text:
Android Studio 2.0 Stable Release — Useful Summary & Details

Android Studio 2.0 Stable Release — Useful Summary & Details

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

Earlier today the Android team usefully summarized the latest Android Studio update on their developers’ blog, which has hit the stable channel. This newest version, 2.0 is a significant update from the previous version and includes the following new features:

  • An “Instant Run” that quickly implements your change and runs it, allowing you to minimize the time it takes to build and test changes. It is also enabled by default.
  • Android Emulator that will, in most situations, be “faster than a real device” with 3x faster CPU, RAM and I/O compared to the previous version. ADB push speeds were improved to 10 times the previous version! The emulator now includes built-in Play Services and several other features.
  • Integration with Cloud Test Lab
  • App Indexing Code Generation/Testing
  • GPU Debugger Preview (OpenGL ES). While still in an experimental phase this introduces features a GPU profiler that desktop graphics debugging has had for some time.
  • Updated IntelliJ

If you haven’t updated yet, either check for updates on the Beta channel or download it from the Android developer site. The blog also notes that developers working on projects for the N Developer Preview will also need to complete a few additional steps.

More can be discovered on the new update by checking out the documentation, blog or the video from the Android team below.


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Type: response

text:
Gig-speed Internet from Xfinity. This changes everything.

Image of an iPad and iPhone

When your Internet is faster than fast, there’s no going back

Do everything better than ever with Gig speeds, from streaming HD movies to gaming like a pro. All with America's best Internet provider.

*Ghostbusters available on STARZ® on the Xfinity Stream App
Map of America where Gig speeds available

Faster here, there, nearly everywhere

We made Gig speeds available from coast to coast. Because everyone should be able to surf, stream, and game like never before.
*Residential customers only. Not available in all areas. Actual speeds vary based on several factors including modem capabilities.
Image of young child wearing a VR headset with mother standing behind.

Experience industry-leading Internet

We put speed and reliability first. That’s why named us America's best Internet provider. And why we’ll never stop innovating.
Image of a man sitting on the edge of a roof top on his phone with city skyline in the background.

Plus, stay connected to WiFi on the go

Our Internet customers have access to millions of Xfinity WiFi hotspots nationwide. So you can save mobile data almost anywhere.

*Xfinity WiFi hotspots included with Performance Internet (and above) only. Performance Starter and below are not eligible. Available in select areas. Requires WiFi-enabled mobile device.

Not sure what speed you need?

Good for Up to 5 Devices at a Time

15 to 60 Mbps
  • Light streaming
  • Stream, download shows
  • Download music/photos

Good for Up to 8 Devices at a time

100 to 150 Mbps
  • Multi-device streaming
  • Download shows quickly
  • Download large files

Good for up to 11 devices at a time

Up to 250 Mbps
  • Download shows in seconds
  • Multi-device HD streaming
  • Good for multi-player gaming

Good for 12+ Devices at a time

Up to 400 Mbps
  • Heavy usage activities
  • Extreme speed
  • Great for multiplayer gaming

Good for unlimited devices

Up to 1000 Mbps
  • Perfect for today's ultra-connected, smart household
  • Ultimate WiFi experience
Multi gig speeds badge

Interested in blazing Multi-Gig speeds for your ultra-connected lifestyle? Give us a ring.

Get more with Xfinity

Advanced WiFi control

Xfinity xFi gives you the speed, coverage, and control you need for the ultimate home WiFi experience.

Voice commands on your TV

Manage and control your WiFi on your TV with Xfinity X1 and the award-winning X1 Voice Remote.

Gig speeds for business

The pace of business is faster than ever. Go beyond fast with Comcast Business, and speeds up to 1 Gb.

* Xfinity xFi is available to Xfinity Internet service customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway.

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-45
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for October 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-128.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.17 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


text:
We're Stealing These Celebrity Self-Care Tips & You Should Too

It's no secret our celebrity faves are #goals in more ways than we can count. But there's nothing like looking up to a celebrity who has mastered the art of self-care. The best part is, they've offered up their go-to ways to practice it, and we can start doing them today. While they might be on top of the world, they've proven that even superwomen need time to intentionally practice self-care, and it might not be as difficult as you think. In fact, all of us can start these habits today:

Michelle Obama

Now we know our forever FLOTUS has her self-care in check. Her trick is to withdraw from the hustle and take a day to refresh and restore. But this doesn't mean that she's hanging out solo. She told Women's Health:

"I reach out to friends, my mom, my girlfriends; I vent, I release, I have sounding boards…"

And it's safe to say we all need moments like this, especially when you're known as the strong friend. She added that the key is knowing when to give yourself a timeout before you get back into the game.

Serena Williams

Serena's self-care routine includes forgetting the haters and focusing on herself so she can keep her confidence and her mental sanity. She told Elle:

"I was constantly told I was too muscular, or I wasn't pretty enough to be a tennis player. I learned to ignore the negativity and look inwards to truly love myself."

She said she's the one who's in control of how she feels and responds to the negativity, so she decides to pay it all dust. I think we can all take notes.

Viola Davis

She always plays a strong character on the small and big screens, and she has even more strength in person. How? Self-care of course. She told Refinery 29:

"If I don't take care of myself and I'm taking care of my daughter or husband or whatever – I'm running on fumes. I have nothing left to give."

She said she regroups by getting a deep-tissue massage (yes God!), visiting the doctor, spa, and chiropractor on the regular. She revealed she feels like she can face anything when she embraces these practices and takes care of herself from the inside out.

Issa Rae

The YouTube star turned acting sensation has our self-care goals on fleek. She said while talking to Bon Appetit:

"I typically make a hot toddy (using orange tea and Fireball Whiskey), lie out on my chaise, and listen to a podcast…"

While she's busy making the rest of us laugh, she said she likes to focus on shows that fit what she needs at the time, whether it's getting in some humor or staying knowledgeable about current events. Either way, knowing that Issa practices self-care makes us love her all the more.

Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox has no shame in keeping a therapist on speed dial to avoid missing a beat in self-care. Laverne said during an interview with NBC:

"I have an amazing new therapist."

She said it has helped her, especially considering the idea that most of us have experienced intense trauma before we even realize what happened. It's so understandable to need a therapist to step in, or even just help us with our day-to-day so we can process every aspect of our lives.

Tracee Ellis Ross

From Joan Clayton to Rainbow Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross has been us for years. And now we have another reason to admire her as she made it clear she values taking care of herself. She told Elle:

"My beauty regime is about what I put in my body, so it's about getting my sleep and drinking lots of water. I love water out of glass, not out of plastic. I'm big on hydrating."

We're here for Tracee drinking her water and minding the business that pays her.

Angela Rye

It's no secret political activist and CNN Analyst Angela Rye has taken on the charge to fight for all things Black, no matter who she has to go head-to-head with. And even this queen takes time to look after herself as often as she needs to. Her habit is a little different than we might expect, which actually makes it pretty amazing. She told ESSENCE she talks to her parents every day, and even sometimes multiple times a day:

"I love talking to them because it keeps me grounded and it keeps me centered on my mission and on what really matters."

Erykah Badu

The neo-soul goddess made it clear she practices self-care on the daily. She told Origin Magazine:

"I get up. Drink a lot of water. Have a wheatgrass shot. Drink some green juice. Eat as healthy as I can."

She added that she also takes a salt bath regularly. While we knew her self-care routine would include all things holistic, she made a great point and said she values self-care because her parents couldn't afford to.

"I'm blessed to do anything I want so I decided to take the best care of my body and my family in the same way. Holistically. Vitally."

And we definitely love it all.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey's self-care habit is surprisingly one that we can all indulge in. She wrote in her magazine O:

"I give myself Sundays as a spiritual base of renewal – a day when I do absolutely nothing. I sit in my jammies or take a walk, and I allow myself time to BE – capital B-E – with myself."

If Oprah can find time to have a lazy day in her pajamas, so can we. In fact, I'm convinced her taking this personal "me time" is what's helped her get so far and become the mogul she is today.

Featured image by Tracee Ellis Ross/Instagram

Sign up today and be the first to get notified on new updates, exclusive events, retreats and giveaways!

More Posts
Keep reading... Show less
Keep reading... Show less
Keep reading... Show less
Keep reading... Show less
Exclusive Interviews
Latest Posts


text:
Where there are people, there are Chinese, Where there are Chinese, there will be a Chinatown. The same sentence also works in Thailand, There is also a Chinatown in Thailand, I wanted to finish dinner and visit Chinatown quickly. But he heard Peter say, Don’t worry, Chinatown is more and more lively as it gets late. It is a street that does not last night. In Thailand, the real money is still the Chinese. The diligence and hard work of the Chinese are clearly reflected in Thailand, but the Chinese have also been well accommodated in life in Thailand. Take him as an example. His family has been in Thailand for three generations. He himself has married a Thai woman. He has never been to China. When he talks about Thailand, he can feel that he regards Thailand as his real home. He understands the culture there and is completely a Thai way of life.

At nine or ten o’clock in the evening, We came to Chinatown in Thailand, Facing us is a string of red lanterns with Chinese characteristics. You seem to have come to China in the 40s and 50s. Shop signs everywhere are basically marked with Thai and Chinese characters, Chinese-based, At the same time, the noise is fully reflected here. The whole street is dominated by stalls, and lampblack also fills the street. Chestnuts are fried with sugar fried by machines, and 300 large bowls and 200 small bowls of bird’s nest are hung everywhere. In China, bird’s nest is worth 100 times as much as that of expensive people, but it is reduced to snacks on stalls here. I can’t believe the cheap ones. Unfortunately, I was too full for dinner and really had no stomach to hold it.

There are stalls and hawkers on both sides of the road, and the cars are still speeding in the middle that are not affected, and the diners sitting on the side of the road are not affected by those cars. Your mind will pop out: Is there a chengguan here? Can anyone manage this street? It’s hard to imagine in our city, There was so much noise on the roadside, Peter said that if you could speak Chaozhou dialect, There is no problem communicating here, Many of the Chinese in Thailand are Chaozhou people who went to make a living. They grew up here from generation to generation, In fact, Putonghua there is still very difficult to communicate. When we bought pomegranate juice, the peddler he met suddenly popped up while watching our discussion. Hello, let us be delighted. In fact, he can only simply tell us how much this pomegranate juice costs per bottle, and in-depth dialogue will not work. He can only look at us with a smile.

