text:
Tag Archives: Home Office
The end of free speech and free protest in the UK
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Corruption, Democracy, Law, Liberal Democrats, People, Police, Politics, UK
@DeadParrotJCP, @Director_UKJCP, @IDS_MP, @Skip_Licker, @UKJCP, account, ACPO, agent provocateur, Andrew Lansley, Another Angry Voice, assault, association, austerity, BBC, bill, blacklist, Chief, close, co-operation, Commons, company, Conservative, contraction, control, corporate, corporation, crime, criminal, David Cameron, democracy, Democrat, democratic, development, drop, e-petition, economic, economy, expansionary, fall, fell, fiscal, France, Free, free speech, Funding For Lending, gagging, George Osborne, Germany, Glenda Jackson, government, Health and Social Care Act, Home Office, Home Secretary, House of, ideological, information, kettling, legal, Liam Fox, Lib Dem, Liberal, lobby, lobbyist, Lords, Media, member, Michael Meacher, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortgage guarantee, mouthpiece, news, OECD, organisation, paper, Parliament, parody, Patrick Mercer, people, Peter Cruddas, Police Officers, policy, political, politics, Pride's Purge, protest, protest group, real, recession, record, register, right-wing, riot, scandal, sheep, sheeple, spending limit, stimulus, student, television, Theresa May, Tories, Tory, trade, Transparency of Lobbying, Twitter, UK, unelected, union, US, violent, vote, Vox Political, wage, water cannon, website
It's farewell to your centuries-old right to free speech today, after your Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs won their bid to get the Gagging Bill passed by the House of Lords. It won't go back to the Commons because the Lords made no amendments.
While you, personally, will be allowed to continue complaining about anything you want, you will no longer have the ability to link up with others to protest government actions in any meaningful way as such action may breach Liberal Democrat and Tory government-imposed spending limits. Your personal complaints will be deemed unrepresentative of the people.
You will still be able to have your e-petition on the government's website – if you win enough signatures to have it debated in Parliament – ignored by the Tories and Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons.
The Liberal Democrats and Tories have even managed to rub salt into the wound by creating a register of all the corporate lackeys who will still be able to influence their policies – freelance lobbyists employed by large companies for the specific purpose of swaying government policy. Lobbyists who are company employees will not be listed as the government says their purposes for meeting MPs should be obvious.
This means the new law will do nothing to restrict the power of corporations to write government policy or prevent lobbying scandals such as those involving former Tory MP Patrick Mercer, along with Tories Peter Cruddas and Liam Fox.
The new law protects in-house corporate lobbying operations from official scrutiny, while preventing the public from enjoying the same privileges of access to the government. That is what your Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs have fought so assiduously to obtain, over the eight months or so that this legislation, "one of the worst… any government produce[d] in a very long time", has spent being digested by Parliament.
In a Commons debate in September, Glenda Jackson MP warned that her constituents "know that the Bill… would prevent democratic voices from being heard".
In response, Andrew Lansley – the Conservative who gave us the hated Health and Social Care Act 2012, another incredibly poor piece of legislation – said; "I look forward to the Honourable Lady having an opportunity… to go back to her constituents, to tell them that the things they are alarmed about will not happen."
They have happened already. Within 24 hours of the Lords agreeing the Bill in its current form, at least one parody account on Twitter, that was critical of Coalition policies, was closed down: @UKJCP – a satirical account parodying the DWP.
@UKJCP immediately resurrected itself as @DeadParrotJCP and @Director_UKJCP. We'll see how long they last.
Let us not forget, also, that the third part of this law cracks down on trade unions, enforcing strict rules on membership records to ensure, it seems, that it is possible to 'blacklist' any trade unionist who finds him- or herself seeking work.
With free speech flushed away, you may still resort to public protest – but the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has that covered.
ACPO, which is funded by the Home Office, is lobbying the government for permission to use water cannons on the streets of the UK. This would be of no use at all in quelling violent criminal activities like the riots in 2011 – the police chiefs have already admitted that water cannons would have been ineffective in halting the "fast, agile disorder" and "dynamic looting" that took place during August 2011.
ACPO is an organisation that has tried to put 'agent provocateurs' into legitimate protest groups and promoted 'kettling' to stop peaceful protests (as used in the student protests early in the current Parliament), among many other reprehensible activities.
Considering its track record, it seems clear that ACPO wants to use water cannons against legitimate political protests, on the assumption that the increasing imposition of ideologically-imposed austerity on the country by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives will lead to more political protests, as people across the UK finally realise that the Tories and their corporate lobbyist friends are actually working against the wider population.
ACPO's report on water cannons makes it clear that "it would be fair to assume that the ongoing and potential future austerity measures are likely to lead to continued protest" and "the mere presence of water cannon can have a deterrent effect".
The Home Office response? "We are keen to ensure forces have the tools and powers they need to maintain order on our streets. We are currently providing advice to the police on the authorisation process as they build the case for the use of water cannon."
So there you have it. Take to the streets in peaceful protest and your police service will assault you with water cannons, with the blessing of your government.
There remains one option open to you – your vote. You could get rid of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats at the next general election in 2015.
But that leads us to ask why the government has launched its attack on free speech and free protest.
Perhaps it wants to control the information you receive, on which you base your voting intentions?
We already know the unelected Conservative and Liberal Democrat government is using the predominantly right-wing media for this purpose. For example: George Osborne made a great deal of fuss earlier this week, alleging a huge resurgence in the British economy. With help from Tory mouthpiece the BBC, he was able to put out the headline figure that the economy grew by 1.9 per cent in 2013 – its strongest rate since 2007.
Osborne also claimed that Britain is doing better than all comparable economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and that the upturn is due to his imbecilic "expansionary fiscal contraction" policy, otherwise known as austerity.
All of these claims are false, or intended to create a false impression.
Firstly, his 1.9 per cent of growth started at a much lower level of output than would have been the case if Osborne had not imposed austerity on us all and stopped the 2010 recovery dead. GDP would now be 20 per cent higher than its current levels if not for this single act of stupidity from the stupidest Chancellor in British history.
Secondly: The US economy recovered from an eight per cent fall after 2008 to a five per cent rise above its previous peak by the third quarter of 2013. Germany is the only major European country to enjoy growth of two per cent or higher, after an initial recovery based on increased public expenditure – not austerity. Even France has nearly reached its pre-crisis peak. The UK remains two per cent below its previous economic peak.
Finally, Osborne did not even get to this miserable excuse for a recovery by imposing austerity. He quietly adopted a stimulus policy to avoid going back into recession. What do you think 'Funding for Lending' is? Or his mortgage guarantee scheme?
All this is clarified by Michael Meacher MP in his own blog.
If George Osborne, Home Secretary Theresa May, ACPO and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition in Parliament had their way, you would not have access to any of these facts.
You would be led to believe that the governments policies are working, exactly the way the government says they are working.
You would not have any reason to believe that the government is lying to you on a daily basis.
You would be tranquillised.
Anaesthetised.
Compliant.
Would you vote against a government that tells you such wonderful things, even when your own circumstances might not reflect that story (real wages fell by seven per cent in the private sector and five per cent in the public sector between 2007-13)?
David Cameron is betting his career that you won't.
He wants you to be a good little sheep.
Is that what you are?
Vox Political stands up for free speech.
This site could be directly threatened by the gagging law!
That's why Vox Political needs YOUR help to continue.
Prepare to sift the substance from the sewage in the Chance(llo)r's Autumn Statement
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Conservative Party, Economy, Liberal Democrats, People, Politics, Public services, Tax, UK, Utility firms
afford, austerity, autumn statement, benefit, benefits, borrow, bubble, business, Chancellor, cigarette, Coalition, Conservative, crap, cut, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, debt, defence, deficit, Department, economic cycle, economy, energy, export, Ferrious, free school meal, George, George Osborne, Gideon, gold, government, green, headquarters, Home Office, HQ, Ikea, invest, Justice, keynes, Keynesian, Labour, lectern, levy, lobby, Lord Mayor's Banquet, Lynton Crosby, marriage, Michael Meacher, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Osborne, overspend, Packaging, Panik, Pensions, people, petrol duty, plated, politics, price, productivity, profligate, redecorate, redecoration, Senator, social security, spatchcock, spending, tax, Thatcherism, The Guardian, Tories, Tory, Treasury, unfunded, Vox Political, wage, welfare, welfare state, Whitehall, Will Hutton, work
[Picture: Vox Political reader Al Reading]
How long has it been since Labour was deemed the party with no policies and no direction? Now it seems the Conservatives have taken up this undesirable label and applied it to themselves (excuse the choice of words) liberally.
Labour's stand on energy prices sent the Tories scurrying away to find an answer, after they finally realised that baldly claiming nothing could be done was not going to cut any ice.
When they finally came up with something, their answer was to "Cut the green crap" and reduce the environmental levy on energy firms – a u-turn within a u-turn for the party that once proclaimed to the nation, "Vote Blue – Go Green".
This week they have also u-turned on cigarette packaging – for a second time within a matter of months. Before the summer, the Conservative vision was to safeguard children from smoking by removing packaging for cigarette packets. Then – after coincidentally hiring fag-company lobbyist Lynton Crosby to run their campaigns for them – they decided that the packaging could stay. Now – in the face of a possibly Lords rebellion – they are reversing their position yet again.
This is the context in which Boy Chancellor George Osborne will make his Autumn Statement – and he has already put himself on a sticky wicket before going in to bat.
Remember David Cameron's massive error of judgement at the Lord Mayor's banquet a few weeks ago, when he stood behind a gold-plated lectern that could easily be sold off or melted down to help pay of the interest on his government's ever-increasing borrowing burden, and said austerity was here to stay?
It seems Gideon was eager to follow in his master's footsteps, stumping up £10.2 MILLION (including VAT at the 20 per cent level that he imposed on us all in 2010) on new furnishings for his Whitehall HQ, from exclusive designers Panik, Ferrious and Senator. One Treasury insider, according to the Daily Mirror, wondered "why we couldn't have just bought new furniture from Ikea".
