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Category: politics

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

08:53 – I wrote Sunday,

“As far as I can see, the only way out of this for Greece, if there is any way out, is for the EU to abolish government at all levels in Greece and appoint a receiver to oversee the bankruptcy of Greece and the auctioning off of Greek assets to pay off the creditors. Greece will have to become an EU colony for the foreseeable future, ceding all local control.”

but I didn’t actually expect them to do it. I underestimated just how much the Germans and the rest of the Northern Tier distrust Greece, because that’s essentially what they’ve gotten Tsipras to agree to. Whether or not the Greek legislators vote tomorrow to accept those humiliating terms is still very much up in the air. And, even if they do, it’s extremely unlikely that the Northern Tier will agree to fund yet another “bail out” for Greece, knowing that Greece will never repay the earlier bail outs, let alone the one under discussion. Payback, as they say, is a bitch.

My next task is to build another 60 biology kits and chemistry kits, which I’ll be working on over the next few days. With what we already have on hand, those should be enough to carry us through July and into August. Once I get those built, we’ll go back to making up solutions, labeling and filling bottles, and making up subassemblies for yet another batch of kits.

Barbara’s TV remote stopped working a week or so ago. When I popped the lid of the battery compartment, I found that the two AAA alkalines had leaked. At the time, I thought nothing about it. I just cleaned out the compartment, put a fresh pair of alkalines in, and gave it back to her. The other night, it stopped working again. When I opened it, the new cells had leaked. So this time I rinsed it out thoroughly under running tap water and put it aside to dry completely. This morning, I used a hair dryer for a couple of minutes to make sure the interior was dry, and again replaced the two AAA alkalines from a new pack of them. It works. We’ll see if it keeps working or the cells leak again.

Which has gotten me thinking about replacing all of our AA and AAA alkalines with low self-discharge (LSD) NiMH cells. We’ll use up our remaining stock of alkalines, which is around 100 of the AAA’s and maybe 40 of the AA’s, and then shift over to the rechargeables. For now, I’m going to pull the alkalines from our long-term storage stuff–flashlights, radios, etc.–and put the devices and a couple sets of alkalines with taped terminals in plastic bags.

We have a few devices that use C or D alkalines, mostly flashlights and lanterns, and those are a problem to convert to NiMH. C and D cells make up a tiny percentage of sales. AA and AAA combined are literally something like 97% of sales. So C or D NiMH cells are pretty hard to find, even on-line. When you can find them, they fall into one of three categories: ones made by name-brand alkaline companies like Duracell, Energizer and other mass-market suppliers, cheap Chinese ones that I wouldn’t trust, and the big name-brand NiMH cells like MaHa and Powerex. The Duracell/Energizer class ones are crap. They don’t want to cannibalize their alkaline sales, so their NiMH models are generally pathetic, with capacities of maybe 2,500 mAH in D (versus 10,000 to 12,000 mAH for the good brands). Their only advantage is that they’re reasonably inexpensive, roughly four or fives times the $1.25 price of an alkaline. Many of the Chinese no-name D cells have reasonable rated capacities of 8,000 to 10,000 mAH, but that’s usually grossly exaggerated and these rechargeables tend to die fairly young. Then there are the good brands, which have high capacities and are quite reliable. The problem with them is the price, typically $30 or so each. And, to top it all off, probably half of the available C and D models use early generation technology and are not low self-discharge. So I think we’ll stick with alkalines for our C and D devices.

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Monday, 13 July 2015

09:17 – This guy gets it: On Second Thought, Stick to Your Guns He understands that US supporters of the 2nd Amendment are going to keep our guns. They’re not for hunting. They’re not for recreational shooting. They’re for the reason that the 2nd Amendment was written in the first place: to keep the government in line.

And here’s a story about a Customer service shocker. Having dealt with this company frequently for years, it’s not shocking to me. What’s shocking is that it’s not the norm. It used to be.

The headlines are shouting that the Greek crisis is over. Not even close. All that that Marathon 17-hour session accomplished was Greece agreeing to even more stringent terms ahead of any discussions about a further bailout, in exchange for the EU providing a trickle of additional funding. Chances are there won’t be any future bailout, because that would require unanimous approval by all of the EU nations. The probability of that happening is close to zero. Even if Germany could somehow be persuaded to agree, there’s still Finland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, and all three Baltic states, all of which are very strongly opposed to “lending” any more of their money to Greece.

10:33 – Email from Jen. She and her husband have been discussing buying a cabin up at the lake, about an hour’s drive from their home, at least under normal conditions. Interestingly, Jen, who is the strongly pro-prepping member of that couple, is opposed, while her husband is in favor.

