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Ed Miliband - don't feel too sorry him.
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Mr Drew's wonderful piece on the robot probe had some support for the beleaguered Wallace understudy that is poor Ed Miliband. Nobody loves him. And people are being horrible about him. And he's no worse than the other guys, so why are they picking on him?
Poor Ed Miliband indeed. Having to endure some press criticism. from his own side, no less. Though he somehow managed to convince his youthful activists that the socialist newspaper, The New Statesman, was somehow is in the pay of Rupert Murdoch. As was the equal right wing The Observer, that also ran a story about useless Ed. That's the Observer, owned by the Guardian media Group. As left of centre as you can be before you move into socialist worker Pravda territory.
Ed made a speech blaming Dark Forces for his troubles. And several commentators here agreed. Which is a surprise.
Because you don't hear Nick Clegg, someone who has taken his party from 15% in the polls to around 7%, and possibly the second most despised politician in Britain, complaining about the right wing media, then why should Ned?
David Cameron has never enjoyed the support of the right-wing media. The Sun and the Mail are both skeptical of his apparent wooly wet Conservatism. The Mirror and the Gruniad run nothing but Toff Dave laughs at bedroom tax food banksters stories.
his soft Toryism has won him not a line of praise from the left wing media. And none from the right either. It was the ex-Tory press that really put the boot into him over the Osborne pasty budget and the gay marriage laws. an attack so damaging that the party has only just recovered, two years later, to its low levels of polling support.
So for Miliband to blame to blame 'Dark Forces' on his woes, like he is a former royal butler trying to unconvincingly sell a book, is laughable.
Yes, he has had a tough time lately. But who hasn't? Does he think Nigel Farage is basking in the glow of a favourable media sunshine? There are no good UKIP stories. The Daily Mail might be the most anti-immigrant paper, but it is not {yet} pro-UKIP. And if there can be a fruitcake-loonies and closet racists story to be found, then all the papers will print it. The top of this page is just 1 page of 511,000 results (for ukip is racist).
UKIP have to take the mud every day. And they have a lousy organisation, 2nd rate PR personnel, and a fledgling history to defend them. Farage can't go to one of his millions of Union people and ask for some PR assistance. he can't pop a shadow minister for nothing very much onto the Today program to say the government's latest policy idea on nothing very much is wasteful/wrong/incoherent/we thought of it of first; like Miliband can, and does.
The Green party can't even get on the TV debates, despite having an equal number of MPs to UKIP and about two thirds as much support as the Liberal Democrats. Even those hippies, prone to conspiracy theories and Dark Forces statements, aren't suggesting its ALL just a right wing media plot to keep them from their mission to greenify the world.
And here's the thing. Even if it was a right-wing/left-wing media plot, they only print the polls that have been undertaken. They don't select the people to be sampled. They don't answer the pollsters questions. It was the electorate who said they rated Miliband a big zero. Who thought he would make a poor prime minister.
It was labour MPs saying, on record, that they thought they had elected the wrong leader.
It wasn't Dark Forces, appearing like Darth Maul to prevent the 'good' Ed from his mission. It was ordinary, sampled, people.
The reason Ed Miliband is unpopular in the polls, and has been almost since elected leader, is because he is Ed Miliband. He has convinced hardly anyone who wasn't already convinced that he is the next big thing. That's why his polling for his party has gone from 30% when elected to only 33% now. Pathetic for an opposition party seeking office in 6 months time. He should be on 40% without even trying. More like 47% if he was going for it..
Ed Miliband has every possible advantage an opposition labour leader could ever hope for.
A seven year continuing recession.
Full Union backing for labour's leader.
Tory errors pushing public sector workers ever leftwards.
Scotland and all the red mps remaining in the UK.
Continuing economic malaise.
Still unresolved and public unsatisfied banking crisis.
Low wages.
High taxes.
Out of touch ruling government.
Cuts to services.
A hostile to Cameron media.
Defecting Tory MPs taking seats and overturning 10,000 majorities to do it!
Hostile liberal media.
Students fanatically against the government.
The collapse of the two-left parties overturning the 30 year split of the left vote.
The long predicted but only just arrived rise of social media to bypass the traditional right wing media's hold on the public's news access.
Murdoch's once feared media empire now neutered by phone hacking and Leveson.
The Liberals reneging on the boundary reforms that give Labour a 5% head start in the election race.
Stupid government policies designed to inflame voters against them such as homosexual marriage and ring-fenced foreign aid.
