Europe’s Achilles heel
From this week’s Economist cover story:
The half-truth in Athens is that bigoted northern Europeans give Greeks no credit for the hardship they have borne. Greece really has suffered: between 2007 and 2012 its economy is expected to have shrunk by almost a fifth. The economy is being strangled by a severe credit and liquidity crunch, with more budget cuts and tax rises to come. Even if all goes well, Greece’s debt will be 161% of GDP next year. Whatever the make-up of its next government, the idea that Greece can repay this is the biggest fantasy of all.
I competed this past weekend in the 12-man Calistoga to Santa Cruz Relay, a race modeled after Oregon’s famed Hood to Coast Relay. Our team placed 3rd out of 62 teams in our division and 14th overall, completing the 194 mile road race is just under 25hrs. Our team was anchored by two former Cornell standouts, Dale Taylor and Matt De Silva, who both average sub-six minutes miles over the course of the weekend. They absolutely crushed it. I averaged 7:06 miles over the 17.6 miles that I ran. It was an amazing weekend to run, especially considering the “Supermoon” on Saturday night.
Photos credits go to Dale.
Albert Einstein’s office at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, April 18, 1955. (se parece al búnker de @mareacultural)
Giants game. Beautiful night in SF. (Taken with Instagram at AT&T Park)
Privacy and National IDs
A counterargument to national ID card privacy concerns:
Central to the Estonian project is the ID card, introduced in 2002. Nine in 10 Estonians have one, and – by slotting it into their computer – citizens can use their card to vote online, transfer money and access all the information the state has on them.
“…I feel much more secure with a digital ID. If anyone goes into my files, they’re flagged. Whereas if my files – which would exist anyway – were made of paper, no one would know who was looking at them.”
Every Estonian can see who has visited their data, and they can challenge any suspicious behaviour. In one famous case, a policewoman was caught accessing information about her boyfriend.
via @aporterprice
At Stanford for @ebootcamp2012 with @BT_Princeton and @Bases (Taken with Instagram at Stanford University)
Beyond the Unemployment Rate
New Greek unemployment numbers were released today:
The real fiasco for the Greek economy, and at the same time the unvarnished truth, was the number of people who actually have jobs...the number of employed dropped by 20,600 in January to 3,880,120 people—35.9% of a population of 10.8 million.
Nearly 65% of Greeks do not work! As a point of comparison, the US employment population ratio is 59%.
Island of the Blind
The Greek health ministry is investigating on Zakynthos after local officials flagged records showing what they said is an implausibly high number of disability claims for blindness. About 1.8% of the island’s population of 39,000 claimed the benefit last year, according to the health ministry. That is around nine times the prevalence of blindness estimated for many European countries.
Among those who put in for the blindness benefit on Zakynthos, a local official said, were a taxi driver and a bird hunter.
What is saddening is that this does not surprise me.
Designed by Uncrater Nichols Pennington, it features an aluminum frame that’s powdercoated or anodized depending on color, a tapered Thera-Band Gold flat band with a 16-pound pull and 28-inch draw, a leather pouch assembly for securely holding ammo up to a 0.5-inch ball bearing or .44 cal lead ball, and a paracord-wrapped handle for comfort.
I want one.
via uncrate
Three Fishermen on Inle Lake, Myanmar, January 2011. One of fifty finalists for the Smithsonian Magazine’s 9th annual photo contest.
via Boston Big Picture.
Ethics violations at home
SC Lt. Governor Ken Ard resigns. One of his numerous violations:
Ard also spent more than $3,000 worth of campaign money at Best Buy for what he told the ethics agency was computer equipment and was “for campaign and office-related purposes.” It turned out he had really bought a Playstation 3, a flat-screen TV, an iPod Touch 8G, and two 3G iPads.
Unfortunate state of affairs in SC.
I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.
Nigel Farage takes on “Puppet Papademos”.
He’s not even a democratically elected prime minister. He’s been appointed by you guys. Greece is not run through democracy now, it is run through a Troika. Three foreign officials that fly into Athens airport and tell the Greeks what they can and cannot do.
The violence and destruction that you saw on Sunday is being caused directly because people are having their democratic rights taken from them. What else can they do?
Tough votes fracture coalitions.
via WSJ.
Princeton upsets no. 21-ranked Harvard at Jadwin. Go Tigers!
