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Location Visit: Spider-Man Homecoming at Coney Island
08/05/2019 Lego Loki Filming Location, Marvel, Places 0
The final battle between Spider-Man and Vulture in Spider-Man Homecoming takes place on the beach at Coney Island, and I paid it a visit myself!
Coney Island, with it's iconic Cyclone roller coaster, has long played a part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It has been mentioned several times by Captain America and his friend Bucky Barnes as a favourite haunt of theirs in the past, but Spider-Man Homecoming is the first time it has been represented on the screen.
The plane carrying many items belonging to Tony Stark crashes on the beach.
Debris and fires from the downed plane litters the beach, and then the Vulture attacks!
The famous Coney Island Wonder Wheel is visible in the background
Spider-man takes refuge at the top of the famous Cyclone roller coaster
While I assume the majority of the shots of Coney Island in Spider-Man Homecoming were CGI recreations, it is a wonderful location for any MCU fan to visit.
Not only will you get to see where Captain America once threw up after Sergeant Barnes forced him to ride the Cyclone, but it is also a glorious day out, walking along the magnificent boardwalk in the sun. Not only will you recognise it from the MCU, but countless other films and television shows.
It was incredibly easy to travel to Coney Island from Manhattan. I believe I took the F subway train to West 8 Street-New York Aquarium station, as this is the closest one to the Cyclone, and as much of the journey was above ground it was a very interesting journey despite its length. Highly recommended!
Filming Location - Spider-man Homecoming
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Location Visit: Avengers Headquarters at the University of East Anglia
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LEGO Avengers Age Of Ultron Poster
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This wider tungsten ring features brushed centerline and tapered edges. Unlike other brushed designs we wanted to make this a little different by not extending the brushed area right to the tapered edges. By bringing it in a little, it actually makes for quite a strikingly different ring. Love it!
You were seeking a dual tone men's ring.


4BR Luxury Lakefront Cottage La Casa Resort Kelowna Sleeps up to 10!
4 BR Cottage at La Casa Resort. This property is right at the very bottom and only a few steps down to the boat launch and beach. Enjoy the fantastic unobstructed views of Lake Okanagan on the oversized front deck. Later in the day, there's also a back deck should you choose to follow the sun.
This unit will easily sleep 3 couples and there's another small den/office where a couple of small children could sleep. Only recently completed it has stainless steel appliances throughout, Sealy beds, a 37' Toshiba LCD TV, Sony DVD Home Theatre and a 78,000 BTU Gas BBQ.
4th Bedroom recently added with 2 twin beds suitable for 2 children.
Perfect for families that want to get away and relax. At the resort there is also a community pool and Jacuzzi, mini golf course, children's play area, general store and restaurant.
For those who enjoy wine, local British Columbia wineries offer fantastic wine tours and wine tastings. There are over fourteen wineries within a one hour drive of LaCasa Resort including Mission Hill, Summer hill Pyramid Winery, and Gray Monk Cellars. Kelowna hosts a Spring and Fall Wine Festival accompanied by great food and unique events.
In the winter there is tons of great skiing nearby. La Casa Resort is about an hour away from Big White Ski Resort and Silver Star Mountain Resort.
If you're into hiking or ATV'ing. There's several great trails at the back of the resort that will keep you occupied for hours.
Beautiful spot! We enjoyed ourselves so much !
Very nice place and location. Unfortunately it was short a few necessities such as toilet paper, dishwasher soap, and towels with which to dry the dishes.
Although an email was sent regarding these over sites, the deficiencies were not rectified.
Lovely cottage with a great view.
The cottage is in a great location with a beautiful view. We were a group of five ladies for a weekend away, and the single beds worked for our needs, although more geared for children. We really enjoyed the balcony and the "walk" up to the pool. I would echo another reviewer's suggestion for darker curtains, and the loft bedroom is especially bright as it is open to the large front windows.
I found the information provided by the owner very detailed. He was very responsive to my emails. La Casa also sent information via email which was helpful.
I would highly this cottage for a group of adults, or a family.
Perfect home away from home!
Such amazing amenities and just a short walk away! It was a perfect spot for a staycation! We were a family of 8 (2 babies, 2 toddlers, 4 adults )We live in Peachland so it wasn't far. Felt like we were farther. The house had everything we needed. It was clean and comfortable. The owners sent clear instructions on how to run the tematurr, BBQ, where the garbage is etc. They were extremely informative so we didn't need to try and figure things out.
We would stay there again in a heartbeat!
We enjoyed our stay at La Casa Cottage. The amenities around this resort are great and the view of the lake is spectacular. La Casa Cottages is located about 40 min away from Kelowna and Vernon. Make sure that you buy all of your groceries and things you may need beforehand. The road leading to the area is extremely windy - heads up if you get motion sick!
-Bedrooms are very bright! Darker blinds/dark curtains in the bedrooms would be very beneficial. The upstairs loft is quite bright in the early morning as the large windows face the morning sun and there are no blinds.
-The "fourth bedroom" really can't be advertised as a bedroom as it does not have a door.
-The pool and other amenities are quite far from the house. We had to drive our cars up to this area every time we wanted to use it. Pool was quite busy the times we were there. The cottage area could really use another one, or a bigger pool.
Glad you enjoyed your stay and thank you for the feedback!
We've always been early risers so the morning sun is always nice for us, but we will definitely take your blind suggestion into account for next season!
The 4th bedroom is really meant to be a children's room with two twin beds. It's not intended for adults although people are free to use it for that purpose.
We chose the bottom of the resort to be close to the lake as it is perfect location to be close to the marina and a 5 min walk down to the lake. There is also another pool area up top although smaller than the main one. Mid summer is a very busy time throughout the Okanagan.
Glad you enjoyed your stay!!
A great location for a family reunion!
We all loved the cottage and the location! There were 2 children aged 4 & 8 and they especially liked the pools and hot tubs. The fact that they were heated was a real plus. The cabin held 5 adults as well and there was plenty of room. The view from the balcony was spectacular and such a short distance walk to the lake. Overall, we had an excellent time. Thanks!


According to adjusted numbers published by European Commission, the indicator diminished by 15.46 percent compared with 2016. Processed fish export decreased from 168 200 kilogram in 2016 to 142 200 kilogram previous year, contrarily to the prior year when it grew by 44.63%. The overall changes for the previous 6 years attained a growth of 72.99%. Moreover, it has had an increase at a 0.18 percent CAGR over the 5 years with a slight overall rise since the 2012. It averaged 111 500 kilogram from 2012 to 2017 and it reached its all-time high of 168 200 kilogram in 2016 and record low of 63 400 kilogram in 2013.


