USA bailing out Greece? Yes

Americans like to think of the Greek financial fiasco as a European problem. What a majority probably don't know is that they are going to help foot the bill. The United States supplies 20% of IMF funding. This means that US taxpayers will be providing around $8 billion dollars of the $145 billion package to rescue Greece from default. The scam doesn't stop there.

It also looks like the IMF loan is being made "junior" to existing Greek debt. Instead of how in normal finance, the last lender is usually "senior". This means it should get the money back first. Not the case here. Greece is going to pay first, with the new money, the seedy unscrupulous bankers who loaned it the money to get into this mess in the first place. Then when the cash runs out again, and it looks like it will, most analysts only calling this package a "band-aid", Greece will have nothing to pay back the countries, e.g Germany, the US, that have bailed it out. Our loan is never going to be paid back.

This is yet another example of the recent trend of bailing out and rescuing companies that have made bad choices. It is not the responsibility, in any way, of taxpayers or governments to pay companies for making bad investment and lending choices. What happened to risk? These companies and banks have gotten so big and important, "too big to fail" through fraud, that not bailing them out would be disastrous. How long can we keep subsidizing incompetent crooked companies?

Vegetarians, From the Other Point of View!

from the comedy duo behind Peep Show.

ARMACast Takes Off

Evan Lahti of PC Gamer magazine, Keenan Weaver of Game-Central.org and Andrew Fogarty, a modder, have teamed up to create an entire podcast based around the Bohemia Interactive Mil-sim ArmA 2. This is an interesting premise for the show and in the debut episode they already have introduced several segments: "Special Assignment" where they give listeners some kind of ArmA related assignment for that week, which will be discussed in the next show. And the "Armory" where they discuss a single weapon from the game.

I've been a long time ArmA player since the original Operation Flashpoint (2001), and have also played several sessions of ArmA2 with Evan and Keenan on the PC gamer "war walrus" server. This makes it very easy for me to see how an entire podcast can be based around a single game. This is because ArmA, probably more so then any other current game, is more of a platform. The large community is endlessly adding new content, from missions, mods, add-ons, to entire new islands to play on. ArmA, as mentioned in the first episode of the show, harkens back to a time when (PC) games, and specifically self proclaimed "realistic shooters", were inherently difficult, slower-paced, complex and didn't "simplify" game-play to cater to mass audiences. You didn't magically regenerate health by hiding behind a rock. Games, like the first Ghost Recon, early Rainbow Six and of course Operation Flashpoint.

I look forward to the release of new episodes, and playing more ArmA2.

Putin Bonus

German Military Resurgence

Germany Now World's Third Largest Arms Exporter -- Spiegel

German arms export had doubled in the last five years, now only behind the United States and Russia. Although the Germans are well known for high quality weaponry, this is startling considering Germany's deep pacifism since the Second World War.

Putinghis Khan

Georgia Digging a Tunnel to Afghanistan?

Another Example of Georgian-American kookiness. The United States and Georgia are signing a deal that would create a military supply line from Georgia to Afghanistan. However, Georgia shares no border with Afghanistan. In fact, the two countries are well over a thousand miles distant. According to the Stratfor analyst, "unless the Georgian government somehow managed to bore a tunnel underneath Earth's crust between Georgia and Afghanistan".