Jen argues that it’s too far away, too expensive, might be impossible to get to if things really turn bad, and is a distraction from things they should be doing at home. I told Jen that I agree with her. Their home is already reasonably remote from the underclass. They have infrastructure already in place there, and a supportive group of friends and neighbors. If they were near a large city, that’d be one thing. Barbara and I are relocating in part because we’re currently inside the Winston-Salem city limits, entirely too close to large numbers of underclass scum. Jen and her husband are already located in an excellent location, so it makes sense to me that they should focus their efforts (and money) on improving where they are rather than looking for somewhere else to go. I could be wrong, but events are unpredictable, and as Frederick the Great said, “he who defends everything, defends nothing.”

15:22 – As if we needed more evidence, the Greeks are not the only lying weasels in this mess. The eurocrats are a bunch of lying liars as well. EU demands Britain joins Greek rescue fund

The UK needs to withdraw from the EU immediately. The EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein), none of whom are EU members, has been encouraging the UK to withdraw from the EU and join them. That would make particular sense for the UK, which was one of the founding members of the EFTA. By doing so, the UK would get what it really wants–free trade with the EU–without any of the political or economic entanglements that are part of EU membership.

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Wednesday, 8 July 2015

08:20 – I built a batch of chemistry kits yesterday. Today I’ll build more chemistry kits and then get started on forensic science kits. The rest of the week, I’ll be making up solutions, filling bottles, and building subassemblies.

I’m not going to bother following the Greece situation any more. Greece is toast no matter what transpires, Tsipras is finished, and ordinary Greeks are screwed for the indefinite future. Decades, anyway. But the EU is also screwed no matter what happens. If the Brits have any sense, they’ll distance themselves as much as possible from the EU fuster-cluck.

Meanwhile, the Chinese equities crash looms. Unlike Greece, China isn’t a piss-ant little country that no one cares about. China matters. The Chinese stock market is in the midst of a 1929-class crash, and is dragging Australia down with it. It’s a scary world out there. The only refuges are the US and Canada, which is scary in itself.

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Friday, 3 July 2015

08:34 – Greece is in the toilet. Greek banks cumulatively are down to less than €500 million cash, or about €40 per person. With the daily €50 withdrawal limit, that means the banks will run completely out of cash this weekend. Ambulances aren’t running because more and more of them have run out of gasoline and can’t get more. Not that that really matters, because hospitals have run out of many critical drugs and can’t get more. Foreign tourists have been warned that food and drugs are so short that there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to eat or get urgent medical care. Famously, one Greek newlywed couple in New York is living on the street and begging for food because their credit cards are no longer honored.

It would appear that the goal of the eurocrats is to drive Tsipras from office and force the Greeks to knuckle under, after which a trickle of aid will resume, just enough to keep Greeks from starving. One way or another, Greece is finished, a failed state.

Unless Greece tells the EU to get stuffed, defaults on its existing debt pile, and abandons the euro for a native currency. That’s their best option at this point. The new drachma would be introduced at parity with the euro, and would quickly loose most of its nominal value. Greeks would face at least another decade of grinding poverty, much worse than they’ve already experienced. But the alternative of giving in to the EU and continuing with the euro is worse still.

We’re working all weekend on kit stuff. I was hoping to find a Confederate flag to fly out front tomorrow, but there are none for sale anywhere.

10:29 – We’re back from a quick Sam’s Club run, where we picked up Coke, orange juice, and not much else, other than 35 pounds of soybean oil. Now, to work on kits.

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Monday, 29 June 2015

08:09 – It would appear that Greece is now officially toast. Capital controls are now in effect, Greeks are permitted to withdraw only €60/day from their accounts, and an in/out referendum is scheduled for next Sunday. Assuming that the Greek government is unable or unwilling to pay the €1.6 billion due to the IMF tomorrow, the IMF has already announced that it will consider Greece in default. No grace period.

Meanwhile, the “Greek Disease” is spreading, most recently to Puerto Rico, which has already announced it will be unable to make payments on its outstanding $72 billion debt unless the US federal government bails it out. With US taxpayers already on the hook via the IMF for a considerable portion of Greece’s bad debt to the IMF, that means our tax money will be going to pay the debts of both of these deadbeats.

13:45 – I’d forgotten what a PITA it is to fill bottles with glycerol. The stuff is so viscous that it simply doesn’t want to go into the bottle. Fortunately, viscosity decreases with temperature, so I put the glass dispenser reservoir in a deep tray of very hot water, allow it to sit there for several minutes with occasional swirling, and then fill 60 bottles. Rinse and repeat.

I’m hearing from private correspondents that things in Greece are a lot worse than the media is admitting. Although the capital controls apply only to cash, apparently many/most businesses in Greece have stopped accepting credit cards, presumably because they don’t believe they’ll be paid. I know that I wouldn’t accept any kit orders with a Greek shipping address. I might not be paid at all, and I if payment was honored it might be in worthless drachma, with a non-optional conversion factor applied. Greece is now pretty much a cash-only country. Given the way things are, I wouldn’t accept even a certified check, let alone a wire transfer.

