I was in Ireland years ago. Someone told me that there were hot tubs up in Northern Ireland that were filled with seaweed. Slippery seaweed, loads of salt, water warmed up....

If you can't find someone to do the warm noodle treatment, maybe you can hie yourself to Ireland.

Report back to me?

Well, I was raised Catholic and even though my parents weren't particularly devout, I absolutely believed in god up to my early teens. I even went to a Jesuit high school.

I won't pretend that I had some massively traumatic "coming out" as an atheist over the next few years, but it still had its challenges. Ireland in the 90s was still a very Catholic country.

So yeah, if she grew up in some super evangelist home, it would be very difficult. But some things are difficult and you still have to do them.

Ok, I think this got out of hand. My apologies. I wasn't talking about the abuse.

You said "Hers is that faith alone. Take it away and she would either A-shut down, or B-more likely kill herself."

My reply was specifically about "that faith". I didn't mean that she would get through the abuse with the help of friends and family, I meant she would get through leaving the church. And yes, this has happened. Thousands of people left the catholic church in Ireland after the child abuse scandals, many of them lifelong devout catholics.

I would never suggest that anyone simply "get over" that kind of abuse, but I can see how you might have misinterpreted my post, so I apologise for that.

That said, people do get help for abuse without churches. There are plenty of secular options available (counselling, support groups, etc).

As for the rest, I still maintain that my direct experience of abuse or lack thereof has no bearing on the argument. I could tell you all kinds of things, but you wouldn't even know if they were true, to say nothing of a betrayal of trust on my part.

Or would you expect rape trauma counsellors they have to be raped to help victims?

As for the black man example, again, you know nothing about what discrimination I may or may not have faced (hint: the Irish didn't have too flash a time of it for a long time). I would never be so condescending as to say that I know ANYONES life, but that doesn't mean I can't empathise with them. Even if I've never been shot by a cop, I'm damn sure it's something I wouldn't like.

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).

Nope, not true.
Almost every international airport I've been to in the past 10 years (NZ, Australia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Singapore, Japan, New Caledonia, Dubai, UAE, USA, Mexico) has the same checks for fluids above 100ml in a little clear plastic bag, the same "remove your laptop, etc".

At least most of them have dropped the retarded "take off your shoes" bullshit.

I would say that example is a false dichotomy. You're never going to find a case in Palestine or elsewhere in the world that someone blows themselves up purely for the religious reasons. There are clearly political and social motivations at play in every terrorist attack.

This relates directly to my main point though. Some some pundits want to use a suicide bombing in the West Bank as proof that Islam is "evil" or "dangerous" without addressing the elephant in the room--that the Palestinians are living in the world's "largest open-air prison" (to use Chomsky's words) and are resisting what they see as occupation of their lands in any way they can. It is no where near as simplistic as the "Muslims good/infidels bad cuz Koran says so" argument that some people seem to want to make.

And let's be clear, I'm not saying there aren't passages in the Koran that are being interpreted by Hamas and others as justification for the use of terrorism as an acceptable form of resistance. I'm saying this isn't unique to Islam. During the height of fighting in Northern Ireland both sides were using the Bible to justify the car bombs, assassinations, and other violence that occurred during The Troubles (another complex conflict where religious, political, and social issues intertwined). Yet I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would claim that Christianity is "evil" or "dangerous" based on what went down in Northern Ireland. It is a great example, though, of how any organized religion can be mobilized to support evil acts.

This metaphor really doesn't work in Ireland.



You might think I'm joking, but I have had cups of tea literally* forced on me by old women.

* yes, literally.

I didn't know road bowling was a thing. Thank you Ireland.

Yeah, they do.

And funnily enough, no, I'm not tolerant of your homophobic, racist nonsense.

In case you missed it, the fucking Supreme Court told you to get over it. For fucks sake, Ireland (previous winner of the "most catholic place on the planet" 70 years running) legalised gay marriage.

So yeah, the game is over, your team lost (in fact, they got utterly spanked). You're just the spoilt kids throwing a temper tantrum on the field while the rest of the civilised world has gone to the bar.

