drabble split from 7zNSE beta 1006

[Tuxman]

Greeks who actually work are a welcome part of the European Union. Why can't you all be like this?
(Oh, yes, it's this part of May again when German left-wing extremists throw bottles at cops in order to protest for better work. Sigh.)

Indeed, Kilmatead, bookstores are declining, but that's what they said of vinyl. Bookstores will be the future of ebooks, like vinyl is the future of CDs. Just wait until hipsterness is not hip anymore. All trends, including the Amazon trend, will come to an end some day. (Here in Germany, bookstores are still well alive; with coffee, of course. Our contribution to attitude and style.)

[Kilmatead]

I did put in a month's worth of my labour to turn it into a working mix.

Yeah, but did you go hungry for it (like some people [who could probably lose some kilos anyway])? I think not! Bloody philanthropic Greek Industrialists! All the same... me, me, me...

...who actually work are a welcome part of the European Union.

This stuff isn't work - it's just a bunch of white-collar types who never lifted a shovel in their lives pretending that they're being productive. Did computer nonsense build Hadrian's Wall? Heck no! Did computer nonsense build Alexandria? No way! Did computer nonsense actually contribute to our slow progression away from the primordial ooze? I think not!

You never know when having a distorted sense of perspective is going to come in handy.

REAL Workers of the world unite!

Here in Germany, bookstores are still well alive; with coffee, of course. Our contribution to attitude and style.

But do they still let you have a cigarette with that coffee like in the good old days? A cup of coffee in a bookshop without a cigarette is just not civilised, like it used to be back when men were men and books were books, and best selling albums were... actually... things sold... instead of weird "downloaded" digitally compressed abstractions of commerce...

[Tuxman]

Unlike coffee, cigarettes are widely accepted as being bad for people and books sitting too near.

[Kilmatead]

That figures - a thousand years of cultural ambiance and you throw it away just because Brussel's says jump. "Widely accepted"... ppfftt... not by men blessed of a certain unhealthy (yet expedient) nonchalance it's not...

[Tuxman]

A man can ruin his health with better things, like Whiskey and women. I'll suffer later.

[Kilmatead]

So it's a choice between liver-disease, syphilis, or lung-cancer? Umm.... Is it too late to go for the mystery-prize behind door number 4? Course, that one's probably "Eaten by dragons" or something equally fun...

[Tuxman]

There's still "being killed in a nuclear war started by the US", right?

[Kilmatead]

Check-Point-Charlie was dismantled. Cuba is now (apparently) everyone's friend. So any nuclear holocaust is going to come from Putin most likely. Which is fine, 'cause that way you get microwaved before I do.

[Tuxman]

That's not quite true. In fact, a few days ago the EVP (the not-yet-nazi right-wing political party in the European Parliament) actually proposed threatening Russia with nuclear weapons. My favorite part is when one of its members said Germany has "only 20 rusty nuclear weapons" and that we'll have to have more. Cold War ringing the bells again?

And it's not even Putin's fault that the NATO has been ignoring their pacts with the dying USSR for the past 25 years.

[drac]

If we are proposing probable countries which are likely to start a nuclear war, my vote is for the middle east and countries starting with the letter "I".

[Kilmatead]

It's funny how the peoples [sic] most susceptible to propaganda are the ones least likely to realise it and yet are at the same time the loudest to proclaim against that latent susceptibility. The American fear-factory has done its job on you, son, you should feel proud to be a statistic - your destiny has been fulfilled.

Speaking of prognostications, I see this thread being splintered off very soon by a friendly neighbourhood moderator who lurks and smirks more than he works and flirts these days...

[Tuxman]

If we are proposing probable countries which are likely to start a nuclear war, my vote is for the middle east and countries starting with the letter "I".

Why would Italy want to do that?

Oh, yes, we're drifting away. It's all your fault, Kilmatead. Just for the sake of it.

[Kilmatead]

Doesn't Italy owe your Germanic bankers more than the Greeks do? There's a good reason right there.

What better way to cancel your debts than to cancel your debtor? Practical, efficient, and home in time for irradiated cappuccino.

[Tuxman]

Probably Germany should take its 20 rusty nuclear bombs then and mildly ask the US bankers to pay back their debts?

[Kilmatead]

Blood from a stone for the roaring of the mice. Don't China basically own the American Debts (Government Debt, anyway)? I thought they bought them up along with all the steel they could find a few years back.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, at the end of August 2014, more than a third of the debt was owned by foreign countries (34.4%). The largest foreign holders of U.S. debt were Mainland China (7.2%) and Japan (7.0%)

If the debt you're looking for is from private bankers, then you're not going to get that back (obviously). However, you can take consolation that the drug-addicted republican daughters of those bankers are driving German-made BMW's when they wrap themselves around telephone-poles, as teenagers are wont to do.

At least you sold them a few shiny cars (with really nice break-callipers) first.