Good question! It is also one that is especially pertinent after it was revealed that Osborne has been calling for last-minute spending cuts from the Home Office and the departments of Justice, Defence, Business and Work and Pensions (yet again), because he will not be able to fund the £2 billion of giveaways announced during the conference season without them.
These include scrapping a rise in petrol duty of almost 2p per litre, free school meals for pupils aged five-to-seven and rewarding marriage in the tax system.
It seems clear that these measures were all unfunded when they were announced, putting the lie to Conservative claims that they have any kind of plan – and ruining their claim that Osborne's schoolboy-economist austerity idiocy has done anything to improve the UK economy.
Like him or loathe him, Will Hutton in The Guardian had it right when he wrote: "The recovery is the result of the upward swing of the economic cycle finally asserting itself, aided by policies informed by the opposite of what Osborne purports to believe."
Hutton went on to state that Osborne decided to "borrow from the Keynesian economic locker… never admitting the scale of the philosophic shift, and then claimed victory". In other words, Osborne is the biggest hypocrite in Westminster (and that's a huge achievement, considering the state of them all)!
Result: "The public is misinformed – told that austerity worked and, as importantly, the philosophy behind it works too… Thus the Conservative party can be protected from the awful truth that Thatcherism fails."
Labour MP Michael Meacher is much more scathing (if such a thing is possible). In a Parliamentary debate, quoted in his blog, he told us: "We do have a recovery of sorts, but one that has been generated in exactly the wrong way. It has been generated by consumer borrowing and an incipient bubble, and it is not — I repeat, not — a real, sustainable recovery."
In other words, the – as Hutton describes it – "eclectic and spatchcocked Keynesianism" employed by Osborne, while superficially useful in the short-term, will cause immense damage over a longer period because he doesn't understand it and only used it in desperation.
Both Hutton and Meacher agree that a sustainable recovery can only come from what Meacher describes as "rising investment, increasing productivity, growing wages and healthy exports", none of which are supported by Osborne's current behaviour.
And yet, according to the Daily Telegraph, Osborne will fulfil another of this blog's long-standing prophecies on Thursday by telling us all that "Britain can no longer afford the welfare state".
From a member of the most profligate snout-in-trough overspenders ever to worm their way into public office and then inflict a harm-the-defenceless agenda on the nation, that will be the biggest lie of all.
Vox Political is funded entirely by donations and book sales.
Failings over race earn Theresa May a figurative rap on the knuckles – twice!
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Crime, European Union, Immigration, Justice, Law, People, Politics, Race, UK
advertising standards authority, advertising vans, arrest, ASA, assess, asylum, BBC, benefit, benefits, Chris Grayling, Coalition, Conservative, contempt, context, criminal justice, Daily Mail, Equality and Human Rights Commission, EU, european union, flak jacket, go home, government, hatred, Home Office, Home Secretary, illegal, immigrant, immigration officer, inaccurate, intention, Justice Secretary, knuckle dragging racist, Lords committee, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national interest, obligation, opt out, Owen Jones, people, points based system, police, politics, poster, race, racism, railway station, social security, spot check, stab vest, statistic, suspicion, Theresa May, Tories, Tory, treaties, treaty, Unite, Vox Political, welfare, xenophobia
Bad taste in the mouth, Theresa? Not nearly as bad as the flavour that faced British citizens, wrongly accused of being illegal immigrants because of your race vans.
Anyone with an ounce of brain in their head knew the Home Office was going to be banned from using its advertising vans again – the ones telling illegal immigrants to "go home", in the language of "knuckle-dragging racists", as Owen Jones so memorably phrased it.
That is, anyone except everyone working at the Home Office, including the Secretary of State – Theresa May.
The Advertising Standards Authority ordered the Home Secretary not to put the vans on the streets again, saying the phrase "go home" was indeed a reminder of a racist slogan and "clearly carries baggage".
The authority also said the posters on the vans referred to inaccurate arrest statistics, claiming there had been 106 arrests in the area in the past week. The ASA said this was misleading as it did not relate to accurate arrest statistics for the specific areas where people would have seen the vans.
They were out in Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Barnet, Brent, Ealing and Hounslow – areas the Home Office believe many illegal immigrants live and work.
The report stated: "The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told the Home Office to ensure that in future they held adequate substantiation for their advertising claims and that qualifications were presented clearly."
The ASA had received 224 complaints about the vans from individuals, campaign groups, legal academics and the Labour peer Lord Lipsey, who is from Vox Political's home constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire, we're proud to say.
But in an impressive display of tightrope-walking the ASA said the van campaign was not offensive or irresponsible. While the "Go home" slogan had been used in the past to attack immigrants, its report said, the Home Office was now using it in a different context.
Oh! Well, that makes it perfectly acceptable, doesn't it? Never mind the possibility that nobody seeing those vans in the street was ever likely to consider such a nuance, it was "unlikely to incite or exacerbate racial hatred and tensions in multi-cultural communities" because the intention was different!
What about the message implied by these vans – a message that was clearly pointed out by commentators at the time – that Conservative-leaning voters should treat with hatred, suspicion and contempt anybody who is not a white, Anglo-Saxon protestant?
What about the way they encouraged suspicion that another person may be an illegal immigrant?
What about the way the Home Office Twitter account spent the week-long pilot period in which the vans were traipsing round London tweeting messages about the number of illegal immigrants it wanted us to believe had been detected or turned themselves in? Can we believe those figures, if the number on the vans themselves was fake?
What about the photographs transmitted by the same Twitter account, of suspects who had been arrested, before they had been charged? Does anybody remember if any of these people were the white Anglo Saxons mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago?
What about the spot-checks at railway stations, where anybody who was not clearly white could be stopped by immigration officers wearing stab vests who demanded to see identification proving they were in the UK legally? How galling was it for British citizens – people who were born and raised in this country – to be faced by a flak-jacketed fiend who (it is claimed) became unreasonably aggressive when challenged over their right to behave in this manner without direct cause for suspicion?
What about the fact that the Home Office undermined its own arguments by being unable to reveal the different ethnicities of the people who were stopped – information that was vital in determining whether they had been breaking the law?
What about the fact that all of this effort was hugely out of proportion when considering the number of illegal immigrants it was likely to net? Forget forced labourers who are brought into the country but kept hidden by criminal organisations – these are not responsible for what happened to them and their cases are likely to be part of criminal investigations into the people holding them captive. Who does that leave?
And what about the possibility that this was not about illegal immigrants at all, but a sop to all those people – many of them Daily Mail readers, we expect – who believe that immigration of any kind is out of control? These are people who need to get to grips with the facts. As reported by this blog and others back in August, the UK has a lower immigrant population than almost any 'developed' nation; they are assessed via a points-based system, only seven per cent are asylum-seekers and only a third of asylum claims are accepted. They do not have access to most of the benefits available to UK citizens and what they do receive are nowhere near the same value. They are one-third less likely to claim those benefits, meagre as they are, than UK citizens.
The Unite union has been seeking legal advice over this matter, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission has also been investigating this. It will be interesting to see what they say.
But a rap on the knuckles over bad information is a good start. Naughty, naughty, Theresa May!
On the same day, the Home Secretary – along with Justice Secretary Chris Grayling – faced questions from two Lords committees on the UK's 2014 opt-out from EU police and criminal justice measures, as part of a reopened inquiry.
If this opt-out is exercised, the Coalition government has listed 35 measures that it would seek to rejoin, and it is these that prompted the Lords to reopen their inquiries.
Parliament's own website said they were likely to face questions on how they defined the national interest in selecting the 35 measures the UK would seek to rejoin, and whether the changes will break the UK's obligations to European arrest treaties.
And there were questions to be answered on whether non-participation on measures dealing with xenophobia and racism (the issues at the heart of the matter with the advertising vans) sent an "unfortunate" signal to other EU member states that the UK, under a Conservative-led government, no longer regards those issues as important.
Fortunately for Theresa May, these proceedings do not appear to have been made public.
Revealed: ConDem 'vendetta' against citizens it believes are livestock
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Business, Conservative Party, Corruption, Democracy, Disability, Employment, Health, Housing, Immigration, Law, Liberal Democrats, Media, People, Politics, Poverty, Public services, Race, Tax, UK, unemployment
abuse, accountancy, accountant, adequate housing, advertising, advisor, Alan Moore, Andrew Lansley, Anonymous, Any Questions, Atos, attack, Bain Capital, BBC, belief, benefit, benefits, Big Four, camp, capita, Care UK, Circle Health, citizen, clinical drug trial, Coalition, coerce, Conservative, corporation, criminal, Deloitte, Democrat, Department, disability, disabled, drug, DWP, Ernst & Young, experimental, fascist, force, go home, government, Grant Shapps, greece, Guy Fawkes, hardship, Health and Social Care Act, Home Office, homosexual, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS (I Believe), immigrant, Incapacity, insurance, internment, IT, jobseeker, KPMG, Labour, Liberal, lie, livestock, mask, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, nation, National Health Service, NHS, Owen Jones, Parliament, Pensions, personal, policies, policy, political, poor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, prostitute, provider, queue, race, racist, radical, rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, recession, resettlement, residential, right-wing, sexuality, sickness, special, tax avoidance, The Vortex, Treasury, trial, Twitter, un, unemploy, united nations, Universal Credit, unum, V for Vendetta, van, Victims, Virgin Health, Vox Political, work, Work Programme, Workfare, write off
"Fascist Britain, 2013. Everybody knows you can't beat the system. Everybody but…?"
It has been rumoured that V for Vendetta 'Guy Fawkes' masks are to be banned from large-scale public demonstrations in the UK.
They have already been banned in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The masks were adopted by the loosely-affiliated protesters Anonymous as a clear indication of members' feelings towards a Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government whose actions, they believe, have been increasingly fascist.
