Iceland shows the world the way.
the revolution will be twittered
The Heat is On - Eiríkur Bergmann's grauniad article on civil unrest in Iceland.
Newsfrettir has more - interesting sequence of pictures...
Hey, I think that is my cousin storming the "United Left" meeting at the National Theater.
Heard they missed the torching of the christmas tree at the east square by Alþingi...
The head of the National Bank was carried out of her office; the Prime Minister's car stormed; the police are in riot gear and being taunted; and flash mobs are gathering.
Right now it is torches (well auto flares mostly) and eggs vs billyclubs and pepperspray...
can we borrow that Obama chap for a few months first?
Freezers are full - this however is the shit scary part of it all - with the collapse of international trade and credit, the fish exports are grinding to a halt.
The fish is there, but the buyers can't afford it...
Lent can't come too soon.
Wow. Iceland is selling its US embassy!
And New York consulate/UN embassy; London and Oslo!
Wonder if the ambassador's residences are also for sale, those would make a difference.
Hm, deCode is using its genetic tree software to analyse individual debt structure.
That's kinda cool, could be a growth market...
prime minister meet the people
PS: police used teargas for the first time tonight.
Only previous time teargas has been used in Iceland was to suppress the rioting in 1949 after people found out Iceland had joined NATO.
Apparently some police were injured in scuffles earlier. Probably a turning point here.
Weather forecast is storm across all of Iceland, with cold sleet.
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FWIW, I was finally inspired by this post to Google my Icelandic friends from college (Indiana U., early 1980s). Siggi is a talented jazz musician, and he's all over the 'net (Reykjavik Big Band, concerts in North America and Europe, etc. -- jazz is a recession-proof occupation: it sucks no matter what), but Oskar the business major is nowhere to be found.
I remember Oskar as an ambitious young man who dreamed of bringing U.S.-style business practices to Iceland (he once told me, drunkenly, that he wanted to drive a big classic Cadillac with tail fins around Reykjavik, and that he wanted to sell prepackaged frozen fish in Iceland). So I reasoned that if anyone I knew would figure in the current economic news from Iceland, it would be Oskar. But the only solid Google result I could find for him was behind a paywall at classmates.com (so at least I didn't imagine him). If he is back in Iceland, he is undoubtedly one of the Bad Guys. He also introduced me to 1980s Icelandic heavy metal music, an experiment on his part that, sadly, had no effect on me, but was charming nonetheless.
I know you're adopting a cynical, flippant tone in your news from Iceland posts, but I want you to know my heart goes out to the people there. It's such a delicate balance they have there between modern development, physical isolation, and an export economy, and I hope they find a way to restore that balance soon.
(Oh, crap. Does that last paragraph sound condescending? I'm having a real hard time finding the right words. I was blessed with two good Icelandic friends when I was young and needed friends, and as a consequence I have strong albeit inchoate feelings about the nation and its people.)
The flippant tone is self-defence - most of my family is in Iceland, and I am not kidding when I say my cousins are variously on the protest lines, behind the riot shields or vacationing in the Caribbean with their gains..,
I have a lot of cousins.
'Oskar is not that usual a name, and a quick google reveals 3-4 Business Study people of that approximate age, but they all seem to be from the University of Iceland - was he MBA or BA at Bloomington?
If you remember his patronym (last name) I could find him in a second. Hell, odds are finite he went to school with me.