Werewolf is a very fun bluffing game. It has been a standard part of every tech conference I've been to in the past year and a half. We know people will want to play at Ignite.
A game of Werewolf lasts about 30 minutes and is played through alternating day and night rounds. There are two teams: the Villagers and the Werewolves. At the beginning of the game people are secretly assigned roles via the Moderator. Except for the Moderator, every person is either on the Villager's side or the Werewolve's side. The werewolves hide their true nature and try to secretly kill the Villagers at "night"; the Villagers attempt to root out the Werewolves during the "day". Once a player is dead they are out for the rest of the game. The game ends when either all of the Werewolves are dead or the number of Villagers equals the number of Werewolves. The Moderator's job is to be neutral and keep the flow of the game going.
For a more complete description of the game (including a number of variants and roles I didn't cover) check out Zarfhome's page.
In addition to giving us a great write-up, Seattle's local Gothamist, Seattlest has come on board as a sponsor of Ignite. Thanks!
Here's a little bit about them: It's not a technology site. It's a city site, where we talk about local news, music, arts, eating, drinking and, since we can't help ourselves, technology.
We are pleased to announce our first sponsor: Lockergnome!
To inform, empower, and entertain – Lockergnome is here as a resource for people who are curious about the world of technology around them. Novices and experts are welcome to explore our ever-growing list of resources. Our contributors are full of passion. We will do our best to keep you informed on a daily basis. We will share your feedback, suggestions, and stories with the rest of our community whenever and wherever possible. If you seek knowledge, if you seek professional growth, if you seek information that's presented in a personal voice… you're home with Lockergnome.
Radar and Make: are going to be hosting a free geek night in Seattle, on Thursday, December 7th. Ignite Seattle will be held at the LowerLevel in Capitol Hill.
The fun will start at 6:30 with a Make: Magazine sponsored bridge building competition led by Bre Pettis. Using popsicle sticks and hot glue, each team will have 30 minutes to make a bridge. Then we'll weigh them down until each one is destroyed. The team who has the bridge that holds the most weight will win prizes. All ages welcome! Feel free to bring your own LED's, wire and batteries to make your bridge light up!
The main event will start at 8PM with a series of short talks from local volunteers in the Stage Room. The talks are all going to be five minutes long, with 20 slides that change every 15 seconds. So far Scott Berkun, Shelly Farnham, Beth Goza, Danyel Fisher, Stuart Maxwell, Justin Martenstein, Rob Flickenger among others will be speaking. Brady Forrest will be MC'ing. Sign-up in advance to get an early spot (go to Ignite Seattle and leave a comment).
In addition to having full bar, the LowerLevel has WiFi. It also has a second room (the room with the bar) so that you can take a break from the planned activity to do your own thing. Currently Buster McLeod (AKA Erik Benson) plans to lead Werewolves in there.
The goal is to have a fun night of geekery and networking. Come prepared.
Ignite is going to be a great night of makers, geeks, scientists, and innovators hanging out at the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle. The fun will start at 6:30 with a Make: Magazine sponsored bridge building competition. Using popsicle sticks and hot glue, each team will have 30 minutes to make a bridge. Then we'll weigh them down until each one is destroyed. The team who has the bridge that holds the most weight will win prizes. Stick around after the competition for some interesting presentations! All ages welcome until 10pm and then it becomes a 21 and over event.
This contest will be very informal since teams will only have 1/2 hour to make their bridges. I'm looking at the bridge building competition website and I got the above photo from http://www.garrettsbridges.com/ and I really like his style of finding how much weight a bridge will hold by putting the scale right on the bridge. Feel free to bring your own LED's, wire and batteries to make your bridge light up!
We'll be providing the popsicle sticks and some hot glue guns, but if you've got your own glue gun, bring it. Also, bring along your own eye protection please.
Wanna Get Involved In Planning?
Then join the mailing list.
Author adminPosted on November 26, 2006 Categories Ignite SeattleLeave a comment on Wanna Get Involved In Planning?
Ask Later is going to be one of the main events at Ignite Seattle. This is the open mic part of the evening. Anyone who wants will get 5 minutes on stage with 20 slides, but with no control over them. The slides will rotate through at a rate of 15 seconds. Your talk can be about anything, but remember your audience. This is inspired by Pecha Kucha.
So far we have 4 speakers: Buster McLeod (AKA Erik Benson), Scott Berkun, Shelly Farnham, and Beth Goza. If you want to join them, sign up in the comments.
If you want to see an example here's Matt Webb (author of Mind Hacks) doing a Pecha Kucha-style presentation. Matt is the speaker. The bald guy next to him is changing the slides.


The FPV source is designed to be best way to get into the hobby with an easy to build, yet highly capable freestyle quadcopter.
The Source One, open source frame cut by Unmanned Tech using inner unidirectional layers along the length of the arms for added strength over the regular version.
The RunCam Robin Micro FPV Camera is super light budget friendly FPV camera with great performance.
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The FPV scene has literally hundreds of various products to select, with more and more coming out each week. It can be a lot of fun choosing components for and speccing out your next build, but for a lot of us, we'd just like to get flying and don't want to waste time figuring out what parts will work well with each other. So, if you just want something super strong, that flies great and is easy to work on without breaking the bank, TheFPV Source is just that. The source to get your FPV fix.
TheFPV Source Budget build guide!


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Q: Sending data from Broadcast Reciever to Fragment android I am trying to update a variable's value in my fragment every 24 hours using a broadcast receiver and cannot understand how to update the variable data even after a lot of research.
This is the function I am using for the calling the alarm every 24 hours and send the variable which needs to be incremented to the Alarm Receiver both of which are working fine.
    public void scheduleAlarm() {

    Intent intentAlarm= new Intent(getActivity(), AlarmReciever.class);
    intentAlarm.putExtra("imageName",""+imagename); // variable to be updated
    Calendar calNow = Calendar.getInstance();
    Calendar calSet = (Calendar) calNow.clone();
    calSet.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 4);
    calSet.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 18);
    calSet.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    calSet.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
    if(calSet.compareTo(calNow) <= 0){
        calSet.add(Calendar.DATE, 1);
    }
    AlarmManager alarmManager = (AlarmManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    alarmManager.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, calSet.getTimeInMillis(),AlarmManager.INTERVAL_DAY, PendingIntent.getBroadcast(getActivity(), 1, intentAlarm, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT));

}

After doing some research I haven't been able to understand how to transfer to value retrieved and incremented to be sent back to the Fragment. This is my reciever class.
public class AlarmReciever extends BroadcastReceiver {
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

    Log.e("servicerun","true");
    String intentImageName = intent.getStringExtra("imageName");
    int numberImageName = Integer.parseInt(intentImageName) +1; // How to send this value back to the fragment?
}

}
Any help would be appreciated.

A: The more structured way would be to keep these classes loosely coupled and link them together using an EventBus. Which seamlessly allows you to pass data as event to multiple classes. To see the usage, check this Answer

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Astronomy Programs For Windows
"I've seen news photos of people around the world staring into shop windows, watching TVs. Now senior curator in astronomy for Museums Victoria, Hill finds the heavens both inspiring and soothing.
A mission roll call for 2018 reads a lot like our list of space exploration and science missions to watch in 2017, as some launch windows slipped into the next. the nation's emerging space program.
There are now dozens of software defined radio packages that support the ultra cheap RTL-SDR. On this page we will attempt to list, categorize and provide a brief overview of each software program. We categorize the programs into general purpose software, single purpose software, research software and software compatible with audio piping. If you know of a program that is missing please leave.
Stellarium is a planetarium software that shows exactly what you see when you look up at the stars. It's easy to use, and free.
Michigan Tech is offering an online introductory astronomy course for its spring 2007 semester. Access to a computer with Windows XP is required. A program such as iTunes is required if one wishes.
Quit any previous installations of Wolfram products that are running on your machine. Run Mathematica_11.3.0_WIN_DM.exe. The Download Manager opens and immediately begins downloading Mathematica's installation files to your Downloads folder.
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The Sky Window is very easy to set up (a manual is included and can be downloaded from Trico Machine's website). As you can see on the image below, mine came in seven major parts.
In a Spitzer program named "Weather on Other Worlds," astronomers. Researchers say that studying the weather on brown dwarfs will open new windows onto weather on planets outside our solar system,
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Disney Frozen hits theaters on November 27, just in time for Thanksgiving! I am SO excited! I'm actually going to Hollywood for the premiere! Amazing! I can't wait to share my trip with all of you. There are a bunch of fun Frozen activity sheets here, and I have a few more for you today including some really nice coloring pages. My daughter is going to love these!
Just click on each image to be able to print the full-size page.
You can stay up to speed with all the latest Frozen news by checking out the website, and be sure to follow along on Facebook and Twitter. I'll be attending the Disney Frozen premiere from November 18-20! I'll be sharing on-the-scene updates throughout the trip on Twitter and Instagram. Follow our entire group of 25 awesome bloggers with the #DisneyFrozenEvent hashtag.
Frozen hits theaters on November 27!