These people have a point.
Has anyone read V for Vendetta lately? An early chapter, 'Victims', provides the historical background to the fascist Britain of the story – and provides very disturbing parallels with the current government and its policies.
In the story, there is a recession and a nuclear war. Fortunately, in real life we have managed to avoid the war (so far) but the recession of 2007 onwards has caused severe hardship for many, with average wages cut by nine per cent (in real terms) due to government policies.
In the story, the line "Everybody was waiting for the government to do something" is notable. Isn't that just about as British as you can get? As a nation, we seem unwilling to take the initiative; we just wait for someone else to do something. We queue up. And then we complain when we don't find exactly what we wanted at the end of the queue. But then it's too late.
Does the government "do something"? Well, no – not in the story, because there isn't any government worth mentioning at this point. But then… "It was all the fascist groups. The right-wingers. They'd all got together with some of the big corporations…"
Here's another parallel. How many corporations are enjoying the fruits of the Conservative-led (right-wing) government's privatisation drive?
Look at my IDS (I Believe) video on YouTube – which features only a tiny minority of those firms.
The NHS carve-up signified huge opportunities for firms like Circle Health and Virgin, and Bain Capital (who bought our blood plasma supplies). Care UK, the firm that famously sponsored Andrew Lansley while he was working on the regressive changes to the health service that eventually became the Health and Social Care Act 2012, no doubt also has fingers in the pie.
The Treasury is receiving help – if you can call it that – from the 'big four' accountancy firms – PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG. They have written the law on tax avoidance. By no coincidence at all, these are the firms that run the major tax avoidance schemes that have been taken up by businesses and rich individuals who are resident in the UK. For more information on the government's attitude to taxing the rich, see Michael Meacher's recent blog entry.
The Department for Work and Pensions has employed many private firms; this is the reason that department is haemorrhaging money. There are the work programme provider firms who, as has been revealed in previous blog entries, provide absolutely no useful training and are less likely to find anyone a job than if they carried on by themselves; there are the IT firms currently working on Universal Credit, about which Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith lied to Parliament when he said he was having to write off £34 million of expenditure – the true figure was later revealed to be closer to £161 million, almost five times as much; there are Atos and Capita, and probably other firms that have been hired to carry out so-called 'work capability assessments' of people claiming sickness, incapacity and disability benefits, according to a plan that intentionally ignores factual medical evidence and places emphasis on a bogus, tick-box test designed to find ways to cut off their support; and there is Unum Insurance, the criminal American corporation that designed that test, in order to push British workers into buying its bogus insurance policies that work on exactly the same principle – this is theft on a grand scale.
So we have a government in cahoots with big business, and treating the citizens – the voters – like cattle. We'll see more of this as we go on.
"Then they started taking people away… All the black people and the Pakistanis…" All right, these social groups have not been, specifically, targeted (yet) – but we have seen evidence that our government would like to do so. Remember those advertising vans the Home Office funded, that drove around London with a message that we were told was for illegal immgrants: "Go home"?
"That is a term long-associated with knuckle-dragging racists," said Owen Jones on the BBC's Any Questions.
This blog's article on the subject added that not only this, but other governments (like that in Greece) had created an opportunity to start rounding up anybody deemed "undesirable" by the state. "Greece is already rounding up people of unorthodox sexuality, drug addicts, prostitutes, immigrants and the poor and transferring them to internment and labour camps," it stated.
Note also the government's response to criticism from UN special rapporteur on adequate housing Raquel Rolnik. Grant Shapps and Iain Duncan Smith and their little friends tried to say that she had not done her job properly but, when this was exposed as a lie, they reverted to type and attacked her for her racial origin, national background, and beliefs – political and personal. You can read the lot in this despicable Daily Mail smear piece.
Back to V for Vendetta, where the narrative continues: "White people too. All the radicals and the men who, you know, liked other men. The homosexuals. I don't know what they did with them all." Well, we know what Greece is doing with them all, and in the story, such people also ended up in internment and labour camps. We'll come back to that.
"They made me go and work in a factory with a lot of other kids. We were putting matches into boxes. I lived in a hostel. It was cold and dirty…"
Last month this blog commented on government plans for 'residential Workfare for the disabled', rounding up people with disabilities and putting them into modern-day workhouses where someone else would profit from their work while they receive benefits alone – and where the potential for abuse was huge. If that happens, how long will it be before every other jobseeker ends up in a similar institution?
A while ago, a friend in the cafe I visit said that a Tory government will always see every class of people other than its own as "livestock". That's the word he used – "livestock". From the above, with descriptions of people being treated like cattle, or being herded into the workhouse for someone else to profit from their work, it seems he has a very strong case.
So let's go back to these internment and labour camps – in V for Vendetta they're called "resettlement" camps. A later chapter – The Vortex – reveals that inmates at such camps are subjected to unethical medical experimentation. The doctor carrying out the trials notes in her diary that the camp commandant "promised to show me my research stock… they're a poor bunch."
Her research stock are human beings who have been subjected to conditions similar to those of the Nazi concentration camps. Notice the language – this doctor considers the other human beings taking part to be her property. And they are "research stock" – in other words, she does not see them as other human beings but as livestock – exactly as the friend in the cafe stated.
And jobseekers in today's UK are being coerced into experimental drug trials, disguised as job opportunities, according to the latest reports.
V for Vendetta's tagline – the blurb that set the scene – was: "Fascist Britain, 1997". It seems the only part that its author, Alan Moore, actually got wrong was the date.
Race. With attitudes like this, how can we ever win?
Posted by Mike Sivier in Crime, Immigration, People, Race
acid attack, advertising standards authority, apartheid, ASA, go home, handbag, Home Office, illegal immigrant, intolerance, Islam, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mishal Husain, Muslim, Oprah Winfrey, prejudice, racism, religion, religious, Switzerland, Tina Turner, van, Vox Political, Zanzibar
Good humour and a twinkle in the eye: But what did Mishal Husain really think about the stories of racial and religious tension in Friday's BBC bulletin?
This country becomes more contradictory every day – or at least, that's how it may have seemed to many people watching the BBC's six o'clock news bulletin on Friday.
It led with the announcement that the Advertising Standards Authority would be investigating the scheme in which vans sponsored by the taxpayer (via the Home Office) have been driving through London, allegedly stirring up racial tensions by telling illegal immigrants to "go home". Elsewhere, the vans have been criticised because they have encouraged people to report fellow British citizens as illegal aliens, and immigration officers carrying out spot-checks have also targeted people who were born in this country because they "didn't sound British".
Another item was about two British women who suffered traumatic injuries in an acid attack in Zanzibar, where they were working for a charity. The motive was not known but the report concentrated on tensions between Islam, the island's main religion, and others, remarking on signs asking foreigners to respect the local culture and dress appropriately – covering up, rather than wearing skimpy outfits that would upset local people. It went on to say that the attack victims were, in fact, dressed appropriately at the time.
A third item put a spotlight on Switzerland, where race relations are deteriorating rapidly. It seems the authorities have been passing racial apartheid laws as ways of controlling immigration – and it was easy to imagine why this would be permitted after watching the report on the trouble Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest citizens of the United States of America, had buying a handbag there.
Oprah, in Switzerland to celebrate Tina Turner's wedding, was continually told by a shop assistant that the item was "too expensive" for her. The knee-jerk conclusion for an onlooker is that the assistant was making a prejudiced judgement based on the fact that Ms Winfrey is not white.
So we were presented with three stories about racial tensions. In the UK, the issue was augmented with unwarranted accusations against people of foreign descent who were, in fact, born here. In Zanzibar the extra factor was the possibility that religious intolerance between Islam and others was behind the attack. And in Switzerland there was the out-and-out racism in the inference that a black woman could not possibly afford an expensive handbag.
These stories were indictments in their own right – made even more uncomfortable viewing by the fact that the news anchor for that bulletin was Mishal Husain who, although born in Northampton, has parents from Pakistan and is a Muslim. We can also expect her to be reasonably well-off, considering she has a high-profile job in television.
Vox Political has huge respect for Ms Husain. Her high-profile appointment as a presenter of Radio 4's Today Programme is well-deserved and our only regret is that this will take her off our TV screens. She fronted these stories with good humour and a twinkle in her eye – which seems amazing restraint, considering the way they each highlight circumstances that could be applied to her.
There is no way of knowing what she thought of the developments she was chronicling and it would be inappropriate to ask. Having said that, did nobody else wonder what was going through Ms Husain's mind when she told us the ASA said it had received many messages of support for the so-called "racist vans"?
There is no out-and-out party political message to this article; racism and religious intolerance can spring up among people on all parts of the political spectrum – and is an indictment against those who practise it, wherever it does.
Because it is something that may affect all of us, it is something that we can all fight. In the 21st century the thought that a person may be victimised because their skin is a different colour, or because they have different philosophical beliefs, makes a mockery of our claim to be civilised.
Don't put up with it. Don't sit in silence while others are attacked. Complain. Campaign. Turn back this ugly tide.
Otherwise, one day, you might wake up to find that it's your turn to be the victim.
Internet surveillance plan will extend – not create – a communications 'police state'
31 Wednesday Oct 2012
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Crime, Law, Liberal Democrats, People, Police, Politics, UK
activist, armed, Coalition, Conservative, criminal, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, DWP, email, Facebook, game, gaming, gang, government, Home Office, Home Secretary, intelligence, internet, internet voice calls, invasion, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, monitor, Parliament, people, phone, play-by-mail, police, politics, Pride's Purge, privacy, social media, spies, spy, surveillance, telephone, terrorist, Theresa May, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, webmail
Nobody should be looking forward to having Big Brother watching us through our monitors, but he's already reading our mail and listening to our phone calls.
Government monitoring of our mail and phone messages has been going on for years, and Theresa May's plan to monitor every UK citizen's online activity is merely an extension of this.
It's still an unwarranted invasion of our privacy, but when has any government ever let that stop it?
According to the BBC, the current government's plans mean service providers will have to store details of internet use in the UK for a year, to allow police and intelligence services to access it.
It will include for the first time details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming in addition to emails and phone calls.
The data includes the time, duration, originator and recipient of a communication and the location of the device from which it is made.
Hold on, did I say "for the first time" details of messages on social media?
What about the police who called on a female disability activist last week, in her home at midnight, in relation to comments she'd posted on Facebook about the Department for Work and Pensions' cuts?
According to her account on the Pride's Purge blog, "They told me they had come to investigate criminal activity that I was involved in on Facebook… They said complaints had been made about posts I'd made on Facebook about the Jobcentre."
(All right, I know what you're going to say – those posts were publicly-accessible. The point is that the police are already using social media to target people – in this case, an innocent woman)
According to Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, the planned legislation is "absolutely vital" in "proving associations" between criminals, and it was often possible to penetrate the top of a criminal gang by linking "foot soldiers" to those running operations.
Is this in the same way the police were able to use the postal service to target terrorist gangs? Because I've got a story about that.
It concerns a young man who was enjoying a play-by-mail game with other like-minded people. A war game, as it happens. They all had codenames, and made their moves by writing letters and putting them in the post (this was, clearly, before the internet).
One day, said young fellow arrived home from work (or wherever) to find his street cordoned off and a ring of armed police around it.
"What's going on?" he asked a burly uniformed man who was armed to the teeth.
"Oh you can't come through," he was told. "We've identified a terrorist group in one of these houses and we have to get them out."
"But I live on this street," said our hero, innocently. "Which house is it?"
The constable told him.
"But that's my house!" he said.
And suddenly all the guns were pointing at him.
They had reacted to a message he had sent, innocently, as part of the game. They'd had no reason to open the letter, but had done it anyway and, despite the fact that it was perfectly clear that it was part of a game, over-reacted.
What was the message?
"Ajax to Achilles: Bomb Liverpool!"
Expect further cock-ups of similar nature, pretty much as soon as the current proposals become law.
Omnishambles, omnishambles, omnishambles
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, People, Politics, UK
ballot, bedroom tax, benefit, benefits, bilingual, Boris Johnson, Brecon and Radnorshire, Bromford, Bryn Parry-Jones, cabinet, Christine Gwyther, Coalition, commissioner, Conservative, Cornwall Council, crime, David Cameron, debt, Department for Work and Pensions, Downing Street, DWP, economy, election, government, Growth Committee, Home Office, housing benefit, Jonathan Luff, Kenneth Clarke, Labour, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, NHS, Office of Fair Trading, OFT, omnishambles, Parliament, people, Plaid Cymru, police, politics, shred, Sky, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Vince Cable, Vox Political, welfare, Wonga
Feeling tired? Don't worry, Vince Van Winkle, we've got a cosy place in the Cabinet for you, next to Ken 'Can't Keep My Eyes Open' Clarke!
Before the general election in 2010, David Cameron reminded us that Tony Blair had summed up his ambitions in three words, "Education, education, education", then said he could manage his in three letters: "N.H.S."
How wrong he was!
We now know that the correct three-word slogan would have been: "Omnishambles, omnishambles, omnishambles"!
Here's three examples of Coalition government ineptitude that have fallen onto my desk during this morning alone.
1. The government is having to shred £350,000 worth of ballot papers for the Welsh police and crime commissioner elections after a late decision to print them in both English and Welsh.
There really is no excuse for this. I know for a fact that Labour and, I believe, Plaid Cymru were both pushing for bilingual ballots, months before now.
When Christine Gwyther heard the Home Office did not have Parliamentary approval for bi-lingual ballot papers and information to voters, she immediately took steps to rectify the matter, writing to Bryn Parry-Jones, the returning officer, who agreed to pursue it on an all-Wales basis. She told Labour's Brecon and Radnorshire constituency party the story at its meeting in September, which was one and a half months ago at the time of writing.
The government says the cost will be met from the £75 million election budget. I find this unconscionable. People across the country are getting into terrible states of anxiety over how to afford an extra £20 or £30 a month due to benefit cuts (of which more in a moment), but this government is prepared to throw away hundreds of thousands of pounds because its members couldn't be bothered to make a perfectly simple decision in a reasonable amount of time.
Shambles.
2. A senior Downing Street aide has quit working for David Cameron in order to join Wonga.com, the loan company that charges bizarrely exorbitant rates of interest – more than 4,000 per cent. This is according to Sky News.
Jonathan Luff has done this, allegedly, at a time when the Office of Fair Trading is trying to crack down on payday lenders and concern is high about the industry's business practices. The question is whether the move will give Wonga inappropriate access to ministerial decision-makers.
I guess we'll find out, if the issue mysteriously goes away in the immediate future, with no explanation.
Already, critics have denounced the move as a sign of what Conservative supporters are really interested in – not the good of the country, but the size of their bank accounts.
3. Finally, in an article on this very blog, I seem to have revealed ambiguities in the plan for the new, so-called "bedroom tax" that could add tens, if not hundreds of pounds to the cost for people renting council- or social houses.
It seems that it is unclear whether the amounts to be removed from housing benefit – 14 per cent for one extra bedroom, 25 per cent for two or more – are to be taken from the amount of benefit being paid, or from the total rent being paid on the property. One of my readers tells me that Cornwall Council has taken the latter stance, meaning a loss of £21 per week for the first spare bedroom, £29 per week for two – considerably more than the advertised average of £14 per week.
Social housing provider Bromford, on the other hand, states clearly that it is a household's housing benefit entitlement that will be cut, which seems to make it clear that it is a percentage of the benefit, not the full rent.
One wonders whether the government will stir itself to provide a definitive answer before the new rules come into practice next April. I shall not be holding my breath in anticipation.
Oh, and households with students away from home for less than 52 weeks per year – exempted under the new rules – will find that Cornwall Council doesn't see it that way, either. from the form letter: "If you have an extra bedroom(s) for children who don't live with you full time, the Government will count this as a spare bedroom and your benefit will be cut."
Omnishambles.
Bubbling under, we have the accusation against Business Secretary Vince Cable that he slept through the new Cabinet Growth Committee's meetings, as he seems to know nothing about them despite being, as I understand it, the vice-chair.
Coming soon: Borishambles.
UK policy on refugees: Let Them Starve
Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Conservative Party, People, Politics, UK
≈ Comments Off on UK policy on refugees: Let Them Starve
anti-immigration, asylum, BBC, benefit, benefits, charity, Chris Grayling, Coalition, Conservative, Department for Work and Pensions, destitute, government, health, Home Office, Iain Duncan Smith, immigration, Inside Housing, International Criminal Court, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, people, politics, press, refugee, Refugee Action, Refugee Council, Refugee Integration and Employment Service, RIES, seeker, Sky News, starvation, starve, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, Westminster Council
As a nation, we should be ashamed of this story in so many ways.
Firstly, we should be ashamed that a family of three asylum seekers from abroad came to the UK, believing that they would be treated well.
Then we should be ashamed that this group became dependent on charity handouts – despite their successful claim for asylum – because of 'significant problems' transferring them from Home Office administration to mainstream welfare support. This meant they had to be on the streets before local authorities – in this case the Conservative flagship Westminster Council – could offer help.
It is bitterly shameful that the child of this family, living in destitution on British streets, was allowed to starve to death.
Even worse is that, after this happened, the government axed its funding for the Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES)- which paid transitional support for successful asylum seekers like this family. This means others will find themselves in an even worse situation, as soon as they arrive in the UK.
Most damning of all is the fact that this is a major news story across the world – but in the UK both the BBC and Sky News have ignored it, apart from a link on the BBC website to a report by Inside Housing.
Is it because our Coalition government doesn't want us to know it is letting asylum-seekers starve?
Is it because, even in a country where anti-immigration and anti-asylum-seeker feeling has been stoked by the right-wing press, ministers know that letting them die will still upset the British sense of fair play that many of us still (perhaps surprisingly) have?
Is it because the government has no intention of changing its ways?
Westminster Council warned the government to fix the flaws in its support system for successful asylum seekers, by letter, in March 2011. Support for RIES was cut six months later. It seems clear that the government never paid serious attention to the council's comments.
The Refugee Council has said stories like this are increasingly common, and Refugee Action says more and more asylum-seekers are being forced onto the streets.
And guess who is partly responsible for this, alongside the Home Office?
Yes, yet again it is the Department for Work and Pensions, which seems to have set itself the task of causing the most avoidable deaths ever, within a single Parliamentary term.
The International Criminal Court has already been asked to consider charges against Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, alongside his former cronies Chris Grayling and Maria Miller, both of whom have moved on to bigger Cabinet portfolios, where presumably they can cause even more havoc.
Perhaps this latest scandal could be added to the list.


text:
Ericka Beckman
MON, 8:30 PM
MON, 8:30 PM (PT)
Approx. 90 minutes
Download Program Notes (PDF)
For over four decades, the pioneering work of Ericka Beckman was developed in parallel to the growing presence of video games in our society. Tapping into the inner workings of gaming, as well as the rules that define and govern the expected performance of participants and the increased presence of virtual and computing technologies, Beckman's productions reflect on the tensions between competition and play, scoring and leisure, societal behavior, and identity formation. This program will show some of Beckman's most iconic films, in their analogue form, alongside more recent productions in vibrant digital format.
The screening is followed by a conversation and Q&A with Ericka Beckman.
Beckman explores connections between games and gambling, the larger structures of capital, as well as the gamification of a culture which has given itself over to scores, challenges, tokens and rewards as a means of control.
Pamela Reynolds, WBUR
The Jack H. Skirball Series is organized by Bérénice Reynaud and Eduardo Thomas.
For over four decades, Ericka Beckman's playful yet formally demanding films have challenged traditional aesthetic and cultural values, mixing games with fairytales to create hybrids with new rules. Beckman uses play in every sense to shape her message. Beckman's work has been shown at festivals, museums, and galleries around the world. Her one-woman shows include: Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Le Magasin, Grenoble, France; the Tate Modern, London; MOCA, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, Washington,D.C.; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. She has been in four Biennials at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her works are in the film collection of the Whitney Museum; New York's Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum; The Walker Art Center; Anthology Film Archives; plus the British Film Institute, and the Zabludowicz Collection. Amongst the numerous awards received for her work are: two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; two New York State Council on the Arts grants; one from Massachusetts Council on the Arts; and a residency from the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.
You the Better (1983)
Hiatus (1995/2015)
Switch Center (2003)
Reach Capacity (2020)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Iraq reports 757 new COVID-19 cases, 599,126 in total
Baghdad [Iraq], January 5 (ANI/Xinhua): The Iraqi Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday 757 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total nationwide infections to 599,126.
It reported in statement 12 new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 12,856, and 1,928 more recovered cases, bringing the total recoveries to 547,457.
A total of 4,708,871 tests have been carried out across the country since the outbreak of the disease last February, with 31,082 done during the day, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, Riyadh Abdul-Amir, head of the ministry's Public Health Department, said in a press release that the ministry had not reported any infection with the new strain of coronavirus so far, despite its spread in many European and neighboring countries.
Iraq has taken a series of measures to contain the pandemic since the first coronavirus case appeared in the country.
China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic. A Chinese team of seven medical experts spent 50 days in Iraq from March 7 to April 26 in 2020 to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and install an advanced CT scanner in Baghdad.
China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. (ANI/Xinhua)


text:
Executive Personal Computers Inks Deal at Leigh Valley Industrial Park
Executive Personal Computers, a data security and environmental risks solutions company, leased Gelcor Realty's 85,680-square-foot warehouse at Lehigh Valley Industrial Park in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The single-story structure at 2980 Avenue B comprises 13 loading docks, one drive-in bay and a 20-foot clear ceiling height. Built in 1966, the facility spans 5.7 acres less than a mile from Lehigh Valley International Airport.
REITs View Opportunity Zones as Source of Long-Term Capital for Development (Video)
Office Market Update with Reis (Video)
Misfits Market Inks Deal for New Headquarters in Pennsauken, New Jersey
Misfits Market leased Industrial Investments' 140,800-square-foot distribution building in Pennsauken, New Jersey.
The location will serve as the new headquarters and distribution center for the direct-to-customer produce delivery service company.
The single-story structure at 500 Griffith Morgan Road comprises 29 loading docks with six levelators, three drive-in bays, 40- by 40-foot column spacing and a 24-foot clear ceiling height. Built in 1972 and renovated in 2015, the 4-Star facility spans 7.3 acres less than a mile from the Pennsauken train station.
Arrival of Driverless Vehicles Looming Large Over Lehigh Valley's Shipping Workforce
Experts forecast that automated trucking is expected to begin transforming the shipping industry within the next five years, just one of the many ways shippers are looking to wring costs out of the business and keep consumers happy by offering more 'free' shipping options for online orders.
Driverless commercial vehicles developed by Waymer, Google and Tesla have already completed cross-country trips in tests, and the Department of Transportation recently signaled it plans to review and modify its rules governing vehicle design standards to allow the use of self-driving vehicles while also ensuring road safety.
Overwhelming economic incentives make some form of automation for trucking inevitable. Untethered to labor laws limiting driving hours, shippers are expected to be able to move substantially more produce and products across far greater distances. Delivery speeds will likely increase as vehicles only have to stop for fuel or maintenance.
In some cases, shippers are planning to program trucks to form wind-resistant platoons on the road, potentially saving millions of dollars in fuel. But the most radical transformation will likely be a drastic reduction in labor, which could save shippers billions of dollars annually, according to some projections.
Close to 100,000 Pennsylvanians drive big rigs for a living. And while the expanding use of automation and driverless vehicles will certainly affect the industry nationally, the impact could be especially widespread in central and northeast Pennsylvania.
According to Oxford Economics, close to 40,000 people work in transportation in the Lehigh Valley market, accounting for more than a quarter of the job market. Roughly 70% of jobs added in Scranton, Pennsylvania since 1990 are in the transportation industry, with similar figures in Reading and Lebanon.
And CoStar data shows developers have added more than 63 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space throughout this region since 2010.
Annual salaries for Pennsylvania truckers average around $45,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, making it one of the region's highest paying positions for those without a college education.
Many secondary markets in Pennsylvania were previously battered in the early 2000's when outsourcing and automation eliminated several thousand manufacturing jobs. The recession struck just a few years later, eliminating close to 12,500 jobs in Scranton alone, and Costar shows that most of these markets only returned to pre-recession employment levels in 2018.
While widespread job displacement among truckers likely won't occur overnight, if pilot programs prove successful, its progress will likely become relentless. A 2018 Goldman Sachs report estimates that once fully implemented, automated driving could eliminate 25,000 jobs a month.
And if history is any guide, displaced workers without college degrees will struggle to transition into new careers. Retraining programs have proven troublingly ineffective. A 2016 Department of Labor survey found that 30% of displaced manufacturing workers were unable to find new positions, and opted to drop out of the labor force or go on disability.
2018 Economic Impacts of Commercial Real Estate Development (Video)
Class A Office Asking Rates Hit All-Time High in Greater Philadelphia Region
by Steve Lubetkin, Globest.com
Class A asking rates throughout the region hit an all-time high of $30 per square foot, propped up heavily by the Central Business District and the Philadelphia suburbs, according to first quarter 2019 office market report.
"Landlords typically prefer to see demand before increasing rents and last year was a record year for demand. As a result, landlords responded accordingly and asking rents spiked at the start of 2019. Enhancing this trend is the high level of investment activity in the office sector, with landlords expecting increased returns."
During the first quarter, however, the net absorption rate decreased by 19,467 square feet from the previous quarter as a result of corporate downsizing, although this was largely canceled out by positive demand growth in the surrounding suburbs, most notably in Northern Delaware.
"The decrease in occupancy did not come as a surprise, as large tenants continue to reduce their footprints or consolidate their employees within a single location," says Cauffman.
On the capital markets front, the record sale of 1735 Market Street in Center City, Philadelphia helped keep office sales volume for the first quarter in the metro area in-line with recent quarterly figures. Other notable deals during the first quarter included the sale of Spring Mill Corporate Center in Conshohocken for $131 per square foot and Valley Forge Park Place for $106 per square foot.
Net-Lease Blue Bell CVS Trades Hands at Almost $7M
The sale of a CVS store, a 10,125-square-foot triple-net lease property with a new 18-year lease, was arranged at 1799 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell, PA. The asset sold for $6.8 million at a 5.4% cap rate.
The seller was a private developer that built the store in 1999 and had owned it ever since.
"This transaction shows the strength of the tenant and the location..The buyer was in a 1031 exchange and paid full price for the asset, because they understood the value of the property and this location."
The CVS is a drive-through location with 47 parking spaces, situated on a major retail corridor running between East Norriton to Montgomeryville.
Camden Tower gets new name
Natalie Kostelni Reporter Philadelphia Business Journal
The owners of the newly developed Camden Tower, a $245 million, 395,000-square-foot office building along Camden's waterfront, have given the structure a new name: Triad1828 Centre.
Affiliates of NFI Corp., Conner Strong & Buckelew, and the Michaels Organization own the building. Liberty Property Trust sold the partnership the development rights. It will house each of their headquarters and the companies. Their combined 1,000 employees are expected to move in this June. The companies are currently headquartered in nearby South Jersey towns and the development of Triad1828 is part of a series of other buildings that have been constructed in recent years in the city.
Full story: https://tinyurl.com/Camden4-2019
CRE Capital Markets Update (Video)
Investing in real estate with REIT's (Video)
Two Chestnut Street Redevelopment Sites trade for $21M
by Steve Lubetkin, Globet.com
The sale of two redevelopment sites on the 4200 block of Chestnut Street in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia we arranged. 4233 Chestnut Street, a 37,627 SF parcel and 4219-4223 Chestnut Street, a 12,441 SF parcel are both zoned CMX-4, which is favorable for multifamily, student housing or mixed-use development.
University City has experienced significant development recently. According to the University City District's 2019 report: "in the past year, 26 new development projects in University City opened their doors or made significant progress towards completion. Together, this represents 4.5+/- million square feet of office, residential, academic, research, restaurant and medical space that will enhance the neighborhood's already robust inventory."
"University City is one of the strongest markets in Philadelphia. We continue to see the growth of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University driving the demand for housing in this submarket and driving growth and redevelopment further west."
The University City submarket has excellent occupancy and is one of the most walkable and bikeable neighborhoods in Philadelphia. Both sites are within walking distance to parks, cafes, and restaurants, as well as to SEPTA's Market/Frankford train line to Center City, Philadelphia.
"Trends being seen in University City include growing household incomes and a growing job market. There is a rising demand for quality market-rate housing."
Jako Enterprises Leases 4-Star Warehouse in Philadelphia
Jako Enterprises, a local apparel retailer, leased Ricatto Property Management's 4-Star warehouse in Philadelphia.
The 201,456-square-foot facility at 7601 State Road comprises 16 loading docks, one drive-in bay, 60- by 55-foot column spacing and a 26-foot clear ceiling height. Built in 1968 and renovated in 1977, the building spans 8.3 acres less than a mile from the Holmesburg Junction train station.
Commercial Real Estate Design Trends from Perkins+Will (Video)
84-Unit Montgomery County MF Package Sells for $8.56M
The $8.56 million sale of 84 multifamily units in the Applegate Apartments and Applecore Apartments traded in Montgomery County.
Applegate Apartments, 72 units, is located at 434 West Vine Street in Hatfield, PA. Applecore Apartments, with 12 units, is located at 464, 472, and 480 2nd Street in Souderton, PA. Both towns are known for being excellent suburban locations and close to major employment centers.
