…the most successful Greek PM

Tags

crisis, Greece, Samaras

I am very happy with myself you know…

Antonis Samaras, Greek Prime minister at the time of writing, can argue that he is the most successful Greek PM at least of the last 40 years. The argument for this could have been quite simple; He has not been overthrown yet. But, there is more. Greek PMs have a great advantage over counterparts of other democratic countries. They get elected without any commitment, any aim and any possibility to fail. There is effectively no manifesto, no target that they can miss and no “broken” promise to which they can be held accountable. Samaras promised nothing, his only ‘unique selling point’ was that he, as the leader of a relative* majority party and therefore first to try to form a government, was necessary to avoid the total destruction, annihilation, default of Greece. So, really, the only thing that would have made him a failure, would have been the country officially ceasing to exist. This has not happened. Officially the country has not gone into default, destruction, Hollywood blockbuster state before Bruce Willis saves it, and we know that mainly because it still taxes some of its own people in very imaginative ways. I am sure there must be some other evidence that the country still exists, but I have not come across it personally. So, Samaras has succeeded 100% at the objective that he was elected to achieve. I avoid using the phrase “he was voted to achieve” because of course he wasn’t. That, I argue, makes him even more successful than his predecessors who were, of course, equally pointless.

*29.66% of the popular vote. This does not correspond to seats in parliament. The party that gets the most votes gets an extra 50 seats than strict proportionality to percentage of total vote would allocate (out of a total of 300 and needing 151 for an overall majority), depending on some conditions. Only votes for parties that get over 3% count in the distribution of seats. The remainder of the votes are ‘discounted’. A month earlier, in the May 2012 elections, Samaras’ party got 19% of the total popular vote. So, the party that got 19% of the vote in May 2012 ended up leading a coalition government a month later. Overall, the 3 parties included in the government coalition formed after June 2012 received fewer votes than the other parties.

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Lance at Oprah. What now?

Tags

Armstrong, cheat, doping, future, interview, Lance, Oprah, penalty, right

This is about the interview that Lance Armstrong gave to Oprah. For those not familiar with it, Lance Armstrong, 7 times winner of the Tour De France and by far the best known cyclist, admitted that he was doping for a big part of his career, including the 7 wins that came after he recovered from testicular and other cancers. I watched all of the 90 min interview and I also watched Oprah’s reaction to it, which went out before the actual interview did. In her reaction Oprah said that she was somewhat satisfied with Armstrong’s responses but that he didn’t  say as much as he could, or something along these lines. There is a lot that will be said and written of course. A lot of the interview focuses on what will happen now to Armstrong, in his life, career and association with cycling and other sports. I think there is something really important about Armstrong’s future that was not discussed as much as it should have. This is that by his actions and lying, Armstrong actually (and not potentially or even just metaphorically) destroyed a lot of people’s lives. He destroyed their financial situation, their professional opportunities, their family lives, and possibly their health. I include here the people that he and his team took legal action against, with the money that he illegitimately gathered in his life and career but the point is not limited to them. As an example (out of thousands), think of the tens of millions of dollars that he has cost the athletes that did not win the Tour de France when he won it. (By the way, this came out a few hours after I wrote the post) I think that it will be fair for some court to award damages to the extent that Armstrong should not find himself with a dollar in his name or his physical possession ever again. If he makes any kind of comeback, or even if he doesn’t, from now on, any money paid to him or any financial vehicles in any way associated with him should go to the people mentioned above. If he writes a book and it brings money, this money should go to them. If he takes part in a movie, same. You get the picture. So, yes, a comeback is a legitimate thing for him to want. Everybody deserves a second chance and even a third one. His should be capped because he denied a lot of people of their chances, knowingly and with intention. That’s my point.