Brexit "Breakthrough": Headfake or May Trying to Engineer Further Capitulation to EU?
Due to the late hour, and the news regarding May having gotten the DUP enough in line so as to get a green light from the European Commission on its Ireland fudge (more on that soon) being heavy on PR and light on facts and analysis, this post will be terse, with hopefully a more fleshed out take over the weekend.
The press is greatly exaggerating the significance of this deal. Some headlines are declaring the EU and UK to have reached an "exit deal". This is not a deal. Nothing is final. This is the UK having presented what is at best a letter of intent on the three issues that the EU had deemed necessary for the UK to have demonstrated "sufficient progress" to be allowed to talk trade.
May has made contradictory promises and something or somethings will have to give. The big headfake is on Ireland, which was the apparent sticking point early this week. Nothing has been resolved here, save the DUP has chosen to stand down for the moment.
On the face of it, the Irish government has surrendered to the early BS British offer of some sort of magical IT tech solution to the border. I don't know if they are aware of this, or they hope they can screw things down in more detail later. I think they have significantly weakened their position by conceding that there may be a technical solution to an open border.
The DUP may have realised that if they block a deal, that could mean an election and Corbyn. They are genuinely terrified at that prospect. So I think they've backed away from the abyss, rather than actually agreed to anything.
The mystery: why is the EU enabling a tentative deal that isn't workable? Let us not forget the history. EU leaders, who remember are the real deciders, have said with a unified voice since the day after the Brexit vote that any deal has to be consistent with the framework of existing pacts. The UK is not going to get any special favors. Experts on trade issues like Richard North have gone on long form as to why the UK will either have to have a hard border or else submit to all UK regulations regarding any traded goods, which also would mean submitting to the jurisdiction of the ECJ on those matters. There is no way to have anything less than a hard border absent that because Ireland would otherwise become a backdoor for all sorts of non-complaint goods to flood into the EU.
North has ventured that Juncker and May are treating the border and other issues as mere political problems that can be solved with the right optics, when that won't work for a whole host of reasons we've described in detail before. His theory is that for some reason, the EU does not want the negotiations with the UK to fail at this juncture.
Perhaps the EU thinks it might be able to gradually muscle the UK into accepting a deal that has it in the customs union. The EU has the vastly better cards and already got the UK to concede on the supposedly "no how, no way" issue of the Brexit bill. They may think if they make the UK take its negotiating losses gradually, they can move the UK to what is not much of a Brexit.
However, if the EU is merely trying to kick the inevitable negotiation impasse down the road a few months, letting May have her December "breakthrough" and "no hard border" talk will further reinforce the UK fantasy that it can have its Brexit cake and eat it too. In other words, Juncker, Barnier, and Tusk are undermining all of the efforts of EU leaders to have the UK get real about what sort of a pact it can have.
Michael Gove has praised the "tough" negotiations from prime minister Theresa May that have led to the agreement on moving forward with Brexit talks. "Theresa May won," he said, in a blessing from the Conservative Eurosceptic wing.
Note I have yet to see reactions from Johnson and Rees-Mogg, so Gove could be out over his skis.
But in a clear sign that the hard work has only just begun, European Council chief Donald Tusk immediately started making demands about the next phase of talks.
He said during a mooted two-year transition period Britain will have to keep making financial contributions and respect all EU laws, including new one, even though this country have no say over how they are decided.
Former deputy PM Nick Clegg, a fervent Remainer, said it amounted to 'game, set and match for the EU on money and EU citizens'….
The agreement published today sets out that there will be enough 'regulatory alignment' with the EU to keep a soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and 'support North-South cooperation'.
But it also specifies that there will be no 'regulatory barriers' between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and the province's businesses will continue to have 'unfettered access' to the UK internal market.
As we've stressed, the regulatory alignment finesse is simply not workable, and it separately is a red flag to the rabid Brexit faction. However, they lost on the supposed red line of money. Can they be pushed further backwards even as they try to pretend they are holding the line?
The European Council could issue a statement with some coded barbs in it. It seems highly unlikely that the European Council would withhold approval next week. But European leaders may not be happy with how much fudging has gone on. If their statement highlights issues where the UK needs to show more progress or clarify ambiguities, it should be read as not just an effort to manage UK expectations downward, but potentially a warning, or even a rebuke, to Juncker and Barnier.
The big reason this may not be as clever as it seems is that the press messaging that meaningful progress was made today increases the odds that UK businesses will dial down their Brexit damage containment measures. Corporations moving staff overseas or deferring investment would have put pressure on the Tories. The EU is resigned to a Brexit. It may have missed the possibility of precipitating a crisis merely by not indulging the UK on political fixes and getting a second referendum. Mind you, the odds of that were low, but the idea has gone from "complete non-starter" to "remotely possible" in just the last couple of months.
It may take a few months to see how things play out. With a whole set of new issues on the table, the UK may be able to keep enough balls in the air so as to keep MPs, the press barons, and the public distracted from the difficulty of its position.
This entry was posted in Brexit, Economic fundamentals, Europe, Media watch, Politics, Regulations and regulators on December 8, 2017 by Yves Smith.
the Guardian today has a whole lot of noise and horn blowing very little thats definite or specific. It dies say the EU have agreed to progress to Phase 2.
Officials predict 35-39 billion payment according to Guardian headline. Which sounds very low.
"The mystery: why is the EU enabling a tentative deal that isn't workable? "… Because the EU does not want more political instability during negotiations as the result of a fallen May government and yet another UK General Election? Or it fears another election would lead to a Corbyn government with which it would rather not deal?
The EU would prefer a Corbyn government. They might even do something as radical as agree to a six-month extension of the Brexit drop dead date for his government to get up to speed or hold a referendum. Labour winning would be seen as a repudiation of Brexit, and Corbyn has even said he would not rule out a second referendum (although it might instead be on narrower issues). What the EU is a afraid of is instead a leadership challenge or another minority government that results in Johnson or Rees-Mogg as PM.
While Moggie (or, god forbid, Johnson, although I'm not sure who's a bigger clown..) would win a leadership contest (I'd say Moggie, because it's likely the Tory MPs would not allow Johnson to proceed to the final vote – too much bad blood there), it would be interesting to see what the Tory rebels would do. Assuming full-house (ex SF), the majority needed is 322 (321.5 precisely, so 322). Tories have 315 and 10 DUP.
I will now assume that all but DUP and Tories will automatically vote against the govt (on confidence) – which is not 100% certain as there are hard-brexit idiots in Labour party too (they just have been kept quiet more efficiently so far).
I assume DUP will vote as a bloc – either all with or against the govt (I think reasonable assumption).
That means that Tories + DUP have nominally 325, a wafer-thin majority. "All" it takes are 4 Tory defectors.
Ken Clarke is definitely one possibility (if nothing else, I doubt he would stand in the next scheduled elections – maybe if there was another one in 2018 yes, but not beyond 2020 – so he can do what he believes is best for the country, and as he was one of the few to vote even against A50 trigger, it's likely). I don't know whether there would be another 3 Tories willing to bring the government down if Moggie was to be a PM? No idea. I believe there would be if BJ looked to become a PM..
Interesting. I would have assumed that the neolibs in the EU would be at least as horrified by Corbyn as those in the the City of London. If Boris or some other upper class twit became PM then the EU could pretty much stop even trying to pretend to negotiate.
Welcome corrections from those in the know.
I suspect the EU would prefer to give the Brexiteers enough rope to hang themselves – probably the only task they're up to.
FWIW my sense is that David Davis' admission he hasn't done any homework on the implications hit home hard with all but the most swivel-eyed. Even some BBC reporters are beginning to say (Radio 4 lunchtime today) that the Tories have surrendered on every point so far. Even the BBC. Ouch!
If the trickle of firms looking to move to the continent turns into a steady stream after Christmas then it's game over for the Tories.
And all without the EU being spoil sports.
The mystery: why is the EU enabling a tentative deal that isn't workable?
Maybe because deep down the Republic of Ireland want & need the talks to get on the second stage issues (trade relationship etc) too? They really don't want UK to crash out now without a deal, because that's bad for Ireland too.
Who knows how much backing down UK is going to do in the next phase? I hope to see the situation developing over 2018 when the British public mood will shift and they will start demanding ever softer Brexit and make the logical step to try to cancel Brexit. If the polls get to say 60/40 to give up on Brexit, then demand may grow for a ratification referendum with no Brexit one of the options.
I am still trying to get my head around all this but think the last part of paragraph 49 is pretty important. I would guess that the EU will insist on clauses in any trade deal to allow punitive tariffs or other sanctions if the UK does not deliver on it's commitment here.
My instinctive reaction on reading this part was that the UK is now heading for something close to LINO (leave in name only ) but it would not be the first time my initial reaction was wrong and there is doubtless still a great deal to play for and think about .
I will cogitate, study further the text and learn from others.
This seems to lock the UK into staying in the Common Market and Customs Union without agreement – essentially granting a veto to the EU. Some might say its a license for the UK to stay within the EU indefinitely (as there seems no possiblity of an 'agreement' which allows them to leave without a hard border). I'm surprised Brexiters aren't up in arms about this.
This doesn't mention that if the Assembly cannot agree devolved powers in line with the Agreement, then by default NI is then subject to either direct government from London or, crucially, if Dublin requests it, the British Irish Inter Governmental Conference.
So theoretically at least, you could foresee Sinn Fein block agreement in the Assembly, then, entirely within the Agreement, London and Dublin could force NI to accept alternative arrangements (in the event of a future government which is not in hoc to the DUP). I'm surprised the DUP didn't pick up on this.
My first thought was that the Irish government dropped the ball by seeming to concede that there could be a fancy IT tech solution to the border, and the British government could just do what it wanted, and essentially force the Irish/EU to put up barriers. But it seems there are enough locks (not least WTO rules) to prevent this happening.
Its impossible to conclude anything else but that this agreement actually changes nothing, except in allowing Phase II to go ahead. Like Yves, I'm puzzled as to why the EU is bothering with this charade, unless they want to prolong the squeeze on the UK government.
The Article 49 seems very significant. It does seem to tie the UK into a leave-without-leaving situation, since there isn't any way to solve the Irish Customs Predicament.
If you read it literally, and you assume (as I do) that its impossible to keep the Irish border open without staying in the CM and CU, then this is essentially it – the UK stays in the EU in all but name, they just lose any right to a say in what happens at EU level.
I think this will slowly dawn on Brexiters. But they haven't proven themselves a particularly bright bunch, so it might take them some time.
"Thinking things through"….Not a strong suit of theirs.
That was my interpretation as well. They are now locked into Brexit lite with all the disadvantages of EU membership and none of the advantages. If they want anything else then they have to satisfy Ireland's requirements regarding the border as a precondition.
Finian O'Toole emphatically agrees with you two: "Apart from all of its other consequences, this means the DUP's great bluff has been called. It was insisting on two contradictory things: no special status for Northern Ireland and completely leaving the customs union and single market. This contradiction has come back to haunt the whole Brexit project -the DUP has been forced to concede that if the first condition is to be satisfied, the second in effect cannot. The deal secured by Ireland does not necessarily force the UK to stay in the customs union and single market. It just forces it to act as if it has stayed in – a distinction without a difference. Call it what you like – if it acts like a customs union, moves like a customs union and is fully aligned like a customs union, it is a customs union." All right then?
The practical consequence seems to be that the UK will be required to adhere to EU regulations for the foreseeable future, except where alternatives can be negotiated between the EU and UK or where regulatory deviations are approved by Northern Ireland.
Except that Foster said the agreement provides for no sea border, which is what results with that provision + the sort of deal the Government has promised repeatedly, which is the UK not submitting to the ECJ any more and having its own regulations.
And see the tweet I embedded at the top (I fixed it just now, it wasn't rendering the right text). There's language in it that acknowledges that it's a fudge and needs to be fixed.
The only way this works with no border at sea is if the UK stays in the customs union, which also means accepting EU regs and ECJ jurisdiction (at least on trade matters, but that covers huge swathes of economic activity).
Even though the discussions in the runup to Brexit had a lot of members of the Leave camp amenable to soft Brexit options. the messaging has gotten very strident post Brexit. I think a lot of the public has been conditioned to see the UK submitting to the ECJ and EU rules as being inconsistent with Brexit.
But the DUP is committed to a hard unionist position. It would be a betrayal of their raison d'etre to act otherwise.The hard Brexit camp.
So I think the DUP has simply decided it is too dangerous to be the party that tanks the Brexit negotiations. I do not think they'd hesitate to revive their objections IF they had allies on their issue or other parties were throwing different spanners in the works at the same time.