I followed “LV” into a shop selling meat floss. Shopkeepers still talk in Mandarin. You can taste the food in their shops. If you feel satisfied and buy it, if you don’t like it, the owners won’t take pains to introduce it to you. These shops look like old shops. It will say how many years they have been operating. These shops feel like old shops in Hong Kong. However, due to the language barrier, I did not have much desire to buy (this “LV” is a handsome boy from Yangzhou, He publicized Thai cloth bags with us from the moment he got off the plane to the moment he returned home and boarded the plane. It was said that the cloth bag was the “LV” in the cloth bag. Because of his vigorous publicity, we bought a batch of “LV” cloth bags before we came back. At the same time, he visited Thailand three times and learned about every different snack in Thailand. He almost bought a batch of Thai characteristics in a sack and returned home. It was also a pity during my trip that he did not follow his purchase.)

Chinatown has its own hubbub and clutter. But the peddlers in Chinatown have different expressions, Each runs his own life, We once stopped in front of a beautiful durian woman for half a day. Looking at her skin, she was surprised and collectively gave her the name of “durian Xi Shi”. In our discussion, durian Xi Shi always opened durian and sold durian according to her steps, with a faint smile on her face. She was not upset by our impoliteness or delighted by our praise. However, the people on the side will come and talk a few words because we are surprised to understand Chinese, and some will give a bright smile even if they do not understand the language.

When we left, Chinatown is still full of voices, Darkness has lost its role here. It is still brightly lit here. We have left, but we are passers-by. Although we are Chinese, more of them are Chinese with Thailand as their home. They live in foreign countries and stick to a cultural custom of their own country, but they also accept the cultural custom of their own land. Thailand’s Chinatown is a city that never sleeps and a blend of the two cultures.


text:
Log In

Weekly Bankroll Builder: February 8 Stronach 5 Picks

by Brian Nadeau

February 7, 2019

Big doings in this week’s Stronach 5, as the pool is now guaranteed at $100,000, and players can expect it to easily surpass that and potentially approach $150,000. To refresh, the Stronach 5 is a Pk5 wager spread across as many as four tracks and three surfaces (dirt, Tapeta and turf), inside of 45 minutes, with a $1 minimum and ridiculously low 12% takeout. I’ll be putting together some prospective tickets in this space each week for a wager that is undoubtedly as good as it gets for the bettors.

*** Please take note that this analysis is done upwards of 48 hours in advance, so obviously weather, track conditions and especially late scratches can and will have an effect. Please check back around 4pm Friday for an update, as well as on Twitter. ***

Leg 1: Laurel Park R9 (4:35 ET) – 4upfm 5k at 7 furlongs

The opening leg depends a lot about how you feel towards #9 PRESTONS PRINCESS (3-1), who has faced better in two starts off the Ness claim and has yet to run on a fast track; the drop will help a lot, and you have to think she might improve in a big way on dry land, so I’ll single her in a field that doesn’t have much.

Pk5 A horses (listed in order of preference): 9

The only other horse I’m interested in is #6 LETMESLIDEBYYOU (8-1), since she looked like a new horse with an easy win on the cutback last time and will be closing late at a nice price. Yes, #1 Holiday Magician (5-2), #3 Given Achance (4-1), and #4 Greasedlightning (5-1) are all viable alternatives, but seem to have a lot of knocks too.

Pk5 B horses: 6

Leg 2: Gulfstream Park R10 (4:40 ET) – 4up 6.25k N3L at 1-mile

This could be the most likely spot for budget players to single, as #1 KELLY TOUGH (9-5) is clearly the horse to beat off the Marcial Navarro claim after running a fast 2nd at the level last time, but I also don’t trust him, since there’s a lot of speed to his outside and he hasn’t won in eight starts, so I’m looking elsewhere, at least on top. Which brings me to #6 MANHATTAN PROJECT (8-1), who has run only 10 times and rises in class off a solid track and distance win in the N2L ranks last time, will get some pace to rally into, and will be a square price too, and I never think it’s a bad thing to take a class riser off a win in spots like these, as they are usually littered with a group of refusers.

Pk5 A horses: 6,1

I don’t love #8 HIGH FLYING GUY (9-2), or his 2-for-23 record with 15 underneath finishes, but he too will like the race flow after hitting the board in his last two at the level, and he does lure Saez, so just maybe that puts him over the hump.

Pk5 B horses: 8

Leg 3: Santa Anita R4 (5:00 ET) – 4upfm MSW at 6 1/2 furlongs (turf)

It sure looks like #7 FICANAS (6-1) is ready to roll off a May layoff, as her AM drills are off the charts, and with Rosario named, she figures to mean business from a perfect draw for going down the hill. The best of those with current form is #2 MAGICAL GRAY (5-2), but at 0-for-5 her chances are adding up, though this might be the type of vulnerable field she’ll finally break through against.

Pk5 A horses: 7,2

The wildcard is clearly #3 PERSEPOLIS (3-1), who didn’t do a lot of running over a bog going two turns at Keeneland for Chad Brown and now heads west and runs down the hill for Mandella; Prat is here and the works are solid, though this barn is 0-for-10 with newcomers, so she could need one (and longer too). You could go deeper here, though I’m not sure #1 Mela Jones (10-1) can wire from the inside, and there’s a ton of other speed here, which could also claim lightly raced dirt runner #6 Tivat (6-1), as well as #8 Storming Lady (4-1), who goes off the claim from McCarthy for Marquez and is another who has had her chances.

Pk5 B horses: 3

Leg 4: Gulfstream Park R11 (5:13 ET) – 4up 30k N3L* at 1-mile (turf)

Good luck here, as this looks like a toughie and rates as a spread, or at least as deep as your bankroll will allow you to go. My top pick—with little conviction—is #6 TIPSY KITTEN (9-2), who posted two big figures over the course this summer and now runs as a first-time gelding off a brief respite. If you toss out the yielding run without blinkers two-back then #3 MILES OF HUMOR (6-1) fits nicely from close range, at a price, from a ground-saving draw. The post really hurts the chances of #11 BLACK SEA, but his turf races are as good or better than anyone here and he was just a close 2nd against slightly better over the course and distance, so he’s tough not to include. And if you like ‘Sea then you have to like #8 BALTIC ART (8-1), since he wasn’t far behind in 3rd last time and drew a tad better too, and will be a much better price as well.

Pk5 A horses: 6,3,11,8

I’m going to leave it at the top quartet and call it a day, as they seem better than the rest and all have a stalking/closing in a race where it looks like there will be an energetic pace. It’s worth noting, however, that #13 Jojo’s Dream (4-1) and #15 Giant Run (5-2) have to be used in some way, shape, or form, terrible posts and all, should they draw in off the AE list.

Pk5 B horses: NONE

Leg 5: Golden Gate Fields R5 (5:45 ET) – 3yo 12.5k MCL at 5 1/2 furlongs

I’ll take a little stab in the finale with #3 BREAK THE LINE (8-1), who has been going two turns, drops in class, and should have plenty of foundation for this sprint, while making just his second start over the local Tapeta. The obvious horse to beat is #5 SIR LAUGHALOT (2-1), who goes turf-to-dirt, cuts back to one-turn, and has never been in this cheap, while holding his own against tons better.

Pk5 A horses: 3,5

The backups are a lot tougher to trust, but #8 FULL OF GOLD (15-1) outran his odds on debut and can move forward, while #1 LUCKY’S LAST SONG (3-1) is a big underlay and will have to wire from the rail, but could shake out as the speed of the speed.

Pk5 B horses: 8,1

The tickets:

Main Ticket: 9 with 6,1 with 7,2 with 6,3,11,8 with 3,5 = $32
Leg 1 B Backup: 6 with 6,1 with 7,2 with 6,3,11,8 with 3,5 = $32
Leg 2 B Backup: 9 with 8 with 7,2 with 6,3,11,8 with 3,5 = $16
Leg 3 B Backup: 9 with 6,1 with 3 with 6,3,11,8 with 3,5 = $16
Leg 5 B Backup: 9 with 6,1 with 7,2 with 6,3,11,8 with 8,1 = $32


text:
LIVE REVIEW: She Drew The Gun – Mono Bar, Glasgow

SHE DREW THE GUN announce 2019 headline tour

Liverpudlian outfit She Drew The Gun brought their unique punk-influenced psych-pop to Mono Bar in Glasgow, the third date on their completely sold out UK tour in support of their masterfully assertive second album, ‘Revolution of the Mind’

Support came from Warrington band Echo & The Man, whose music drew influence from Elton John to American punks Parquet Courts. Their short support slot was unabashed and tightly performed, riling up the eager crowd. Taking to the stage shortly after, She Drew the Gun opened with militaristic ‘Resister’. The lyrics projected onto the wall behind vocalist Louisa Roach sang them with the venom necessary for a band not afraid to send a message out with their art.

After that, they played fan favourite ‘Something for the Pain’, a funky politically charged song played with ferocious energy, with was reciprocated by the audience in the front row, to see so many hands in the air and being so enthusiastic shows an act that has gained a firmly dedicated fanbase since their inception in 2013.

The band flawlessly melded a setlist together of tracks from both their albums. From 2016’s ‘Memories of Another Future’, they played tracks like ‘Poem’ and ‘Since You Were Not Mine’ with as much style as they played new songs, showing no fatigue in their older songs and displaying the growth of the music between their first and last releases.

For a band only three nights into a tour, their performances were incredibly tight, and the enthusiasm was present from all the members. The audience at Mono certainly weren’t let down by the performance and as their tour continues, ‘She Drew the Gun’ will only continue to prove themselves as one of the most essential live acts coming from the UK.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
LogoCompanySupport provided to the XWiki projectProfessional Services/Support
xwikisas.pngXWiki SAS
  • Creator of the XWiki open source project
  • 11 active committers developing the project
  • Financing and operating the various xwiki.org web sites (xwiki.org, l10n.xwiki.org, ci.xwiki.org, nexus.xwiki.org, maven.xwiki.org, sonar.xwiki.org, jira.xwiki.org, lists.xwiki.org, etc)
  • Financing and operating the free myxwiki.org farm for non profit companies and individuals.
  • Community support on the XWiki mailing lists/forums and IRC
See offer
softec-logo.pngSOFTEC sa
  • 1 active committer developing the project
See offer

Thus XWiki SAS is currently the Top Sponsoring company according to the Governance definition.