My guess is that Greece will crash out of the euro in the coming weeks, and possibly as early as tomorrow–the so-called Grexident that people have been dreading. At this point, it’s clear that the welfare of the Greek people is the absolute last priority of the eurocrats. So much for EU solidarity. All of them are completely in favor of solidarity, unless it’s going to cost them money.

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Thursday, 25 June 2015

08:01 – With a high of 95F, today is to be the last of our recent stretch of extremely hot weather. Tomorrow and the next several days are to have highs in the 80’s, and lows in the lower 60’s and upper 50’s. I blame it on global cooling.

Many of our kit customers buy a biology kit one year and a chemistry kit the next, or vice versa, so we decided to create a combined biology/chemistry kit that eliminates the duplication in equipment and a few chemicals. By doing that, we can sell the combined kit for about $40 less than the total price of the two kits purchased separately.

I want to have this combined kit available to ship by the first of August, and ideally sooner, so I needed to get started on it now. I spent yesterday finalizing the kit contents and getting the web pages needed to sell it set up. I’ll continue work on that today and, if necessary, tomorrow. Then we’ll get a prototype built and figure out the minor details like what size shipping box is needed, how to pack it, and so on.

This is the kind of thing that Barbara being available full time will greatly aid. Having her available to do a lot of the stuff I do now will free me up to design more kits, write manuals, and so on.

Someone sent me a link to an article that suggests we’re approaching Peak Leftism, and suggested that I might feel foolish if we relocate only to find that progressivism has spluttered to a halt and that we’ve returned to sanity in this country. Well, no. In the first place, I don’t believe that’s going to happen, no matter who’s elected. In the second place, I’d want to relocate to a small town even if things were normal now.

14:38 – I’m just back from the dentist, where I had my fangs cleaned, polished, and sharpened. I asked the dentist about having new fangs installed, like that guy in the old James Bond movies. Apparently, that’s not a standard procedure, at least not yet.

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Wednesday, 24 June 2015

08:40 – The paper this morning is full of articles about state governments banning the Confederate flag and retailers pulling Confederate flag merchandise from their shelves. I’m not sure what the furor is about. I understand that the Confederate flag offends many people. So what? There’s no Constitutional right not to be offended. There is a Constitutional right to Free Speech. If retailers choose not to sell Confederate flag merchandise, fine. That’s their right. But the government does not have the right to ban its production, sale, or display.

To those who claim that the Confederate flag is a racist symbol, I say bullshit. There were two major symbols that represented the two sides during the War Between the States. The Union flag represented just that: a powerful centralized government usurping States’ Rights. The Confederate flag represented just that: a confederacy of sovereign states. That’s it. Period. It had nothing to do with race. Both whites and blacks fought voluntarily on both sides. Union soldiers were fighting to force sovereign states to abdicate their sovereignty in favor of a centralized federal government. Confederate soldiers were fighting to preserve their states’ sovereignty. The bad guys won. It’s that simple.

The Greek farce continues. Yesterday, briefly, it seemed that Greece, or at least Tsipras, might be ready to give in to the Troika demands. The problem is, Tsipras reminds me of the reason the Brits don’t trust the Irish. Back in the day, the Brits and Irish had many pitched battles. The Brits might capture the Irish chieftain and demand surrender. He’d surrender, but the Irish troops would continue fighting on. Their position was the the chieftain had surrendered on his own behalf, but he certainly wasn’t authorized to surrender on their behalf. So the Irish would elect a new chieftain, and the Brits would be left holding the bag. Think of Tsipras as that Irish chieftain. He may surrender to the Troika, but the Greeks will simply throw him out and elect someone new. Which is what’s about to happen to Tsipras, and he knows it. So today he’s a lot more intransigent than he was yesterday.

And it gets worse, because the Troika is not a monolithic bloc. The real problem now is that the IMF rightly says that Greece’s debt burden is unsustainable and the only option is to write it off. The IMF won’t participate in any further Greek bailouts unless the EU and ECB write down their Greek debt holdings. But they can’t do that, even though they know Greece will never pay them back, because recognizing the loss makes it obvious to their taxpayers (AKA voters) that their governments have wasted their hard-earned money by giving it to a deadbeat. So, no deal without the IMF, and the IMF won’t participate unless the eurocrats commit political suicide.

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Tuesday, 23 June 2015

08:00 – Another hot one today, with the high forecast to be body temperature. Colin and I won’t be spending much time outdoors today.