Do brexiteers (or brextremists) think the UK should stop exporting to the EU? I don't get the impression that they do. Do they imagine that exports that don't meet EU regulations will be accepted? Do they imagine that any arguments over compliance can be settled by a non-EU court? If those things have to be accepted is there any advantage in leaving the customs union?
Or are they fantasizing about some freebooting Opium Wars type future? Do they have any cogent alternative at all?
Even the swiveliest of the swivel eyed loon Brexit faction never believed that the EU would permit imports that didn't meet EU standards.
What they believed was that you could have the free movement of goods (and capital) — access to the Single Market — without the free movement of people and without border controls to make sure that the goods being imported had the right certifications to prove they met EU standards. The latter was always delusional — what did they imagine? — that the EU would just take it all on trust, no questions asked?
Pure Soft Brexiters believed that you'd have to remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union, or some fudged version of it which nevertheless still satisfied the EU. This, as you theorised, negated the need to impose a border.
Tainted Soft Brexiters believed that you could leave the Single Market and the Customs Union, have a technical border which satisfied the EU's need to protect the integrity and the standards of the Single Market but didn't involve a border which entailed all U.K. exports to the EU being stopped and checked.
There are some variations in these sects, but that's the gist at a high level.
With the Phase 1 Agreement, the U.K. government seems to have definitely ruled out the first option. So we're left with the variations on options two or three, depending on how much fudge the EU is willing to digest. Or no deal (a.k.a. Crashing Out).
Changing the subject slightly, while I don't see it's possible or even necessarily desirable to stop ritual denunciations of either Leave or Remain (depending on your individual view point), I'm wondering if continuing to indulge in them now serves any useful purpose. Yes, there are hopelessly small-minded and deluded Brexiters. There are also hopelessly naive and fuzzy-thinking Remainers.
To characterise everyone (this is, if I recall correctly, some 16 million or so people) who voted Brexit as, variously, thoughtless, stupid, backward, intolerant (I could go on but that's a flavour) is rather a sweeping generalisation. Reality is more nuanced.
I can't speak for every Brexit voter, but I can speak for myself. I've no particular axe to grind with the EU which I wouldn't also grind for the U.K. government, perhaps even sharper.
And if, having joined the EEC, which being only 18 months old at the time I couldn't vote either for or against, we now find the EU is becoming an altogether different animal than was sold to us as the EEC was and, moreover is a Roach Motel that you can't easily get out of and has so many constraints imposed on sovereignty as a result of that membership then okay. Let's have Brussels impose Direct Rule on the U.K. if that's the new constitutional arrangement in practice, so be it and let's call it that.
But in return, I want to be totally shot of Westminster. Firstly because the little meaningful sovereignty it retains makes it increasingly superfluous. And secondly, if Brussels wants the power then it can have it but I'm going to make sure it lives up to the responsibility (as far as I can make it, which isn't very far, but at least I can try) without having the distraction of Westminster blaming Brussels and Brussels blaming Westminster.
Conversely, if that's not what's on the cards, then I expect the EU to give national government's a lot more autonomy in which Directives it chooses to adhere to and which it doesn't.
But what I am (was) no longer prepared to do was to perpetuate this ridiculous nonsense that by remaining in the EU, Member States get a "say" in EU decision making. It's a stitch-up between the big players and the bureaucrats with everyone else just along for the ride. If the alternative to being one of the naysayers, causing trouble and being a general P.I.T.A. to the EU is waiting for the likes of Macron to tell us his grand vision for where he thinks he should "lead" the EU to, then that's not a future I'm eager to embrace.
You may well not agree with my thinking. But I do hope that it at least shows there is some thinking going on in the minds of some Brexiters (although by no means all, of course).
I have become more inclined to brexit since the vote, but my reasons are more to do with the bad economics in the treaties than regulatory issues. The former never gets mentioned because most leavers either don't understand those bad economics or they like them.
I myself have used the "get rid of Europe and we'll be stuck with Westminster" argument. My problem with Directives has mostly been annoyance at Westminster opting out of them.
The democratic deficit is all of a piece with the Neo/Ordoliberal economics.
The movement of capital and labour should be under national control.
These issues (apart from migration) are not on most leavers' radar, and the things they do want just don't add up. I don't think any of your three scenarios add up.
So I agree there are good arguments for (partially) leaving, I just don't see anyone who matters making them.
Yes, I agree 100% with knobs on. The quality of the debate during the Brexit run-up was laughable (I wrote a piece laughing at it!) and it has been downhill from there.
And I think it bad for society that any debate, let alone one as important as this one, becomes so poisonous. I like to believe I'm pretty disciplined, mentally, but on more than one occasion I've ended up referring to "them" (e.g. "those Remainers") because it's seductive to slip into that easy, lazy shorthand. That's one of Lambert's rightly called out cardinal sins (readily boomerang-able back to the offender with a "Who's they?" retort).
What perturbs me the most is how an inability for a country to have it out with itself on a contentious question, like we seem unable to do here (not least because of the delusional thinking which so permeates discourse as rightly pointed out in the above post), sets such a bad example for other countries faced with equally divisive issues. The US and healthcare springs to mind. I did a thought experiment the other day — supposing that some conscientious egalitarian president enacted Single Payer after somehow getting Congressional approval.
Just imagine if our cousins across the pond regressed the way we have. If we think people can get worked up over trade deals and border issues, imagine what throwing health and illness into the mix would do. The fear mongering opportunities are limitless ("death panels!" "all the physicians would move abroad!"). The paid-for MSM would have a field day.
Unfortunately I don't think we could, in that event, teach them any lessons worth having such as evaluating what trade offs there are, at what costs and with what benefits. Just the opposite, alas.
I hesitate to say this was predictable, but the reason why the EU is "enabling a tentative deal that isn't workable" is the classic political one that all of the alternatives are even worse. This is, let's be clear, a fudge, and a fudge which enables the negotiations to continue (some would say start properly) without blowing them up before they have properly got under way. It's a classic political move, designed to give the appearance of something for everyone, without actually settling any of the detail.
I'm sure that in an ideal world, the EU would rather be negotiating with a Corbyn government, or indeed anyone apart from the current band of lunatic incompetents. But bringing down May's government would provoke elections with unforeseeable consequences, no clear idea of future parliamentary configuration and no real certainty about what would happen next. Too much time would be lost while a Corbyn government (assuming there was one) got itself together. On the other hand, it's already clear that May's government is so weak that it can and will be pushed into further concessions. The time to bring it down is not now, but when you already have a lot of UK concessions in your pocket.
I'm not sure I agree. Junker repeatedly said before that the UK's politics were not the EU's problem. It was Barnier that has been eager to get to the trade negotiation phase, to the degree that he was trying to move that phase of the talks up and was slapped down by Merkel and others in July.
There's no domestic political gain for any major EU leader to be nice to the UK. Poland is an ally and wants to poke a stick in the rest of the EU's eye. Denmark and IIRC the Netherlands have big trade positions with the UK and were expected to be more accommodating to the UK after the first phase.
Barnier is well focused on the negotiations but I think Juncker protests too much. Contrary to David above, the EU and most of the member governments will bend over backwards to prevent a Corbyn government, just as they did to help the PP in Spain. In fact it's May's highest card.
Let's not get too hung-up on Corbyn. Yves suggested that the EU would prefer him. I can understand that for procedural and practical reasons, not because of political sympathy in Europe. It's just easier to negotiate with a more competent and coherent government, and nothing can be worse than the present one.
Finally, there's difference between not going out of your way to be helpful to a partner, and going out of your way to be actively unhelpful. I agree that it's not in the interest of any major European power to be especially helpful to the UK, but there's no point in gratuitously worsening the situation either. I'd expect subdued and statespersonlike reactions from other EU nations.
Thanks for the French angle David.
It really does seem as if Europe has never really been that fixated about Brexit, and I suspect many are beginning to sicken of it.
Waiting for both Berlin and Paris neo-liberal reactions should, as Yves says, be very telling. It really didn't take much more than a German harrumph and a French pffft to send May and her team back to the drawing board last time.
Humm, it a classic political fudge! I agree it's too early to see who gains what, where, apart from May is kept in power for a while longer (at the discretion of the EU and DUP?). Unless for the short- medium-term the UK stays within the Efta/EEA and negotiates a tariff-free agreement in with a regulatory union (shadow EEA), then I'm damned if I can see how we arrive at no hard border. There has to be a border somewhere.
We cautioned the Prime Minister about proceeding with this agreement in its present form given the issues which still need to be resolved and the views expressed to us by many of her own party colleagues. However, it was ultimately a matter for the Prime Minister to decide how she chose to proceed.
We will play a full part with the Government in the second stage of the negotiations on a comprehensive trade deal. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and how we vote on the final deal will depend on its contents.
Everyone trying to avoid the blame when reality hits the runway?
Enid Blyton is now considered racist. The golly was the criminal in the stories.
In respect of the "no how, no way" issue of the Brexit bill, that was only ever in the context of a WTO hard Brexit in which only the treaty obligations would be met. I have not heard anyone suggest that no money should change hands in the event of friendly cooperation between the two parties and an agreed trade deal.
A half-in and half-out (semi-detached) relationship with the EU seems the best of both worlds not least because it opens up the possibility of the British electing a government that rejects the primitive Neoliberal economic, monetary and global trading theory that is currently being implemented in both the UK and EU whilst retaining the possibility of no-tariff trade with the EU.
Whilst the United Kingdom remains committed to protecting and supporting continued North South cooperation across the full range of contexts and frameworks, including after withdrawal, the common understanding provides that the United Kingdom aims to achieve this protection and the avoidance of a hard border through the overall EU-United Kingdom relationship. This intention seems hard to reconcile with the United Kingdom's communicated decision to leave the internal market and the Customs Union.
Yup, "hard to reconcile" is about as trenchant a criticism as you ever find in such documents. What it means in practice is "they have to be (family blog) deluding themselves." Which they are.
So, bottom line, item #3 of phase 1 talks has been inserted into phase 2, and item #3 retains its status as a de facto veto for Ireland? However, veto status has also, in effect, been handed to the DUP by the UK? So everything just got a bit more complicated?
And for those who might be wondering what all the fuss is about regarding this quantum Irish border, here is short (2.35 min.) video clip explaining what is at stake for Ireland economically by Dr. Sophie Whiting of Bath University, UK.
May I ask a stupid question? WHy couldn't there be a soft border/"regulatory alignment" between NI and RoI, while NI's exports to the rest of UK were treated in concessionary terms. i.e. same as now, but UK exports to NI would be subject to a hard border? Leakage of EU exports into the UK would be trivial, since presumably the EU would maintain higher regulatory standards than post-Brexit UK, while Belfast would be in the catbird seat, as there would be strong incentives for UK businesses to relocate relevant parts of their business there.
Assuming I understand this Byzantine situation, it's because the DUP will not accept any distinction between NI and the rest of the UK, let alone a customs barrier. That's what "Union" means.
Unfortunately it crosses a DUP red line (no treating NI differently from the rest of the U.K. gets treated). This idea is basically "a border in the sea" option — and already rejected by the DUP as this was what PM Theresa May put forward on Monday and earned her a slap down from Arlene Foster for her trouble.
My only point here is that this belongs as a square in the logically possible solutions space, however unlikely. Whether the DUP would stick to its hardline dogmatic ideological position in the face of the obvious economic advantages for NI would be an open question. My guess is that some factions of DUP might favor and others oppose, while the other NI parties would favor. Of course, it's only the DUP delegation in the Westminster parliament that matters, but they would still be subject to pressures from their domestic NI constituencies.
IOW, both sides have now admitted that there is no workable solution short of a trade agreement, since that would set the terms of trade across the border. Looks like even the DUP admitted it, though they also have a conflict, since they campaigned for Remain and don't want a hard border any more than anyone else. That's for the usual commercial reasons and also because the present status quo is itself a headfake that solves, or covers up, their key disagreement with Sinn Fein: it unifies the island, for all practical purposes, without separating NI from Britain.
First post, although I've been attending the website for a time, and just read the "Comments Policies" –most reasonable I have ever encountered. And it shows.
