09:56 – The situation in Greece would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Right now, the Greek government and the Troika are arguing about trivial issues like cutting 15,000 government employees. The Troika surely must know that that’s a drop in the bucket. Even to get a start on solving the problem, Greece needs to cut literally 100 times that number of government employees.
Everyone is fully aware that cutting 15,000 employees won’t even begin to make a start, but the Greek government is also fully aware that cutting even 15,000 government employees is likely to lead to riots and possibly a full-blown revolution. For a decade now, Greeks have gotten used to an unsustainably high standard of living, subsidized by cheap loans that there was never any prospect of them repaying. Now that the tap has run dry, Greece is going to have its standard of living cut in half, it it’s lucky. That’s what happens when, for a decade, a country consumes twice as much as it produces. Eventually, other people get tired of paying for it.
Well, perhaps not 100x, given that there are “only” 800,000 Greeks working for the government. This used to be 300,000, which kind of demonstrates how they got where they are.
Seems to me that Europe should be taking the approach “aim at a star, hope to hit the moon”. Ask for a reduction back to the 300,000, and hope Greece agrees to drop half that many…
I still think they should just tell Greece to do it – repudiate all of its debts and declare bankruptcy. There’s no sense in arguing about the remaining pennies on the table.
What’s worse: the two major Greek labor unions are having (yet another) general strike to protest the government cuts. If your economy is hurting, what’s the worst thing you can do to it? Cripple it further!
Still, that’s their right to strike if they want to.
But if you’re looking to cut wasteful jobs, then those striking workers would be a good place to start… they’ve self-identified themselves as unproductive. In fact, a productive worker would be cheering reforms, since less money available means it has to be spent efficiently (on productive workers like them!) and not thrown around with no thought.
Roger that, I’ve also seen that number 800,000 government pay collectors (notice I did not characterize them as “workers”). Along with that, the Greek GNP was noted as twice the size of the equivalent measure for my home county, Orange. I’m sure that we do not have anywhere near 800,000 county and municipal workers in Orange County, CA. However, I’m equally sure that we do have too many at that.
Using the US as a comparison:
Population is 307M (including children, unemployables)
There are 3M federal workers. There are 4M state level workers.
(From the census: http://www.census.gov/govs/apes/ )
This doesn’t count county or local employment, but it’s a start.
Greece has 11M people (including children, unemployables). There are 703K federal workers. (It’s probably higher: http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2010/07/greeces-hides-10-of-workforce-on-secret.html) so Greece needs to lose about 500,000 (60%) of those government jobs to bring its federal employment down to the same fraction as the US.
Bob is right that 15,000 jobs is not even a drop in the bucket.
All them kinda chickens gonna come home to roost right here eventually. This house of cards is not sustainable. Endless rollicking summuh daze of Happy Motoring are just not sustainable. Endless failing clusterfuck foreign adventure wars are not sustainable.
We have a chunk of continent here stuck between the craziness of Kalifornia and the madness of old Europa and the idiot bastard RINOs running for office aren’t gonna change anything and the head bonze in charge now is frantically doing as much damage as he can in the time that remains to him.
Home Schoolers Are Hoping to Don Varsity Jackets in Virginia
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/sports/virginia-home-schoolers-make-a-play-to-join-high-school-teams.html
Amazon has a sale on microscopes
RBT, would you recommend any of these? Would the same scope be good for your chemistry, biology, and forensics labs, or are there different things to emphasize for each of the three? You’ve discussed microscopes several times, but my ignorance is great enough that unless the product description says “the stage can tilt and is illuminated” I probably won’t figure out if it has the features you’ve recommended.
(To drift the topic a bit, I probably could have ended that paragraph with “my ignorance is great”. I don’t think I’m less knowledgeable or less intelligent than I used to be, it’s just that my hubris is less. I guess that’s good, but my self-esteem takes a battering every time I get rubbed in my face yet another thing I know nothing about. Oh, well, at least I know a lot about indexing porn.*)
(* Not a joke. I consulted at a porn shop some years ago. Did most of the design work for their database and helped with the automated and manual categorization software as well as the statistical analysis to find out what their customers really want.**)
(** Which drove home something I already knew: there are a lot of freaks out there.)
“… there are a lot of freaks out there.”
Oh yeah. And a steadily increasing number of whom can make one’s remaining hair stand on end.
Winter is apparently over here in northern Vermont, ha, ha; temps in teens and twenties at night and then high thirties during the day, and no sign of our usual avalanches of snow. I am phoning Algore later today to offer my apologies and future support for his heroic efforts to alleviate this global curse of climate change which threatens all our survival, etc., etc.
In somewhat related nooz, I got an email yesterday from Michelle Bachmann asking for money to help her win her race in wherever out there. I’m hoping that later Sarah Palin will drop by and we can all kind of, speaking of freaks, play around a little here as summuh apparently rolls on in.
I can’t recommend the AmScope models because I’ve never used one. They are very popular among homeschoolers, who seem to be satisfied with them. Of course, most of them have nothing to compare it to. One thing that raises a red flag is them advertising “2000X” magnification, which reminds me of those department-store telescopes that advertise ridiculously high magnifications. The limit for optical microscopy is somewhere in the range of 1,000X to 1,500X, and the latter is unlikely to be useful with any scope whose optics weren’t made by Leitz or Zeiss. Anything above 1,000X is going to be empty magnification.
No, there’s nothing special that suits particular microscopes for biology versus forensics, etc. (unless you count extremely high-end stuff like comparison microscopes for ballistics). A good general-purpose microscope will be fine for anything. The main considerations are optical quality and overall mechanical quality, both of which can vary widely on Chinese scopes even within the same model. Literally, one scope coming down the Chinese production line can be pretty decent and the very next one complete garbage.
I’d recommend you buy a National Optical model. They’re sold by lots of on-line vendors and the prices are very competitive. For an entry level unit, I’d go with the National Optical 131 with the optional mechanical stage. For a mid-range unit that adds 1000X magnification and comes with a standard mechanical stage, I’d go for the National Optical model 134. If you can afford $500+, go with one of the National Optical 160- or 165-series scopes.
OFD wrote:
“I am phoning Algore later today to offer my apologies and future support for his heroic efforts to alleviate this global curse of climate change which threatens all our survival, etc., etc.”
While you’ve got him on the line please ask him to send some hot air, something I’m sure he and his associates have in abundance, to Australia. It’s supposed to be summer here but it feels like early spring or late autumn. I usually have to have the electric blanket on all night, and I just had to put on a sloppy joe (at 1.30 AM) because I’m quite cold. I knew it was a mistake to put my heaters in storage for the “summer”.
Yeah, we’ve had some hot days but mostly it’s been quite cool.
RBT: Thanks for the tips, Gracious Host. I’ll go with one of the National Optical models, depending on how much loose change I can scrape together by early June and on what sales I can find.
Miles_Teg: What is a sloppy joe in this context? It sounds like you mean a sweater, but I couldn’t find any definition like that online. Food, yes. Several sexual practices which decorum prevents me from listing, yes. Clothing, no.
OK, trying again: posted this before but then couldn’t get back in, this has been happening lately.
Sloppy joes here in Nova Anglia are sweetly spiced ground beef in a sauce on a bun. I jazz mine up a notch with garlic, chipotle and provolone. Apparently in Nova Caesarea they are just deli-type sandwiches with plain old cold cuts on a bun and Thousand Island dressing. Bogus. I was shocked to discover this during my three-year sentence down there during my first marriage, to a lawyer, no less.
So what are they in Oz, pray tell? (all stand by while Greg is sleeping on the other side of the planet and in a few hours he will wake up but we will be asleep. This is why it’s called Down Under.)
Sloppy Joe. Think tracksuit top, like a guy would wear to not too fashionable gym. Or a thick t-shirt. Sorta like a sweater but not made of wool. Not sure what it’s made of.
Yes, I just woke up. Getting my Internet fix was delayed for 15 minutes by my inability to find my glasses. (I need my glasses to find my glasses.) Wandered down to the kitchen where I have a spare set from a few years ago. Not as good, but good enough. Used them to find my current set – they’d fallen off the bedside table and under the bed, somehow. I wonder if our host has copyrighted the saying “Getting old is hell.”
ROTFL. I have worn specs since I was nine, and I am pretty nearly blind without ’em, and there have been similar occasions here when, after I carefully place them on the bedside table, sometime during the night a gremlin enters the room or comes out from the closet and flings the buggers under the bed, cackling all the way. Or else they just somehow, through some new law of physics that we have not yet learned, rocket themselves under there, and naturally I too need glasses to find my glasses. Or fumble around blindly like Mole in whatever kids’ story he comes from.
This situation is related to the one where I drop a key, or a coin, or some small but fairly valuable item directly onto the floor next to me. It then disappears completely, as if into a local black hole. And, if miraculously found, hours or days later, it will turn up an incredible distance from where I dropped it. That gremlin again. And the corollary situation in the car is the same, except that I never find the object again.
Well, welcome to the new day Down Under, sir, and may it be a grand one!
I’ve had glasses since 15 or 16. In Year 10 at school they tested everyone and I was one of the few they had to spend much time on. By the next year I could no longer easily and consistently read the blackboard, even though I was in the front row of the class, so I got my first set.
Even as late as about 1982 (age 24) I could sometimes lose my glasses and not notice for several minutes. Once, getting out of the car, they were knocked off by the hedge next to the carport. Took several minutes to even notice, then I had to backtrack to find them. I can walk around the house without them but not drive, see detail, etc. At my last visit my ophthalmologist suggested that a cataract operation on my right eye was probably in my near future… Well, my father was in his early 50s when he had to have cataract operations, so I’ve lasted a bit longer than him.
Yes, I greatly envy people with normal sight.
I have no envy for people with normal sight; it’s been so long now and I’ve lived with being nearly blind for half a century. 20-400 in one eye and probably worse in the other one, along with astigmatism. Yet…yet…sharpshooter/expert marksman for nine years of mil-spec servitude and more years of street cop work. But couldn’t get onto the MA State Police or the U.S. Border Patrol/Customs back in the early 80s because of my eyesight, even though I had aced all other requirements, perfect scores on their tests, etc. and even though once guys got on those organizations and their eyes changed they could then wear corrective lenses. Another stupid, senseless gummint thing.
I’ve now had bifocals for a few years and it was a trip, literally, going down stairs at first.
8 degrees here on a sunny Saturday morning. Possible snow showers later, the weather liars say.
I know you will scoff at us pathetic Southerners, but we’re in for what down here is seriously cold weather. It’s to be a low of 19F tonight, with sustained winds of 20 to 30 MPH and gusts to 40 MPH.
And here I am in the wild mountains of BC in the Great White North sitting at 34°F with a forecast of 43°F, and that’s supposedly the trend for the next couple of weeks.
It’s been a weird winter. We were at 0°F just a week ago.
19 with wind like that is a bit chilly, even for us northern types, near zero, of course. Hanging out in it for more than a few minutes can get uncomfortable unless one is properly dressed for it, as we would be here.
This has not been a normal winter for us so far, and the ski areas must be hurting, because although I am told that the snow cover up in the mountains is just OK, the out-of-state skiers go by the weather liar reports and won’t come up. This may or may not bode well for our maple syrup producers, too early to tell.
Down here, 40 miles north of New Orleans, we’re forecasted to hit the low 20’s tonight for 6 or so hours – the coldest temps this winter. The pine trees and azaleas that have been blooming for the last couple of weeks are in for a rude awakening.
OFD and Miles_Teg – get your ophthalmologist to schedule cataract surgery for you. I started wearing glasses at 24 to correct for distance vision (I qualified as expert marksman in the AF at 22 with no glasses), and then bifocals at around 50. I had cataract surgery done in 2002 at the ripe young age of 58, and have not worn distance or reading glasses since (except for finely detailed work, or seeing small detail or print in dim light). Your major medical policy “should” cover the cost, other than your deductable. My Ophthalmologist corrected one eye to 20:30 and the other to 20:20, so I still have decent close vision and can pass the drivers license eye test to drive without glasses.
How does cataract surgery correct for myopia and astigmatism? And for anything that any medical person does with my eyes and I have to be unconscious, period. I can’t stand anything being put in my eyes, and for that reason could never wear contacts.
You get used to putting contacts in. Took me about 30 minutes each at first, I eventually got that down to 15 seconds if I was lucky, or 2-3 minutes when I was unlucky. Ray knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, but I expect I won’t have much choice in a few years. I’d sacrifice a dozen kittens to have normal vision. Might even throw in a few JWs, atheists and Micks as well.
OFD, I had astigmatism also, and the lenses corrected for that. I’m not sure about myopia as I had good close vision when I removed my distance glasses. The bottom part of the bifocals I had were plain glass – no correction. When you go in for the surgery, they put drops in your eye to anesthetize and dialate the eye. I didn’t feel a thing during the 15 or so minute procedure either time while completely awake, though they did insert an IV and administered what the nurse called “happy juice”, a mild sedative. My opthalmologist only does one eye at a time with a 30 day wait between the two operations. In my case, there was little to no pain/irritation after the surgery. About like the sensation you get after removing a speck of dirt out of your eye. You will have to administer eye drops for about a month after the surgery that prevents infection. There were no stitches used to close the incision.
Miles, get ‘er done. No need to sacrifice kittens. And, you’re right, in a few short years you won’t have any choice. The lens in my left eye was opaque to the point that the best vision I would have gotten with new glasses would have been 20/50.
If I get anything like that done, they will have to put me out completely, or it’s a no-go. But I will look into it; thanks for the info.
I’ll be seeing my ophthalmologist later in the year, and I’m guessing we’ll make a schedule for having my right eye “done”. Might even see if the left is worth doing, although the vision in that eye isn’t nearly as bad.
Yes, the kitten sacrifice is a required part of the performance. To achieve a good outcome something evil must be sacrificed in compensation.
I feel it is my responsibility and duty to warn you, Greg, that the two cats here have done the following:
Sent emails out to their feline cousins down in Oz, with a transcript of all your anti-feline comments and threats.
Booked two round-trip tix for themselves to Oz.
I, for one, will miss your witty and intelligent and humorous posts here.
Okay, while they’re on their way I’ll borrow a couple of schnauzers from friends and put them on a starvation diet. They’ll give your moggies a very warm welcome.
By the time my moggies get there, your friends won’t be your friends anymore and there will be MIA schnauzers.
One of the cats here just saw that last comment of yours and his expression indicated quite clearly that a certain resident of Oz apparently does not with whom he is dealing here.
…and the imbecile writer, yours truly, of course meant to have the word “know” in there, but such are the vagaries of uneditable posts on this board. And fat fast fingers furiously fugging up his typing.