I’m still making up chemical solutions for kits, four or eight liters at a time. This coming weekend and the following one, we’ll be filling bottles, thousands and thousands of them. I run the dispenser pump to fill the bottles, Barbara caps. By 1 August, we need to have chemical bags and the other subassemblies built for hundreds and hundreds of kits to accommodate the rush from early August through mid-September. Actually boxing up the kits doesn’t take much time. We can do final assembly of 100+ kits a day easily, assuming we have the subassemblies ready to go.

The Greek farce continues, with the Troika (the IMF, the EU, and the European Central Bank) debating whether or not to lend Greece (I almost typed “Greed”) more money that they will then turn around and use to pay loans coming due to … The Troika. That way, everyone can continue to pretend that Greece isn’t a deadbeat that has already defaulted continuously for a decade and has been bankrupt as long as anyone now alive can remember. Greece is a failed country. Greece has always been a failed country. The Kabuki Theater that’s been going on for a decade now is simply the attempt of the politicians to give themselves a fig leaf so that their voters won’t realize that this has all been taxpayer money down the drain and what’s happening now is simply throwing away good money after bad.


14:38 – I’m taking a lesson from Barbara here. When she wants to be sure she’ll be able to recover information later, she posts it on her page.

How To Install kompozer

Kompozer was dropped from the repos, since it is no longer maintained in Debian. But, you can still install it on newer releases.

Use packages from 12.04 Precise

These packages are installable on at least the 12.10, 13.04, 14.04 and 15.04 releases.

First, install dependencies:

sudo apt-get install libatk1.0-0 libc6 libcairo2 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libglib2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libidl0 libnspr4 libnss3 libpango1.0-0 libpng12-0 libstdc++6 libx11-6 libxft2 libxinerama1 libxrender1 libxt6 zlib1g

Then, get the two packages, and install them in the correct order.

For 32bit systems:

wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer-data_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer-data_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_i386.deb

for 64bit systems:

wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer-data_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/kompozer_0.8%7Eb3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer-data_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kompozer_0.8~b3.dfsg.1-0.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb

You can now find kompozer in the menu.

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Wednesday, 17 June 2015

08:15 – I see that asshole Obama now intends to remake America’s neighborhoods, making sure that every middle-class neighborhood will have plenty of poor people and gangbangers and other undesirables. For 50 years now, I’ve been saying that government is the enemy. More and more people are coming to understand that I’ve been right all along.

Decent people don’t want the underclass in our midst, and we keep taking steps to get away from them. Obama thinks we’ve been too successful, so his answer is to start distributing the underclass scum into nice areas, with the goal of turning those nice areas into underclass hellholes, spreading the misery as widely as possible instead of doing as he should and concentrating it into as few areas as possible. We used to call them ghettos.

If that asshole Obama could get away with it, I’m sure he’d like to put a gangbanger or other underclass scum in every spare bedroom in middle-class America. But he can’t get away with that, yet, so he’s going to do the best he can by using federal powers to mandate housing for underclass scum in nice areas. I don’t want underclass scum living near me. I don’t want underclass scum living, period.

So, what’s to be done?

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Tuesday, 16 June 2015

07:44 – All signs are that yet another Greek default is imminent, perhaps as soon as the end of the month. When or if that happens, Greece crashing out of the euro is almost inevitable. The follow-on effects on the European and world economies are unpredictable at this point, but they won’t be good, to put it mildly. Best case, eurozone taxpayers are left holding the bag and are likely to vent their fury on EU politicians and mainstream political parties, with unpredictable consequences and likely regime changes. Worst case, we’re looking at a catastrophe unfolding over the coming months and years that will make Lehman look minor and will spread to affect the rest of the G7. In any case, Greece is toast.

There’s some time left, but now would be a good time to get stocked up, if you haven’t done already.

13:17 – Email from Jen, saying that she’d ordered one can each of the Keystone canned chicken and pork to see how she and her family liked them. She commented that at $4.44 for a 14.5-ounce can the Keystone chicken was more expensive than the Costco Kirkland-branded chicken at $2.30 for a 12.5-ounce can, but that she wanted to try them side by side to see if the Keystone was enough better to justify the higher cost. Actually, the Costco product is more expensive because that 12.5-ounce can is “packed in water” and contains only 7 ounces of actual chicken. The Keystone product is “no water or broth added” and contains the full 14.5 ounces of actual chicken. On a per-ounce basis, the Costco canned chicken is just under $0.33, or about $5.25/lb., while the Keystone is about $0.306, or about $4.90/lb.

Keystone is even a better deal in the 28-ounce cans, which shouldn’t be a problem given how many people Jen plans to feed. The chicken in 28-ounce cans is $7.34, or $0.262/ounce or $4.19/lb. The 28-ounce cans of ground beef, pork, and turkey are less expensive than the chicken, at $6.28 each, or $0.224/ounce, or $3.59/lb.

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