I am very appreciative of all the posts on this subject. Still trying to wrap my head around it. I'm an American living in Germany (Bavaria, i.e. Munich) past 3+ years, and hard to get a firm (street) take here on Brexit. Most of the German people I talk to (yes, this is rather well-off Bavaria), and these are not corporate big-wigs, just folks working middle or lower class jobs, just scoff at how "stupid" the UK was to do this. This is just my personal experience and conversations I've had with folks here. Not having a corporate or high income job, I know I'm only talking to a certain sector of the population. And I'm presenting this not as a criticism or an approval of any choice. My wife does work in the corporate sector, and everyone I've talked to on her side of the fence is baffled, and angered, by the very thought of the Brexit as well.
As a kid who grew up very poor and in a broken family back in the Midwest in the 70s – and as a young man who managed to educate himself against all odds (thank you University of Iowa, and yes, after all these years, still paying off student loans, alas) – I'm quite sensitive to the vagaries of class and the outright criminal and lawless behavior of the powerful and privileged. And so, perhaps to my own weakness, I kind of see why people who have been told they are stupid and poor and weak for so long might well rebel. Or are at least open to that argument. And is that their failure, or is it the failure of those who claim to represent them (and continue to primarily enrich their own wealthy constituents under the guise of democracy?).
I have not read anything about possible relations regarding the US and the UK regarding the "Brexit." Would appreciate seeing any links to that possible angle.
PS I know I am not addressing trade barriers or the like here, forgive. Or "hard" or "soft" Brexit schemes. Just my first post and mostly I'm just happy to come across such a positive dialogue of give and take. And the "head-fake" references made my day. I haven't used that term since I was like 10 years old. Brilliant.
While Trump could push through a trade agreement thanks to Obama strong arming Fast Track with a 10 year window with TPP in mind; Trump has been all over the place on trade. He would likely demand concessions on agriculture that would be a lowering of standards in the UK and the EU would certainly move to block entry to the single market. Google chlorinated chicken to get an idea, the UK media had a field day with that.
IF you take the standard income tax treaty with Germany exemption on your German income, assuming you have no US income, you report an income of zero. With zero income, you pay nothing on your student loans without incurring problems. After 20 years of zero income in the US, your student loans are retired. As Congress regularly changes (worsens) conditions for student loan repayment, you need to verify the relevance of this to your situation. I am not a tax accountant, nor a lawyer and this is all hearsay.
I guess I am "lucky" in that I went to university in the very early and mid 80s (yes, working on being an old guy now, it came too fast!), so tuition was was much cheaper and the loans required to get through to graduate degree weren't as steep as they are today (by a long shot). I think my generation (high school class of 1980) was (maybe) the first to be "indentured" by dint of student loan debt(?). I don't have the statistics and I know this is a super smart/intuitive group, so forgive in advance if I am way off. We were told we had – no exceptions – to go to college (or enlist, military recruiters were a constant in our government classes*), and yet my father, a road construction worker, and later, a road construction company owner, refused to pay any tuition out of pure spite –anyone who went to school and didn't study to be a lawyer or doctor or businessman was a fool, in his opinion. Kind of an old, very old, American meme, yes?
I wasn't raised to even think that college was an option, most of the 'you must go' came from teachers in our rural high school. Still, attending the university literally saved my life…. it was the first time I realized I was not a complete idiot, and get lost in a sea of 30,000 fellow students. And for that I will always be thankful.
*But at least we had government as a class in high school, even with the occasional military presence. I guess for most this has been long gone for like 25 years or more? Eh gads.
Welcome Kevin. It is a good discussion group and a great website.
In reply to your comment/question on causality, you will get many different answers from many different people, often reflecting their own biases/experiences. Serious studies do support the idea that the areas/people who voted for Brexit were those who felt that they had been left behind either economically or culturally, so you can definitely ascribe it in part to a failure by the winners from globalisation to share their gains with the losers.
I worked for many years on European issues so am keenly aware that the reporting on EU matters by many of the English newspapers has for decades been hugely untruthful about developments, always presenting stories so as to put the EU in the worst possible light, never reporting on anything positive for which the European institutions could be given some credit, frequently resorting to outright lies. The owners of the newspapers have their own agenda.
The result is that for many of the English the EU is almost the incarnation of evil, comparable for some to the Third Reich. I have heard people quite seriously compare Mrs Merkel to Hitler. So I give a good deal of weight to the idea that the English see themselves as fighting against an evil organisation which in truth is largely fictional created in the minds of readers by a dishonest newspaper industry.
Some people I know seem to think that Brexit is almost a rerun of WW2, with references to Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. The generation who were brought up immediately after WW2 were deluged with children's literature which portrayed Germans as evil and the French as weaklings so I think there is a residue of those influences among the older generation.
On links between the UK and the US, I know only a little. There are clearly those on the right in both countries who see each other as soulmates, would like to see the UK move away from European influence, become more American, by which I mean less concerned with employee welfare and the environment, more solely focussed on profit. Some doubtless see the possibility of making money. Some consider that the NHS provides the British with healthcare at far too low a price. If privatised there would be great scope to raise prices and generate extra large profits. It would just be the ordinary people who would lose out. But these are not people who care about the ordinary folk.
I would add to that the fact that many of those who look down on the " Losers " ( who took the first chance they could to hit out at a political establishment that had left them behind ), who consider themselves to be well informed on the EU/EZ ( presumably because they read the Guardian ) are themselves also ignorant in a different way of many factors in terms of the Odor / Neoliberal direction that their perceived bastion of progressiveness has taken.
A hugely generous post, thank you (and everyone else too. I'm only catching up here. This site is a pure gem. I read these posts multiple times, and will not be able to do it justice.
Fascinating. And very telling. I still find a lot of anti-French sentiment when I go back to the States, for work – again, not corporate affiliated work at all. I am still amazed with the anti-French sentiment. And this is about a country (France) where the workers will march in the streets and really interrupt commerce. The 'Germans as evil' element is also equally of interest. For did we not (here in the US), as a country, push forward loan forgiveness programs and invest heavily in rebuilding the country after WWII? When I say 'we,' of course, I mean our investor/banker/oligarch class (all the while taxing US workers to pay for it in the process).
It's my belief that we really need to come up with other words for describing and naming countries. When they (all corporate media) call the US the "richest country in the world," [non-stop, by the way, which should always make one suspicious], we, the people, should say, "Yes, for our Rich, our Oligarchs," and so on. They are not wedded to our country in any way shape or form.
It's hard for a non-U.K. resident to really get to grips with how the U.K. ended up even having the vote, let alone that the vote ended up with the result it did.
"Europe" was always an ideal. If you believed in that ideal, then a United States of Europe was a logical and inevitable end game. For a slight minority of the U.K. population, that ideal was one they aligned to. For a small majority, it was viewed with considerable suspicion.
So unlike France, Germany and Italy, the U.K. didn't have a groundswell of support for the ideal of Europe. This then fed on itself in so far as the U.K. never getting how the EU worked and thus the EU and its various institutions never worked for the U.K.
Yes, it's Politico, but this is a fairly well balanced article on how those cracks manifest themselves in the EU's policy sausage making machine.
For its part, the proponents of "Europe" within the EU have never adequately explained that, in the end game of The United States of Europe, where the sovereignty of the member state will be allowed to retain national competency and what will then be transferred to Brussels.
But we've fudged our way through these ambiguous topics and contradictions for 40+ years. Why this? Why now? My view is that globalisation and neoliberalism's unmanaged impacts created an underclass who pointed to totemic emblems of these trends and seized their chance to give them a bloody nose. Some may, of course, say they then in the process cut off their own noses to spite their faces.
Yves has also repeatedly made the point that, as far as the U.K. is concerned, we have through successive governments failed through renewal of the social contract to put in place effective policies to protect the less economically prosperous members of society and reduce inequality compared with other EU countries. It is to me highly suggestive that, the more Germany has (to a degree) emulated the U.K. in leaving behind great chunks of the population to take their chances with the vagaries of neoliberalism, the greater the appeal of anti-EU parties (France, too, for that matter, which recently escaped a brush with Marine Le Pen; she lost fairly convincingly but the fact she got so far should have been a wake-up call, but it hasn't been, yet, anyway).
In the face of that double whammy, I don't ever get why the result was such a huge shock to anyone.
Welcome to the commentariate, by the way. The world sorely needs more people who are willing to be considerate and thoughtful right now.
Thank you Clive. Your comments accord with many of my own thoughts. The article you link to is a very interesting read.
In the days in the 1990s when I was involved in making EU legislation, the UK hardly ever got outvoted. The strategy which delivered this was, at least in the areas I was involved in, to ally with the Germans wherever possible. Together the UK and Germany were very close to a blocking minority so as long as we could draw in at least one of the smaller countries we were pretty well immune from defeat as an alliance. We had the Germans' back and vice-versa.
Change, I think, started to come in the noughties when the Conservatives left the European People's Party thereby reducing their ability to influence developments. This was done by Cameron to appeal to the Conservative constituency party members in the leadership election without thought for the longer term implications. This really came home to roost from 2010 onwards as UK government policy appeared from the outside (I was on the retired list by then) to be much less concerned with building alliances and more 'go it alone' in approach. It is unsurprising that thus resulted in more defeats in the Council and Parliament. To what extent this was an inevitable result of a growing gap between the UK and the Eurozone members and to what extent as a result of what I thought was just an incompetent diplomatic strategy adopted for narrow intra-party political considerations, I am in no position to have an informed view.
Hello NC I am also a newbie regarding posting, but have been reading for years now. This is my thank you Christmas card to the NC team and the wider commentariat. I am especially grateful for the focus on Brexit issues and for all the knowledgeable commentary. I would not start a fire with an English newspaper never mind read one, and have even developed a healthy suspicion of the worldview of religious Guardian readers. NC filters the noise and clarifies the issues like no other source.
The attitudes to Europe articulated by Anonymous2 above are of course widespread in Northern Ireland especially among those who identify with the Empire. But an entire generation is coming into adulthood now for whom the 1998 Agreement is the only political framework they know. This framework is sectarian, but it has at least given young people from different traditions the option to identify themselves as Europeans. I can't find any study of the ramifications of this, but it is important IMHO. Anyway it was good to see the Agreement mentioned in both paragraphs 49 and 50 of Theresa May's Brexit document this week.
About the quality of stuff one consumes inside the EU: I'm heading to the Midwest for Christmas and these are some things that we know to be inferior in price and/or quality: chicken, pork, milk, cheese, eggs, cell-phone connectivity, broadband, everything behind a pharmacist's counter… Looking forward to a proper taco though.
Northern Ireland has different rules to the rest of the UK on lots of things like abortion etc etc. So the DUP are being very selective on saying they want the same rules as the rest of the UK. The fact is the rule in Northern Ireland have always been different and i would expect more powers to be devolved to Northern Ireland just like Wales and Scotland.
The only reason that Northern Ireland stays in the UK is they couldn't survive economically as a separate country. We send send them several pounds per year per person to subside their economy.
In fact that don't agree with many of the liberal policies of london-centric UK about gay marriage, abortion etc etc.
Economically it would be great to get rid of them and for Northern Ireland to be Ireland'd problem.
Should not the second instance of "UK" be "EU"?
Only indirectly. For a parallel example, US law follows international law on certain subjects, like torture, but American torturers remain subject to US courts. The International Court of Justice becomes involved only i fthe US fails to enforce the law, and then only if the culprit leaves the US.
Similarly, the UK could voluntarily make EU regulations part of their own law – insofar as they apply at the Irish border. This is not so difficult, since EU regulations apply in the UK now. The penalty if they failed to do so would be a hard border in Ireland – enforced from the EU side. (Of course, because of the economic damage that would do, everyone would be reluctant to apply that penalty.) The ECJ might be involved in that decision, but would have no jurisdiction over the UK itself. No idea whether that would be acceptable to the EU, but it's certainly possible.
It would be more practical for the UK to just (re)join the Common Market, so I suspect that will eventually happen, perhaps under a different government.
The Trump Administration has supported Brexit rhetorically but in practice it has done the UK few favors. Instead, the Trump Adm inistration appears to be pursuing a predatory policy, designed to take immediate economic advantage of the dislocations and vulnerabilities created for the UK by the Brexit process.
The only people that seem to have a clear goal in this mess are the ultras.
They have a vision of the yeltsination of the UK.