Eventually, it'll start to rain, and (like you did with slavery and women's rights) you'll come to the bar and feel embarrassed that you made such a dick out of yourselves in the first place. Luckily for you, by that time, we'll be drunk and in a good mood, so we'll forgive you.

Hah! That's mental, might suggest that to a few mates. Been back in Ireland at my sisters wedding the last few days, so many beers...

First of all, Flassbeck is the only(!) prominent economist in Germany arguing strictly against the madness of austerity. But he's living in the border region between France and Switzerland, so he's a European more than a German.

Among all the economic think tanks in Germany, only the union-sponsored IMK makes a credible case against this madness. Everyone else is more or less in line with the neoclassic perspective. Not a Keynesian in sight, much less a post-Keynesian group.

But now to the meat of the issue. There will be no major political shift in Germany in the near future. As Flassbeck stated, only a single party opposes the financial inquisition commonly known as the Troika. Unfortunatly, it's the socialists, and despite overwhelmingly popular policies, they are still an absolute no-go for large swaths of the demos thanks to the authoritarian regime in East Germany. Sucks, but it is what it is.

So it's up to the French people once again to save the continent from itself. Noone else has the balls or the influence to put an end to this misguided union. How likely is it for the French government to openly challenge German hegemony soon? I wouldn't bet on it. Which means the Greeks are fuuuucked².

In any case, what would it take for Greece to stabilise? And by stabilise I'm talking about a return to a manageable level of unemployment, a working healthcare system and social safety net. A conservative guesstimate would be a public deficit of ~10% of GDP for at least 5 straight years. Alternatively, the EIB would have to prop up Greece with €50b a year for the same number of years. To get a working bureaucracy, to undo four decades of nepotism, Greece would basically need a generation to reestablish itself as a state – and it would require appropriate financing.

Now remember which of Syriza's demands is painted as most controversial right now: debt restructuring. Debt restructuring, while neccessary at some point, is entirely pointless as long as the fiscal policy remains contractionary. Greece needs austerity to stop, right the fuck now. Greece needs to provide income-generating jobs for its people. All the talk about debt is utterly pointless, because at 25% unemployment, we're looking at permanent damage in every way imaginable. The social toll alone should be completely unacceptable within Europe if we truly gave two shits about human dignity.

So, even if Syriza get their way tomorrow, Greece would still be flushed down the shitter. Syriza's proposal is contractionary. Any primary surplus in this situation is contractionary.

Greece is done within the Euro. The use of a foreign currency makes it impossible to use appropriate fiscal policy on their own. Unfortunatly, but also intentionally, the currency issuer, the ECB, is placed outside the democratic control of the European Parliament, or any national parliament for that matter. Fiscal policy within the EZ was taken out of the control of our elected representatives to ensure that the neoclassic/neoliberal approach was irrevocably built into the system. We can thank Germany for that, by the way.

There is a shortage of spending in Greece. There is a shortage of spending in Spain. There is a shortage of spending in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, France. There is a shortage of spending in Germany, for fuck's sake. Put the ECB under control of the EP, add full employment (2-3% unemployment) to its mandate, and have them finance the appropriate programs at the national level. The output gap in Europe is so massive, the un(der)employment so vast, they could spend a trillion Euros and inflation would still not reach the agreed upon target value of 2%.

All it would take to change the rules is consent from every national parliament in the union. Might as well go skinny-dipping instead.

Great comment. As someone who grew up in Ireland my only exposure to the flag was on the General Lee. And it's a car that jumps over bridges. That's cool. How can you not love that when you're 7?

It wasn't until years later when I happened to watch a rerun of Dukes that I actually made the connection.

First thought: wow, that is fucked up.

But hey, people were a little racist in the 70s (and 80s too). Hell, everyone was a lot homophobic in the 80s and 90s.

That's no excuse to learn and move on.

TL;DR: the A-team was better anyway.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, had this to say about the referendum in Ireland: "I think that you cannot just talk of a defeat for Christian principles, but of a defeat for humanity."

Stay classy, Vatican!

I suppose the joy about the vote in Ireland had to be killed by something depressing, but I would have preferred it not to be this.

No, it's true. Those nasty gays are going to force you to move to Ireland and marry a dude.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA