text:
Cheap and Good
Fast and Good
Food and Show
Madrilenian Stew
Spanish Restaurants in Puerta del Sol
Spanish cuisine is an entire world itself. We have the best vegetables in Europe, the flavor of our seafood is unique! Our Iberian ham (Jamón) has no competition. The meat and the broiled pigs are succulent. Our seas have plenty of flavored fish.
Is there anyone who has not heard about our best and popular dishes? If we talk about traditional Spanish dishes like: Tortilla Española, Gazpacho or Paella, all of them raise our cuisine to sublime.
Casa Labra
A traditional tasca (tavern), famous for its croquettes and its cod, but also because it's said that the socialist party was found here..........
Casa Botín
Puerta del Sol, Madrid
The oldest restaurant in the world, according to the Guiness World Record Book. Opened in 1590, shortly after King Philip II moved the court to Madrid.............
León de Oro
In the heart of Madrid, sat on the old wall, in their restaurant and wine cellar you can enjoy a great variety of good wines and dinning..........
Casa Mingo
The most famous chicken and cider in Madrid where is served typical Asturias food in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. A good choice is ask for chicken and cider, at bar
El Anciano Rey de los Vinos
Opposite to the Royal Palace and the Cathedral it serves wine and tapas to its loyal guests for over one hundred years..........
Casa Ciriaco
A traditional and popular restaurant that used to be one of the favourite of king Juan Carlos and prince Felipe. Home made and traditional Madrid cuisine, is served......
Casa Lucio
No others eggs like his! King Juan Carlos is a regular guest of this restaurant where even President Clinton was invited to taste his famous and unbeatable broken fried e
Argentinean (4)
Best Burgers (10)
Cheap and Good (6)
Fast and Good (5)
Food and Show (5)
Madrilenian Stew (4)
Michelin Star (8)
Plaza Colón (9)
Filter Spanish Restaurants by Region


Head on over to Walmart.com where you'll find Big Joe Milano Bean Bag Chairs on sale for only $29.99 and available in lots of fun colors!
Great for studying, gaming, relaxing & more!
Perfect for any den, game room, basement or college dorm room, the Big Joe Milano Bean Bag Chair is filled with Megahh Beans designed to conform to the body. It measures 32″ x 28″ x 25″ and features a built-in handle that makes it easy to grab and move around. SO Fun!
These chairs get bad reviews on Walmart.com, and from my kids. My daughter's teacher bought them for reading chairs, and had to throw them out after 3 months of use because they were leaking beads out everywhere.
Oh darn! Thanks for the honest feedback, Lindsey!
I won't buy them anymore as they very quickly lose their shape and became a flat mat instead of a chair.
Agree! We bought one and within a couple of months became flat , did not hold their shape at all.
yes. I have 3 flat ones. I'm thinking of buying more of the beads to stuff into it.
has anyone found a good bean bag for a good price? looking for Christmas. TIA!
I bought 2 a couple of years ago and within a 6 or 8 weeks they were flat. I salvaged them by stuffing them with old pillows and clothes we were going to get rid of. I actually warned a lady that I saw pushing one around in her cart at Walmart about the poor quality.
I don't like to leave bad reviews on this site because I so appreciate everything you all do but this bean bag becomes a pillow after a few months. The beads flatten quickly and it's just not worth it. Walmart has an oversize bean bag (no name) that I purchased around Christmas time and it's still in good condition.
Same bad experience here. My mom gave one to each of my kids. They went flat quickly & she felt so bad she bought an expensive bag of more beads. Stuffed those into the chairs & soon enough they were flat again. A waste of money.
Darn! Thank you for sharing your experience with these CJ! Sorry to hear they went flat so fast.
If your children have an over abundance of stuffed animals like mine put them in the chair. Serves as storage and a chair.
Used very little and they are worthless.


text:
PhD Training Faculty at NYU School of Medicine | NYU Langone Health
PhD Training Faculty at
Results update as you type.
Our renowned researchers serve as mentors to graduate students across our training programs. Search the PhD training faculty directly affiliated with NYU School of Medicine by name, department, or research interest. You may also search a complete list of training faculty in our PhD programs, and sort by research interest or model. Search a complete list of training faculty in our PhD programs, and sort by research interest or model.
Biomaterials Science (8)
Biophysics (28)
Biostatistics (12)
Cardiovascular Biology (12)
Center for Advanced Imaging (5)
Channels and Transporters (19)
Computational Biology (21)
Developmental Genetics (33)
Genome Integrity (42)
Genomics (25)
Health Technology and Engineering Institute (Tech4Health) (2)
Immunology (39)
Innovation, and Research (5)
Institute for Systems Genetics (1)
Metabolism (31)
Molecular, Cellular, & Translational Neuroscience (46)
NYU Neuroscience Institute (2)
Population Health (13)
Proteomics (6)
RNA Biology (12)
Stem Cell Biology (51)
Systems Biology (13)
Systems, Cognitive, & Computational Neuroscience (28)
Bacteria (20)
C. elegans (5)
Rodent (89)
Xenopus (1)
Zebrafish (5)
Anesthesiology, Perioperative Care, and Pain Medicine (3)
Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology (41)
Cell Biology (38)
Environmental Medicine (17)
Hansjorg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery (3)
Neuroscience and Physiology (41)
Obstetrics and Gynecology (1)
Orthopaedic Surgery (3)
Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (4)
Radiology (28)
Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology (5)
Institute for Computational Medicine (1)
Neuroscience Institute (22)
Perlmutter Cancer Center (8)
Skirball Institute (30)
Your search is taking longer than expected. Please try your search again.
Jiyoung Ahn, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Population Health
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Medicine
Iannis Aifantis, PhD
Hermann M. Biggs Professor of Pathology, Department of Pathology
Yindalon Aphinyanaphongs, PhD, MD
Assistant Professor, Department of Population Health
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Karim-Jean Armache, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Paramijt Arora, PhD
Principal Investigator, NYU Department of Chemistry
Leon Axel, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Radiology
Professor, Department of Medicine
Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology
Erika Bach, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Laura J. Balcer, MD
Professor, Department of Neurology
Professor, Department of Population Health
Professor, Department of Ophthalmology
Dafna Bar-Sagi, PhD
Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Jayeeta Basu, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology
| Last page Last

