213374U

Talk as high and mighty as you please, it's par for the course here. And you probably do know better than us if only because you can read Greek while most of us can't, so I'd personally appreciate your contributions. Regarding your comment about the Greek gov't and SYRIZA, I'm not surprised. Sounds a lot like our own Podemos crowd. Good luck.

They are still students. I even take issue with college level stuff like this. Teachers are supposed to be held to a certain standard. You folks don't want cops beating up on suspects, I don't want teachers banging their students. I study (or try to), which makes me a student. I'm older than some of my teachers. The line you're drawing is... arbitrary. While I understand where you're coming from regarding the abuse of authority thing (<Brazzers>), do you know this is one such case? Sacking her is one thing. Destroying her life completely is on a whole different level. Also, are you putting violence from a postion of superiority and a basic physiological function side by side? Really?

You are very much allowed to ignore him. Members of the judiciary have a duty to examine all cases and petitions brought before them to curb abuses of everyone's rights, but not society at large. Why do you feel obligated to listen to his trolling?

I believe nothing but the data, which is freely available and properly cited. Look it up, bring it up for discussion if you disagree, or keep regurgitating the same baseless neoliberal slogans ad nauseam in the face of contradicting evidence. Do you want to discuss something in particular, or you just don't like the name they chose for the committee? (it's not a government but a parliamentary committee — you know the difference, right?)

^ Been hitting 40º C (104º F) the past few days. No A/C, so I've been soaking every hour or so. I'm lucky enough not to live downtown, air here is a bit better quality. City center is downright unbreathable. Worst of it is going to sleep and waking up unrested. I've managed to muster enough willpower to go hit the gym, but performance is bad and the smell is worse — no A/C there either ("it's broken down, maintenance has already been notified...").

Yes, Merkel's government does it because they feel they have a moral responsibility to prevent the Euro and the EU from collapsing. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you... Anyway, if you folks are really interested in the composition and history of Greek sovereign debt, so a more fact-based debate can be had, you may want to take a look at this (I'm only halfway through myself). A few juicy tidbits: "Rather than being a product of high public budget deficits, the increase of debt was clearly related to the growth in interest payments. Greece entered the crisis with a debt inherited over the period of debt accumulation of 1980-1993; the main contributor to debt accumulation was the ‘snowball effect’ – present when the implicit interest rate on the debt is higher than GDP nominal growth. This explains two thirds of the increase of debt between 1980 and 2007." "Primary deficits feeding the debt have been further affected by poor performance in income tax collection and employers’ contributions to social security collection. These were much lower than the rest of Eurozone, and are attributed to fraud and illicit capital flows - explained below - benefiting only a minority of the population." "Public expenditure was lower than that of other Eurozone members. The only primary public spending which was higher (as a ratio to GDP) was in defence expenditures, about which a series of corruption scandals need to be further investigated." "Contrary to what is frequently proclaimed, Greek public expenditure (excluding defence) does not explain the debt increase. Public expenditure was lower than in Euro Area countries (EA-11, which comprises Euro-Area countries excluding Greece)." "We estimate that overspending in defence contributed to a debt increase of at least €40 billion. Most of this spending is due to large-scale contracts for the purchase of military equipment supplied by companies based in current creditor countries. Concerns about illegal operations, such as bribery, have been raised in several cases, particularly regarding excessive pricing or inadequacy of the equipment. Greece’s current lenders linked the 2010 bailout to the confirmation of pending military purchase orders" "the majority of the bailout loans given to Greece after 2010, under strict conditionality, have been used for the exclusive benefit of private banks, whether to reimburse their holdings of government bonds or for the recapitalisation of Greek banks. Far from the frequent assertions that the loans “assist” or “aid” the population or the state" It goes on, and on... So yeah. As Victoria Nuland succintly put it, "**** the EU".

He's so dreamy.

^ That's surprisingly accurate. Varoufakis has appeared on an Irish radio saying that a deal is "almost done", something echoed by Tsipras, who has assured that 48 hours after the referendum, there will be an agreement. This has prompted Juncker to go on record as "omg wtf no".