The buyer, a limited liability company that was not identified. The buyer plans to begin renovations to upgrade the property and increase rents, so they are more in-line with the market.
"Value-add multifamily is still in high demand. Buyers are willing to accept low current returns for an opportunity to improve a property and generate higher rents."
The seller was a family trust, also not identified. They had owned the property for decades.
"The seller was the second generation of the original developer of the property, who had owned it for 48 years," says Townsend.
24-Unit MF Property Changes Hands in Allentown, PA
by Steve Lubetkin Globest.com
Mountain Lane Apartments, a three building, 24-unit apartment property was sold at 2901 Ithaca Street, Allentown, PA, consisting of three 1-bedroom units, nineteen 2-bedroom units and two 3-bedroom units. The buyer, seller, and financial terms were not disclosed.
The seller was an individual/personal trust, who had owned the property for 21 years. The team also secured and represented the buyer, a private company. The buyer plans to renovate all the units and address the capital improvement needs of the complex in order to increase rents substantially.
"This transaction shows the strength of the Lehigh Valley market and the overall apartment market, given how quickly the property was approached by investors and the speed at which it went under contract. Investors from New York and Philadelphia are starting to look toward the Lehigh Valley as a means to obtain higher yields where demographics continue to improve, and development is picking up."
Cash on Cash Return - Commercial Real Estate Investing Return Metrics (Video)
The National, Mixed-Use Multifamily, Opens in Former Restaurant Supply Company Site
The National, a 220,000 square foot, 192-unit mixed use apartment building, has opened in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood, adjacent to Elfreth's Alley, a historic landmark and one of the most heavily foot-trafficked sites in Philadelphia.
The Harman Group, which specializes in structural engineering and parking planning and design, provided structural engineering services for the six-story project. The project was developed by The Buccini/Pollin Group in partnership with AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust and designed by architect BartonPartners.
"We are honored to be a part of the team who brought this historic location back to life," say Jason Squitiere, associate and project manager at The Harman Group. "The Harman Group's extensive mixed use and historic renovation experience allowed us to determine the best structural systems for the building's different uses, so we could optimize the amenity, retail, and residential spaces for Old City."
The structural system designed by The Harman Group used structural steel for the first floor and parking garage, supporting cold-formed bearing walls and wood trusses for the upper five floors. THG also provided parking planning consultation to the architect.
The National features 4,000 square feet of retail and amenity spaces on the first floor, sweeping views of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Delaware River and a two-level underground parking garage with space for 60 cars. At the northwest corner of the site, the former parking lot has been transformed into a public park for residents and visitors to Elfreth's Alley.
The former National Products Company site has a deep history in Philadelphia and is recognized by the Philadelphia Historic Commission for its iconic orange tile façade, which was remarkably replicated in the new facade on the North 2nd Street elevation. The new building pays homage to the site's former occupant by including the original stainless-steel sign from the restaurant supply building.
Equity Multiple for Commercial Real Estate Investing (Video)
Strategic 2019 Real Estate Decisions (Video)
Endurance Acquires 243K SF Hazleton, PA Industrial
An affiliate of Endurance Real Estate Group and CenterSquare Investment Management have acquired 594 Can Do Expressway, a 242,960 square foot, 32-foot clear warehouse/distribution building located in Hazleton, PA from Quad Graphics, for a price industry sources was probably between $6 and $7 million.
"594 DC is a great value-add/redevelopment lease-up play that fits within Endurance's long-term sweet spot of re-positioning well-located, functional excess corporate real estate assets."
"As part of the re-branding and kickoff of our planned multi-million dollar renovation project, we are renaming the building the 594 Distribution Center. We will be commencing our planned improvements later this month and expect to have our re-positioning completed by the end of third quarter."
Part of the planned improvements at the building include the installation of a new roof, the addition of thirteen dock doors on the eastern side of the building, installation of an ESFR sprinkler system, new LED lighting throughout the warehouse area and various office, paving and landscaping improvements. At the completion of the Building renovation, the project will provide a total of 24 loading doors, one drive-in door, 20 trailer spots and 185 parking spaces.
594 DC is located just one mile from Exit 143 of I-81. This location offers excellent transportation links to Interstate Highways and is within 250 miles of most major markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. As part of the eastern and central Pennsylvania industrial market, the northeast Pennsylvania industrial market is an established center for national retail distribution and consumer goods companies in the Eastern United States.
While primarily successful as a big-box market in past years, there has been a recent uptick in tenant requirements in the 100-300,000 square-foot range. The Northeast Pennsylvania Industrial Market development pipeline of industrial projects has very little planned to accommodate those requirements in class A buildings. 594 DC will offer tenants a quality option with state-of-the-art design specifications, at a lower cost than its class A competitors.
Monthly Economic Outlook — April 2019 (Video)
How Do REITs Work? (Video)
Agree Realty CEO: Don't look at retail in a binary framer (Video) #CNBC
Carlyle/Alterra JV Acquires Commonwealth MF in Philadelphia
A joint venture partnership of The Carlyle Group and Alterra Property Group has acquired The Commonwealth, a 98-unit, high-rise apartment building at 1201 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. The dollar amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
"We have seen a significant uptick in interest for core-plus properties in the Philadelphia region. This was a great opportunity for investors to buy a core-plus building at an attractive basis with upside in one of the best locations in Center City Philadelphia. With a lack of velocity of core-plus deals of this size in the area, the property drew significant interest from local, regional and national investors. We conducted 31 tours of the property, which resulted in offers from 18 different companies."
The Commonwealth was originally constructed in 1906 and underwent a full restoration in 2012 completed by Alterra Property Group. The property's Midtown Village location has earned it a Walk Score® of 99.
The 15-story building consists of 98 residential units averaging 711 square feet and 8,247 square feet of ground-floor retail. Units feature stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, European maple cabinetry, wood plank flooring and full-size washers and dryers. The residential component is 99% occupied and the retail component is fully leased to 7-Eleven and Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co. for the American sports clothing company's only brick and mortar location.
Ag-Tech and what it means for the Commercial Real Estate Industry (Video)
Alexandria Real Estate CEO breaks down what ag-tech means from CNBC.
Keystone Begins Construction of SORA West in Conshohocken
Keystone Property Group has begun construction of SORA West, a mixed-use, transit-oriented development in Conshohocken, PA that will house the new global corporate headquarters of AmerisourceBergen.
The global healthcare solutions company is relocating to an 11-story, 429,122-square foot office tower that will serve as an anchor for the wider SORA West development.
Designed by Gensler Architects, the office tower is the first step in building the multi-faceted, transit-oriented development centered around a vibrant public plaza. The plaza will be framed by the 200-foot tower, a 165-key hotel with rooftop restaurant and lounge, a 1,500+-space parking structure to support these facilities, and the existing 139-year-old Conshohocken Firehouse, which will be recreated as a gastropub with an indoor/outdoor experience.
"This marks a momentous occasion for both the development of SORA West and the borough of Conshohocken, as we begin to realize the collective vision of borough leaders, the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, and Keystone," says Keystone Property Group CEO Bill Glazer. "The tower that begins to rise today will serve not only as a headquarters for a globally recognized, innovative company like AmerisourceBergen, but a centerpiece for a wider, mixed-use development that can fuel a new sense of vibrancy and economic growth in the borough for decades to come. "
AmerisourceBergen is among the largest pharmaceutical distributors in the world, providing a critical link between manufacturers and healthcare providers. The company was most recently ranked #12 on the annual Fortune 500 list, with more than $160 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 21,000 workers across 50 countries worldwide.
The company will bring associates from two existing Pennsylvania locations into the downtown Conshohocken office tower, serving as its sole tenant. Occupancy is expected to begin in 2021.
"Today's groundbreaking brings me great pride because it's a tangible example of our commitment to our associates and the greater Philadelphia community," says Steve Collis, chairman, president and CEO of AmerisourceBergen. "I believe that we have the best workforce in the industry, and I cannot wait to see what our future holds, especially as we continue to draw the best and brightest talent from this wonderful region. Through the AmerisourceBergen Foundation's hyper-local grant program, we will deepen our connections in the community and partner on initiatives that support the health and vibrancy of our region."
The AmerisourceBergen Foundation, the nonprofit charitable giving arm of AmerisourceBergen, launched a hyper-local grant program that will provide funding to community-based organizations within a five to ten-mile radius of the new headquarters.
Tenants at SORA West will enjoy convenient connections throughout Eastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, from the adjacent Conshohocken SEPTA train station. The property is also located in proximity to Routes 76 and 476.
Keystone was named developer of the site in 2013 after an RFP process administered by the Borough and the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority (RDA).
SORA West is the latest large-scale mixed-use project developed by Keystone. Its portfolio also includes Washington Square, Philadelphia, PA, which is bounded by three iconic, historic properties developed by Keystone: the Curtis, the Washington, and 100 Independence Mall West. The Curtis is an historic publishing landmark in Center City Philadelphia reimagined as a dining, shopping, residential and commercial destination, and nearby 100 Independence Mall West, the future home of Macquarie Investments, has been transformed with a dynamic indoor/outdoor experience for pedestrians, with the popular Independence Beer Garden and a La Colombe coffee café.
Additional info: MoreThanTheCurve.com confirmed Friday that the Zavino Hospitality Group will be the operator of an eventual restaurant that will open within the historic firehouse located at SORA West in Conshohocken.
3 REITS Providing Above-Average Dividends (Video)
Global Uncertainty Creates REIT Investment Opportunities (Video)
H&M Expands in Pottstown, PA
H & M, Hennes and Mauritz, one of the world's largest fashion retailers, famous for offering fashion-forward apparel at affordable prices in a sustainable way, will open a new location this summer in Pottstown, PA.
Measuring approximately 23,000 square feet, the new location at Philadelphia Premium Outlets is set to open in the summer of 2019.