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
"Kelly's Hero" Irish Times. Dublin: Mar 9, 2007. pg. 4
By havingablast,
March 13, 2007 in Mika News and Press
havingablast
Bio: Loves Mika's Lollipop
(Copyright © 2007 The Irish Times)
Don't stop him now. It's taken Mika eight years to reach his pop peak, conquering the charts with his quirkily refreshing single Grace Kelly. So what's next, asks Tony Clayton-Lea
ANYONE suspecting that Mika Penniman is merely flavour of the month would do well to note that the tall, skinny man from a moneyed, well-travelled family (albeit one not without its share of trauma - his father was kidnapped during Mika's early teenage years) has the ammunition to shoot back at his critics.
Sitting backstage in Dublin's Spirit venue last week, an hour or so prior to making his live debut in Ireland, Mika is effervescent, enthusiastic and persuasive. The perception of many is that Mika's success is instant, despite the fact that he has been performing from the age of 12 (admittedly in the rather more rarefied domain of opera). Yet in the way that pop music works, instant success this year could mean a gradual fade into obscurity by 2008. Could this happen to Mika? Yes, but not if he has anything to do with it.
"I'm something now that has been 12 years in the making," he says. "Because I've gotten here completely on my own terms in every single way, and because I've approached it for the right reasons - music being the main one. All of this will stand me in good stead. All of this fits intrinsically into who I am as an artist, as a person and as a songwriter. I think my success is more to do with my take on things, and people relating to the way I look at life than just to do with one song. That said, Grace Kelly is a mark of honesty as opposed to just an electronic pop song, faceless or deceptive. That song is my game."
Mika says he knew this phase of his life, his career, would go either fantastically well or horrifically badly. There would be nothing in between. "Up to 18 months ago, I had people saying to me they'd support me, they'd turn me into something great, they'd give me financial backing. And for all of this they would tell me to be what they wanted me to be, they would tell me to sing particular types of songs. But I made the decision to be myself and have it go terribly wrong than to be moderately successful, pretending to be someone else and being really unhappy as a result of it. And besides, that would lead to nowhere."
All roads, then, lead anywhere but nowhere. If his family background is shrouded in mist, then his sexuality is enveloped by a miasma of conjecture. Mika is surprised that even in 2006/2007, some people are curious about what way he swings.
"It's interesting how everyone talks about tolerance, and yet everyone is so desperate to pigeonhole. It almost infuriates them when you won't submit to their categorisation. Call that refusal pro- choice, give it some sort of political name and it immediately irks me again, because what's the point?
"I get everything from 'oh, you choose to stay away from your private life in the press because you're afraid of taboos in America and you do that because you want to be successful there'. Now, if I was really worried about that would I put a song called Billy Brown [ about a married man's gay extra-marital affair] on the album, which is now resting on the shelves of Walmart? Would I write songs that say I try to be like Grace Kelly if I'm worried about sexual taboos?
"The not wanting to go into the sexuality thing is more about self-preservation and self-respect than it is about anything else. I think there is a lot of pride and honour to be taken from the fact that you don't whore yourself out in every single possible way in order to get a story out of every angle."
Is there a fine line, then, between public persona and private life?
"There is, and I think I'm going to be able to maintain that. Some people say I'm crazy and idealistic to think that; some people say if I managed to achieve that then I clearly haven't made it, which to me sounds preposterous. But it's about self-respect; a lot of people are able to do it, but they have to be bolshy and self- aware enough to think about it well in advance. You either become tabloidy from the very beginning, or you make a conscious decision and effort not to be. Which is what I have decided.
"I don't want people to misunderstand me, however - I think sexualising music is glorious. Putting sex into music is absolutely amazing. . . but politically sexualising music, at least as far as sexuality is concerned, is so boring. It doesn't go anywhere, especially as far as the music and artistry is concerned. It's not what I'm in it for; it's not what my music is about."
According to Mika, his music is about how it makes you feel, it's about jacking it into your system, creating a world and dealing with reality.
"And it's about making good music, good records. The challenge of that, the reward of it, the hook of the tune down to the feel of the beat when you're playing it live. That's what it's about."
Our time is up. Mika is limbering up for the show, mischievously looking forward to seeing a UK music journalist (who has been trailing him for a couple of days) dressing up in a hired monkey costume. If Mika were a Queen song, which one would it be? He giggles like a little boy who has a deep secret he has been hiding for years. He pauses for the first time in 20 minutes. He thinks. He smiles. And then he sings: "Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time."
Life in Cartoon Motion is on release. Mika returns to Ireland for the Oxegen Festival, July 7-8
havingablast 1 post
crazybusiness 1 post
Anakin 1 post
Interesting and insightful. Thanks for posing!
wow, what an interview! Thank you so much for sharing this with us,
I have spent a long time over this,
it is probably one of the best and most honest and sincere interviews I have ever read, there is so much in this, iy gives an amazing insight into what he is really like, what he wants to achieve and his believes.
What an artist, what a person, what a man of values!!!!!!!
we don't have many of his kind and thats what I love of him, the whole Mika, the philosophist!!!
Long rule Mika!!
crazybusiness
Bio: Lovergirl
That's a great article, thanks for posting.
raha!
AWESOME. thanks so much!
noir_tenshi
wow. it's all been said. i thank you for this.


A Chenango County woman faces a year in prison for torching her own home.
Anna Santiago of Greene was accused of setting fire to her Chipmunk Lane house on August 3. 2017 in an attempt to get over one-million dollars in insurance money.
She was convicted of felony arson by a Chenango County jury.
Santiago faces a minimum of one year and a maximum of 15 months in prison.


Are you experience trouble with your Apple Macbook Pro? Are you looking for a fast, professional service from trusted technician's with a long background in Apple repairs? Look no further! We are recognised as offering the fastest turn around on our services without compromise on quality.
Mac Repair – Freelance Certified  Macintosh Technicians & Apple Professionals Nationwide.
Express Apple Macbook Pro repair service up to 50% cheaper on out of warranty repairs than direct.
"The Macbook Pro is a thing of beauty, a precision peace of finely crafted aluminium, microchip technology, and cutting edge graphics. quite simply the Macbook Pro is the Rolls Royce of computing".
We try our very best to turn most repairs around the same day or within 24 hours.
We understand how important your laptop is to you and your day to day life, thats why every Macbook Pro repair is a priority to us. All of our work and services is backed up by warranty.
We have worked on a few hundred Macbook Pros over the years. each one playing an important part in our clients day to day life. We take time and care with all of our repair services. The Macbook Pro is not something you can just strip down and rebuild in 20 minutes, and we never rush any repair job.
Just like a fine sports car a Macbook Pro needs to be given the care and time to get the best results on any service or repair. If a jobs worth doing, its worth doing right. Whatever job your require for your Macbook Pro, you can be sure of our experience, professionalism, and reliability.
There are many issues that can arise with a Macbook. Perhaps you are having software issue, programs not working properly or lagging load times. You may also may be experiencing hardware issues. Is your screen display not working properly?
Maybe your Macbook Pro is freezing constantly. You computer might be rebooting itself while you are working causing you to lose valuable data and time. If you have any of these issues or more you have come to the right place for Macbook repair.
By visiting Mac Repair Leeds you are lucky enough to have found certified profession technicians that are experts in Macbook repair. We will properly diagnosis your issue and repair it in a timely fashion. Our prices for Macbook repair are very affordable and our service is second to none. We take our time and make sure your computer is running at top level performance when you get it back.
There are many times when accidents happen. You could have spilled your drink on your Macbook. Sometimes people are in a rush and drop their laptops. No problem. Our certified technicians are great at any type of Macbook Repair. There is no need to think your machine is lost forever because it was physically damaged. Many times people have computers that are damaged and don't bother to fix them because of the outrageous prices some repair shops charge. That is not a problem.
your laptop or desktop the very same day.
Macbook iMac, Mac Pro, or Mac mini.
Get in touch for some options.
Got a problem? Give us a call or come on by the workshop.
We are happy to offer free advice on everything Apple related.
repair. We charge up to 50% less on out of warranty repairs.
within 24 to 48 hours if parts are not in stock.


text:
user_icon Created with Sketch.
Ending Displacement
Mission-Driven Development
Building the Capacity of the Movement
Fighting for Affordable Housing
Equitable Economic Development
Land Use Justice
Responsible Banking
ANHD Training Series
Center for Community Leadership
Morgan Stanley Community Development Graduate Fellowship
Maximizing the Public Value of New York City- Financed Affordable Housing
Every unit of affordable housing built or preserved with city-backed financing creates a benefit for the public. The level of benefit created by the affordable housing for the City and its local neighborhoods varies on who can access these units and whether they are being created for New York City's most vulnerable populations.
This report investigates how New York City maximizes public value in city-financed affordable housing through an analysis of Local Law 44 data.
The State of Bank Reinvestment in New York City: 2018
The CRA is one of the most important laws we have to bring banks to the table to reinvest in our neighborhoods. ANHD produces this report each year to help communities, banks, legislators, bank regulators and allies understand the impact of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) at a local level. Quality bank reinvestment has the potential to impact all the work ANHD does to build and preserve affordable housing, support equitable economic development, increase access to homeownership, support small businesses, and increase access to banking.
The Forgotten Tenants: New York City's Immigrant Small Business Owners
Over the past year, ANHD engaged nearly 100 immigrant small business owners from the Lower East Side, Jackson Heights, and Kingsbridge with the help of our non-profit partners Cooper Square Committee, Chhaya CDC, and Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition. Through interviews, focus groups, and surveys, we empowered participants to share the challenges they face as commercial tenants in rapidly changing neighborhoods. We are now excited to release a report of the key findings and policy recommendations garnered from this program.
The Racial Jobs Gap: Who Benefits from New York's Economic Growth
Good paying jobs are growing in every borough of the city, but many New Yorkers, especially low wealth New Yorkers of color, remain disconnected from those jobs.
While 57% of jobs in the City are good paying jobs, they are less likely to go to local residents of color. Communities of color are not only excluded from the City's economic boom, they are at greater risk of displacement as housing costs rise and access to good paying jobs remains limited.
NYC Industrial Action Plan - 3 Years Later Progress Report
Three years since the Industrial Action Plan announcement, the Industrial Jobs Coalition grades the Administration's progress on the 10-point agenda.
On the heels of our 8th Annual Community Development Conference—where Governor Lael Brainard, from the Federal Reserve Board delivered our keynote address, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) is pleased to release The State of Bank Reinvestment in New York City: 2017.
The Life and Times of ANHD
This history was reconstructed and written by Bonnie Brower, through piecing together dusty, old files and probing the rusty memories of available old-timers.
Inequitable Enforcement: The Crisis of Housing Code Enforcement in New York City
Co-authored with the NYC Comptroller assessing code enforcement policy and laying out recommendations for change.
An in-depth analysis of existing data sources reveals that the neighborhoods with the most severe housing problems are receiving the worst housing code enforcement.
Affordable Housing at a Crossroads: Not-for-Profit Housing Production in the New Marketplace
Comprehensive assessment of the landscape for affordable housing production
Homeownership Stabilization Initiative: Final Evaluation
An evaluation of the impact of the Homeownership Stabilization Initiative
SIGN UP FOR EMAIL BECOME A MEMBER MAKE A DONATION
ANHD 50 Broad Street - Suite 1402
Sign up for Email | Become a Member | Member Login


...and all without saying a word.
You can picture the scene. It's a Friday or Saturday night, the bar is three deep and you can hardly make yourself heard.
"I'll have a pint of guinness."
"Do you want ice in that?"
"Down the hall first on the left."
If we developed a simple sign language for different generic drinks then, working with drinks manufacturers to get them on board, specific brands, you could walk into a noisy bar and, clearly enunciating with your fingers, accurately order the beverage of your choice.
More you the point, you could do it quite stylishly. In a quiet bar you could show your Pub Sign Language prowess (and multi-tasking ability) by chatting to the barman about the game while ordering your drinks.
Sticks two fingers in the air at barman.
Promptly gets removed from pub by doormen.
"I only wanted a cider"
Oh yes, the world needs this.
Of course it would have to cover bar snacks as well - imagine the carnage if there was confusion between a packet of Scampi Fries and a packet of dry-roasted peanuts.
I ordered a Harvey Wall banger. Not a Slow Screw against the Wall. The signs are so simular!
It is often my misfortune that the music stops and things get quiet whem I am ordering a slow comfortable screw. bun.
Isn't the two-fingers-down-the-throat gesture already the international sign language for "I'll have a jug of the cheapest lager on the premises please"?
Didn't a Baileys ad try this with a woman in a tight dress fondling herself?
I've done this regularly using hand signals for letters: two fingers + both hands together at wrist pointing up and out (in a 'V') + one hand with fingers together, cupped with an opposable thumb (in a 'c' shape) follwed by a horizontal stroke and then a clenched fist.
Double vodka and coke, no ice.
Effective - but not as good as the Baileys ad.
"Oh, you want that shaken, not stirred".
They did this in a Rolling Rock commercial. As a bartender I still have to give it a +, because I can't hear a damn thing people say half the time.
As an added bonus you would have to know what you want before I ask you. Nothing is worse than a customer staring you down with impatient looks, and then when you finally ask them what they would like, they have to think about it- as if they had nothing else to do in the two minutes they stood waiting for you. (Customer: "Uhhhhh..... What *do* I want.... huh...... What do you make good???..... Ummm...I guess I want something sweet but not to sweet.... No, not that, I don't really like shots.... Uhhhh..."
As long as there will be no symbol for Frozen drinks, I'm gonna try to bake this at my bar.
Why not incorporate pictures of the hand symbols into the bar decor? Beer and liquor makers already distribute promotional signage to their vendors. The patrons could practice together before ordering, a great ice breaker. It could even be expanded to a theme concept for a pub with names like "The Silent Server" or "Deaf Drafts." I'm holding up four fingers and I want a Fosters!
Post some photos would you [Pac-man]?
Yes I will. I'm gonna ask the person who actually wants the drink to come up with the sign. This won't be an easy task, because the bar I work at is at a resort, so I see my "regulars" only 4 or 5 times (at the most) per year. Still though I will post some picture of my patrons with drink in one hand and bar sign in the other. Maybe we will get this ball rolling.
I agree with DVineMissEva because I have been embarassed MANY times trying to order something embarassing right when the room gets quiet. "Yes waiter, make it a light beer because guiness MAKES ME FART REALLY BAD" and then the next thing I know everyone is looking at me.
Everybody knows what your talking about when you place a pinched thumb and forefinger up against puffed lips and inhale with your eyes closed. Should bars in Amsterdam devise another set of hand signals to order other controlled substances?


http://youtu.be/apD8233B-fE Type II Diabetes is a different disease in women. It is much more aggressive, complications start early. High amounts of Insulin because of Insulin Resistance has a toxic effect on Ovaries. Leading to increased formation of male hormone Testosterone. This leads to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Acne, Hirsuitism, irregular menstrual cycle, heavy periods and infertility. Dr Narendra K Gupta Best PCOD doctor. Best Polycystic Ovarian Disease doctor.
Diabetes is of two types. In type I diabetes, there is total absence of Insulin and hence the blood sugar derangement, quite extreme. It forms 3-5% of Diabetic cases. Whereas, type II diabetes is much more common and rapidly increasing. We have a tendency to think, it is a disease of blood sugar. It is an "insulin resistant" state and even though insulin is produced, it is not enough to control the blood sugar. This is a slowly progressive disease and it takes 12-18 years for one to become diabetic. It is a vascular disease that is a "Silent Killer" and is the most common cause of blindness, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and amputation. Type II diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder, where weight gain around the belly button, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar coexists in the same patient. Hence the term, "Terrible Quartet". It is a different disease in men and women. In men it is associated with male menopause or Andropause. There is male pattern baldness, weight gain, muscle wasting, sexual dysfunction and mental irritability and anger. In female it causes Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome PCOD. This is associated with increase hair growth all over the body, pimples (Acne), obesity, male facial changes, irregular menstrual cycle and infertility. This is rapidly growing in young girls, specially in counties like Indian Subcontinent and Chine. Diabetes is a disease of rapid aging called Progeria. So at the age of 40 one becomes like 50 and at 50 like 65. But the good news today is that every complication of diabetes are reversible, if treated appropriately. People can aspire to not only have a good quality of life but, live even longer than those who do not have diabetes. Best diabetes doctor in Gurgaon. Best Diabetes doctor in Delhi.


text:
L'Ibis plombé (Theristicus caerulescens) est une espèce d'oiseau des régions tropicales et sous-tropicales du nouveau monde appartenant à la famille des Threskiornithidae.

Galerie

Liens externes

Threskiornithidae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders, written by Derek Webb.
This brilliantly funny murder mystery will be directed by Denise Garland and will take to the stage in July!
Keep checking here for all the latest information regarding the play.


text:
Live: India Vs Australia T20 | Live Scores and Commentary | 2020 Series
🏆Make your Fantasy cricket team on My11Circle App: https://bit.ly/3h0l1WG
For queries: [email protected]
PREVIEW: The only time cricket has come close to an actual "like for like" scenario during an active match before concussion substitutes came along is probably when "runners" were still allowed. Back then it wasn't so much a case of there being a likeliness between two individuals but more to do with their attire. The rules for runners were that the player coming in to assist the injured or fatigued batsmen had to wear the "same external protective equipment" as his partner and carry a bat. But at least there was a sense of tangibility to those guidelines. Unlike with the "like for like" used in a concussion substitute context.
Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja aren't built the same, they don't bowl with the same hand and even their beards don't look the same. But on Friday (December 4) at the Manuka Oval, they were deemed as being "like for like". And even if Justin Langer might not have agreed with it, as specialist spinners the two were in some ways interchangeable-especially since it wasn't a question of Jadeja coming out to bat in place of Chahal.
India's success in Canberra though wasn't just orchestrated by their concussion substitute. Chahal did of course make the telling breakthroughs early in the play, taking out both Aaron Finch and Steve Smith. But the real impetus of the win was laid by the visitors' 'unlike for like' replacements for those who played in the ODI series last week. While Chahal made the overall difference, the groundwork for his success was laid by T20 specialists Washington Sundar and Deepak Chahar. It was a far cry from the pace that the Australians faced in the 50-over format with Jasprit Bumrah rested and Mohammed Shami bowling first-change.
Chahar may have started a little expensively but came back to trouble Steve Smith with an excellent spell, where he also had two catches dropped off consecutive balls. He eventually got rid of Moises Henriques, who'd shown some resistance. Sundar, meanwhile, did what he does better than most T20 off-spinners, give nothing away to the Aussie batsman, finishing up with remarkable figures of 0/16 in 4 overs. The killer blows came from T Natarajan, who was initially supposed to be, like Sundar and Chahar, one of those unlike for like replacements for the T20I leg of the tour.
Speaking of specialists and replacements, the Indian team management will spend a busy Saturday (December 5) evening in Sydney deciding upon not just one but two playing Xis.
There is a T20I series to be won at the SCG, however, and the focus will shift there later in the day. The Australians have some very intriguing questions to answer, starting with the fitness of captain Aaron Finch. But it only gets more interesting if he is ruled out. Could it perhaps signal the return of Smith to the helm? But if it does not, will he ever be captain again.
When: Sunday, December 6, 2020. 19:10 Local Time, 13.40 IST
Where: Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG)
What to expect: The pitches at the SCG for the first two ODIs had a lot of runs in them but were uneven towards the end of the second match. The likes of Henriques, Chahar and Natarajan thrived on the up and down nature of the Canberra pitch, and while you'd expect the power-hitters on both sides to take charge, it might not necessarily be a game with big scores.
Australia have been scrambling for players over the last few days. They brought Mitch Swepson into the mix for the opening T20I and have already roped in off-spinner Nathan Lyon into the squad for the remainder of the series. Finch's injury could allow D'Arcy Short to keep his place though you'd expect Alex Carey to come back into the playing XI, considering he's not been named in the 13-member Australia A squad for Drummoyne. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood came under some heavy fire late in the innings and it'll be interesting to see if either of them opts for a break to give Andrew Tye a go.
India might stick to the same XI despite Shikhar Dhawan and Manish Pandey failing to fire with Chahal starting this game for a change. Again it'll be interesting to see if India give Jasprit Bumrah a game here or put him on the morning bus to Drummoyne.
Australia: D Arcy Short, Aaron Finch(c), Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Moises Henriques, Matthew Wade(w), Sean Abbott, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Alex Carey, Daniel Sams, Andrew Tye, Marnus Labuschagne, Marcus Stoinis
India: KL Rahul(w), Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli(c), Sanju Samson, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Washington Sundar, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, T Natarajan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Shreyas Iyer, Mayank Agarwal, Navdeep Saini
videogame_asset Trending Videos
#{{video.id}} {{video.title}}


Sometimes the universe gives you a present. Which is nice, because sooner or later of course, it will exact from you the ultimate price. The hunter who finds a box of shells doesn't ask questions. He goes hunting. So when a public school teacher wallpapers a 4th grade classroom with the bible, the classroom of the child of a militant atheist activist, well…..what's the old saying? You never look a gift horse in the mouth. You get on it and ride.
Below is a link to a masterpiece of legalese, forged at the fingertips of one of FFRF's finest. The letter is the result of the refusal of teacher, principal or assistant superintendent to respond appropriately to numerous complaints from students and parents alike to an obvious and egregious violation of the establishment clause.
The real credit goes to the students themselves, as well as other parents in the class. You see, this isn't just some random class of early elementary tots, susceptible to basic indoctrination techniques . This was a fourth grade "enrichment" class, Kenosha's advanced placement students, the brightest of the bright. These 9 and 10-year-olds already well understood what the principal himself claimed ignorance of: Bible verses on the wall of the public school are illegal, unconstitutional and unethical. FFRF sternly warns of the appearance of a pattern of tolerance of religiosity in Kenosha Unified Public School District, including the continued use of creationist compound Camp Timber-lee, whose mission it is to convert all children, and teach them to question evolution when they return to school.
The real shame of course, is the lack of actual learning that goes on in an "enrichment' class. Instead of science posters and real thoughts from the founders, these kids get subjective morality and identity politics. Further, the proselytizing falls on deaf ears and rolling eyes., wasting valuable class time. The kids whose parents have already indoctrinated them to Christianity are also being under-served by this waste of time, because they're on board with the message, but still need to learn the actual curriculum. The others reflect today's society. A couple of Pagans, a atheist or two, a Muslim, a Buddhist, the odd Jewish kid and a whole bunch more "nons" than ever before. Heck it's Wisconsin. There might even be a Hmong among us.
Although teachers need to be aware of the changing demographic (gone are the days when everybody really was Christian, and were taught about Jews like some wacky uncle you might meet one day), this incident points out exactly why it should never come up. Children from every religious tradition deserve the same access to proper education.
This is FFRF-SEW's second successful removal of inappropriate religion from the public school systems in SE Wisconsin. Last year, concerned parents' complaints led to the end of the Bristol, WI school district's unnatural relationship with Christian firm Thrivent Financial.


Mort was the well-known and widely respected catalyst who convinced three pre-eminent Canadian mining organizations to fund the CMHF.
The high standard of living enjoyed by Canadians today stems in large part from the development of the natural resources that endow the Canadian landscape. In Canada, we are blessed with an abundance of natural resources and are fortunate to be the home of many people with the skill, drive and dedication to convert these resources into the products we need for everyday life.
Hundreds of thousands of people have contributed to building Canada's mining industry into the global leader it is today.
The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was established in 1989 to celebrate the individual leaders among us. Since that time, more than 170 industry leaders have been inducted who demonstrate excellence. These individuals are explorers, company builders and community builders. They are geologists, engineers and philanthropists. Above all, they are proud champions of Canadian mining.
The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was founded by The Northern Miner, The Mining Association of Canada, The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.
The story of mining in Canada can be told, in part, through stories of industry leaders and their accomplishments. The CMHF has become an enduring source of information that shares the significant contributions of individuals who shaped Canada's global mining industry.


text:
Sabirah Rayford
Tags: HISD, Virtual learning, Houston Schools, COVID in schools, Texas
Houston ISD to stop offering virtual academy for students soon
HOUSTON – Houston Independent School District will no longer offer its virtual academy.
The academy was offered to students who were too young to be vaccinated or those who met the medical criteria.
"Mom and dad can only do so much," HISD parent Liz Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez says she has her hands full with her kids.
"Mine are teens," she said. "Seventeen, 18, and 13."
She's almost to the finish line, but she admits parenting in a pandemic is more of a marathon, not a sprint.
"My husband, he is currently at home right now. He was the one who stayed home with the kids, but a mom does everything," she said. "So, it was like 'Mom I still need you here,' but HISD did pretty good because they did offer the virtual learning."
HISD Chief Academic Officer Dr. Shawn Bird says the virtual academy was always meant to be temporary.
"Once vaccines were available and approved, we wanted to encourage families to take advantage of those vaccines," he said. "So, we are going to be closing down the virtual academy."
Students in quarantine will still have access to temporary online learning. Bird says they also have additional COVID testing sites throughout the district and in schools.
"While we are able to adapt and do a lot online, we think that the magic really happens in the classroom," Bird said -- "When teachers and students are in the same room."
He says around 640 students are in the virtual academy. He also noted that parents were notified of the closing a little before winter break.
Students are expected to return to the classroom Jan. 19.


text:
class RemoveTitleFromContentElements < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    remove_column :pulitzer_content_elements, :title
  end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


When voters are reminded of the wage gap between men and women, male candidates benefit more than the two women in the race. Sixty six percent of those asked about the pay gap before the candidate preference question favored male candidates, with 59 percent of those asked about the gap afterwards favoring men, too. This suggests that priming voters to think about gender inequity makes them favor male candidates more than when pay inequity is not fresh in their minds. Conversely, twenty-three percent of the pre-pay gap respondents favored a female candidate, compared with 32 percent who were asked about differences in pay between women and men after expressing their candidate preference. Voters, therefore, gravitate toward female candidates less often when gender inequity is discussed before they identify with whom they support.
Hillary Clinton got an opportunity to talk pay equity Tuesday at a Las Vegas town hall when a young girl asked her about how her pay if she's elected president might stack up to her all-male predecessors.
If Fiorina indeed ends up on the ticket, and presuming Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, this is what you can expect on an issue they are more qualified than anyone to discuss.


On our Snapchat account, we showed all our followers exclusive behind the scenes coverage of the Creative Director of Autlier in the New York Fashion Week! If you were not able to catch the live behind the scenes on our snapchat, worry no more! Just scroll down, and watch them right here.


text:
DoJ probes cable companies over 'anti-competitive' data caps
The Department of Justice is launching an investigation into whether cable companies are deliberately manipulating their data caps to inhibit competition from online video.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the DoJ has already spoken to Netflix, Hulu, Comcast and Time Warner in what will be a wide-ranging investigation.
The investigation is believed to have been prompted by Comcast's merger with NBC Universal last year, which was approved on condition that Comcast refrained from 'unreasonably discriminating' against rival online video services through its broadband service or set-top boxes.
But, say critics, when Comcast decided to exempt its video-on-demand service on the Xbox 360 from the monthly data cap applied to its broadband service, it was doing just that.
Comcast defends its actions by pointing out that its Xfinity service uses the company's own private network, rather than the internet. It says this means it's not subject to the condition, and that it treats all internet video the same.
The DoJ is also believed to be investigating whether cable companies should be allowed to force viewers to have a cable subscription in order to access some online programming on non-TV devices; and the legitimacy of the 'most favord nation' clauses that force programmers to give the biggest cable companies their best price.
Lobbying group Public Knowledge says it's pleased with the DoJ's decision to look into the matter.
"The future of online competition for cable is being decided right now, and it is crucial that government agencies responsible for protecting the public interest do so," says legal director Harold Feld in a statement.
"Media and telecommunications giants, which can be one and the same, should not be able to take advantage of their size and reach to eliminate competition and to harm consumers through data caps which favor some content over other based on business relationships, through contract terms that could restrict where programming can be shown, or other means."
'Very little' telescope discovers weird new planets
Ancient stencils may show Neanderthal hands


Home Posts tagged "Get Together"
Again I have an outfit request from my daughter. She really likes the style of the girl's nightshirt from the Get Together stuff pack but didn't like the big picture of a girl that came with it. I'm happy to share 16 newly patterned nightshirts.
I use the boat neck dress from Get Together quite a bit for my older adult sims. So I wanted to add some color and prints to use. I'm really pleased with these new versions, especially the floral ones. You can download them as separate packages or as one.


text:
DFW 9-Ball Tour/
DFW 9-Ball Tour Stop/
Sandifer downs Larson twice and goes undefeated on DFW 9-Ball Tour
l to r): Jeremy Jones, Greg Sandifer & Tim Larson
After eight stops on the DFW 9-Ball Tour, Tim Larson has retained his top spot in the tour standings. On the weekend of August 3-4, however, the owner of the #3-spot in those tour standings, Greg Sandifer, went undefeated, downing Larson twice (hot seat and finals) to claim the event title and edged up a single spot to take over the #2 spot in the standings. TJ Davis, who owned that #2 spot prior to this past weekend's event, finished in the tie for 7th/8th, which earned him enough points to slip only a single spot into third place. The $1,500-added event drew 77 entrants to CK Billiards in Dallas, TX.
Sandifer's seven-match path to the winners' circle saw him give up more than three racks to an opponent only three times. After an opening round bye, he advanced through Casey Dawson 8-2, Mohammed Alrawi 8-3, Ricki Casper 8-2, and Amos Bush 8-5 to arrive at a winners' side semifinal match against JP Kinman. Larson, in the meantime, though after a bye, he'd open with a 9-2 win over Darrell Smith, found himself facing stiffer opposition. He got by Robin Barbour 9-6, Randy Staggs 9-1 and Jesus Sorto 9-6 to arrive at his winners' side semifinal match against Robert Clark.
Sandifer and Larson advanced to the hot seat in matches that reflected their earlier efforts. Sandifer downed Kinman 8-2, as Larson held off Clark 9-6. Sandifer, who'd had only one opponent reach as far as five racks against him until he played in the hot seat match, gave up six to Larson, but he claimed the hot seat 8-6 and waited on Larson's return.
On the loss side, Kinman picked up the always-dangerous Jeremy Jones, who'd been defeated in a double hill, winners' side quarterfinal match by Robert Clark and then downed Andrew Talton 10-2 and TJ Davis 10-5 to face Kinman. Clark, in the meantime, drew Doug Winnett, who was in the midst of a nine-match, loss-side winning streak that included recent victories over Jeffrey Wadsworth 7-1 and Amos Bush 7-2.
Winnett spoiled any potential rematch between Clark and Jones by defeating Clark 7-5. Jones, in the meantime, eliminated Kinman 10-5. Jones then put an end to Winnett's loss-side winning streak, double hill, in the quarterfinals; 10-6, Winnett racing to 7.
As of this past weekend, 260 players had figured in the DFW 9-Ball Tour's eight events so far, some of them, multiple times and many of them, all eight times. It was Jones' first recorded appearance on the 2019 tour and as he moved into the semifinals, he was looking at the possibility of moving into the top 20 of the tour's standings (if he ended up claiming the event title), among the top 27 or so if he finished as the runner-up and among the top 37 or so if he finished in third place.
He and the tour's #1 player in the standings, Larson, battled to a predictable double hill point, before Larson (who started with 'one on the wire' in a race to 10) dropped the last 9-ball in the match's 17th rack to earn himself a second shot at Sandifer in the hot seat. Larson, who'd finished as runner-up in the DFW 9-Ball Tour's stop in June, repeated as runner-up in this one. Sandifer shaved a rack off of Larson's performance against him in the hot seat match, downing him 8-5 to claim the event title.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at CK's for their hospitality, as well as sponsors Predator Cues, Fort Worth Billiards, Granite Guyz, Dallas 8-Ball, FargoRate, BCA Pool League, Internet Marketing Solutions (IMS), CSI, Accu-Rack and JB Custom Cue Cases. The next stop on the DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for Sept. 7-8, will be hosted by Snookered Billiards in Frisco, TX.
Skip Maloney
Amos BushAndrew TaltonCasey DawsonDoug WinnettGreg SandiferJeremy Jones
Larson goes undefeated, stops loss-side bid by Jones to win DFW Tour stop #9
Skip Maloney | Sep 12, 2019
Parra takes two out of three over Sandifer to capture DFW 9-Ball Tour's season finale title
Skip Maloney | Nov 19, 2019
Larson goes undefeated to claim second stop on the DFW Tour
Skip Maloney | May 21, 2019


text:
Home / Society / Politics through a different lens
Politics through a different lens
May 4, 2018	Society 382 Views
Image: ShinyPhotoScotland
Viewed through a traditional left-right prism of the kind reflexively used by the mainstream media, the outcome of yesterday's local election is troubling only because it lacks clarity. The supposed swing to the left that almost defeated Theresa May at the 2017 election appears to have been halted. On the other hand, there is no evidence that the Tories have won back anything like the number of voters required to win a majority either.
Nor, despite spin to the contrary, will the party leaders be particularly happy with the result. Labour won more seats, but failed to win their target councils. Moreover, the lack of a clear swing to Labour leaves unresolved the internal division between the Corbyn and Blair wings of the party.
Similarly, the LibDems will claim that winning back a handful of the seats and one of the councils they lost after their disastrous coalition with the Tories amounts to a victory. However, the result means that the best they can look forward to is a return to their position in the 1980s; as a fringe party in Parliament and a repository for protest votes at local elections and by-elections.
The Tories appear to be winners in the same sense that Labour was the winner at last year's general election. That is, despite being outsmarted at every turn in the Brexit negotiations, despite being plagued by scandals and resignations, and despite seeing the economy decline precariously, the Tory vote held up. While they lost votes and seats to Labour and the LibDems, they held onto sufficient votes in the right areas of the country to avoid a serious defeat. At face value, Theresa May herself appears to be a winner by dint of not losing.
For a mainstream media still immured in the pre-2008 neoliberal consensus, the outcome is strangely dissatisfying. The "country" has neither shifted left or right. Based on these results, if there were an election tomorrow the result would be almost the same as last year; the Tories would lose a few more seats but still be the largest party… something that, with Brexit looming, could only result in an even greater crisis than the one already brewing.
Seen through a different lens, however, the local election result is entirely in step with the trend of "global Trumpism" that has been growing across the developed states since the 2008 crash. To understand this, you need to leave your right v left political spectacles at the door, and don instead the new political lenses of globalism/internationalism v nationalism/localism. Because it is this division far more than the increasingly meaningless left-right axis that has determined the outcomes of the elections and referendums held since the crash.
To understand this shift, we need to move away from the myth promoted by the mainstream media that voters across the US, UK and EU have somehow been duped into voting against their own interests by a series of charismatic false populists promising simplistic solutions to complex problems. This is a position returned to time and again by Britain's "Remoaners" – those Remain campaigners who refuse to accept their defeat in the 2016 EU membership referendum.
Typical of this view is this argument from Simon Wren-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford:
"The view of the overwhelming majority of economists, and all the analysis from serious academics, the OBR, IMF, OECD, and now even the government, is that leaving the EU will involve significant economic costs. Yet despite all this the poll above shows as many people think we will be better off leaving as think we will be worse off. This is the kind of polling that should stop everyone in their tracks, much like the polls before the US election that said more people trusted Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton.
"The result in this poll is all the more incredible because so far people are worse off as a result of Brexit. They are worse off because a depreciation immediately after the vote led to higher import prices that have not been matched by rising nominal wages. We have moved from the top to the bottom of the OECD growth league table. A belief that we will be better off has to involve Brexit in some way reversing what has already happened."
According to Wren-Lewis, there are but two explanations for this – either (as expressed by Michael Gove) people don't trust the experts, or that the media somehow failed to properly convey the serious economic harm that leaving the European Union would rain down upon the heads of the British people.
There is, however, a third – and I believe far more persuasive – reason why people voted in large numbers against the advice of the experts. It is a reason that was clear to anyone paying attention in the run up to the vote, and it continues to inform every aspect of contemporary UK, US and European – politics. We now live in so extremely economically divided and politically polarised a society that each side is now prepared to risk harming itself in order to bring economic ruin on its opponent. What we are witnessing, particularly in England and Wales (Scotland has a different politics) is class struggle in a post-labour movement era.
Economists like Wren-Lewis speak to a particular class – affluent, young, metropolitan, university educated, internationalist in outlook. Contrast that with the people in working class Leave-voting areas interviewed by John Harris in the run up to the referendum:
"Hardly anybody talks about the official campaigns, and the most a mention of the respective figureheads of each camp tends to elicit is a dismissive tut – but just about everyone agrees that this is a fantastically important moment, and a litmus test of the national mood…
"In Stoke, Merthyr, Birmingham, Manchester and even rural Shropshire, the same lines recurred: so unchanging that they threatened to turn into clichés, but all the more powerful because of their ubiquity. 'I'm scared about the future' … 'No one listens to us' … 'If you haven't got money, no one cares.'
"And of course, none of it needs much translation. Instead of the comparative security and stability of the postwar settlement and the last act of Britain's industrial age, what's the best we can now offer for so many people in so many places? Six-week contracts at the local retail park, lives spent pinballing in and out of the benefits system, and retirements built on thin air?"
This is the class whose fathers had worked in the heavy industries so casually destroyed by Thatcher and Blair as they constructed their neoliberalist vision of a globalised, multi-cultural world. Men (prior to the Sex Discrimination Act) whose wage had been sufficient to buy a house, support a family, run a car and pay for an annual holiday. These are the inheritors of Britain's equivalent of the US rust-belt regions that propelled Donald Trump into office; and for much the same reasons.
In both the US and the UK the nominal parties of the political left – Democrats and New Labour – deliberately distanced themselves from their respective labour movements and working class base. Instead, both adopted "voter farming;" "triangulating" their policies so that they resonated with particular demographic groups such as Blair's "Mondeo Man." Those still residing in the respective rustbelts no longer mattered because they had, it was assumed, nowhere else to go. This is one reason why Scotland – where the Scottish National Party actively moved into the working class space vacated by Blair's New Labour – has an entirely different politics to England and Wales.
The problem with this approach is it depends upon generating sufficient economic growth to continue offering electoral bribes – tax cuts, public services and new laws – to those – primarily affluent (socially) liberal – demographic groups required to secure a majority in government. Even under Blair, sufficient numbers from the New Labour demographic had gone over to the Liberal Democrats (the Tories were still seen as toxic prior to 2008) to raise the prospect of UK elections becoming a three-party race. However, it was the hapless Gordon Brown who reaped the bitter harvest that Blair had sown.
The crash of 2008 changed everything. As in the US, the British government chose massive borrowing to bail out insolvent banks. As a consequence, the Brown government was obliged to begin clawing back the various electoral bribes that had kept sufficient numbers of the affluent classes in the New Labour fold. Brown had promised, but was incapable of delivering; an alternative labour politics that would win back a working class that had become electorally apathetic by 2010. While the working class stayed at home, the affluent classes switched their votes to a supposedly left-leaning Liberal Democrat Party that jumped into coalition with the Tories at the earliest opportunity.
As with Brown, the pale pink attempt to revive Labour's fortunes under Ed Miliband failed even to resonate with a discontented working class whose standards of living had been crushed in the course of the previous 35 years. By this time, a large part of Britain's working class had been seduced by the false populism of the UK Independence Party with its anti-EU message that blamed the plight of working people on internationalism, multiculturalism and immigration.
It is very likely that the slim majority gained by David Cameron in the 2015 general election was won on his promise to hold a referendum on Britain's EU membership. Cameron himself will go down as one of history's idiots for this self-inflicted wound, as it is certain he had anticipated another coalition with the Liberal Democrats in which he would be obliged to renege on the referendum promise. Worse still, having easily won referenda on the AV voting system and Scottish Independence (both using the "project fear" strategy) Cameron failed to do his homework and failed to see his looming defeat.
The one thing, however, that Cameron was abundantly clear about was that Brexit would cause severe economic damage to the British economy. The first substantive heading in the government's pro-Remain booklet delivered to every household in the UK was: "A stronger economy." The first substantive paragraph reads:
"The EU is by far the UK's biggest trading partner. EU countries buy 44% of everything we sell abroad, from cars to insurance. Remaining inside the EU guarantees our full access to its Single Market. By contrast, leaving creates uncertainty and risk."
The booklet goes on to list the thousands of jobs that would be put at risk by voting to leave, together with the damage to living standards:
"If the UK voted to leave the EU, the resulting economic shock would put pressure on the value of the pound, which would risk higher prices of some household goods and damage living standards."
The booklet also points to the flaw in the pro-Leave argument that the EU has more to lose than the UK:
"Some argue that we could strike a good deal quickly with the EU because they want to keep access to our market. But the Government's judgement is that it would be much harder than that – less than 8% of EU exports come to the UK while 44% of UK exports go to the EU."
At the time, the Leave campaign cried foul over this booklet precisely because it was pro-Remain. In effect, the full weight of government was being deployed in support of the Remain side. Moreover, as the campaign went on, Bank of England Chairman Mark Carney was drawn into the pro-Remain camp as that institution also pointed to the severe economic harm that Brexit would cause. This was followed by various luminaries from international bodies like the World Bank, the OECD, the G20 and the IMF joining the pro-Remain side because of the economic harm that would result from Brexit – drawing Gove's infamous retort:
"I think the people of this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." (My emphasis)
This would seem to support Wren-Lewis's argument that Leave voters understood the economic harm message, but refused to believe the experts who were delivering it. This is superficially plausible, since it plays into the "classism" (or whatever the equivalent of racism or sexism is when applied to the working class) that spent most of the referendum campaign screaming "racist!" and "moron!" at anyone who openly professed a desire to vote Leave.
