Behind The Global - Game Of - Thrones

By Raúl Ilargi Meijer: Greek PM Alexis Tsipras yesterday laid out Syriza’s stance, and from what I saw he didn’t pull even one punch. Despite all the suggestions from the financial press throughout the past week that Tsipras and Varoufakis reneged on campaign promises to seek debt write-downs, they didn’t, and never have – other than perhaps in semantics.
Which I don’t find the slightest bit surprising. I would have been very surprised if they had. The misinterpretation, and the faulty expectations, are easily explained through the fact that – most of – these guys are not politicians, which they very deliberately expressed in the way they dressed for their meetings with ‘Europe’s finest’.
They don’t see the ‘space’ career politicians see to negotiate away the mandate their voters have given them. For them it’s simple: we were elected on our program – which in this case happens to be to end the misery forced upon Greece by the European and Troika schemes -, and we’re not going to move away from that just because ‘the other side’ starts threatening us, or (a crucial difference in politics) because our voters may not vote for us again in a next election.
In their view, trying to scare Greece into even more submission, which is the overlying message emanating from Brussels and beyond, is entirely null and void because Greece can’t – and shouldn’t – sink any lower than it has.

A Very Slippery Slope - Yes, Your Samsung Smart TV Can Listen To Your Private Conversations

By Michael Krieger: The biggest story in the tech world today is the revelation that Samsung’s Smart TV can and will listen to your conversations, and will share the details with a third party. Yes, you read that right. Here’s the actual language from the privacy policy itself:

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.” 
Naturally, this has freaked people out and led to multiple comparisons to 1984 and the ubiquitous Big Brother. It was framed exceptionally well by EFF activist Parker Higgins in the following tweet:

Parker Higgins @xor Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV Right: 1984 pic.twitter.com/osywjYKV3W

While the privacy policy statement is disturbing in its own right, the extent of how creepy it is has to do with the fact that this information will be shared with a “third party.” This begs the question, who is this third party?

Is Prince Andrew guilty?

By Danny Baines: It has recently been highlighted extensively on AVfM that Bill Cosby is being tried in the court of public opinion. This is significant to the USA, but over here in the UK, we have a different showtrial going on. Prince Andrew has been named by Virginia Roberts as a rapist.
Once again, this case highlights how men are tried in the court of public opinion. Prince Andrew has not been afforded any right to privacy. His identity and the allegations are fully public, no matter how unproven: no evidence has been presented and no conviction has been handed down.
Proof is what Men’s Rights Activists want. We are not ‘pro rape.’ If Prince Andrew raped Miss Roberts, he should go to jail. But again, the point is that Prince Andrew is being treated as guilty until proven innocent, which flies in the face of all principles of democratic justice. The allegations have not been proven, but the public are still encouraged to pass judgement through news articles and the internet.

The Girl Who Cried, “Rape!”

By B.R. Merrick: A tale by Whatsop (Aesop’s slightly jaded third cousin): 
Once there was a small green village full of happy, boring people: a butcher, a tailor, a midwife, a schoolteacher, an African-American smith, a grocer, a mayor, a doctor, sundry milkmaids and stablepersons, and the requisite amount of white trash.

There was also a boy who spent all day up on a nearby hill tending sheep. Every once in a while, a wolf would come along and steal one of the sheep away in his patriarchal jaws, but the boy had learned to keep silent about such incidents, since he and he alone was blamed every time this happened. But that’s another story. (A ba-a-a-a-a-d one.)
One day, from the top of another nearby hill, the village people (no, not them) heard the cry of a young maiden. “Rape! Rape!” she screamed, and they all dropped the boring work they were doing to lend assistance. Up the hill they ran, with visions of a member of the most physically and emotionally protected sex being psychologically destroyed by a member of the most utilitarian, disposable, and culpable sex. They ruled out the shepherd boy because he had just been seen in town trying to get his last male sheep to do something – anything at all – with either one of the two remaining female sheep.

Female Suicides: A Deadly Fabrication?