Created by Vincent Massol on 2016/05/11

Get Connected


text:
• FREE delivery & returns
Shopping Cart €0

You have no items in your shopping cart.

Kilims are flat weave carpets, or rugs without pile. The weaving is done by interlacing warp and weft threads. This technique is in contrast to pile rugs, which are made by knotting strands of yarn onto warps and pressing them tightly together using weft threads. Kilims are found throughout the world. Although the most well-known are from Turkey, kilims are made by nomadic tribal groups throughout the Caucasus and Persia. The method of weaving produces sharp, well-defined patterns. Designs are usually geometric, but curvilinear floral designs are also found. Kilims are often woven for utilitarian purposes such as saddle bags, blankets and wall hangings.

Kilim Qashqai 128X355

In stock

Unique - Only 1 in stock

Product Code: 9363098
Also known as: Kelim, Qilim, Chilim, Ghashghai, Gaschgai, Gashghai, Kashgai, Shiraz
Size: 128X355 cm  (4′2″X11′7″ ft)*
Thickness: ap. 4 mm
Origin:Iran / Persia
Age:Old 20-50 years
Manufacturing:Woven by hand
Incl. Tax
Got a Question?

Contact Us

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

* Required Fields


text:
Press Releases

Hystandard hero helps lift the load for Aussies with cancer

 Permanent link   All Posts

April 29th, 2013

Hystandard hero helps lift the load for Aussies with cancer

As part of a forklift and materials handling company which is a veteran in the Australian market, Hystandard Handling Equipment’s skilled team is well and truly accustomed to helping their clients lift heavy loads.

So it’s really no wonder that Hystandard Managing Director, John Flinn is hitting the road on his motorcycle to ride over 15,000km to help ease the burden for Australians with cancer.

John and his mate Andrew Brown from Toll Intermodal have planned their bum-numbing ride around Australia in a bid to raise money for cancer services and also raise cancer awareness. The two mates have organised the event with the assistance of the NSW Cancer Council office and donations will go to the Cancer Council Australia to assist cancer patients around the country.Cancer-council

Their epic journey will start on Sunday May 5th at Fremantle’s historic Chamber of Commerce building, the oldest chamber of commerce in Australia, with the pair planning to finish back there on Wednesday June 5th .

"We would like to issue a challenge to all companies around Australia to get together and help us to raise money for this very worthy cause,” John said.

“Many technicians, drivers and sales people in our industry are at risk from skin cancer from too much exposure to the sun, so it’s a cause that touches all the companies in our field and we hope they will all get behind this good cause.“

Sponsors can have their logos on John and Andrew’s bikes and/or clothes for the entire trip and all companies are encouraged to participate and support this great endeavour.

John and Andrew are very generously covering all the expenses of their trip, while Hystandard’s materials handling supplier, NACCO Materials Handling Group (NMHG), will donate $5,000 to the Cancer Council.

“Providing a donation of $5000 to assist John and Andrew for such as worthwhile cause was an easy choice. This is an amazing challenge and one that we are very proud to support,“ NMHG Marketing Manager, Haley Daw said.

If your company would like to join in this great event, support this important cause and sponsor the ride, please phone Rita on 02 9672 1026 to arrange to have your logo featured on the bikes or riders.

To make a tax deductible contribution, or follow John and Andrew’s progress, you can visit

We will also publish more details on the trip in subsequent publications or you can follow John and Andrew’s progress on


text:
Invigorated Joblessness and a Government Deficit despite growing arrears: Greece’s Non-Recovery continues

No recoveryWhile the international press continues to celebrate Greece’s recovery, the reality on the ground becomes bleaker, less sustainable, and nastier than ever. In this post I shall be conveying the grim news from two fronts: the labour market and the government’s finances.

Fewer jobs, fewer people: A labour market in steady decline

Unemployment fell in Greece in February to 26.5%, for a fifth consecutive month. Excellent news, surely. Not in the slightest. In January there were 3 million 614 thousand Greeks in paid employment. In February there were 5 thousand fewer people with jobs (3 million 609 thousand employed). (See here.) So, how come the unemployment rate declined? Simple: The unemployment rate is the ratio of those out of work (but seeking work) and the labour force (those in work and the unemployed looking for work). The continuing crisis has, once more, shrunk the denominator, as Greeks continue to leave the country in droves and others become discouraged and stop looking for work. So, even though employment has dropped, the labour drop has declined even faster. Rather than a cause for celebration, this is a genuine reason to grieve for Greece’s labour market. (Unless of course you are a speculator, or an establishment politician, making a mint from the rumour of Greek-covery…)

Greek Government Deficit

Regular readers will recall my recent exchange with Eurostat, in which I accused Eurostat, Athens and Berlin for conspiring to bring back Greek Statistics. The bone of contention was (A) the creation of fake white holes in pension and local authority balance sheets and, of course, (B) the ongoing ‘tradition’ of under-reporting the state’s (permanently rolled over) arrears. It is now official: In March, the general government’s balance sheet went into a small deficit (a little over €1 billion) while officially acknowledged arrears (mostly owed to social security and hospital suppliers) went up from €5.07 billion, in February, to €5.20 in March.

So that you can smile ironically when you read, elsewhere, that Greece is on the road to an impressive recovery…

Leave a Reply to Stavros Karageorgis Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Not sure why we are playing the same game year after year. The Greek economy always enters a deficit period (in current account terms) between November lasting until April of each year(sometimes it exits during April but sometimes for sure by May). Then tourism revenues come in and create the surpluses the country needs . So to use the March figures (i.e. the last month before Greece emerges into positive territory during this very predictable pattern) is akin to crying wolf. If you really want to prove that Greece’s economy is in a bad trend then let’s wait until October before we enter the negative period again like clockwork. If by October we haven’t created the foundation for strong yearly performance then we are in trouble.

    You see here the problem Yani is that we confuse the government and the people. The people are doing horribly but the government as a performing entity is doing just fine. It’s designed that way to just do fine. That is its European mission and you are wasting your time attacking government performance. You may argue that the government which is responsible for all the ills did not deserve to survive and I think many should agree that in 2010 the correct action would have been to declare the public sector bankrupt. But as you know such would not have been allowed under the euro survival plan. So a version of the old corrupt government has survived artificially, a fact which irritates quite a few citizens.

    But attacking this government is a losing game. It has Merkel’s approval written all over it and is also grounded on the fact that Merkel can’t see any Greek alternative government to support her game. So you want to launch an attack on Merkel’s policies like the great majority of Europeans do? Go right ahead but stop attacking the Athens dealership because it has all the outside support that you could possibly imagine. Also an attack on Berlin’s policies if far more intellectually honest. These poor local fellows you are attacking are confused beyond description. They basically do all the bad things fully convinced that they are doing the right thing. You ought to have pity towards such fellow Greeks not animosity towards them.

    • Greece has a long tradition of collaborationist governments that enjoyed, at least for a while, crushing support from foreign capitals. The fact that, as collaborators, they enjoyed this support does not make them less liable. Quite the opposite. Unlike you, I believe that we Greeks have a moral duty to aim our slings and arrows at our fellow countrymen and women who people these collaborationist regimes. While, as readers of this blog will testify to, I offer pointed, continuous critical pieces aimed at Berlin, Brussels and Frankfurt, my primary duty is to make as uncomfortable as possible the lives of our own Quislings.

    • o.k. I understand. But if we are all part of the same One (per Heraclitus of Ephesus) then an attack on them means an attack on part of your own self. There has to come a time that all of us must give such internal struggle a rest. I wouldn’t stop from your duty but you may want to consider that those attacked don’t know any better. Under such circumstances the whole exchange has various degrees of sadness because of the internal struggle involved. Be well.

    • But they do Dean, they do. How do I know? Because they tell me. And why do they do it, if they know? Because they have a great deal to gain, at the individual level. This is why I shan’t let them rest…

    • @Dean, word for word this is the worst argument I have read in a long time!

      What is this “European mission of the Greek Government” thingy, which absolves the G.G. of responsibility for its wrongdoing? What on earth are you talking about?

    • Yani, I got it.

      Vassili, fine let mine be the worst argument you ever heard. Could you give me your best argument of how things truly are?

    • @Dean,

      It’s not just the Greek government that is lying to the people it was sworn in to serve and protect. And it is also not just them justifying their lies and deceptions, if they are ever discovered, as a means to an end for the greater good.

      It may not be as obvious, but german governments have been doing it for quite some time now, so have US administrations and propably most of all the other governments in the world, wether they were democratically elected or not.
      People – like many germans for example – tend to overlook that fact, although they are quite aware of it, while they remain under the impression that things could still be much worse, especially if the current course of action were to change significantly. To put it bluntly: any ruling class can lie and cheat their way through anything as long as they can convince their subjects of the old saying that there is no alternative, be it through speeches and media campaigns or by brute force.
      This especially holds true ever since the recent collapse of the financial markets threatened to pull the european banking system down with it. Does that mean we have to bite the bullet and accept their notion of ‘no alternative’?

      You might even be right suggesting that the people running the greek government really don’t know any better. I for one am convinced that Angela Merkel really believes she is doing the right thing by forcing the eruozone under the yoke of austerity. After all, politicians tend to succumb to their own propaganda by repeating the same lies over and over again untill they are genuinely convinced that they were telling the truth all along –
      even more so if they base these claims on the expertise of advisors who disguise their biased insinutations as the results of scientific reasoning.

      Shouldn’t we – especially people who actually know better like you or our host – do everything we can to remind our politicians that they do not own exlusive rights to define what is true and what is not?

    • The accusation that this article is “crying wolf” is just absurd. Moreover, the claim that the current mishmash of Greek politicians allegedly running the country “are confused beyond description” is nothing less than bizarre. If indeed they are so confused, then they should not issue statements claiming that they have engineered an economic recovery, or presided over a nonsensical “primary budget surplus”. At the same time, they celebrate a declining labour force employment rate as a success story of “reduced unemployment”. This is not confusion: it is deliberate propaganda and an attempt to deceive the people.

      No, the sad truth is that the government politicians are cynical and conscious Quislings, who put their own personal interests before those of the Greek people. They are collaborators with foreign powers, and are openly hostile to Greek democracy. Doubtless, we shall learn in some time how much money was made by each politician from the systematic betrayal of Greece. I suspect that they will make Tsochatzopoulos look like an amateur.