The new H&M location will offer Pottstown residents a one-stop shopping destination for quality clothing for the whole family, with collections for ladies, men and teens, as well as separate "store within a store" sections for accessories. The Philadelphia Premium Outlets location will also carry the H&M Kids collection for newborns to 14-year-olds.
H&M will add 20 employees at the new store and will continue a corporate commitment to sustainability. In 2013, H&M launched Garment Collecting, an in-store clothing recycling project and was the first global fashion company to implement such a program. In 2018, H&M U.S. diverted more than three million pounds of unwanted textiles from landfills.
Timing of SOFR Transition Likely to Be Staggered (Video)
The Stoler Report - The Current State of Retail in the Region (Video)
Charter school pays nearly $14M for former Crown Holdings HQ
Isaac Newton Foundation Inc., an affiliate of MAST Community Charter School, has paid $13.7 million to buy One Crown Way, the former 238,000-square-foot headquarters of Crown Holdings Inc. in Northeast Philadelphia, according to property records.
The building and its 40 acres were sold by One Crown Properties LLC, which is affiliated with Simone Realty Inc. of Lawrenceville, N.J. It had acquired the property at 12345 Roosevelt Blvd. in 2017 for $9 million.
MAST intends to use the property for a third location and what it refers to as MAST III. It will start out this fall as a kindergarten through eighth grade school and over time expand to include a high school as well, according to the school's website.
This will serve as the charter school's third location. Its MAST II school will relocate to 6501 New State Road this fall from the former St. Williams Catholic School, MAST's original location is at 1800 Byberry Road. A representative from MAST wasn't immediately available for comment.
Charter schools in the city and suburbs are frequent buyers of real estate and may become an even bigger part of the real estate sector if proposed federal educational funding programs are altered under the current administration. The ability for a charter school to buy real estate was granted by Pennsylvania beginning in 2002. Prior to then, a third party or foundation affiliated with the school was required to purchase any real estate the charter would own. The state began issuing charters in 1997.
Full story: https://tinyurl.com/y5s5qth3
9-building Center City portfolio sells
A portfolio of nine Center City apartment buildings accumulated over the last roughly 50 years has sold for $28 million.
The seller was Stolker Properties and the buyer was PMC Property Group. Both are Philadelphia real estate companies. The properties sold were: 1329 Lombard St.; 415-417 S. 10th St.; 1634-36-38 Lombard St.; and 1825, 1912 and 2011 Spruce St. Combined, the buildings had 100 apartment units, a commercial unit and four dedicated parking spaces.
Portfolios of this nature seldom come up for sale in Center City and, as a result of that, they often garner a tremendous amount of interest. The Stolker portfolio was not an exception. Nearly 200 confidentiality agreements were signed, 75 tours given and more than 20 offers were made. It was put up for sale last fall.
Full story: https://tinyurl.com/y33g9c5y
End of LIBOR Forces REITs to Examine Contract Language (Video)
The Stoler Report - The Industrial & Logistics CRE Market (Video)
Life Time Fitness to add 45,000 square feet, co-working in KoP
By Natalie Kostelni – Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Life Time Fitness Inc. is planning to expand its King of Prussia facility to include its Life Time Work concept.
The Minnesota-based health club chain is proposing to construct a two-story, 45,000-square-foot building that would house co-working space next to its facility on Swedesford Road and Old Eagle School Road. It is also proposing to expand its parking, something that members say is sorely needed at the existing facility.
Earlier this year, Life Time Fitness paid $4.9 million for a 5.38-acre parcel at 750 E. Swedesford Rd. that sits adjacent to its existing King of Prussia property. That is where the company plans to build the addition.
In 2015, Life Time bought 14.5 acres from CertainTeed Corp. and built a $30 million, 150,000-square-foot resort-style Life Time Athletic fitness facility on the site that opened in June 2017. It has attracted hundreds of members and considered a success, according to people familiar with it.
Full story: http://tinyurl.com/y6gldlr9
The Stoler Report - CRE Investment Sales Update (Video)
Apartment complex at former Destination Maternity site to break ground
When Alliance HSP breaks ground at the end of this month on an apartment building at Sono, it will be the culmination of a five-year effort to redevelop the Northern Liberties property.
It will also highlight how much has changed at that corner of the city over that time and the property's redevelopment is both a reflection and cause of that. The development, called Sono, also evolved, underscoring how initial ideas sometimes don't pan out.
When the Bryn Mawr real estate firm bought the 220,000-square-foot building at 5th and Spring Garden streets for $14 million in the fall of 2014, the company had plans to turn it into creative office space. That idea wasn't embraced by the market but may have been ahead of its time. During that same period, Arts and Crafts Holdings, a Philadelphia real estate company, has been gobbling up properties in and around Sono and a few blocks away, creating an emerging office submarket. Nonetheless, the lack of office activity at the property prompted Alliance HSP to shift gears.
Full story: http://tinyurl.com/y2h2obeb
www.omeagare.com
Cap Rate Calculation - Commercial Real Estate (Video)
Opportunity Zones Investment Strategies (Video)
Cost Segregation Strategies with Bedford (Video)
ReNew REIT Gets $159M From KeyBank to Acquire Senior Housing, Including 3 in PA
KeyBank Real Estate Capital's Healthcare Lending platform provided ReNew Investors and affiliated entities more than $159 million in acquisition financing comprised of $85 million in Fannie Mae loans, $16 million in Freddie Mac loans and a $58 million bridge loan, to acquire eight seniors housing communities in a series of four separate transactions.
The acquired properties total 813 units including independent living, assisted living and memory care in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Toledo, OH-based ReNew is a privately held company investing in independent living, assisted living and memory care communities.
KeyBank did not disclose the names and locations of the facilities involved in the transactions, but according to Real Capital Analytics, a proprietary research database that tracks commercial real estate transactions, ReNew acquired three properties in Pennsylvania in February 2019 using Fannie Mae financing of at least $55 million, the 137-unit Keystone Villa at Ephrata, 100 N State St Ephrata, PA; 125 units at Keystone Village at Fleetwood, 501 Hoch Rd., Blandon, PA; and 247 units of senior housing at Keystone Villa at Douglasville, 1152 Benjamin Franklin Hwy., Douglassville, PA. The three properties were acquired from Capital Health Group, Media, PA.
The Real Capital Analytics database did not list transactions in Michigan and Virginia that could be connected to the KeyBank financing.
KeyBank established a corporate lending relationship with ReNew in 2018 acting as lead arranger and administrative agent for the company's inaugural $100 million corporate credit facility, which was subsequently increased to $150 million in December 2018. The recent financings are consistent with Key's approach of tailoring capital solutions to client's needs and includes balance sheet lending (corporate financing, bridge lending) and permanent commercial mortgage solutions (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Life. Co, FHA). The recent financings were comprised of a mix of attractive fixed- and floating-rate debt all with extended interest-only payments, which allows ReNew to maintain a low cost of capital.
Laura Conway and Brandon Taseff of Key's Institutional Real Estate Healthcare Group led the financing of the balance sheet lending products and teamed with Charlie Shoop of Key's Healthcare Banking Commercial Mortgage Group who arranged the permanent financing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
IRR vs. NPV - Commercial Real Estate (Video)
Philadelphia's Lehigh Valley Retail Submarket Maintains Growth and Momentum
Close to 20,000 square feet of retail space in Trexlertown was filled this week, after signing three tenants to move into vacant spaces in the suburban Philadelphia suburb.
The new tenants include the Pittsburgh-based Steel City Gyro, Mavis Tire and Supply and Active Learning Center.
The uptick in leasing interest is partly due to the nearby Hamilton Crossing, a fully occupied shopping center leased to major tenants including Dick's Sporting Goods, Target and Whole Foods. The center has spurred additional retail interest across the area.
Hamilton Crossing's success and Trexlertown's growth are positive signs for the Lehigh Valley market, which continues to maintain growth and momentum. The market's retail vacancy rate is under 4 percent, and unlike nearby central and northeast Pennsylvania markets, developers haven't shied away from bringing new space to the market.
Nearly 2 million square feet of new developments has been added to the market since 2010, during a period when new growth was slowed across the country. Further bolstering the region's forecast are strong economic and population growth tailwinds. The Lehigh Valley market has a high concentration of wealthy suburbs with average annual incomes over $100,000 and strong buying power. The region has added close to 40,000 jobs since 2010, while the nearby Scranton and Reading markets have only added about 30,000 jobs combined.
New residents have flocked to the area due to the increase in jobs, and Lehigh's population climbed to nearly 20,000 since 2010. Downtown Allentown's revitalization has attracted national attention, and the area is also building up trendy, modern multifamily communities.
Colony Capital Acquires LogistiCenter at Midway for $79.5 Million in Bethel PA
Global real estate and investment management firm Colony Capital purchased a 4-Star warehouse in Bethel, Pennsylvania, from Dermody Properties. LogistiCenter at Midway sold for $79.58 million, or about $74 per square foot.
The 1.08 million-square-foot facility at 270 Midway Road comprises 222 loading docks and levelators, four drive-in bays, 54- by 50-foot column spacing and a 36-foot clear ceiling height. Developed by the seller in 2018, the single-story structure spans nearly 74 acres adjacent to I-78.
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY) currently has more than $43 billion in assets under management, according to its website.
REIT Sector Performance Update (Video) Pt2
AutoLenders is Launching First PA Dealership in Exton
AutoLenders will move into Pennsylvania with its first dealership, following the acquisition of 305 W. Lincoln Highway in Exton, PA.
The 33,000 square foot modern auto dealership facility occupies 7.3 acres at a highly trafficked and newly signalized intersection in the growing Exton market of Chester County in Philadelphia's Western Suburbs. The site was formerly Otto's BMW and then MINI of Exton, and will continue to operate as an automobile sales and service facility.