By Drew Domalick: We’ve all heard the statistic: There are three female suicide attempts to every male suicide attempt. This statistic can be seen on SAVE[1], AAS[2], AFSP[3], and many other suicide prevention organizations. In fact, this has been so engrained into the heads of the public that few people even question this statistic. I did question this statistic because of the high rate of fatal suicide cases (around 80% of fatal suicide cases are males[4]), and the results I found were quite shocking.
During my research for this article, I quickly ran into big red flags. I came across the SAVE organization, and I found this listed under their “Suicide Facts” section: “There are three female suicide attempts for each male attempt. (CDC, AAS)”[1] Then I went to the AAS to check their source and on their “2012 Data – Rates, numbers, and rankings of each state” I find this: “3 female attempts for each male attempt.”[2] There was no clear source but at the bottom of the page I found two citations:
1) “Many figures appearing here are derived or calculated from data in the following official data source: obtained 16 October 2014 from CDC’s WISQARS website (fatal injuries report figures) http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html.”

Le Pen Says Washington Attempting To Start ‘War In Europe’

RT: The leader of France’s rightwing Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, has called Brussels “American lackeys” over the EU's Ukraine policy. She further accused Washington of attempting to start a “war in Europe” and expand NATO towards Russia’s borders.
"European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent on US positions on Ukraine," Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.
"Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys," she said, before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border."
Marine Le Pen        ✔ @MLP_officiel "Concernant l'#Ukraine, nous nous comportons comme les valets des Américains." #GrandJury

She went on to accuse European leaders of turning a blind eye to the Ukrainian government’s “bombing of civilians,” adding that both those in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine believed the country should be federalized.
Le Pen has regularly criticized the EU for its policy on Ukraine and its alleged lack of independence from Washington. 
Marine Le Pen        ✔ @MLP_officiel "Tout ce qui va dans le sens du règlement diplomatique du conflit ukrainien doit être privilégié." #GrandJury

In September, she told Le Monde that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is “all the European Union’s fault,” saying Brussels had “blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia.”

Vote With Your Feet - MGTOW

Women are so confident because they know the social narrative and once they have your baby they've "got you".

The C.O.C.K. fairy aka Feminism LOL aka Diana Davidson.

Payback Time! Greek PM Seeks Reparations Over Nazi Germany Occupation & War-Time Loan

RT: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, referring to Nazi Germany’s four-year occupation of Greece and a forced war-time loan during World War II that saddled the Greek economy in huge debt, wants Berlin to pay reparations.
Tsipras, leader of the anti-austerity Syriza party, said Athens had a “historical obligation” to claim from Germany billions of euros in reparations for the physical and financial destruction committed during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Greece.
Beyond the historical obligation, he said Greece had "a moral obligation to our people, to history, to all European peoples who fought and gave their blood against Nazism," he said in a keynote address to parliament on Sunday. 
The Greek leader’s comments have resonated far beyond Athens as they place the issue of his country’s recent massive bailout at the behest of international creditors in a whole new light.
After Nazi forces took control of Greece in 1941, the stage was set for one of the bloodiest confrontations of World War II as Greek resistance fighters put up a fierce struggle to end the occupation.They were powerless, however, to prevent the Third Reich from extracting an interest-free 476 million Reichsmarks loan from the Greek central bank, which devastated the Greek economy.

A Day Of Reckoning For The Euro Has Arrived - 26 TRILLION In Currency Derivatives At Risk

By Michael Snyder: This is the month when the future of the eurozone will be decided.  This week, Greek leaders will meet with European officials to discuss what comes next for Greece.  The new prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, has already stated that he will not accept an extension of the current bailout.  Officials from other eurozone countries have already said that they expect Greece to fully honor the terms of the current agreement.  So basically we are watching a giant game of financial “chicken” play out over in Europe, and a showdown is looming.  Adding to the drama is the fact that the Greek government is rapidly running out of money.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Greece is “on course to run out of money within weeks if it doesn’t gain access to additional funds, effectively daring Germany and its other European creditors to let it fail and stumble out of the euro.”  We have witnessed other moments of crisis for Greece before, but things are very different this time because the new Greek government is being run by radical leftists that based their entire campaign on ending the austerity that has been imposed on Greece by the rest of Europe.  If they buckle under the demands of the European financial lords, their credibility will be gone and Syriza will essentially be finished in Greek politics.  But if they don’t compromise, Greece could be forced to leave the eurozone and we could potentially be facing the equivalent of “financial armageddon” in Europe.