text:
Expert Opinions and Stories
How can carbon pricing contribute to post-Covid-19 recovery?
Photo credit: William Potter/shutterstock.com
The Covid-19 crisis has upended lives across the globe, wreaking havoc on economies and societies.
Looking beyond the pandemic, climate change poses the single most important threat to the regional economy, livelihoods and the natural environment in Asia and the Pacific. According to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures are expected to continue rising until at least mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Strengthening climate ambition is a fundamental cornerstone to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement and "build forward better", making economies more resilient, inclusive and green.
Many countries across the Asia-Pacific region are exploring how carbon pricing instruments (CPIs) can play a role in post-Covid-19 recovery efforts, aligned with low carbon development pathways. For example, China's emissions trading scheme (ETS) - the largest carbon market in the world - started trading in July 2021; Singapore is reviewing the rate of its carbon tax, the first one in the region; and Indonesia launched a trial ETS in March 2021 for 80 coal power plants, covering three-quarters of the power generation sector. Meanwhile, the ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change is leading a range of projects and capacity-building initiatives to support development of CPIs and introduction of carbon markets.
Overall, a total of 16 countries in Asia and the Pacific, including Brunei, Indonesia, Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam, are at different stages of developing and implementing carbon tax as well as national and subnational emissions trading schemes. However, implementation is challenging.
For instance, at US$3 per ton of CO2, Japan's cost of carbon is significantly lower than the international average for an economy of Japan's size. Similarly, the carbon tax introduced in Singapore in 2019 is 5 Singapore dollars (US$3.69) per ton of greenhouse gas emissions, while Kazakhstan set carbon price at 456 Kazakh tenge (US$1.10) per ton of CO2. Though China's ETS was announced in 2014, it became fully functional only in 2021. When the ETS was first introduced in Europe, the price of carbon was set to less than €5 per ton. By June 2021, it had risen to €50 per ton.
The macroeconomic impacts of a carbon price are multifaceted. Assuming it is applied upstream, such a price directly increases the costs of production. Part of this rise will be passed on to consumers through higher prices, pushing up inflation and constraining consumer spending. Some of the cost is also absorbed by firms' profit margins, raising the user cost of capital and constraining investment.
However, carbon prices encourage a shift to low-carbon and no-carbon energy sources by increasing the costs of carbon-intensive activities and burning fossil fuels. That, in turn, will cause a decline in the demand for fossil fuels, and a reduction of the global price of fossil fuels even before the carbon tax is applied.
A carbon price will also generate fiscal revenue, creating fiscal space that can be channelled back into the economy via tax cuts and incentives for low-carbon innovation. This may stimulate an increase in the share of renewables in the national energy mix as well as job creation.
Expanding on the earlier developed Macroeconomic Model, ESCAP is researching the design of carbon pricing instruments in the region and modelling the macroeconomic and social impacts of climate scenarios. The analyses include ESCAP 2020 research on enabling factors for more ambitious and more effective climate policies as well as the role of cross-border carbon pricing adjustments.
Preliminary results of carbon price modelling in the region illustrate that carbon pricing instruments can form a powerful component of post-Covid-19 recovery packages. Below are brief summaries of five of the key take-aways:
First, as might be expected, the higher the carbon price, the bigger the short-term impact on inflation (Figure 1) and the greater the progress towards emission reduction targets. The inflationary impacts tend to dissipate within about five years, followed by a period of disinflation after the price shock.
Figure 1. Impacts of a $10 and $60 rise in carbon price
Source: ESCAP Macroeconomic Model, illustrative scenarios (2021).
Second, coordinated regional action will increase the economic returns compared to carbon pricing initiatives introduced in a single country. Such a strategy will also reduce the risks of "carbon leakage" (Figure 2), which is the result of asymmetrical carbon policies, especially carbon pricing, and the resulting carbon cost that could displace production and/or investment, and the associated emissions
Figure 2. Impacts of unilateral and regional carbon tax, with revenue fully recycled
Third, if all the potential revenue from a carbon pricing scheme is collected effectively and then channelled back into the economy and into specific activities, it can simultaneously increase the level of economic activity, reduce inequality and poverty, encourage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and stimulate innovation and new jobs in the renewable energy sector. If, on the other hand, no revenue is generated or recycled from the carbon policy, progress towards cutting GHG emissions will cause both economic and social costs.
Fourth, carbon revenue policy can be fine-tuned to support efforts to reduce poverty and inequality when required and be channelled into low-carbon social protection. To tackle air pollution, revenue can be used directly for provision of clean cooking facilities and subsidizing agricultural harvest machinery to reduce crop burning. Targeted spending can improve health outcomes and raise productivity while investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy will accelerate decline in emissions. Carbon revenue can support greener debt repayments reducing interest and repayments directed to nature-based solution investments and debt swaps to reduce the risks of unsustainable debt.
Finally, enabling factors - including the mainstreaming of climate issues into national policies, improving coordination among national and subnational stakeholders and channelling climate funds downwards to local levels - will support the effectiveness of CPIs, laying the groundwork for more ambitious climate policy in the coming years.
Carbon pricing instruments hold the key to an ambitious climate policy architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. What is holding back robust implementation is the lack of accessible tools to holistically review the economic, social and environmental impacts of policy options. Simple, user-friendly tools for policymakers to experiment with different national and regional policy designs and explore macroeconomic, social and environmental indicators will close this gap.
Use this form to register for access to the forthcoming web-based carbon policy tool from ESCAP.
Chief, Environment and Development Policy
Aneta Nikolova
Environmental Affairs Officer
Dawn Holland
ESCAP Macroeconomic Modelling and Forecasting Expert
Hannah Muthoni Ryder
ESCAP Regional Climate Change Expert
Environment and Development +66 2 288-1234 [email protected]
Discover More Expert Opinion
Parliamentarians with disabilities: A battle to shift mindsets and inclusive decision-making
Making the energy transition a reality in the Pacific