#firstworldproblems There is interesting stuff to be found, but it's due to sheer size; snr is pretty bad, a fact that is that is acknowledged beforehand as evidenced by the board layout and the amount of posts that are hidden by default. I skim a few subreddits from time to time (r/fitness and r/science mostly) but I burn out pretty fast. I'm not even registered.

IMF says Greece needs extra €60bn in funds and debt relief Is Tsipras' grandstanding starting to pay off? Now, the Washington-based side of the troika is changing its tune. Greece requires "a reduction in debt of 30% of GDP to bring it down to sustainable levels" and debt restructuring. Can't have Greece leaving the Euro and having closer ties closer to Russia, hmm? More power plays and in the end, it's always the taxpayer footing the bill, be it Greek or German.

Like that article demonstrates, "austerity" (Boo! Hiss!) is actually a conflation of two different things: Trying to balance income & expenses by cutting government spending Trying to balance income & expenses by raising taxes I guess for the likes of Krugman, it's convenient to obscure that distinction in cases like the current Greece crisis, because the analysis of which of the two is really hurting the economy, might not turn out to their liking. Let me guess: you approve of the former but not of the latter. It doesn't really matter because Greece has done a lot of the first too. I didn't think Krugman particularly obscured anything; his point is that, as things are, Greece is now past the point where it can ever repay the debt because its economy has shrunk (~20%) as a result of austerity measures. You may argue that cutting government spending cannot possibly hurt the economy, but in a country heavily dependent on government spending and with an oversized public sector, laying off public employees and giving the rest salary cuts is going to have a net negative effect because it stifles spending across the board. Much like the oft-repeated fiscal fraud fallacy, simply ramping up tax collection efficiency (slash fiscal fraud by 1/3 and Greece could repay its debts NAO!) would do more harm than good because of the sheer amount of money that would be removed from circulation. At any rate, the scope of the problem extends far beyond Greece. It's a problem with the financial system itself, a system based on exponential debt growth and perpetual borrowing of money from the future. Not quite a Ponzi scheme (we'll leave that for Social Security) but unsustainable all the same. A Greek financial crash is something the global economy can soak up. A US debt crash? Not so much. It doesn't matter how much you make from tax revenues, slash government spending, and spur economic growth. You will never keep up with the rate at which debt accrues. They are simply different mathematical functions, Michael Hudson (Boo! Hiss!) says, and that is why periodic defaulting is not just a thing, but a necessary and inevitable thing. This fact is known at least as far back as Hammurabi's Code, but we apparently no longer care because innumeracy one must honor their commitments!

Fun fact: in 1953, it was agreed to cancel 50% of the debt owed by FRG to western nations and banks. The remaining 50% was to be repaid provided that Germany ran a positive trade balance, and payments would amount to no more than 3% of export income. Among creditors who agreed to this debt cancellation was... Greece. Go go German diligence and work ethos!

This afternoon Greek PM Alexis Tsipras addressed the country reaffirming his commitment to next sunday's referendum, where the Greek people will have to vote on... stuff. Nobody is quite clear on what the referendum is really supposed to elucidate, as the previous bailout conditions are off the table after Greece failed to pay back 1.8bn € in due time. This is after a letter started circulating by which Tsipras would allegedly accept the latest proposed terms of the bailout, with some amendments. Tsipras has stressed that a "no" vote, for which he is campaigning, doesn't mean Greece would leave the Euro, as some have suggested. Should he lose the gamble, he may be forced to resign, by his own admission. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to wait until after the referendum to start a new round of talks, French President François Hollande wants to reach an agreement before the referendum. At any rate, it appears that the referendum itself will solve little regardless of the outcome because after years of austerity and cuts, the Greek economy has shrunk and can no longer sustain the debt, at least in the opinion of one Paul Krugman (Boo! Hiss!). It is more of this austerity (pensions cuts, VAT raises) that the Greek government and the troika disagree on. As I'm sure you all know by now, Greece has been suffering capital flight since SYRIZA won the election on january, and after defaulting on the june 30th payment, things have reached a breaking point with banks closed since monday and limits of 60€ per card and day being imposed on cash withdrawals in an attempt to avoid a total financial collapse. What seems to be at stake here (other than the future of millions of Greeks, obviously) is the stability and continuity of the Euro as a currency, as nobody really knows what a contagion could bring, and potentially, of western Europe as a political entity itself. As Chancellor Merkel put it four years ago: "Nobody should take for granted another 50 years of peace and prosperity in Europe ... that's why I say: If the euro fails, Europe fails". Fun times.

