Interesting Links for 15-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• The two options for the Eurozone.
  (tags: europe euro finance money)
• Straight birds shag around just as much as gay ones.
  (tags: birds sexuality lgbt)
• Rupert Grint: Still Awesome.
  (tags: RupertGrint)
• Apparently there are pro-bullying people out there. I should be less surprised, shouldn't I?
  (tags: bullying OhForFucksSake)
• We now have a much better idea of how fatty diets cause diabetes
  (tags: fat diabetes)
• Unusual opinions. I was entranced by this fandom-related post, where people came out of the woodwork to declare the things they loved.
  (tags: fandom fanfic scifi tv writing)
• Brilliantly Sarcastic Responses To Completely Well-Meaning Signs
  (tags: funny photos sign graffiti)

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

In the Eurozone Greece is eventually going to say "fuck it" to the Euro. They have no other way out of this mess other than creating their own currency, devaluing it, defaulting on most of their debt and moving on. Argentina did this a few years back and while they are still cut out of credit markets their economy is surging. As long as the Greeks stay in the Eurozone they are fucked economically and people are eventually going to get tired of living on 740 euros a month.

The question is whether or not Ireland decides to go this route as well. I suspect the Irish, because they have a much higher export base and considerably less harsh austerity measures than those put on Greece might be able to grow themselves out of their troubles given time. It' a good thing their ancestors learned how to make alcoholic beverages and crystal wineglasses that are beloved around the world.

Of course, Greece leaving is going to cause most Greek banks to fail and hurt large parts of the EU economy. The Germans will bitch and moan about this but secretly be delighted because it will lower the value of the Euro against the Dollar and the Yen, which will increase sales of their already growing export industry. Cheap BMWs for everyone!

Italy will stay in and be fine because their official economic numbers mean nothing since a huge part of their economy has always been off the books and under the radar anyway which means their unemployment numbers are bullshit. People are working - they are just getting paid in cash.

France will muddle through. The lower Euro will bring more tourists to Paris and sell more wine overseas and be a boon to the Riviera. Plus they'll get to claim that it's causing just enough economic hardship for them to ship more North Africans and Roma out, but not enough for them to have to cut their social services particularly much.

The UK and Switzerland will be fine since nobody really wants the Euro banking sector to be headquartered anyplace else and bankers bring in yuppies who spend money in shops.

Spain and Portugal will be in the shit but not quite badly enough to leave the Euro and their governments will probably subsidize a whole bunch of new RyanAir and EasyJet routes in order to bring in tourists willing to spend tons of money on cheap beer and tapas.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yes. And I do get the impression the reason the Greeks hasn't yet said fuck it to the Euro is they still think they can squeeze some more loans out of the european banks, before they finally decide to run off with the money and default.

The question is though, why are other countries and banks still prepared to keep lending Greece money, when it is so obvious they are never going to pay it back?

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Germany wants the Euro to take as large a hit as possible to boost exports and doesn't give a flying fuck it if hurts other countries and since Germany has tons of excess capital that other EU companies don't they can put pressure on for loans to go through.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

And in the meantime if it shatters a number of large French banks, then that's also good for German business?

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Germany's level of concern for what happens to the French or French businesses if fairly well documented historically.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've seen pro-bullying stuff for a while, though at comment length rather than a whole post. The guy being replied to is obviously getting off on being offensive, so it's hard to be sure of what he actually believes.

Mouse study which suggests that even moderate dieting leads to increased susceptibility to stress and binge eating.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Dieting in the sense of "a temporary change to fix a problem" doesn't work at all in the long term. Changing your diet to a new, long-term, way of eating can work just fine, so long as it's a sustainable diet you've chosen.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

How can people know what's sustainable? It's relatively easy to know what's grossly unsustainable, or it would be if people weren't pervasively lied to about what they ought to be able to sustain, but knowing what's sustainable over the long haul is a harder question.

[andrewducker]

It's not easy to know, no. Looking at what other people are finding sustainable, doing a bit of reading, etc. would help, but nothing outside of experience is going to give a firm answer.

But just knowing that there's no point doing the kind of diets that last you a month is worth knowing.

[simont]

Brilliantly Sarcastic Responses To Completely Well-Meaning Signs

The only thing that's ever made me feel tempted to do graffiti was a safety notice they had up on a building site where I work (in fact, while they were building the building I now work in), which said

No Hat
No Boots
No Job

I never succumbed to the urge, but I couldn't shake the feeling that that notice would have been vastly improved by a scrawled line at the bottom reading "Please Give Generously".

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

my daughter was bullied horrifically for the best part of the last academic year.

I got wind of just how bad it was after her mum had insisted she was handling it, then I read the ongoing reports in Daughter's school diary.

among the weird responses were 'we can't watch your daughter 100% of the time, the bullies actions are unpredictable, and we can't keep her locked away! Lets have a meeting so we can reassure your daughter everything is OK'

I wrote a letter. One letter. I never got a reply.

the letter said
1. given that my daugheter is not attacking anyone, she does not need watching. The bully does.
2. The bully is entirely predictable. If she has a chance to attack my daughter, she will.
3. We are not asking you to 'lock her away', though that is exactly what you ask of my daughter. Just keep her away from my daughter.
4. there is no point i having 'a meeting' because we do not believe it will 'be ok' and it will not stop her from being attacked
5. Given that your anti-bullying policy has clearly, completely failed, I would like a copy of it and further information regarding your intentions to prevent these incidents from recurring.


two days later, mother received a bizarre phone call from the headmistress saying how totally impossible this all was. Mother asked for the response in writing - which never arrived.

There has never been another incident of bullying.

[andrewducker]

Well done!

(Dealing with people that deliberately incompetent is just _hard_)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Apparently there are pro-bullying people out there. I should be less surprised, shouldn't I?

And of course, the example we have is a wackball US conservative, because such people all seem to have some sort of checklist of evil and nastiness that they must complete. It's like they sit around discussing what things are horrid and nasty that none of them have come out in favor of yet, and then someone gets an idea for a new one and puts it in a blog post, or a campaign speech, or a law.

[andrewducker]

I know. It seems so bizarre. You do get crazy people on the liberal side too, but you'd think that they'd balance out better.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

It's for that reason that I have real fears that the US is tipping into genuine fascism... that whole emphasis on conflict driving improvement, with the strong rising above the weak and reaping the rewards thereof while improving the ra- er, nation thing. Sends chills up my spine.

-- Steve can't understand how heavily the American right can fall for the fallacy of "social Darwinism" while so abhorring the real evolutionary theory that's actually useful.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's nothing new. The US has had a strain of social-darwinism & muscular christianity that's very old and very deep, the sort of self-righteous "rugged individualism" that drives those particular sorts of nastiness is pretty much one of the founding principles of the US. The resurgence of active and open racism is clearly a reaction to Obama's election.