Crunch Time As Greece’s Terrible Deadlines Loom

By Don Quijones: Since the election of Syriza, the pressure on Greece has been cranked up to almost unbearable levels. The first shot across the bow came from the European Central Bank’s Master of Ceremonies, Mario Draghi, who warned that if Greece didn’t start behaving itself (i.e. stop all this silly talk about representing voters and restructuring or auditing the country’s wholly unpayable debt), the ECB would, as of February 11th, sever a large chunk of the country’s monetary supply lines.
Should Draghi follow through on his threat, Greek banks will, as of next Wednesday, have to get their daily dose of liquidity from the Bank of Greece instead of the ECB – and of course at much higher interest rates! Draghi’s threat is a stark reminder of just how dependent Greece now is on the whimsy of a wholly undemocratic, unaccountable, non-independent, Goldman Sachs-infiltrated banking institution – an institution that, thanks to the banking union hurriedly and stealthily rushed through last year, is now the sole supervisory force of over 80% of Europe’s banking industry.
If Draghi’s MAD threat is not enough to force the Greek government back into strict compliance of the Troika’s law, the Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem came up with his own 10-day ultimatum: if Greece did not apply for a bailout extension by February 16th, it would be cut off from access to Euro Zone funding.

Greek FinMin Warns "Euro Will Collapse If Greece Exits", Says Italy Is Next

Submitted by Tyler Durden: The time for the final all-in bet has arrived. As we explained yesterday, when we wrote that "Greece Gambles On "Catastrophic Armageddon" For Europe, Warns It "Only Has Weeks Of Cash Left"", and as confirmed further by today's fire and brimstone speech by Greek PM Tsipras, in which he not only did not concede one millimeter to Europe but raised the stakes even higher, by promising among other things to raise the minimum wage and to halt foreclosures, Greece is now betting everything that Europe will not allow it to exit, hoping that "this time is not different", and the existential terror that would be heaped on the Eurozone as forecast in 2012 by the likes of Citi's Buiter and IIF's Charles Dallara, will still take place, and Europe will concede that spending a few more billion on Greece's bridge program is worth to avoid what could potentially spiral into an out of control collapse. To be sure, that is precisely what Yanis Vaourfakis implied today when he said that "if Greece is forced out of the euro zone, other countries will inevitably follow and the currency bloc will collapse, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said on Sunday, in comments which drew a rebuke from Italy."

Syriza, Greece And Government Debt Cancellation. Could It Happen Here In The UK?

By joelbenjamin5: As the newly elected Syriza Government make overtures to the so-called Troika of the ECB, EC and IMF on debt restructuring, one thing is increasingly clear. Elites in the UK and across Europe appear deeply uncomfortable the neoliberal logic of the “free market” is being questioned by a democratically elected Government, freely expressing the will of the long-suffering Greek people.
For those who sat through the car-crash Emily Maitlis interview for BBC Newsnight – accusing the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis of “sabre rattling” for daring to renegotiate Greek debt, the hostile tone that greets BBC guests bold enough to question the ‘neoliberal consensus’ is quickly apparent.
London remains, the most important financial centre on the planet. The City of London effectively writes its own policy and regulation. Through The City UK, the British Bankers Association and HSBC’s Rona Fairhead, it pulls the strings of the BBC.
For the most part, the three major UK political parties simply nod along with this charade, collecting their cheques.
For people watching events unfold from the UK, the notion a tiny sovereign nation like Greece, tied to the fiscal straight-jacket of the EU, could take on the ECB, The City of London, Deutsche Bank and Angela Merkel, oppose the ‘fiscal water-boarding’ of austerity and win seems absurd.