Saturday, 26 January 2013

Peace Child International builds European network to tackle youth unemployment crisis

Peace Child international, the youth-led organization with over 30 years’ experience empowering the young to make their own change has reached out to organizations from all over Europe in a bid to stem the spread of youth unemployment. Its EU Youth job creation network will draw on experience and knowledge from the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece’s Innovation Farm.


Uncertainty and doubt about the future has always been part of the impetus that drives innovation and achievement. It has rarely been far from most people’s minds but the last few years have seen a period of renewed intensity. After decades of raised expectations for many, the roller-coaster is now the big dipper, the double-dipper, the triple-dip to the point where pundits are running out of euphemisms. There are few for whom this is more terrifying than our young. The thought of a future-less generation fills us all with dread.  

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

who's to blame

Since long before living memory commercial industry has invested trillions to develop products and services that have satisfied needs, both real and fabricated. 


Trillions have been invested to make marketing ever more persuasive. 

Even more has been spent to create new devices that both address needs and desires and open new lucrative markets for their maintenance, upgrading and accessories. 
 
Trillions upon trillions have been conjured up by financial institutions to enable everyone to acquire them. 


..and we are to blame because we bought too much?

or being punished because we just plain ran out of money


Wednesday, 2 January 2013

End of the Fakelaki?

On new years eve the wife decided to tackle an outstanding round of paper-stamping. We had to take on IKA and OAEE and although New Year's may seem a masochistic day for such a task we headed off with freshly woken kids to the big smoke of Thessaloniki's public services. We made a quick pit stop at the post office to get the road tax paid which went swiftly and without hitch or hindrance. Next the hardcore, IKA. after about ten minutes. Wifey emerged from the offices with a reserved smile, while she hadn't managed to complete she was pleasantly surprised by the generally helpful demeanour of the public servants. We proceeded to the police station as I required some stamps to prove that I'm not an illegal alien. After trying two previous addresses of the dept of aliens I enquired if the bloody office was on wheels and received a smile, not common from public employees let alone the police. And here lies my point, is it me or are public employees growing some humanity? *


From Under Dark Clouds

  • Episode 48: A Saviour is Born
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
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  • Episode 47: Confession
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
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  • Episode 46: Alternative Honesty
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
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  • Episode 45: Tell it like it is
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
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The Century of DIY

  • Are you qualified for Democracy
    Keeping your head in politics Every nation gets the government it deserves (Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite), so said Joseph de Maistre after the French revolution. Plato (see, I...
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  • Do we understand work anymore?
    WORK: for many a four-letter word, for others the epicentre of their existence but for most of us just another necessary evil. Work is how we get the stuff we need to buy stuff and keep the kids in...
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  • Back to a very dark age
    So much progress was made in the last century. Huge leaps in technology, great advances in equality, despite what many believe, education and health care for great swathes of the population. We put...
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  • Why Austerity IS Working
    Ok, let’s start with a revelation. Austerity doesn’t work, that’s a no-brainer. Economists have been saying this for centuries and anyone living at the thin edge of the wedge in Europe will be...
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