Scottish Building Society offers mortgages for people looking to build their own home in Scotland and we can provide advice on all aspects of Self Build Mortgage finance. Our Self Build Mortgage may also be suitable if you are renovating or extending your existing property.
Each tranche of funds is released when confirmation is received from our Valuer that the stage has been completed to a satisfactory standard. If the construction is being supervised by an architect then they will also have to issue an interim certificate. The property build must be carried out by a builder registered with the National House Building Council (NHBC). Alternatively, the build must be covered by NHBC Solo or you must employ an architect or RICS qualified surveyor with professional indemnity insurance to supervise the build. Please contact our experienced mortgage advisers for full details.
We will ultimately lend up to 80% with a maximum of 60% for the initial release based on the land alone. The value of the land, if already owned and debt free, may be included in the borrower's contribution.
Applicants must be at least 18 years old on application and normally not more than 85 at end of mortgage term. Minimum mortgage term is 5 years and maximum term is 40 years.
Any existing financial commitments will also be taken into consideration when affordability is calculated.
We have a range of competitive interest rate options which you can choose from.
A first charge will be taken over the land and property being built as security for the mortgage lending.
When the build is complete and on production of the Completion Certificate we will allow a switch to a standard residential product available at that time. The early repayment charge will not apply. The new product may have early repayment conditions attached. Where Early Repayment Charges apply to any of our mortgages you may be allowed to make overpayments (normally up to 10% of the loan amount per annum) without penalty.
You must ensure specialist self build insurance is in place prior to commencement of the project.
A mortgage is a big financial commitment. As a responsible lender, we think carefully about the amount you can borrow and the mortgage terms that will work best for you.
For a Self-Build Mortgage, funds are released in stages after each section of work is completed. The list below is a typical example of how this might happen, but we can be flexible depending on the type of build and your circumstances.
It's essential you get specialist self-build insurance if you intend to build a new home, or renovate or convert a property intended for occupation on completion.