Much has been made of the fact that highly educated people were far more likely to vote to remain while uneducated and poorly educated people were more likely to vote Leave. This, however, is merely to posit a symptom as a cause. Following the collapse of British industry in the 1980s, education and class became synonymous. In order to access the dwindling pool of high paid jobs in banking, tech and government and largely in the Cambridge-Oxford-London triangle, even a university degree was insufficient. Only those who could afford – or could afford to take on the debt – to obtain a higher degree were guaranteed membership of the affluent class. The growing numbers failed by the education system – including millions barred even from sitting exams because their predicted failure would affect their schools' position in the league table – were increasingly stuck in places where there were no jobs to be had, and where periods of dependence upon an unreliable and punitive social security system was a given.
It is no accident that the cities and regions with far below-average wages in the UK in almost every case delivered the highest votes in favour of leaving the European Union… a vote that had as much to do with punishing their own national elite as with the intricacies of the European project. These were Britain's "deplorables" refusing to play the role allotted to them by the politicians and journalists residing inside the Westminster Village.
This was a situation decades in the making, and yet it struck the affluent class like a bolt out of the blue. The big failure of the Remain campaign was not that it did not get its economic message across, but that its message only made sense to the affluent classes living and working in and around the City of London. An open letter to Remain voters from Duncan Leadbetter highlights the issue:
"As regards the UK it cannot just rely on London growing whilst the rest of the UK is left to fend for itself. The high Brexit vote in Sunderland can be better understood by the comments of one would be Brexiteer who after being told if he voted for Brexit the GDP of the UK would fall retorted 'it is your GDP not my GDP.'"
Leadbetter goes on to explain his reasons for voting to leave the EU:
"The emphasis placed on services in the UK has seen London become the financial centre of the world. Today London accounts for over 30% of all tax revenues and over half of the nation's GDP. The rest of the UK has been left languishing with a few exceptions. Despite the success of London, since 1983, the UK has not been able to pay its way in the world. Each and every month the value of its exports, manufacturing and services have been less than the value of its imports. The shortfall has to be paid either by borrowing or selling the nations silver – businesses, land and property. For the past 15 years the amount of tax collected by the government has fallen short of the amount spent by the government. This is despite that up to 2007 there had been sustained increases in growth (GDP) and thus tax receipts. At the same time there was increased expenditure on health, education and social security benefits. The increases were due to rises in the population and a stagnation in wages resulting in 50% of those working receiving benefits to varying degrees – working tax credits and housing benefits. The fact that 50% of those working need help to meet their bills must raise a fundamental question as to whether the economic model of the UK is working."
It was – and is – entirely possible to point out that these trends would most likely have happened irrespective of whether the UK was in or out of the EU, and that leaving was unlikely to change them… but nobody on the Remain side bothered to do that. Instead, they tried to pretend that the people trapped in poverty in Britain's equivalent of the US rust-belt had somehow been equal beneficiaries of European largesse:
"[Ebbw Vale] is a town with almost no immigrants that voted to get the immigrants out. A town that has been showered with EU cash that no longer wants to be part of the EU…
"Wales isn't just a net EU beneficiary, EU capital funding has been an essential part of attracting firms to come here. All around town are signs marked with the EU flag for the Ebbw Vale enterprise zone. The website notes that as an EU tier 1 area, 'companies can benefit from the highest level of grant aid in the UK.'"
What they fail to point out is that very little of that money ever found its way into the hands of ordinary people in the most deprived areas of the UK. Instead it was funnelled through devolved governments, local councils and development agencies into the hands of people from the same affluent class – those who make a living out of addressing, but somehow never getting around to overcoming – the plethora of social problems that stem from poverty and inequality. If you were looking for a symbol of that European largesse, look no further than the EU-funded cable car that links Ebbw Vale town centre with the college and the railway station:
"A £2.3m mechanical lift in Blaenau Gwent has broken down more than 250 times at a cost to the council. The cable car, which links Ebbw Vale town centre with the former steelworks site, opened in 2015. But BBC Wales has learned the lift, which costs £52,000 a year to run, had to be stopped 252 times from 2015-17…
"The lift was installed in 2015 to help pedestrians travel easily between Ebbw Vale town centre up and down a steep hill to the former steelworks site – which is now home to a college campus – a school and the Gwent Archives.
"It was paid for with part of a £12m European Convergence Programme grant."
While the company that built and installed the overpriced cable car walked away with £2.3 million, the people of Ebbw Vale are left in an even worse position as a result of it because their hard-pressed local council has to foot the ongoing costs even as its budget is being cut by the UK and Welsh Governments. Repeat that result across the regions of the UK that have "benefited" from EU funding and you begin to understand why people might come to regard the EU as part of the problem rather than the solution.
In any case, as the Bevan Foundation – a local think tank that conducts research into poverty and inequality – points out, EU-funding is actually a drop in the ocean and nothing like the intervention that would be required to rebuild places like Ebbw Vale:
"A huge deal has been made of Wales' EU structural funds over the years. Such has been their prominence that a row over match-funding toppled Wales' first First Minister, Alun Michael, in 2000. And they've taken up an inordinate number of headlines and Assembly debating time ever since.
"They frankly don't deserve this coverage, because the actual spend – about £4 billion over 20 years – is a drop in the public spending ocean. The average annual allocation of about £200 million (i.e. £4 billion divided by 20) is just 1.5% of the Welsh Government's budget. Indeed EU funds are tiny compared with mega-cash splashed by the UK Government, like £9 billion on the 2012 Olympics or £14.8 billion spent over nine years on Cross Rail 1. Even England's Regional Growth Fund – which may well have passed you by – beats Wales' EU funding with £3.2 billion over five years.
"EU funding pales even further into insignificance when the huge problems Wales faced are taken into account. Over the 1980s and 1990s parts of Wales had seen their local economy devastated as a result of coal and steel closures and multiple recessions. In truth, EU funding simply wasn't enough to address problems on this scale."
Thus, one of the few attempts made by the Remain campaign to point to a benefit of EU membership turned out to be of little relevance to those voters who tipped the balance decisively in favour of Brexit. Far from being ignorant of the economic arguments, or not believing the dire warnings issued by economists, Britain's working class understood full well what they were doing in June 2016 – they were obliging Britain's affluent class to consume a little of the fayre they had been treated to for decades.
The political manifestation of this is blurred by the lens of a left-right divide that ceased being relevant in the 1990s. The contemporary division that has opened up on both sides of the Atlantic is between nationalism and globalism. And since the process of globalisation in which people's jobs were offshored to Asia and their public services privatised and sold off to Russian oligarchs, Chinese bureaucrats and Arab oil sheiks, the nationalists were always going to win their votes… hence Brexit… hence Trump.
Seen through a national v global political lens, the real story behind yesterday's English local election results is the one that the mainstream media is studiously failing to mention… the collapse of the UK Independence Party; the party that has arguably set the political agenda in Britain for most of the last decade. At the previous (2014) local elections, UKIP won 17 percent of the vote; making them the third largest party in the UK. Yesterday they held onto less than four percent; confirming that following the Brexit result there is no clear reason for them to continue to exist.
The reason for the UKIP collapse, however, is both simple and alarming – the hard-Brexit Tories are now the driving force in government. This is terrible news for the Tory Party in general and Theresa May in particular as it simply adds to their Brexit woes. This is because the globalist v nationalist divide exists within parties rather than between them; making it impossible to adopt either position. While the hard Brexit Tories have the upper hand, there is a sizeable bloc of pro-Remain Tories and, more importantly, a donor base in the City of London that will be devastated when the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Labour meanwhile has a similar problem. Although Corbyn was among a minority of Eurosceptic Labour MPs, the wider Party is formed from the young, affluent metropolitan class that desperately seeks a means of reversing or ignoring the referendum result. Indeed, a large part of the swell in support for Labour in the run up to last year's election came from that section of that class that felt cheated by the referendum result. This matters because – as yesterday's results demonstrate – that class is a minority (albeit a large and vociferous one). So while Corbyn and labour have been pulled grudgingly in the direction of remaining in the customs union/single market, Labour cannot win a general election from that position. For Corbyn's Labour to win a general election on a globalist/pro-EU ticket they must somehow either persuade a large part of Britain's working class to stay at home or win them over to a programme of economic reform that realistically promises to reverse the privations of four decades of neoliberalism. Neither looks likely in the short-term. Indeed, it is far from clear that any programme of government can reverse the decline of Britain's rust-belt regions; particularly if it is constrained by the current EU rules.
The one consolation is that Theresa May's position looks increasingly untenable. Her attempts at fudging Brexit in order to hold her party together are wearing increasingly thin with the EU's negotiators (who may use the Irish/Gibraltar border issue as a pretext to force Britain to choose between a hard Brexit or remaining in the EU in all but name) and with her own hard Brexiteers (who will likely use Tory dependence upon the support of ex-UKIP voters as reason to replace May with one of their own the moment she wavers in the negotiations).
Beyond this, of course, is the very real spectre of economic dislocation caused by Brexit at a time when the global economy as a whole is on the edge of recession. So far, despite the misery of austerity and the ensuing collapse of public services, the Tory government has avoided a broader economic crisis. However, we are now in the second longest (and weakest) period of growth on record. That has to come to an end sooner rather than later. And when it does, like every other recession before it, the crisis will be blamed on the government. When that happens, the road to government will be open to Labour provided they can reconcile their own globalist v nationalist divisions beforehand.
… you might consider supporting The Consciousness of Sheep. There are four ways in which you could help me continue my work. First – and easiest by far – please share and like this article on social media. Second follow my page on Facebook. Third, sign up for my monthly e-mail digest to ensure you do not miss my posts, and to stay up to date with news about Energy, Environment and Economy more broadly. Fourth, if you enjoy reading my work and feel able, please leave a tip.
Previous Time to rethink monetary policy
Next TSB Fiasco: a parable for our time
There are those who mistake Boris Johnson's "Bojo the Clown" façade for the man himself. …