    • Hubert:

      I am not sure I know anything and as such that I deserve the honor you bestowed on me (as someone in the know). I consider myself a practical person and what I am trying to say is as simple as this.

      Greek politics have a great deal of theatrical element to them and lack about 90% of substance. If one wishes to bring the fight to what Yanis perceives as a collaborationist(quisling), corrupt and somewhat inept government, one must choose targets of substance. Otherwise before you know it, one’s arguments are embroiled in the same theater of the absurd which characterizes Greek public discourse. To simply want to attack because you are convinced that the other side is bad or deserving criticism might not be the most persuasive way for the wider audience. In Greek politics one is running the risk of being labeled passionate but lacking the ability to persuade.

      Here is an example of a ridiculous if not bogus claim which one might wish to discredit.

      “According to calculations the ministry published on Thursday, the total state revenues from oil reserves of 100 million barrels would amount to 6 billion euros.”

      There is no way that after a barrel of oil costing about $50-$60 to extract and then sold at $90 (approx. market rate) could generate state revenues of the magnitude indicated. Typically an exploration company uses all revenue from extraction to reimburse itself first for all associated costs, overhead and equipment and then share a portion of net profits with the state ( a good 10-15 years elapse with the state having zero revenue during such period since all profits go to reimburse the driller).

      In any event this quote is clearly a false statement based on a grossly wrong projection by the ministry especially given the fact that all 3 companies mentioned only get for a relatively small fee an exploration license lasting 3 years and extendable to 8 years. During such time the state benefits very little as in the case of the gold mines in northern Greece(a give away – the gold deposits are estimated to be in the 2-3 Bil. euro range and the government sold the license and rights to exploitation for 14 Mil. euros only which then the license holder sold to a Canadian company for 10 times more and a quick profit).

      So this is a case of would be and uncertain future benefits, nevertheless calculated on the wrong basis and in a manner that makes the future over exaggerated projection sort of ridiculous and absurd. In which case you have every right to question this PR on steroids and demand that the government apologizes for the false claim and for misleading the people.

      This is an example of a winnable contest against the ministry which not only made a wrong projection but it also attempted to presell the best case scenario outcome of provable oil reserves when the whole purpose of awarding these licenses is precisely to prove that such reserves exist in the first place and are indeed commercially exploitable (not yet proven and in any event some 15-20 years away from producing any conceivable revenue for the state).

    • @Dean
      You are setting me a lofty task, to describe things as they really are in my view. I cannot do so, as it would take a book-sized text.

      Still, your argument that we should pity the GG because it has some “European mission” (issued and approved by … whom, Merkel?) and that it is fulfilling it well, yet causing terrible suffering to the country (which is what we should pity it for, instead of reproaching it) is really a very bad argument.

    • Vassili:

      You perhaps misunderstood. The present Greek government has 100% Merkel’s support. This does not mean that the mission is good or beneficial to Greece. Quite the opposite. “European mission” = lack of control by Greece = undemocratic process.

  • Not to mention the steady increase of taxpayer arrears, at a rate of 0.7 billion/month…

    The new memorandum has just been voted, increasing further “projected” tax revenues
    for the next 4 years. The plan of orchestrated deflation proceeds on track.

  • Moral responsibility, a certain German (Kant) held, is personal, as duty is, aswell. Collaboration may e forced, but acceptance, yielding to it, is a personal choice, morally blameworthy.

  • What’s a balance sheet deficit? (“the general government’s balance sheet went into a small deficit”)


text:
Remove a tree

Phone the Planning department on 1300 368 333 for advice if you intend to remove trees for construction or development projects.

If you consider your tree or trees as dangerous, complete the following steps:

  1. Read through the information provided on this webpage, regarding tree removal (click on the links above, or on Next below). Check to see if the tree or trees meet any of the exemptions listed. Contact us on 1300 368 333 for more information, if required.

  2. If the tree or trees are not exempt, complete the tree inspection form online and pay the fee for an inspection. The fee is $217 for the first tree and $94.50 for each additional tree.

A qualified arborist will then inspect the tree or trees and write a report about their condition. Council will send you a copy of the report and a letter detailing any works recommended. You do not need a planning permit to complete recommended works.

Clearing for bushfire protection

The state government’s 10/30 right allows you to clear vegetation around your home for bushfire protection without a planning permit only if your property is located in a Bushfire Prone area.

All trees within 10 metres of your house and vegetation within 30 metres of your house can be removed so long as:

  • Your house was built before 10 September 2009, or;

  • A permit for its construction was issued before 10 September 2009

Check if you are in a Bushfire Prone Area

To check if your property is in a Bushfire Prone Area, visit our online mapping and follow the steps below:

Step 1   On the left under modules click Planning

Step 2  At the bottom under the map click search type in the address and then click the search box

Step 3  You will notice on the right under property details will show your property Zone, under that will way “Within Designated Bushfire Prone Area” if it shows ‘YES’ then your property is in a Bushfire Prone area

Step 4 To see what parts of your property are “within the Bushfire Prone area”, click the + next to Planning controls, under Layers on the left of the screen, then tick on the Bushfire Prone Area (pink), make sure the ‘Overlays’ is not ticked or the map will not show you the pink Bushfire Zone. You can now see in dark pink the Bushfire Prone Area.

For more information on Bushfire prone areas please visit  Building in bushfire prone areas

Removing dead trees or weeds

You do not need a permit to remove a completely dead tree. If your property is within an Erosion Management Overlay you will need to keep stumps in the ground to help with slope stability.

You do not need a permit or an inspection to remove weed species. The following trees are considered weed species:

  • American Aspen (Populus Tremuloides)
  • Apple trees - all types (Malus Species)
  • Caucasian Ash (Fraxinus Oxycarpa)
  • Cedar Wattle (Acacia Elata)
  • Cherry and plum trees - all types (Prunus Species)
  • Cootamundra Wattle (Acacia Baileyana)
  • Cotoneaster - all types (Cotoneaster)
  • Early Black Wattle (Acacia decurrens)
  • Evergreen Dogwood (Cornus Capitata)
  • Giant Honey Myrtle (Melaleuca Armillaris)
  • Hawthorn (Crataegus Monogyna)
  • Holly (Ilex Aquifolium)
  • Manna Ash (Fraxinus Ornus)
  • Monterey Pine or Radiata Pine (Pinus Radiata)
  • Sallow Wattle (Acacia Longifolia)
  • Strawberry Tree (Arbutus Unedo)
  • Sweet Pittosporum (Pittosporum Undalatum)
  • Sycamore Tree (Acer Pseudoplatanus)
  • Willow - all types (Salix Species)

Other exemptions

  • There are no tree restrictions for properties in Industrial 1 Zone unless a Heritage Overlay applies.
  • Trees within two metres of a building can be removed without a permit or inspection.
  • If a tree is not in a dangerous condition, you need a planning permit to remove it.

Trees on neighbours property

If you are concerned about a tree on a neighbours property, speak to your neighbour first before taking action.

We cannot inspect trees on your neighbour's property unless we have their written permission. Your neighbour will need to fill out and sign an assessment form.

We will send an arborist report to your neighbour and to you if they agree.

You have the right to prune an overhanging tree to the boundary fence line. You do not have the right to enter their property without permission.

More information on your rights and responsibilities is available from the Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria.

How much vegetation can be removed along a property boundary fence?

There is a fence line clearance provision of 4 metres for fences constructed before 10 September 2009. Please check your title for any restrictions.

A maximum combined width of four metres of vegetation can be removed along an existing property boundary fence. The maximum width of four metres can be divided in any manner that the two landowners agree to.

If there is already at least four metres of cleared land on one side of the fence, vegetation cannot be removed on the other side of the fence without a planning permit.

The maximum width of four metres can be divided in any manner that the two landowners agree to.

Before removing any vegetation along a boundary fence, each landowner should seek agreement from their neighbours on how much can be removed.


text:
Rescue crews discovered the overturned yacht broken up on rocks.

The bodies of an Irish woman and a Scottish man have been recovered after a yacht accident off the coast of South Africa.

South African police, EMS, NSRI rescue and dive units were among the emergency services who responded Monday (1 February) to reports of a yacht that had capsized off of South Africa’s Western Cape.

When crews arrived on the scene, they discovered a yacht, Tara, broken up amongst rocks on the shore.

Scottish man Irish woman die in yacht accident

The bodies of a 61-year-old Scottish man and a 49-year-old Irish woman were recovered from the scene.

A 66-year-old Irishman was the sole survivor from the three crew members on board the craft when it capsized. He managed to swim to shore safely and raise the alarm.

A police investigation has been opened into the incident.

It is not known whether the yacht capsized before running aground or what caused the yacht to run aground.

Related links:

IPCC investigation urges more guidance in marine rescues

Video: Family to identify capsized catamaran found after a year adrift


text:
 Real Madrid gets its 1st chance to clinch Spanish league title | YoGems

Real Madrid gets its 1st chance to clinch Spanish league title

July 17, 2020

FootballSpanish league Title

The Spanish league trophy will be sitting by the field at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium on Thursday, with Real Madrid a win away from lifting it for the first time in three years.

Madrid will have its first chance to clinch the title when it hosts Villarreal at the Di Stéfano following a long season that was in jeopardy because of the coronavirus pandemic. It enters the second-to-last round with a four-point lead over Barcelona, which faces Osasuna at the Camp Nou at the same time.

Madrid needs two points from its last two matches to secure its 34th league title — and first since 2017. It can also lift the trophy with a loss if Barcelona fails to defeat Osasuna.

It would be Madrid’s first league title since Cristiano Ronaldo left to join Juventus two seasons ago, and the first since coach Zinedine Zidane returned from a short break.

Barcelona won the last two league titles and was at the top this season when the coronavirus pandemic struck, but Madrid has been perfect since the break, winning nine straight.

“When we returned from the confinement after being stuck at home for almost three months, I could see that the players wanted to achieve something big,” Zidane said Wednesday. “I could see it during the training sessions, I could see it in how they were practicing.”

Madrid had lost three of its last four matches before the league was interrupted in March.

Barcelona seemed in control but endured an up-and-down run after the break, drawing three matches and losing its advantage at the top. Coach Quique Setién, under pressure because of the team’s results and lackluster performances, knows his club faces a tough task trying to overcome Madrid’s advantage.