Description: Saveways Office and Kitchens is one of the best places in Brisbane where you can buy high quality kitchen furniture and cabinets. They have a wide range of elegant furniture which is designed using various styles. There's plenty that you could choose. Enjoy also exquisite kitchen renovations by the company.


1. Why is credibility is critical to the leadership process? Please reflect and reference our readings for this lesson.
2. Why are values so important to the leadership process? Please reflect and reference our readings for this lesson.
1. Explain and reflect on how 'grit' can strengthen your ability to lead others.
2. Explain how you lead by example.
3. Reflect on why learning and passion affect the leadership process. Please reference our readings for this lesson.
Discussion Board question: Reflect on how leadership and management are both different yet similar. Please reference our reading for this lesson.
Discussion Board question: Explain the Crucible Experience. Reflect on and describe a crucible leadership experience you have had in your career or personal life.
Discussion Board question: Explain what a Level 5 leaders is and does according to Jim Collins. Reflect on and describe a Level 5 Leader you know (can be a personal or public leader).


Lagos State Government yesterday said that it has funded its employees' Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) with N170 billion in the last 12 years.
This was even as governor Akinwunmi Ambode and Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, the vice chancellor, University of Lagos, called on workers to design a plan for the life-after-retirement in order to reap the benefit of their labour.
Ambode and the UNILAG VC spoke during a training organised by Ministry of Establishment, Training and Pension in conjunction with Messr Human Capital Management and Solution Limited, saying there was always a brighter rewarding future for the retirees in the state should they have proper plan for the future.
Ambode, who spoke through Commissioner for Establishments, Training, and Pensions, Akintola Benson, said that the society should show extra compassion to retirees and the older citizens in the state just as he expressed that retirees had sacrificed their yesterday for our today.
To the vice-chancellor, University of Lagos, the training for retirees and those to be retired put up by the Lagos State Government was very important and timely.
Meanwhile, Director-General of the Lagos State Pension Commission, Mrs. Folashade Onanuga said that the state had so far contributed N170 billion to the contributory pension scheme since its inception in 2007.
"In the last 12 years, we have paid over N170 billion. So far we have paid the amount since the Contributory Pension Scheme commenced in April 2007," Onanuga said.


This isn't too surprising considering the previous history curriculum have focused on Egypt and Aztecs. But Tim and Moby to the rescue!
Use these resources to introduce the Maya Civilisation, then encourage your pupils to explore further into this fascinating period of history with our topics on Mesoamerica, Inca Civilisation, Conquistadors, and Aztec civilisation.
Tim and Moby explore this highly advanced pre-Columbian culture.
Learn why the Maya civilisation wasn't exactly an empire, but still constituted a unified culture.
Explore the Maya script, the only complete written language developed by indigenous Americans and the role of religion in Maya society.
Discover how the Mayas were slowly subdued by the Spanish empire, and how Mayan is still spoken in Mexico and parts of Central America today!
Develop an understanding of the rise and fall of the Mayan civilization with our Time Zone X: Maya learning game. Do well and students can start to combine historical facts other ancient civilisations!
Lesson Idea 1 – World History Lesson Plan: Uncovering Essential Questions.
In this lesson plan which is adaptable for years 3-12 and P3-S5, students will use BrainPOP resources to analyse a world history topic through the lens of an essential question; Conduct collaborative research and share findings both verbally and in writing.
Lesson Idea 2 – Ancient Civilizations of Latin America Lesson Plan: Inca, Maya, and Aztec Civilizations.
In this lesson plan which is adaptable for Years 7-13 and S1 – S6, students use BrainPOP UK resources to learn and synthesise information about the ancient civilisations of Latin America. They will create a three circle Venn diagram to compare and contrast the Inca, Maya, and Aztec civilisations. Students will also design a "graffiti board" on which they write messages and draw pictures to illustrate their understanding.
Unsolved mysteries – What happened to the Maya?


text:
set -x

VERSION=$(agvtool mvers -terse1)
TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d /tmp/$(basename $0).XXXXXX) || exit 1
DOXYFILE=$TMPDIR/doxygen.config
DOXYGEN=/Applications/Doxygen.app/Contents/Resources/doxygen
PROJECT=$(echo *.xcodeproj | cut -d. -f1)

if ! test -x $DOXYGEN ; then
	echo "*** Install Doxygen to get documentation generated for you automatically ***"
	exit 1
fi

# Create a doxygen configuration file with only the settings we care
# about
$DOXYGEN -g - > $DOXYFILE

cat <<EOF >> $DOXYFILE

PROJECT_NAME           = $PROJECT
PROJECT_NUMBER         = $VERSION
OUTPUT_DIRECTORY       = $TMPDIR
INPUT                  = Classes
FILE_PATTERNS          = *.h *.m

HIDE_UNDOC_MEMBERS     = YES
HIDE_UNDOC_CLASSES     = YES
HIDE_UNDOC_RELATIONS   = YES
REPEAT_BRIEF           = NO
CASE_SENSE_NAMES       = YES
INLINE_INHERITED_MEMB  = YES
SHOW_FILES             = NO
SHOW_INCLUDE_FILES     = NO
GENERATE_LATEX         = NO
SEARCHENGINE           = NO
GENERATE_HTML          = YES
GENERATE_DOCSET        = YES
DOCSET_FEEDNAME        = "$PROJECT API Documentation"
DOCSET_BUNDLE_ID       = org.brautaset.$PROJECT

EOF

#  Run doxygen on the updated config file.
#  doxygen creates a Makefile that does most of the heavy lifting.
$DOXYGEN $DOXYFILE

#  make will invoke docsetutil. Take a look at the Makefile to see how this is done.
make -C $TMPDIR/html install

#  Construct a temporary applescript file to tell Xcode to load a
#  docset.
cat <<EOF > $TMPDIR/loadDocSet.scpt
tell application "Xcode"
	load documentation set with path "/Users/$USER/Library/Developer/Shared/Documentation/DocSets/org.brautaset.${PROJECT}.docset/"
end tell
EOF

# Run the load-docset applescript command.
osascript $TMPDIR/loadDocSet.scpt

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


WebApproval is an interactive portal for uploading and approving pages.
Apogee WebApproval provides you with an intuitive easy to use web interface for file upload and softproofing. It is accessible from any supported platform at any time of day. WebApproval is HTML5-based and does not rely on Flash or Java technology, so it also works perfectly on an iPad or Android tablet.
You can upload PDF files by simply dropping them on a WebApproval job tile in your browser. The goal is to streamline production and minimize errors.
Approvers and managers who need to monitor jobs can view the pages of a job onscreen using a flipbook. You can also download softproofs for offline reviewing or output on your own printer. This saves time and money by eliminating the cumbersome delivery of hardcopy proofs. The proofs have been rendered using the same Adobe PDF Print Engine RIP that is also used for outputting plates or digital prints. This avoids costly mistakes and ensures consistency throughout the whole PrePress process.


Important Hurricane Information For Home Owners - Scarsdale Premier Insurance Agency | Advocate Brokerage Corp.
With Hurricane Matthew heading toward the East Coast, Advocate Brokerage wants to offer the following tips to help you prepare as much as possible and recover as quickly as possible.
First and foremost, safety first! If you have been asked to evacuate, please do! Do not attempt to ride out this storm; it is looking like it will be a BIG ONE. Property can be replaced but you cannot.
Next, if you need us, we are here for you.
You can call us at 914-723-7100. Click here to gain easy access should you need to contact your insurance company and report a claim.
Install Storm Shutters right away and be sure to deadbolt and lock your front door.
Secure all outdoor objects such as garbage cans and lawn furniture and bigger items such as boats. Bring in plants, grills and any lightweight items you can in doors.
Protect Important Documents in a fireproof safe or plastic container. If you are planning to evacuate, put them in a Ziploc bag to bring along with you.
Pack up, we've got a great list of items you should try to bring with you should you make the decision to evacuate. You can find it here.
Click here to report a claim directly to your insurance carrier.


CHICAGO –U.S. employers are thinking differently about health care, increasingly focusing on efforts to prevent employees from becoming sick, according to a survey by the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH). The group, which is a coalition of private and public employers, presented the findings of its nationwide survey of more than 160 U.S. employers at its annual conference earlier this month.
Employers were asked to rate their organizations' benefit design philosophy as leading edge (22 percent), careful watcher (54 percent) or conservative (25 percent). The employers that defined themselves as leading edge plan to offer more programs to prevent illness and complications from illness in the next one to two years. Benefit strategies for these types of employers will rely more heavily on making employees aware that quality matters.
Ninety-five percent of employers agree that a link exists between an employee's health and their productivity. Sixty-two percent of employers who view themselves as "leading edge" will provide cash or other incentives to motivate employee use of preventive services, which compares to 40 percent of other employers.
The survey was developed to determine employer understanding, use of and readiness to adopt value-based benefit design (VBBD) strategies and to identify which strategies and experiences are currently being promoted or used by employers. Key survey components included employer demographics, positions on benefit philosophies and data activities.