60 Minutes Free Wifi at Athens Airport

So, it's been a while since the last time I traveled. One thing I found out, they give you 60 minutes of free wifi at Athens airport now. Nice! All you do is surf to any website, have your connection "captured" and redirected to the airport site (flash needed, if you don't have that, try this url: http://portal.wiz.athensairport.gr/connect.asp?errorno=0&langid=2 or some alteration, it's where I end up when I "get through"). Then you click around two or three times on the obvious links for "free wifi" and at some point it tells you that you are on. Not even a captcha.

They seem to block my IPsec VPN, it connects, but no traffic runs. Not in the mood to debug that, but ssh -D works.

Back from .ch

Here I am, first day back from my trip to Switzerland. I went there for some family stuff and some business stuff. I had exceptional good weather - way too warm and friendly for the season, but nice to have. While I was away there was some more cold weather in Athens, which I missed to my great delight.

For the business stuff, the trip was very successful. Projects coming along nicely, new projects being talked about. Sometimes when things move smoothly, it feels like something taps you on the shoulder to tell you that you're on the right track.

On the way back I brought a few chocolates for my friends. My suitcase was right at the top margin of allowed weight for the flight.

Demonstration at Syntagma Square

I'm at Syntagma Square right now. Arrived at 18:10 and already the square was closed. More people arriving all the time.

From time to time there are shouts: "thieves, thieves". The riot police is here and got a good boo from the crowd. What are they planning to do, hit the children and old people in the crowd? The people are very peaceful.

We are Everywhere

Here I am again, on Syntagma square, after a day of work. The square is full again.

The last few days there were some greek flags in the center of the place. Today they have company: There are a tunisian, a spanish, a portuguese, a venezulean, and two argentinan flags. (edit: also there was an irish flag, and a french flag, while I had at first mistaken the tunisian flag for a turkish one.)

We are not alone in this, the thieves have stolen from people all over the place. People will get angry all over the place.

At the same time the media in Switzerland write nothing about this. I can't help to think that they deserve the loss of sales that they so complain about, since they don't do their job.

Direkte Demokratie jetzt!

Heute bin ich wieder auf dem Syntagma-Platz. Der Platz ist wieder voll, nicht ganz so viele Leute wie am Sonntag, aber voll.

Im Moment lãuft in der Mitte des Platzes die grosse Versammlung - siehe Bild. Jeder kann das Wort ergreifen, seine Ideen, Forderungen ansichten einbringen. Es werden Themen abgestimmt, direkte Demokratie gelebt.

Die direkte Demokratie ist auch das wichtigste Ziel unserer Demonstration. Die Politiker sind alle korrupt, es braucht die direkte Kontrolle des Volkes. Für mich als Schweizer ist diese Forderung selbstverständlich und natürlich. Mit einer Kontrolle durch die dirrekte Demokratie wäre es nie soweit gekommen.

Eine weitere Forderung ist die rechtliche Prüfung aller Schulden. Forderungen, die illegal entstanden sind, sind nichtig. In Ecuador hat eine solche Untersuchung zur Streichung von 40% der Schulden geführt. Das die Regierung sich mit Händen und Füssen dagegen wehrt, ist ein Zeichen dafür, wie tief die Politiker in illegale Handlungen verstrickt sind.

Die Rufe "κλέφτες! κλέφτες!" - "Diebe! Diebe!" der Demonstranten sind so treffend. Im Radio beschweren sich die Politiker darüber, sie fühlen sich beleidigt. Einen wirklichen Dialog mit dem Volk gehen sie aber nicht ein, lieber versuchen sie das Problem auszusitzen und verkaufen derweil ihr Land an die Kredithaie.