“It’s not over yet, anything can happen,” said Setién, who took over from Ernesto Valverde in January. “But it will be very difficult for us. You need a loss from a team that has won everything. We will keep fighting until the end.”

Barcelona has won eight of the last 11 league titles, with Madrid lifting the trophy in 2017 and 2012.

Madrid will face a Villarreal team that is sitting fifth in the standings and fighting for a Europa League berth. It had one of the best runs following the coronavirus break, winning six of its nine matches.

“It will be one of our most difficult matches,” Zidane said. “It’s a very tough rival, a very good team.”

Barcelona’s opponent, Osasuna, is in 11th place.

Related Post


text:
• Sale
  • Regular price $54.99

Click here to be notified by email when 06 NISSAN QUEST 3.5L A/T ECU ECM ENGINE COMPUTER PCM TQ MEC83-020 B1 ✅TESTED✅ becomes available.

  • Part Number

    TQ MEC83-020 B1

      This ecu will 2006 Nissan Quest models with the same part number above. Programming to your vehicle will be required and this item is not plug and play.
    • Programming is required

    Tech Notes

      ECU has been tested with our state of the art vehicle simulator which tests over 25 circuits of the ECU! Some of those are listed below:
    • ECU powered up and has communication!
    • ECU fuel pump/main relay test good!
    • Pins perfect, none are broken or bent
    • ECU injectors/coils test good and much more!
    • Backside of case sealed to prevent corrosion!
    • Case resealed with silicone after testing to prevent water intrusion!

    Install Notes

    • Disconnect the negative terminal of the battery. Make sure the battery connector is not touching the battery post.
    • Disconnect and remove the module to be replaced.
    • Install and connect the replacement module.
    • Connect the negative terminal of the battery.
    • Programming to your vehicle will be required and this item is not plug and play.

    This ECM comes with a 3 month warranty from the date of purchase. Please keep a copy of your purchase record which we will send with your item.

  • Returns
    Most items come with a 30 day return period. If 30 days have gone by since your purchase, unfortunately we can’t offer you a refund or exchange.

    To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.

    To complete your return, we require a receipt or proof of purchase.

    There are certain situations where no or only partial refunds are granted

    • Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
    • Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery

    Once your return is received and inspected, we will send you an email to notify you that we have received your returned item. We will also notify you of the approval or rejection of your refund.

    If you are approved, then your refund will be processed, and a credit will automatically be applied to your original method of payment.

    Late or missing refunds (if applicable)
    If you haven’t received a refund yet, first check your bank account again.
    Next contact your bank. There is often some processing time before a refund is posted.
    If you’ve done all of this and you still have not received your refund yet, please contact us at

    Exchanges (if applicable)
    We only replace items if they are defective or damaged by our error. If you need to exchange it for the same item, send us an email at

    You will be responsible for paying for return shipping costs for returning your item. Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of initial shipping will be deducted from your refund.

    Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary.

    If you are shipping an item over $75, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don’t guarantee that we will receive your returned item.

Back to the top


text:
j.elliot HOME

Apollo Chenille Cushion

Irresistibly plush and effortlessly stylish, the Apollo Chenille Cushion from j.elliot HOME enriches your space with cosiness and character.

  • Pure cotton cover is beautifully soft to touch and also resilient to withstand day-to-day wear in your home
  • Includes a polyester fibre fill, which keeps the cushion looking plump and gives it a springy feel, for your comfort and convenience
  • Zipper is hidden under a fold of fabric on the reverse to make it easy to remove the cover without affecting its overall look or feel
  • Front features a luxurious chenille design that's irresistibly plush to enrich your lounge or sleep space with cosy texture and subtle pattern accents — reverse is plain cotton
  • Solid colouring effortlessly adapts to your other décor and to your personal tastes for easy styling
  • Perfect for adding a little extra colour and personality to your bedroom, living room, reading nook, or other space — place upon your bed, an armchair, or a sofa on its own or with other scatter cushions as you desire

Product Range
Winter 19
50W x 50H cm
Production Country
Material Details
  • Cover: 100% cotton
  • Fill: 100% polyester fibre
  • Detail: chenille front
Box Contents
1 x cushion with poly fill
Warranty Information
1 year
Care Instructions
No care instructions available

delivery information

This item is shipped via Australia Post or a similar carrier. Service included:

  • Dispatch notification
  • Online tracking
  • Authority to leave (if selected)
  • Delivery to ground floor entrance

All Zanui orders are delivered during business hours. If you order multiple items from our website, you may receive multiple deliveries shipped by multiple carriers since items may be sent from different warehouse locations.

For more information on our delivery process, please check our Help Centre.

Christmas returns

All orders placed between the 1st November and the 25th December in a calendar year can be returned up until the 31st January of the following calendar year.

Change of mind

If you change your mind about a purchase, you can return the item and opt for a store credit or a full refund.
We require the item to be unused and in its original packaging. Any items that are not returned to us in the original packaging and/or in original condition will incur an additional handling fee.

Small items can be returned for free through ParcelPoint Easy Returns or the post office. You may arrange a pick up for your return or drop it off at your local store. Choose among hundreds stores such as pharmacies, convenience stores and newsagents – open weekends and after hours for your convenience. Please go to our FAQs page to check size and weight restrictions.

The few exceptions that are not eligible for a change of mind return include:

  • mattresses, bed linen and pillows, for health and hygiene reasons
  • items presenting a *LAST CALL* badge.

Damaged or Faulty

In the unlikely event that your item arrives damaged or faulty, please notify Zanui as soon as possible for a replacement (if available), store credit or a full refund. Please submit a damage / faulty return request to our Customer Care Team to assist you with your return.

about the brand

j.elliot HOME have become a leader in Australian homewares and furniture, having been established since the late 80s in Melbourne. Boasting trendy homewares full of personality, j.elliot HOME hosts a team of creative designers to create furnishings, textiles and décor with unique character and homely charm.


text:
Is your Internet provider throttling BitTorrent traffic? Find out

How frequently are Internet service providers throttling speeds when you use BitTorrent software?

Screen Shot 2014-01-24 at 09.10.07

Does your ISP interfere with your file-sharing traffic? Find out below.

File-sharing, made rapid and easy by software including BitTorrent, has exploded in use besides increased broadband penetration worldwide. It's important to remember that BitTorrent searches and BitTorrent clients -- such as uTorrent, BitTorrent and Tixati -- and the practice of file-sharing between computers is not an illegal one. However, ISPs have throttled speeds if BitTorrent clients are in use in the past for traffic management purposes, and more recently -- as many people use the software in order to obtain intellectual property-protected files, such as films, music and television shows -- the practice has spread.

Internet service providers are not always transparent over this practice, however, it is now possible to find out if your ISP is in on the game.

As reported by TorrentFreak, thanks to data collected and displayed by Measurement Lab (M-Lab), we can all examine the frequency of data throttling worldwide.

The Glasnost application, developed by the Max Planck Institute, can be used for free in order to detect meddling in the use of BitTorrent, eMule and Gnutella, as well as video streaming sites including YouTube, email, Usenet, HTTP transfer and SSH transfer protocols.

Based on M-Lab tests of at least 100 connections performed between December 2012 and December 2013, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore were the worst data throttlers, with 74 percent, 61 percent and 53 percent of tested connections having been tampered with respectively. The United States had a throttling rate of 14 percent, whereas the United Kingdom was the second most throttled country in Europe with 28 percent, beaten only by Poland with 35 percent.

Greece and Romania performed more positively, with tests showing only seven and nine percent of limited BitTorrent connections.

If we then take a look at which Internet service providers throttle speeds the most, in the United States, Comcast throttles roughly 12 percent of connections. Cox interferes with 13 percent of connections, whereas Verizon manipulates only nine percent of connections. However, as the publication notes, throttling rates are beginning to creep higher again after taking a dive when ComCast was exposed for controlling customers' file-sharing traffic several years ago -- causing a dive of 50 percent throttling rates to the single digits.

In the United Kingdom, Orange is the most throttle-happy ISP, with a limiting rate of 38 percent. BT comes in second with 35 percent, whereas TalkTalk throttles only 10 percent of connections.

For more information on your ISP, check out M-Lab's diagnostic tools.


text: INFJ: 9 Reasons You’re Still Single INFJs can be introverts, but few things are far more crucial for them than strong, close relationships. They crave deep psychological and connections that are emotional other people; proximity or simply a couple of provided passions won’t cut it. This is especially valid with regards to love and dating.


text:
Wonder Woman TP the Many Lives of Maxwell Lord
DC Comics

Wonder Woman TP the Many Lives of Maxwell Lord

Price: $16.99

Store availability: out of stock

Get notified on future items.

Sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on social media. Our weekly comic book subscription service and preorder discounts are the best way to reserve your copy on upcoming comics and toys at a great discount!.

Keith Giffen(w), Kevin Maguire(a), Various(a), Tony Harris(c)

Witness the rise and fall of one of DC's most manipulative masterminds! Coinciding with his big screen debut in Wonder Woman 1984, this volumes collects key moments in Maxwell Lord's history as both a hero and a villain, from his debut as the financial backer of the Justice League International to his fateful Infinite Crisis encounter with Wonder Woman, and beyond. This new title includes Justice League #1 (1987), Justice League International #12, Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1, The Omac Project #2, Wonder Woman #219, Justice League: Generation Lost #20, and Justice League #12 (2017).

Item #: 73993 Diamond code: UCS20020581 UPC: 9781779506092


text:
Centrostachys aquatica (R. Br.) Wall. ex Moq.

Images: None on this site.

