine was the most promising so I find it hard to fault the folks leaving Europe and setting up shop there. Once arrived there, I again find it hard to condemn them for demanding fair treatment and being willing to fight for it.

I said those illegally invading in the 30's had little to flee (unless you are saying they had a time machine and KNEW what was coming).

Mein Kampf was first published in 1925, it had sold nearly a quarter million copies by 1933 when Hitler took power. How could they ever have seen anything bad coming their way I wonder...

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

The mixture of valid points, exaggerations, ignorance of context and completely false information makes it a bit... difficult to digest.

Generally speaking, a lot of errors were made regarding Cologne.

The police fucked up entirely and basically was unable to maintain control of the square in front of the central train station where shitloads of theft, sexual harassment and even a few rapes were committed.

The public media did not report on it properly. They did, in fact, refuse to report it at all at first. But that doesn't stem from an obession with PC nor is it special treatment for refugees/immigrants -- it's good old-fashioned pro-government bias. A few days later, they were all playing the same tune again: bad immigrants, bad muslims, need more law-and-order, close the borders, need new laws, etc. Same shit as always.

And yes, you cannot expect all these refugees to be model citizens from the get-go. Different culture, different language, segregation, no work permit, no familiy, maybe first-hand experience with war -- they are bound to commit crimes, assuming otherwise would be naive.

And accepting a million refugees might have been a bad idea after cutting down public personnel and services for two decades straight. But what's done is done. The question now is what can be done to improve the situation for everyone involved. What doesn't help is further segregation (refugee camps), private security (aka mobs hunting brown people, happened in Cologne already) or downplaying the massive problems.

As for that wierd tirade from 1:07 onwards about true Germans: except for all the people from Bohemia, Prussia and Silesia, aka Poland; or the millions of immigrants from Italy and Turkey; or the folks from former Yugoslavia; etc. Two thirds of the bloody country has family names that mark them as n-th generation immigrant. Half of my extended family is from what is now Russia (Kaliningrad) while my family name is distinctively Dutch. "Paid German taxes" gives a hint to his motivations. Folks in East Germany didn't pay German taxes: do they count? Refugees from former German enclaves ("Russlanddeutsche") didn't pay German taxes, nor did they speak proper German: do they count?

All in all a very misguided rant, too eager to abuse real fuck-ups for his own ideology. Rape culture, SJW, PC -- doesn't apply in this case. It's small government, media with establishment bias, a general inability for open discussion of problems, and a shitload of incompetent arseholes in positions of power (e.g.: chief of police in Cologne, gone now).

By the way, he forgot to mention the hundreds(!) of refugee shelters that were set on fire during the last few months. Bands of immigrants committing crimes are a problem, bands of Germans committing crimes are a problem.

We had a six digit number of prime suspects for trouble already: young, male, unemployed, un(der)educated, no fucking hope. It's the main cause for the persisting problems with Nazis in East Germany: no hope. Adding a million additional people, lots of them with equally bad prospects, without any serious effort to integrate them is bound to blow up in our faces eventually.

The best thing that can happen for the entire Eurozone would be a massive integration program in Germany. And by massive I don't mean a meagre billion Euros. We're talking 15-20 billion a year, for at least five years. The more the better. Even in the current economic regime, it would be much cheaper than the repercussions from staying the current course: doing fuck all.