Iceland - A Start

I had a really nice roast leg of lamb for dinner tonight, Icelandic free range, grazed on mountain grasses. Roasted pink, with a bit of garlic and light brushing of home made marinade.
Only $7.99 per pound at Whole Foods, picked it up on my last trip. We'll be eating lamb sandwiches all week.

Also picked up a bit more than a case of Skyr - mostly the proper plain stuff, but also a few pre-sweetened vanilla for the kids. They ate three the night I brought them back, now stretching the remainder to last a bit.

My skyr purchase is strictly limited by refrigerator space now, I get at least a case if I can get to a Whole Foods that carriers them, but more than two cases is just impossible to fit in normal circumstances, even if the store(s) have that much.

We finished our last bottle of Icelandic Spring Water in stock (time to get some more at Wegman's); still have several pounds of smjör in the freezer (Icelandic butter, it has actual flavour).

Also still have several bars of the Icelandic Siríus chocolate Whole Foods carries (mostly milk - very milky, what I think of as "Italian style" - but some plain for cooking and adult snacking). We're out of Icelandic cheese (I have become very partial to Stóri Dímon - a blue veined brie-style cheese).

Every little bit helps. Place needs currency, and this is the food I grew up on.
Need to hit Wegman's more frequently for cod; days it comes in don't fit well with our schedule right now. Also stocked up on frozen "sambands" haddock fillets, and baby shrimp - Giant had Newfoundland Atlantic shrimp just like those from home, but the company is actually under Icelandic management, I happen to know - or was, maybe it was sold off by now.

So... wazzup back home?

Well, the Prime Minister wrote Alþingi and requested a review of the controversial 2003 law on compensation for senior political and government figures.
He requested a cross-the-board paycut for all senior grades, from the President down. Magnitude of cut to be determined.
I hear it will be 20%.

A good start.
Some sign of hope for recovery and sanity.

There are basically daily demonstrations and rallies in town, non-party affiliated citizen group calls them, including town meetings where politicians actually show up and literally meet the townspeople. Increasing anarchist fringe to the demos.
People are getting angrier and today was "Day 2 of the Depression" - first of the month is when mass layoffs take place.

Today's demo ended in a march to the Central Bank and a sit-in.
Protestors really want the Head of the Central Bank fired with extreme prejudice.
He was the Prime Minister who oversaw the Reaganite wera of deregulation, and who committed Iceland to the Coalition of the Willing without consultation - of anyone, people, parliament or his own cabinet. He explained it as a political obligation because of the US-Iceland bilateral defence treaty.
Bush then shafted him by unilaterally abrogating said treaty and withdrawing US forces from the base in Iceland without consultation.
He is now frantically denying any responsibility for deregulation, oversight or other screwups of his years in power.

A currency regulation law is being passed through Alþingi, may have passed already. It gives the government power to prohibit currency transfers, first step in freezing remaining assets of the financiers, and to save the currency reserves and export income for necessites. The catch is the implenentation, as written, is at the discretion of the Head of the Central Bank, who no one trusts and is widely expected to overindulge his predilection for playing favourites and political payback.
Next the government independent investigation committee will look into illegalities in the financial bubble, and asset seizures will likely follow.
Much depends on who the independent outsider(s) appointed to the committee are, they better be true independents and known for honesty.
I kinda hope my cousin is on the panel, she'd kick some ass and take some names...

My old-schools conservative relatives are furious beyond all belief - more so than the progressive relatives who are far too cynical for their own good.
This is actually a good sign, righteous anger by traditional conservatives will be needed to follow through on this.

Icelandic export industries are actually doing well, as long as there is not a total credit freeze the country will work its way back up, it is well diversified with fish exports to fall back on, and the fish is getting more valuable as everyone else strips their grounds.

Two interesting news items buzzing around in Iceland - the right wingers, especially the blogosphere component thereof - are in a frenzy over a claim of potential oil discover off the coast - by a Norwegian exploration company mostly financed by Icelandic banks. No drilling yet, just tomographic scans showing potential deposits, claimed to be about the size of the North Sea fields or larger. I don't have a good feel for how reliable such estimates are currently, they used to be hit-and-miss but I am not up on current tech. Leases for exploratory drilling will be let in January and the government will not step down as long as that prospect is open.
Extracting any oil find would take 10-20 years or more, if it is even possible, deep water and horrendous open sea conditions.
Speculation about oil fields either south-east or north of Iceland have floated around for about 40 years, most of the country feels such a discovery would be a long term disaster, threatening sustainable long term fisheries and flipping the economy into a drill-and-pump extraction economy with overinflated currency and enormous temptation for gross political corruption. Or we could adopt the Norwegian model and be civilized. Current situation is not promising in that regard.

The other interesting development is a pilot plant to synthesize methanol from CO2 and water, using geothermal steam.
The project, from Carbon Recycling International, has several angles - including possible conversion of cars to burn methanol directly for cars; to use methanol in fuel cells; and as a carbon credit for capturing CO2 emissions from heavy industry (iron alloy and aluminium smelters using hydroelectricity and sacrificial coke electrodes).

Energy, steam and CO2 - Iceland has a lot of that. Maybe enough to make a difference; go off-line from fossil fuels, except maybe for avgas; maybe make enough cheaply for exports.
We'll see.

Interesting times.