AutoLenders opened in 1990 and has grown into New Jersey's number one volume pre-owned car dealership chain, with 6 locations and a 75,000 square-foot reconditioning and certification center in Central and Southern New Jersey. AutoLenders uses its direct relationships with regional banks to cherry pick the best pre-owned, one-owner vehicles.
Additional sites in the tri-state region are being sought for the firm's expansion plan.
Executive Personal Computers Inks Deal at Leigh Va...
REITs View Opportunity Zones as Source of Long-Ter...
Misfits Market Inks Deal for New Headquarters in P...
Arrival of Driverless Vehicles Looming Large Over ...
2018 Economic Impacts of Commercial Real Estate De...
Class A Office Asking Rates Hit All-Time High in G...
Two Chestnut Street Redevelopment Sites trade for ...
Jako Enterprises Leases 4-Star Warehouse in Philad...
Commercial Real Estate Design Trends from Perkins+...
Cash on Cash Return - Commercial Real Estate Inves...
The National, Mixed-Use Multifamily, Opens in Form...
Equity Multiple for Commercial Real Estate Investi...
Agree Realty CEO: Don't look at retail in a binary...
Carlyle/Alterra JV Acquires Commonwealth MF in Phi...
Ag-Tech and what it means for the Commercial Real...
Keystone Begins Construction of SORA West in Consh...
Global Uncertainty Creates REIT Investment Opportu...
Timing of SOFR Transition Likely to Be Staggered (...
The Stoler Report - The Current State of Retail in...
Charter school pays nearly $14M for former Crown H...
End of LIBOR Forces REITs to Examine Contract Lang...
The Stoler Report - The Industrial & Logistics CRE...
Life Time Fitness to add 45,000 square feet, co-wo...
The Stoler Report - CRE Investment Sales Update (V...
Apartment complex at former Destination Maternity ...
ReNew REIT Gets $159M From KeyBank to Acquire Seni...
Philadelphia's Lehigh Valley Retail Submarket Main...
Colony Capital Acquires LogistiCenter at Midway fo...


High performance caching allows your blog to serve pages faster.
Our WordPress Auto-Update System will install the latest version of these Plugins whenever they are updated. Please do not customize or deactivate any of the pre-installed Plugins as your changes would be erased when our Auto-Update System writes over your revised version of the plugin with an updated version.


The doctors and staff of Grace Medical Care recognize that you have made, or are in the process of making a serious decision. We are dedicated to providing you with individualized attention and care to help you and your family through the entire process. You may need special support or want family members included in your care. Support group information is available for you and family members. We will assist with these and any other referrals that you request.
Grace Medical Care has access to community resources that may assist in addressing your needs. Our doctors and staff will partner with your genetic counselors and/or private physicians to ensure that all appropriate genetic and other specialized testing is performed.
Fortunately, the need to consider therapeutic termination of pregnancy is not frequent. In the rare, special circumstances that the decision is made to have a therapeutic abortion, you need and deserve to be cared for by specialists who understand your unique needs and will provide high quality medical care in a compassionate, confidential, and caring office environment.


Web is a essential internet service that allows , and to ascertain a cybernetic presence on the World Wide Web. Through web hosting, can create personal web that hand out as a sketch page which can be cyber- by and upcoming . Moreover, it can be used as an contact fact for client contact, networking or merely as a means to meet extra inhabitants through the internet. For entities on the further hand, web military create an electronic channel that allow their various to approach company aid, programs and pertinent corporate releases in the unbiased of establishing a computer-generated database, an information network or an different ditch for commercial accomplishments. .A web hosting contract generally the civic amenities of a web provider (called the web host) and a client (termed the user).
Under a usual set-up, the web host is a company that owns and operates a waitperson. The web host generally ma�®tre d'h�´tel space as well as internet connectivity to the user. A more intricate and costly web hosting service is termed as colocation. Under this understanding, the client is the landlord of the server and the web host just provides visceral space for the client's headwaiter while depiction related methodical service support. .Hosting gas station are existing in different categories to scope from free, billboard-supported which imperfect to the user; the cost-applicable pooled type of hosting that provides shared customer services among uncommon clients; and down to the more specialist of web which includes and clustered .
.First, to see if you can use low-priced web hosting you need to know how much disk space you will need. How corpulent is your website? How many pages, audiovisual files, song , etc. do you need? Second, a parsimonious web company will need to know how busy your sight will be. If your site is working to have a lot of friends, scurvy web hosting may not be for you.
Third, how many email balance sheet do you need? Cheap web hosting companies do not usually plan many. Lastly, how much are you willing to spend? Cheap web is not as literal as the more expensive web hosting. .If you go online, you can find a list of the top 10 discounted web companies. The top 10 despicable web companies are rated by their charge, quality, and service so long as. The reduced web hosting companies are priced between $4.
95 and $19.95 a . The inexpensive web hosting company's penalty varies on what kind of things you need. The disk space in case can be from 3000MB to 5000MB. The bandwidth varies from 40GB to 300GB.
If this is not abundant for you, then a substandard web company is not an possibility for you. Most of bargain-basement web companies offer free set up. This will make things much for you. Be perceptive of low-cost web hosting that offers unrestricted disk space. If it too good to be true, then it undoubtedly is. .
The top 10 web hosting companies are: Blue Host, Power Hosting, Pages Garden, Pro Logic Hosting, Easy CGI, Gigabyte Package, Yahoo! Hosting, iPower Web, Lunar , and Dot5 Web Hosting. All of these are very stingy web companies. You will find them registered at top10webhosting.com. At this you will also find customer testimonials and systematic guide about the inferior web hosting company's service industries they offer to you. .
For those of you who still ponder that this is not close-fisted web , you can also find free web . It still comes with a value, in spite of this. Comcast offers free web hosting to anyone who subscribes to internet service. You still have to pay for the internet service, but the web hosting is free.


The world is currently experiencing a revolution. With technology constantly advancing, the contemporary business landscape is now defined by rapid innovation. Advances in Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things have enabled companies to become lean, agile, and efficient competitors in the global market. Indeed, the promise of a digital future has convinced organizations across all industry segments to adopt more technology-focused business strategies.
Technology has become a competitive differentiator in today's global market. With the pace of this innovation bound to increase, it is now more important than ever to invest in world-class technology talent. That is where we come in. Our Practice is committed to helping clients win in the digital age.


text:
RiverNewsNow
TRIA Renewal Is A Matter Of Public Good
Written by NAPSI
Washington, DC (NAPSI) - Most people have some kind of insurance to provide financial protection for their car, their home or their health. And this insurance covers the things we hope never happen, such as a tree falling through the window after a particularly windy storm. But did you know that in theU.S. we also have insurance for acts of terrorism?
Following 9/11, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) was signed into law and created a public/private partnership to aid in the recovery of potential future financial losses after a terrorist attack. The program was renewed by Congress in 2005 and 2007 but is set to expire on December 31, 2014.
An expiration of the TRIA program means that if another large-scale terrorist attack hits the U.S., a huge economic toll would be placed on American companies. One estimate shows that an attack with weapons of mass destruction could result in $250 billion in insured losses—nearly equal to the total insurance capacity of the entire U.S. commercial property and casualty sector.
The insurance industry and many in government are fighting for TRIA's renewal, noting that the program protects companies from being wiped out economically after an attack-at virtually no cost to the taxpayer. Senators from Conn., Ill., Nev. and N.Y. issued a statement of bipartisan support earlier this month, and dozens of major corporations ranging from Verizon to Hilton Worldwide have sent a letter to Congress urging a swift renewal to protect the economy.
"The fact of the matter is, we can't predict when or where the next terrorist attack will occur," said Keith Wolfe, a managing director at Swiss Re, a reinsurer that insures insurance companies. "Potential losses are limited only by the imagination of terrorists. We need TRIA to help America get back on its feet faster if there is another attack, and to limit the disruption of business."
According to the Insurance Information Institute, the total insured loss of $32.5 billion ($42.1 billion in 2012 dollars) from 9/11 was the largest terrorism loss on record and remains many multiples ahead of any other terrorist attack loss. If insurance companies were to cover those losses without government support, they would be wiped out and unable to insure the fires, car accidents and storm damage upon which millions of people in the U.S. rely.
"The enactment of TRIA allowed a private insurance market for terrorism coverage to develop where it otherwise would not have," said Charles M. Chamness, president and CEO of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. "Without a single dollar having been paid to an insurer by the federal government, TRIA has made it possible for more businesses, large and small, to protect themselves from terrorism."
Reauthorization of TRIA is important for all Americans because a terrorist act on any target in the U.S. would induce a shock to our economy that would be felt throughout the country.
River News
EPA Releases PFAS Groundwater Guidance for Federal Cleanup Programs, Fulfilling PFAS Action Plan Commitment
EPA Offers Existing Owners of Upstream Oil and Natural Gas Facilities the Opportunity to Perform Self-Audits to Return to Compliance
Kansas Man Pleads Guilty to Murder for Killing a Woman on a Cruise Ship
EPA announces $26 million cleanup of Grand Calumet River in Northwest Indiana
EPA Announces $14 Million to Reduce Excess Nutrients and Stormwater Pollution in the Great Lakes
Study finds climate determines shapes of river basins
Town Hall To Discuss Modernization of the Columbia River Treaty Regime
11th Annual Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival Returns October 11 - 14
Launching Negotiations to Modernize the Columbia River Treaty Regime
Denver Summer Festival Guide
Lost-No-More App
Tips On Finding A Place To Put Sparkle Into The Golden Years
Nimbus Hatchery Fish Ladder to Open
Skip The Gym And Get Fit At Home In 2014
Tips To Help You Save Hundreds Of Dollars
New Device Lets You Keep An Eye On Your Infant from Your Smartphone Or Tablet
Summertime Safety Tips For The Home And On The Road
Holiday Travel: Save Time, Trouble, Money
Rare Opportunity To Prepare For Hurricane Season
Preparation For Icy Weather: More Critical Than Ever
© 2020 RiverNewsNow