I wouldn't be surprised if a doctrine that incorporates "wolfpacks" of drones working in tandem with manned fighters for target acquisition and coordination is being worked on. I remember reading that while kill ratios for Russian missiles were worse than their US counterparts, Russian doctrine simply called for MOAR missiles to be available per engagement. Having a bunch of unmanned missile dispensers flying alongside stealth(ish) fighters would solve that without necessitating a costly redesign of weapons systems or aircraft. But as you say, is the F-35 needed for that? I don't know about its performance as cutting-edge fighter, but its success as too-big-to-fail subsidy facilitator for the Texas aviation industry is hard to dispute. I kid, I kid...

Hip thrusting is where it's at (skip to 0:48)

Well, what were you expecting?

No, I agree. However a public servant has a duty to serve the public, and my question would be, rather, if that duty could supersede their 1st Amendment rights, considering that nobody is actually conscripted into public service positions as far as I'm aware.

Because so far they haven't really shown that they can handle a project of that size. While there is a degree of hyperbole (this IS the internet) involved, the claims regarding bugs were fairly spot-on. They managed to release a two products with literally hundreds of bugs (many of them brand new, game-breaking issues), after a huge amount of debugging work had been done by the community throughout the last decade. They also managed to break compatibility with some of the most popular mods around (Dave Gaider's Ascension). As far as the new content goes, quality varies, but I didn't think it was as bad as everyone had led me to believe. I wouldn't pay full price for the EEs, but if they go on sale... edit: even though I own IWDEE, I haven't actually gotten around to playing it, so I can't comment on the quality of that one.

Wow, they packin'. Mine is around this size: Now I feel so... inadequate.

So basically they are saying that they can refuse to do their job as public servants, on religious grounds. ...can they actually do that? And if they can, could I exercise my discretion to pay taxes on moral grounds? Heh. I foresee lawsuits... lots of lawsuits.

With the horrible and damaging lifting techniques and odd disciplines used in Crossfit I refuse to recognize it as a valid form of sport. And it does not have enough endurance in it anyway, thats more like circuit training and thats not what I mean. I was more thinking along the lines of -as example- log lifts and atlas stone lift sessions followed by 60km bike sprints, followed by dead lifts and bench presses with running 20km as finisher. Most of the lifts are not against the clock but instead the total amount of weight lifted counts. Endurance disciplines are of course against the clock. I'd give the athletes a mandatory rest phase between the strength and endurance disciplines. Just thinking out loud.... So basically a sport that matches the way you train, right? Problem is, there is always going to be a disagreement wrt what is considered "balanced". You said it yourself, Crossfit "does not have enough endurance", because it doesn't meet some arbitrary criteria. And it will be difficult to get many people to follow it because it's always more interesting to see feats of extreme strength or endurance than the performance of an athletic jack-of-all-trades. BTW, there is a sport that is essentially what you just described, only there are no mandatory rest periods. It's called Obstacle Racing. Other than that, football (the American version) players are about as close as it gets to a "perfectly balanced athlete". Feel free to disagree...

From Beamdog?

Yep, she squats.

Show me a good time, Jack.

http://www.baldursgate.com So they are releasing... or announcing... something. Apologies if this isn't even news, I guess. edit: ah, so it's an adventure bridging the gap between BG1 and 2. And it was announced a while ago, so I guess it's not really news. Oh well.