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Look who's in Athens today

Hey guys not sure if you knew but the guys from super league academies brought karagounis in to New York. I will be playing with him in a friendly charity match later tonight... Hopefully I can get a picture with him and he can sign my centenary jersey!

WTF have Don Sweeny and Cam Neely done to the Bruins??? Gone are Dougie Hamilton, Milan Lucic, and yet they keep Chara??? And of their 3 picks in the first round, 2 according to analysts could of been had at the end of the first round.. I'm sure Boston radio is ripping them a new one.. Hamilton is going to be a top ten D man in the next five years.. First Seguin, now this. The Bruins are absolutely insane...

Blackmail???? Have you read what was proposed. it is hardly unreasonable

Click the PDF at the bottom of the page for the proposals Tsipras walked out on. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5270_en.htm They really are not that unreasonable. Question for people like JS - Wouldn't you rather see Greece on a path like some of the Scandinavian nations? A lot of their success is based on policy that is not to dissimilar from the proposals outlined above.

It is not a cop out. They won on a mandate to reduce austerity. They then entered the 'negotiations' which turned out to be nothing more then the euro group dictating what Greece must do. Faced with that he goes back to the people any says they refuse to agree to reducing the austerity they want to continue with this financial small minded and pigheaded cruelty do you want me to agree to more of this same crap or shall we together tell them where to go. He is reinforcing the countries views and in a way strengthening his hand. I'm not left wing by inclination but syriza and Tsipras is a w Come change to the usual two dynasties with their cronies who have ruled Greece badly for decades.

The problem with Tsipras and his government is the same problem with just about every other Greek political leader, they refuse to make the big decisions when their political future is at stake. Elections were held 5 months ago and they received their mandate. Calling for a referendum is a cop-out, placing the burden on the people as opposed to the government the people elected. The people elected you now make the tough decisions that you think are in the best interest of the country without worrying about your political future. Unfortunately the political system in Greece is incapable or unwilling to do so. Even more disturbing is that the proposed solution is to further choke the private sector- the only portion of the economy that is capable of producing something, so the public sector can remain the bloated resource-sucking entity it has been. That is just as counter-productive as the memoranda which contain no legitimate means for debt relief. Events are truly taking a tragic turn.

Tsipras had a mandate from the people to challenge the austerity measures implemented by the troika etc and meekly accepted by the previous governments in Greece. The fact is the measures were too severe and were strangling the country creating a great deal of poverty and suffering to mostly the sections of the population who did not cause the problem in the first place. Take away all the financial buzz words and other financial jargon and a trained monkey can see that pruning a tree too much kills it or at the very least makes it grow very slowly. The measures forced upon Greece are too severe and killing the patient. I don't think anyone can dispute that the Greek economy and tax collecting needs reforming but this will not be accomplished by destroying the country. It was not Tsipras or syriza who caused this situation it was the previous governments and the people of the middle class upwards who refused to pay their taxes. Tsipras has been negotiating for weeks now and to all intents and purposes has not received anything. He has finally been backed into a corner by the Europeans who have refused to budge so if he accepted the proposals he would have been going against the mandate given to him by the electorate. So he is going back to the people and saying I have not been able to reach an agreement which would reduce austerity so I need to speak with you again, ask your opinion. Don't forget he is in a coalition politics is a tinderbox there at the moment. Social cohesion must be maintained as much as possible. The Europeans want to continue kicking the tin can down the road instead of providing a plan which will allow Greece to grow and therefore better make the financial repayments. The country is not going to pay anything back if all the economy implodes, all the trained and young people go and work in other countries! As for Greeks being liars and crooks etc. they are no worse then anyone else. Unfortunately they are not as good as some in hiding it. Historically and in the present there are many examples of crooked and lying going on around the world. If fact there is so much that I do not think anyone needs to provide examples. We could all draw up a list of our own.