Detailed records: Display species records QDS maps by: Google Maps Point records by Google Maps

Species details: Click on each item to see an explanation of that item (Note: opens a new window)

Synonyms: Achyranthes aquatica R. Br.
Common names:
Status: Native
Prostrate to straggling or erect, much-branched aquatic or subaquatic perennial, rooting at the lower nodes with dense tufts of whitish rhizoids, stem near the base up to 2 cm thick, spongy, hollow. Upper stem and branches mostly hairless but increasingly appressed-hairy towards the inflorescence. Leaves lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong or oblong-ovate, 7-15 cm long, appressed-hairy on both surfaces (densely so when young); petiole 0.4–4 cm long. Flowering spike c. 4–12 cm long in flower, elongating to as much as 25 cm in fruit. Bracts deltoid-lanceolate, 3–4 mm long, hyaline with a single midrib, hairless; bracteoles more or less circular hyaline, c. 1.5–2 mm long, hairless. Perianth 6–8 mm long, upper tepal slightly longer than others, with a sharper, often slightly recurved apex. Capsule c. 4 mm long, slightly broader at the base but rounded above.
Derivation of specific name: aquatica: living in water, aquatic.
Habitat: In standing water and at the edge of a pan.
Altitude range: (metres)
Flowering time:
Worldwide distribution: From Nigeria to Sudan and Ethiopia south to DRC, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe; also in tropical Asia from India and Sri Lanka to Indonesia
Zimbabwe distribution: N,S
Growth form(s):
Endemic status:
Red data list status:
Insects associated with this species:
Spot characters: Display spot characters for this species

Mapaura, A. & Timberlake, J. (eds) (2004). A checklist of Zimbabwean vascular plants Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 33 Sabonet, Pretoria and Harare Page 16.

Phiri, P.S.M. (2005). A Checklist of Zambian Vascular Plants Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 32 Page 20.

Setshogo, M.P. (2005). Preliminary checklist of the plants of Botswana. Sabonet Report no. 37. Sabonet, Pretoria and Gaborone Page 21.

Townsend, C.C. (1988). Amaranthaceae Flora Zambesiaca 9(1) Pages 110 - 111. (Includes a picture).

Other sources of information about Centrostachys aquatica:

Our websites:

Flora of Botswana: Centrostachys aquatica
Flora of Zambia: Centrostachys aquatica

External websites:

African Plants: A Photo Guide (Senckenberg): Centrostachys aquatica
BHL (Biodiversity Heritage Library): Centrostachys aquatica
EOL (Encyclopedia of Life): Centrostachys aquatica
ePIC (electronic Plant Information Center): Centrostachys aquatica
Flora Zambesiaca web site: Centrostachys aquatica
GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility): Centrostachys aquatica
Google: Web - Images - Scholar
GRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network): Centrostachys aquatica
iNaturalist: Centrostachys aquatica
IPNI (International Plant Names Index): Centrostachys aquatica
JSTOR Plant Science: Centrostachys aquatica
Kew Herbarium catalogue: Centrostachys aquatica
Mansfeld World Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops: Centrostachys aquatica
Plants of the World Online: Centrostachys aquatica
Tropicos: Centrostachys aquatica
Wikipedia: Centrostachys aquatica

Copyright: Mark Hyde, Bart Wursten, Petra Ballings and Meg Coates Palgrave, 2002-20

Hyde, M.A., Wursten, B.T., Ballings, P. & Coates Palgrave, M. (2020). Flora of Zimbabwe: Species information: Centrostachys aquatica.
https://www.zimbabweflora.co.zw/speciesdata/species.php?species_id=122500, retrieved 21 October 2020

Site software last modified: 26 March 2018 2:01pm (GMT +2)
Terms of use


text:
Alberton Gorge – Whitewater Rafting

Raft icon

The Alberton Gorge of the Clark Fork River offers the best whitewater rafting in Western Montana.
The Gorge is defined by spectacular canyon walls, raptors, wildlife, and unforgettable rapids.

Book Now

Half Day Adult: $59
Half Day Child: $50 (12 and under)
Raft Trip w/Lunch Adult: $79
Raft Trip w/ Lunch Child: $70
Full Day Trip w/Lunch: $125

Minimum Age

Adventure Level

  • Beginner

Whitewater Rafting - Alberton Gorge 1

In early spring, the Alberton Gorge is a high adventure, big water raft trip. As the summer warms up and the water drops , the individual rapids of the Gorge emerge, and dozens of Class I-III gems – such as Triple Bridges, Boat Eater, Tumbleweed, and Davey Jones’s Locker – are revealed. Remarkably, the Gorge offers fantastic whitewater rafting all year long!

Our headquarters, Crystal Springs, is right off of exit 65, on HWY 90, and overlooks the Alberton Gorge. Only 5 minutes from the put-in and take-out, making last minute trip changes, shuttles, and river access simple and easy. Crystal Springs is an ideal location for post-float barbeques, family reunions, and company outings. Crystal Springs is fully equipped with hot/cold showers, clean bathrooms, horseshoes, warm/cold beverages, and a retail shop. Go rafting, then kick back, relax and enjoy some homemade salsa and a cold beverage on one of our decks overlooking the Alberton Gorge. Stop by and see us! We’re here every day, all summer long.

The Belt Supergroup (Belt rock) is a collection of mostly fined-grained sedimentary rocks. The sedimentary rocks that from the Beast Supergroup were formed in the Precambrian (Mesoproterozoic) age (1 billion to 1.6 billion years ago – WOW!). The Mesoproterozoic was the first period of Earth’s history in which a good geological record still survives.

The current theory is that an inland sea (slightly similar to a small Mediterranean Sea) existed in the North American Craton (Craton – the ancient geological core of the North American Continent), and the deposits in this sea form the Belt Rocks. Some cool features (geologically speaking) of the Belt Rocks:

Some cool features (geologically speaking) of the Belt rocks:

  • Ripple marks (from waves in shallow water) exist in the formation. This is rare because of the great age of the Belt rocks (usually these structures are destroyed by metamorphosis or other geologic processes).
  • They contain no obvious, visible fossils of plants or animals. There is evidence of extremely primitive plants and bacteria, the rocks offer no trace of animal life. This is thought to be because very little life existed on Earth at this time except for life in the ocean….and the inland sea that formed these rocks was not connected to the ocean.
  • Mudcracks are abundant between layers of Belt rocks; These were caused by surfaces that dried in the sun before being flooded by water that brought more mud or silt, which preserved the delicate features.
  • Many of the layers of mudstone in the Belt Supergroup are colored interesting shades of green or reddish purple. The red, purple, and maroon color is due to the red mineral called “hematite” formed as iron reacts with oxygen from the atmosphere. It is believed that the green rocks were formed in deeper water where oxygen was less available. The alternating green and red layers suggest fluctuations in the depth of the Belt Inland Sea.

During the last ice age, approximately 20,000 years ago, the Clark Fork Valley rested along the southern edge of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which covered much of western North America. The ice sheet advanced and formed a frozen dam on the river, creating Glacial Lake Missoula, stretched across the Clark Fork Valley and central Montana. The periodic rupturing and rebuilding of the ice dam released the Missoula Floods, a series of catastrophic floods which roared down the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille Rivers and into the Columbia, sculpting many of the geologic features you see on the Alberton Gorge today.

Quick Facts

Whitewater Rafting - Alberton Gorge 1
  • A float through Alberton Gorge is about 11 miles long.
  • Our time on the water depends on water levels, but usually lasts between 2 and 4 hours.
  • Though our age requirement depends on water levels, usually 6 is minimum.
  • No experience is necessary.
  • On each Full-Day trip, we prepare a delicious riverside lunch.
  • The Gorge is a quick 40-minute drive from Missoula, 2 hours from Coeur d’Alene, and 2.5 hours from Spokane.
  • In general, the bigger the group, the bigger your discount! Book 11 or more people, and we’ll take 10% off. We also offer 10% discounts for all veterans and active service members.

What You Bring

  • Sturdy footwear (Chaco, Keen-style sandals, or old tennis shoes. Anything but flip-flops!)
  • Swimsuit
  • Quick-drying or breathable clothing (No cotton!)
  • Dry clothes for after
  • Reusable water bottle
  • Sunscreen
  • Extra cash for tip and merchandise

What We Provide

  • Helmet
  • PFD
  • Wetsuit (if needed)
  • Splash jacket
  • Booties (if needed)
  • Fleece
  • Paddles
  • Guide
  • Shuttle

Photo Gallery

Whitewater Rafting - Alberton Gorge 1


text:
Little boy takes extraordinary must-see photo of Kate Middleton

The Duchess of Cambridge met young patients at Evelina London

Danielle Stacey

The Duchess of Cambridge was captured in a candid new photo during her visit to Evelina London children's hospital on Tuesday. Kate, 38, took part in a creative arts workshop with young patients, which gave them the opportunity to try illustration and photography.

WATCH: Kate is given 'rag wreaths' during her visit to Evelina London

Heart patient Luke Wheeler-Waddison, ten, took an amazing photo of the Duchess as he tested out a Polaroid camera. The snap shows Kate beaming at the lens as she holds one of the 'rag wreaths,' made of discarded fabrics, given to her by Luke and his sister Savannah, four. The Duchess said she would put the pink wreath up in her daughter Princess Charlotte's room before she posed for the picture.

Luke, from Rainham in Kent, has raised more than £14,000 to donate towards the hospital’s work by selling the rag wreaths he and his sister make, doing a sponsored swim, auctions and standing with collecting boxes at The Oval. The youngster had a congenital heart condition in the womb and was first operated on just five days after he was born. Luke said he didn't feel nervous taking the Duchess' photograph, saying: "I will take it home and keep it forever."

He added: "We just really wanted to say thank you to the Duchess for coming and spending time here. She was really touched, I think. I told her that I had the same birthday as her son, George, and my sister is four, like Charlotte. She said Charlotte would love to have the pink wreath up in her room. It would be amazing if they did that."

READ: Kate Middleton shows off her arty side as she joins children in London hospital - best photos

Luke with his Polaroid photo of Kate

Kate got involved during the workshop, helping the children with their creations. The programme is run by the National Portrait Gallery, another of the Duchess' patronages and she made the visit to see how art can support children's health, well-being and happiness. Kate has been patron of the National Portrait Gallery since 2012 and became patron of Evelina London in 2018. The Duchess wore a repeat tweed skirt-suit by Dolce & Gabbana for the engagement, with her Mappin & Webb earrings and necklace.

The royal mum studied art history at the University of St Andrews and is an accomplished photographer, having shared two personal photos she'd taken of Holocaust survivors on Sunday. The Duchess was also reunited with one of her subjects of her portraits, Yvonne Bernstein, at the UK Holocaust Memorial Day Commemorative Ceremony in Westminster on Monday.

MORE: Kate Middleton delights in Dolce & Gabbana tweed co-ord at Children's Hospital

Kate arriving at Evelina London children's hospital

Prince William and Kate told survivors at the service that they have taught their children about the Holocaust. "We were talking to the children about it earlier today," the Duchess told Mala Tribich, who had asked about her family. "But we have to be, you know, for a six-year-old… the interpretation," she added, suggesting that she had explained the genocide in an appropriate way for a child of Prince George's age.

