Posted on 04/16/2010 5:14:29 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Icelands revenge
Published: April 15 2010 22:10 | Last updated: April 15 2010 22:10
Two years ago, Icelands banks blew up spectacularly, taking much of the world by surprise and leaving the British and Dutch governments angrily out of pocket. Now, the sparsely populated north Atlantic island has produced another big explosion again affecting the two countries. This time, nature rather than the bankers, is to blame. A volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, has erupted for the first time since 1821, sending a plume of dust up to seven miles (11 kilometres) into the atmosphere.
The volcano is situated in a remote area, so mercifully there have been no casualties. The dust cloud from the eruption has been blown east away from the island itself. Indeed, it is beyond Icelands shores that it is causing the most bother. The cloud has settled over large parts of north western Europe. The fine silicate dust ejected by Eyjafjallajökull turns out to be ideally designed to do critical damage to aero engines. Consequently, big chunks of European airspace have been closed.
A glance at a meteorological map would suggest that the volcano has contrived to avenge Iceland for the humiliations inflicted on it by the British and Dutch over the banking failure. Their demand that the tiny country repay up to 3.9bn of the money they spent compensating investors in the collapsed banks has stirred fury on the Icelandic street. With gratifying precision the dust cloud has blown across these two countries while barely affecting the ones around them. Both grounded flights yesterday.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
P!
Eyjafjallajokull
I have my next screen name.
My first thought after hearing this was “There’s a ‘screw you’ from Iceland for all those years of flying-over”!
A screen name few can pronounce?
It’s probably just something like “Big Smoke” in Icelandic.
Iceland is important!
Q: I'm going to apologize in advance if this question seems too silly but I would like to know how common it is for Icelanders to believe in fairies and do you believe in fairies? I had read an article years ago that suggested that many Icelanders hold an age-old belief in fairies or spirits.
Paul Redlich, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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A: According to the University of Icelands science web, daily newspaper DV reported in 1998 that the majority of participants in an opinion poll said they believed in fairies, or elves, around 50 percent of men and 60 percent of women. The poll only gave participants a chance to answer yes or no, while older polls show that the majority of Icelanders are uncertain whether elves exist or not.
In a more recent and detailed study from 2007 folklorist Terry Gunnell at the University of Iceland concluded that 37 percent of participants said elves possibly exist, 17 percent found their existence likely, 13 percent said elves could not possibly exist and five percent had no opinion on the existence of elves.
The Iceland Tourist Board however states that more than ten percent of the Icelandic population believes in elves, including singer-songwriter Björk. Another ten percent denies their existence while the remaining 80 percent are in doubt.
The Tourist Board goes on to describe how when new roads are constructed, the Public Roads Administration is careful not to disturb elf habitation. The Iceland Tourist Board quotes Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson, author and civil engineer at the administration saying:
"When Native Americans protest roads being built over ancient burial grounds, the US listens. It's the same here. There are people who believe in elves and we don't make fun of them. We try to deal with them."
Elves are generally known as huldufólk or hidden people in Icelandic. Jón Jónsson, a folklorist who used to teach at the University of Iceland, told the Iceland Tourist Board that although he had never seen huldufólk himself, his grandmother had seen elves on many occasions and described them to him.
"They are well dressed in the styles of the early 1900s and don't take kindly to being disturbed. They'll often take revenge if you destroy their homes or otherwise bother them," Jónsson said.
excerpt from: http://icelandreview.com/icelandreview/search/news/Default.asp?ew_0_a_id=312499
I’m jealous of Iceland, actually. They’ve got nowhere to go but up, and have said f off to the international globobanksters who tell them to pay off Brits for...well, evidently, “because we’ll be angry if you don’t.” I’ll be darned if I can figure out why the people of Iceland ought to be worried about that. Maybe because their country’s hard economy, not paper economy, is based upon fishing and geothermal energy and not much else, but then, maybe they can live with that—some countries don’t even have that going for them.
Either way, I don’t think of them as a country that has much to worry about. It’s already reached its pit of despair. I wish I could say the same for this country, because as long as we artificially inflate the book valuation for real estate (commercial AND residential) in this country, and take out loans to do it, the day of reckoning for us is just being put off.
I’m amused to see that so prestigious a journal as Financial Times thinks along the same lines as I do. That was my first thought as I saw the diagram of the volcano’s plume. Iceland’s economy has been devastated by the greedy European bankers, and now Iceland is getting its revenge. Take that, Europe and UK!
Eyjafjallajökull- Island Mountain Snow Cap?
Iceland has been one of the oldest democracy in the world.
It is fitting they told the Banks to shove it.
Find later
Heh heh!
Good to hear that Iceland is ash free as I will be visiting next year.
LOL
Loki gets his revenge.
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