The royal couple will join A-listers on the red carpet at the BAFTAs on Sunday 2 February, marking the Duke's tenth year as President of BAFTA.

Make sure you never miss a ROYAL story! Sign up to our newsletter to get all of our celebrity, royal and lifestyle news delivered directly to your inbox.

Activate HELLO! alerts and find out about everything before anyone else.


text:
Utility Links

eastern narrow-mouthed toad

WAFTEasternNarrowmouthedToad-BG.jpgeastern narrow-mouthed toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis) [state threatened]
Photo © Brad M. Glorioso

 Features and Behaviors

The eastern narrow-mouthed toad averages three-fourths to one and one-fourth inches in length. It is small and plump with short limbs, a pointed head and a fold of skin across the back of the head. This fold of skin may be moved forward across the eyes. The male has a dark throat, while the female has a light throat. The body is gray, brown or red, and the belly has heavy mottling. An external eardrum is absent in this species. The tadpole has a sucking disc rather than teeth and jaws.
The eastern narrow-mouthed toad may be found in southwestern Illinois. This amphibian lives in rotten stumps, under rocks, under bark and in the margins of water bodies along Mississippi River bluﬀs. It hides by day and is active at night. When moving, it runs more than hops to escape danger. It breeds in midsummer in ponds, swamps, lakes and ditches. The male’s call is like the bleat of a lamb. The female produces about 850 eggs in a small surface ﬁlm on the water. Eggs have a ﬂat surface instead of being perfectly spherical. Hatching occurs in a few days with transformation from 20 to 70 days later. The eastern narrow-mouthed toad eats insects, especially ants.

 Illinois Range


text:
French ex-President Jacques Chirac dead at 86

By Alex Lantier
30 September 2019

Given the angry mood among workers in France and across Europe, and the widespread hatred of President Emmanuel Macron, it was perhaps inevitable that the passing of right-wing President Jacques Chirac Thursday would trigger an outpouring of official tributes.

The last two years have undermined the self-confidence of the political establishment. The eruption of strikes in America, France and across Europe, and mass political protests by the “yellow vests” in France and by workers and youth in Sudan, Algeria and Hong Kong have marked a resurgence of international class struggle. Chirac’s death reminds PR executives, intelligence officials and editorial writers alike that everything seemed safer and more predictable under his presidency (1995-2007).

Jacques Chirac

A pro-Chirac propaganda offensive of mind-numbing superficiality is underway, from the talk shows to state ministries and the pages of the major dailies. Hailed as France’s “last true head of state” (20 Minutes ) and an “all too human” expression of the French spirit (ex-Maoist daily Libération), he was portrayed in Macron’s TV address Thursday night as a great opponent of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. The neofascist magazine Current Values placed his picture on its cover with a sympathetic article. The dailies all obligingly reminded their readers of recent polls that found 70 percent of the population considered him France’s best living president.

In the face of this avalanche of official stupidity, one must first state the obvious. It is no great credit to Chirac that voters preferred him to his unpopular surviving predecessor, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and to his successors: conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, social democrat François Hollande and Macron—who rank as France’s three most hated presidents in history. The second point that must be made is that the media is marketing an account of Chirac’s life that has nothing to do with his actual record.

A convicted embezzler, two-time prime minister, mayor of Paris and friend of neocolonial dictators across France’s former African colonial empire, Chirac was neither a great “humanist” nor an opponent of imperialism. He was a cog, if a prominent one, in the state machine of the French capitalist class.

By his advocacy of free-market and law-and-order policies, combined with appeals to anti-immigrant racism, he prefigured the bloody repression of the “yellow vests” and the universal rehabilitation of European fascism epitomized by Macron’s hailing of Nazi-collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain as a “great soldier.”

Chirac’s current media image as the benevolent father of the French nation is a fabrication of the affluent middle-class elements that, over decades, the bourgeoisie has passed off as the “left.” When the elimination of unpopular Socialist Party (PS) candidate Lionel Jospin in the first round of the 2002 presidential elections led to a run-off between Chirac and neofascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, the PS, the trade unions and the Pabloite Revolutionary Communist League (LCR)—today the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA)—rallied to Chirac. As mass protests erupted against a choice between two reactionary candidates, they all insisted that the defense of democracy required the French nation to rally like one man behind Chirac.

They rejected the call by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) for a campaign in the working class for an active boycott of the election and launching of a political movement against the reactionary agenda of the soon-to-be-installed Chirac administration.

The nostalgia for Chirac that brought several thousand people out onto the streets of Paris to pay their respects to his casket in the Invalides, guarded by hordes of riot policemen armed with assault rifles, reflects the impact of this petty-bourgeois propaganda on a layer of the public. Millions of workers in France detested Chirac, who in four presidential campaigns never obtained more than 20 percent of the vote in the first round. However, he was a master at exploiting the political and class prejudices of the affluent petty bourgeoisie, whether right-wing or nominally “left.”

The last French president to live through World War II and the Vichy regime’s collaboration with the Nazi occupation, Chirac undoubtedly cultivated a different style than his successors. Having lived through both the working-class insurrections amid the fall of European fascism after World War II and the 1968 French general strike, he was intensely aware of the revolutionary threat from below. Much to the chagrin of younger and much less experienced generations of bourgeois politicians, he pared down austerity measures when they provoked strikes or mass protests.

While Chirac was always associated with the right, this policy won him the appreciation of union executives and their political defenders in parties like the LCR/NPA. These flunkeys of the banks and of major parties of government are paid to support whatever austerity measures the French president hands them. However, they cynically used Chirac’s various temporary, calculated retreats—in the face of the 1995 railroad strike against pension cuts and the 2006 student protests against youth temp job contracts—to posture as radicals who had forced Chirac to back down.

Chirac’s cautious avoidance of unnecessary political provocations extended into his personal life. Unlike Macron, who also graduated from the elite National Administration School (ENA), he did not go into banking to first become a multimillionaire before entering politics. And it is no secret that he disliked the instinctive tastelessness of Sarkozy, who as president sailed on his billionaire friends’ yachts and divorced his wife Cécilia to marry the younger Italian model and singer Carla Bruni. More old school, Chirac preferred to take more discreet vacations and be serially unfaithful to his wife, the ruthless bourgeois Bernadette Chodron de Courcel.

Seventeen years after the 2002 elections, one can draw a balance sheet of the social democratic, Stalinist and Pabloite forces’ coronation of Chirac as the sacred defender of France against the scourges of war and neofascism represented by the Iraq invasion and the Le Pen dynasty. As a nationally based strategy against war and fascistic authoritarianism, it has been an utter failure.

Since Chirac was elected in 1995, France has deployed troops across a vast arc of imperialist wars from Afghanistan, where Chirac participated in the 2001 NATO invasion, to Syria, Libya and Mali. And Chirac’s conservative Gaullist party, having fallen far behind the neofascists in the 2014 and 2019 European and the 2017 presidential elections, is threatened with disintegration.

Amid the resurgence of the international class struggle, there are critical strategic lessons to be drawn—as paradoxical as it might seem—from Chirac’s right-wing record. He built his reactionary career on the bankruptcy of the nationalist forces that predominated in the workers movement and in the “left,” and their rejection of the political independence of the working class. It is a classic illustration of the bankruptcy and reactionary implications of attempts to base left politics on nationalism and adaptation to the propertied classes.

Chirac began his career with a brief dalliance with the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) as an adolescent at the beginning of the Cold War. He attended at least one PCF branch meeting in Paris, hawked the Stalinist daily L’Humanité, and signed the 1950 Stockholm Appeal against nuclear proliferation. He briefly worked as a sailor over the objections of his father, a bank employee who rose through the ranks to become a banker, and traveled to America.

In France at this time as in prerevolutionary Russia, many bourgeois youth briefly had “red” sympathies, which Trotsky compared to the red splotches of childhood measles. Though he was Parisian, Chirac’s family came from the Corrèze region, where resistance militias had been very active during the world war. The role of the Soviet Union and the working class in leading armed resistance to the fascists was universally acknowledged at the time.

Moreover, like Stalinist parties across Europe, the PCF had strangled the insurrectionary movement of the working class at the end of the world war; the PCF trapped it behind the nationalist perspective of backing the capitalist regime of General Charles de Gaulle, thus restoring French imperialism’s ability to maneuver on the world stage after its catastrophic defeat in 1940 by Nazi Germany. This won it the gratitude of many youth headed for careers in bourgeois politics. And so even Jacques Chirac, studying politics and state administration in Paris, briefly came down with a mild case of the “red” measles.

Its symptoms were very soon overcome. Always keenly aware of where the most promising career path lay, Chirac volunteered for the Algerian war to support continued French colonial rule in Algeria in 1956. That same year he married into the financial aristocracy. Bernadette’s family, an extremely wealthy bourgeois family tracing its roots to the 17th century, and who fought during the French Revolution alongside the feudal aristocratic armies against the revolutionary French bourgeois Republic, disapproved of Chirac’s lowly origins. Chirac persisted, however. Thanks to his ENA degree and his wife’s connections, he soon was working at the heights of the Gaullist regime while also pursuing electoral politics in Corrèze.

Chirac’s next major experience was the French general strike of May-June 1968. The explosive opposition of the working class to the de Gaulle regime erupted in what is to date the largest strike in European history. Over 10 million workers went on strike, the economy ground to a halt, and red flags flew over factories across France.

The authority of de Gaulle’s government collapsed, and it again depended on the PCF to prevent revolution. Working with his political patron, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, Jacques Chirac as junior minister for social affairs helped negotiate the wage increases of the Grenelle Accords with the PCF-linked General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union. The PCF then took these accords and, working over weeks to overcome workers’ opposition, used them to justify forcing workers back to work, averting a seizure of power by the working class.

The aftershocks of 1968, which had shaken the French capitalist state to its foundations, shaped the career of Chirac, who tried to exploit his relative youth to present himself as modern and popular, but also close to the salt-of-the-earth life of rural Corrèze. This image, which helped lead him to a first stint as prime minister from 1974 to 1976 under Giscard d’Estaing, was a concoction.

As prime minister, he demanded subsidies for business designed to transfer wealth away from the workers. Behind the scenes, he engaged in ruthless factional and financial intrigues against his rivals on the right. One of them, apparently Sarkozy, later said of him, “People believe Chirac is a nice guy who is not very smart. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.”

The later stages of Chirac’s career depended critically on the reorganization of French left politics after the 1968 general strike, which had decisively exposed the counterrevolutionary role of the Stalinist PCF. What emerged as the dominant force, however, was not a Trotskyist party offering a Marxist critique of Stalinism from the standpoint of the international working class, but a bourgeois party newly founded in 1971: the PS, led by the former Vichy collaborator François Mitterrand.

This was due to the reactionary role of petty-bourgeois parties that had broken with Trotskyism and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Pabloite LCR and the Organisation communiste internationaliste (OCI) of Pierre Lambert, who broke with the ICFI in 1971, endorsed a PS-PCF “Union of the Left” as the national way forward for the workers. After Mitterrand became president in 1981, all these organizations adapted themselves to his policies of social austerity and militarism.

Chirac was able to exploit popular anger with the PS and the absence of any visible left-wing critique of Mitterrand to return to office as prime minister in 1986—pursuing privatizations and attacks on the working class. Mitterrand frustrated Chirac’s ambitions to become president, however, in the 1988 elections. Pushing through a raft of changes in electoral law, Mitterrand helped the neofascist National Front (FN) win legislative office and used the FN’s prominence to split the right-wing vote. The PS thus barely held onto power in 1988.

In this period, marked by the reactionary policies of the social democrats and the moves by the Stalinist parties across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union towards capitalist restoration in 1989-1991, the framework within which Chirac had worked collapsed and bourgeois politics shifted far to the right.

The PCF and the trade unions rapidly lost whatever remained of their base among workers. Masses of people were shocked to learn that Mitterrand had maintained a friendship with René Bousquet, the Vichy police chief who ordered the French police’s July 16-17, 1942 Vél d’Hiv mass deportations of 13,000 Jews from France to Nazi death camps in Germany and Poland. Shot by a madman in 1993, Bousquet never went to trial. Several ex-OCI and ex-Pabloite members of the PS made statements dismissing the significance of these revelations to justify their collaboration with Mitterrand.

Though he later cultivated an image as a democratic opponent of the FN, Chirac became notorious for his fascistic appeals to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racism. In his infamous 1991 speech in Orléans, Chirac insisted that French workers were racists who hated the bad smell of foreigners, saying that a worker making 15,000 francs “sees a family crowded in with the father, three or four wives, and twenty or so kids, who gets 50,000 in welfare, without working of course… Add to that the noise and the bad smell, and seeing it the worker goes crazy.”

Profiting from the unpopularity of the PS, Chirac was able to win election on May 7, 1995. Barely two months later, on the 53rd anniversary of the Vél d’Hiv raid, he for the first time officially admitted France’s long-established responsibility for the raid. This ended over a half century in which state officials of all colors—Gaullist, social democratic and Stalinist—had either kept silent on this historic crime or lied, denying French responsibility. However, the political establishment sought to give this objectively damning admission as reactionary an interpretation as possible. Even as it continued to shift to the right, it promoted the admission of guilt as supposed proof that the French and European bourgeoisie had dealt with the history of its fascist crimes.

In fact, the ensuing quarter of a century has conclusively demonstrated that, far from being an exceptional feature of the 20th century, the bourgeoisie’s drive towards war, austerity and fascistic regimes is a deeply rooted, inherent tendency in capitalism.

Chirac soon had to rely again on the services of the PS and its petty-bourgeois periphery after pension cuts advanced by right-wing Prime Minister Alain Juppé provoked a mass railway strike in 1995. Relying on the trade unions and the Pabloite parties to call off the strike without a struggle to bring down his government, Chirac nonetheless took the apparently politically suicidal decision to call new elections in 1997. These returned a PS-led government led by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a former OCI member—the Plural Left alliance between the PS, the PCF and the Greens. It was mounting disaffection in the working class with the Jospin government that led to his elimination in the first round of the 2002 elections and the crisis over the Chirac-Le Pen runoff.

Chirac’s record in his second term vindicated the ICFI’s opposition to the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left parties’ claims that a Chirac vote was the best way to block the rise of neofascism and war. Confronted by a unilateral US war in Iraq aiming to secure a military grip over the Middle East and its oil supplies, which are critical to the French and European economy, Chirac was predictably unenthusiastic.

This was compounded by nervousness over the explosive state of class relations—with mass protests against the Chirac-Le Pen run-off in France and mass international antiwar protests against the Iraq invasion. Indeed, Chirac’s call for more pension cuts in 2003 provoked a teachers strike, and the death of two suburban youth in a police chase in Paris in 2005 led to mass rioting in France’s major cities that nearly overwhelmed the police.

Chirac’s response to the rise of the class struggle in his second term was an accelerating turn towards fascistic and militarist policies. Faced with the teachers strike, he tried to demoralize it with appeals to anti-Muslim racism to divide the workers—discussing and passing in 2004 a law banning the Muslim veil in public schools.

His response to the 2005 riots was to impose a three-month state of emergency that suspended basic democratic rights. A long-time friend of African dictators like Gabon’s Omar Bongo and the Republic of the Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, who provided cheap oil and natural resources to French imperialism while paying off its leading politicians, Chirac intensified French military intervention in ex-French colonial Africa. His 2004 bombing of Ivory Coast helped set into motion the conflicts that led to the French invasion of Ivory Coast in 2011 to install Alassane Ouattara as president. His extensive resort to illicit cash to finance political campaigns in France, notably from African sources, led him to be the first president in French history to be convicted of embezzlement in 2011.

And as if to make perfectly clear his commitment to militarism, in 2006, the year before he stepped down as president, Chirac laid out a doctrine allowing first use of France’s nuclear arsenal against countries Paris accused of terror attacks against it.

Today, it is clear that Chirac was not an opponent but a precursor of the turn to naked military aggression and neofascism by European imperialism in the ensuing 12 years. His repression in 2005 prefigured the unprecedented two-year state of emergency imposed after the Charlie Hebdo attacks by the PS and maintained by Macron, and the subsequent brutal police crackdown on the “yellow vests.” And his normalization of anti-Muslim racism, which paved the way for the ruling elite to integrate the FN into mainstream bourgeois politics, was part of a universal drive by the European bourgeoisie to legitimize fascistic politics.

Macron’s hailing of Pétain as a “great soldier,” the hailing of Hitler’s policies as “not cruel” by German right-wing extremist professors, and the Spanish Supreme Court’s ruling that Francisco Franco’s 1936 fascist coup was legitimate—all are the outcome of the legitimization of military-police violence and fascistic policy that is a central part of Chirac’s legacy. His record is yet further proof that the only way forward in the struggle against imperialist war and fascism is the revolutionary mobilization of the working class on the Trotskyist program advanced by the ICFI.


text:
The After Dinner Scholar

Ptolemy and the Shape of the Universe with Dr. Henry Zepeda

July 21, 2020
“The heavens call to you and wheel about you,
revealing their eternal splendors,” Virgil told Dante at the end of Purgatorio 14 (148-151),
“but your eyes are fixed upon the earth.
For that, He, seeing all, does smite you.”

While we could blame light pollution or television or lack of interest or any number of other modern maladies, but it’s clear that, just as in Dante’s time, the heavens call and wheel about and us most of us never notice. If, for example, you know the phase of the moon today, you’re part of a tiny, tiny minority of modern people. Virgil accuses us as well, “your eyes are fixed upon the earth.”

Dante lived at the turn of the 14th century and in his writing used a model of the universe conceived in the second century by astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy. Born in AD 100 in Alexandria, Egypt, Ptolemy argued from observation of the heavens that the earth (a sphere) was at the center and around it the moon, sun, planets, and stars rotated.

Clearly we no longer believe that, but Ptolemy still has a great deal to teach us about observing the sky and marking it’s beauty and regularity. Dr. Henry Zepeda taught Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo with high school students who have been here at Wyoming Catholic College for our PEAK Program.

Play this podcast on Podbean App


text:
What if there is delay or non-filing?

The Irish corporation tax system operates on a self-assessment basis.  Therefore, it is solely the responsibility of the company to calculate and pay its corporation tax liability within deadline.

Any company liable to corporation tax must submit a CT1 Form which is a Tax Return containing details of profits, chargeable gains and other relevant information as outlined in Section 884 TCA 1997.

This return must be filed within nine months of the end of the company’s accounting period but no later than the 23rd day of the month if the Tax Return along with payment of the associated tax liability is filed via the Revenue Online Service.  Otherwise, the Return must be filed within eight months and twenty one days of the company’s year-end.

Consequences of filing a late or incomplete/incorrect CT Return

If a company files (a) an incomplete or (b) an incorrect or (c) a late CT1 Form the following surcharges will apply:

  • If filed less than two months late, a 5% surcharge (subject to maximum of €12,695) will be calculated on the company’s CT liability for the accounting period in question.  This surcharge will apply irrespective of whether the tax had been paid within deadline because this surcharge arises in relation to the late filing of the CT1 Form.
  • If filed more than two months late, a 10% surcharge (subject to maximum of €63,485) will be levied on the company’s tax liability for the period in question regardless of whether or not the tax had been paid on time.

Please be aware that the surcharge also includes any Income Tax due.

In addition to the above surcharges, in circumstances where a company does not submit its return on time, the following restrictions on the use of certain allowances and reliefs will also apply:

  • If filed less than two months late, the reliefs and allowances will be restricted by 25%, subject to a maximum of €31,740 in each case
  • If filed later than two months, the reliefs and allowances are restricted by 50%, subject to a maximum of €158,715 in each case.

For Group Relief to apply, both the surrendering and the claimant company must have submitted their Corporation Tax Returns within the deadline date.

In situations where the Corporation Tax Return has been filed on time but the Local Property Tax (LPT) Return or relevant payment is outstanding at the CT filing date then a surcharge of 10% will be levied on the final liability.

This surcharge will also be levied if an agreed payment arrangement for LPT has not been set up.

If the company subsequently pays its LPT liability in full, bringing its tax affairs up to date, the amount of the surcharge will be capped at the amount of the LPT liability involved.

Sign in or Sign up

Upload or mail the documents

Download the Output file when ready

File with the Authority

Payment of Fees