Previous unkept promises on a European referendum severely undermining the governments ability to get voters to believe it is serious this time.
The old euro-tory splits coming back to divide the party.
Rising immigration untackled.
Rising borrowing unchecked.
Thousands and thousands of former Liberal Democrat voters and activists returning to Labour
Crowded schools.
Crowded, expensive public transport
Crowded hospitals and surgeries.
Cuts to defence at a time of likely conflict.
Government isolated amogst its European partners.
Weak coalition allies.
Left wing, charismatic, democrat president in the Whitehouse.
No money for the usual election bribes for the government.
Lack of faith in the government from both its supporters and detractors.
Full coffers for campaign spending from union donations.
Fired up activists ready to do battle with their class enemies.
Fixed term parliaments guaranteeing Miliband knows when the day of action will be so he can save all his goodies for that date and cannot be caught out by a snap election on the good news of a royal baby or something similar.
Even Brown could win this coming election.
What more could the 'Dark Forces' crybaby want?
Labels: Ed Miliband
Clive said...
If this is the soft, wet half-hearted Conservative party, I'd be genuinely fearful of what they'll do if the real hard-nut conviction right wingers seize control from Cameron.
I have an iota of sympathy for Mr Moribund: when the press pack decides it doesn't rate you, they are ferocious.
On the other hand, when they decided against John Major they had to use invented stuff - underpants and all that. With Dead Red Ed they needn't invent anything. He wrestles bacon butties all by himself. And loses.
Still, I expect him to be the next PM.
" No money for the usual election bribes for the government"
Osborne's got that one sorted, bribe us with our own pension pots!
Bloody genius that man.
@Clive
Well, they could have actually cut spending so that the deficit = 0
Like they said they would.
Govt spending has not dropped over this parliament.
Now, if they actually had, we would probably be in the same state as France (not good).
But that is another story.
Actually - even the press get a bad press. The Daily Mail isn't the most right wing, anti immigration paper: the Daily Express is. It even has Farage as a columnist but somehow it gets away with it.
Like Mr Cameron gets away with it. The real threat isn't Mr Miliband. It is David Cameron. And with this man you have to listen out for the small print (Yes. I wrote that right.)
"I WILL REDUCE IMMIGRATION... from outside the EU"
"I WILL NOT PAY THIS DEBT... in December"
Always some get out and he's criticised because there's a heck of a lot to criticise him about - including wanting to side with the loons who became ISIS.
What he is given an easy ride on is the debt and the economy and - Clive @ 9.42 - what might we dread that a 'hard-nut' Tory party would do ? Crack down on the debt like this lot should have been doing nearly five years ago ?
Because they haven't been 'hard-nut' means a coalition with the Lib Dems and that whoever gets in in 2015 is going to be forced to be 'hard-nut'. The UKIP support shows that a more 'hard-nut' Tory offering would have won majority in 2010.
I have no brief for Ed Miliband. But this personal vilification happens to be the biggest positive that the Tories have "WE ARE NOT ED MILIBAND... but we're pro EU pro immigration, anti grammar, anti English nationalist and pro tax & splooge"
It's the politics of fear far worse than anything that UKIP are accused of.
Great. It's keeping the heat off of Farage - a man whose armor appears to be impeneterable.
('scuse spellings)
Couple of clarifications there:
- What he is given *is* and easy ride...
- Because they *weren't* hard nut means a coalition with the Lib Dems...
@andrew
That's kind-a what I'm afraid of !
Its worth repeating, there are three components to GDP:
1) Exports
2) Government spending
3) Private consumption and investment
So, let's say we cut 2). The only way that the economy won't contract is therefore either if 1) or 3) grow. Okay, let's have an export boom then... great... to whom, exactly, will we sell stuff to and why is our stuff any better than any other countries stuff ? In a world dragged down by overcapacity in pretty much everything (even oil, for goodness sake), what are the chances of that happening ?
Maybe 3) then... that's comprised of consumer spending and industrial / business spending. If you know anyone who in what is still laughingly referred to in the middle class is sitting on a pile of cash and keen as mustard to spend it, you know one person more like that than I do. I do know a lot of people who would like to buy this- or that- but don't have liquidity. They would borrow it, but are worried about job security and stagnant incomes. So they don't borrow for fear of the bailiffs coming calling one day. There's another group of people who don't really give too much thought to paying it back, but the banks have -- not before time -- wised up to them and are, stunningly enough, reluctant to lend to those sorts of borrowers. And do we really want more private personal sector indebtedness ? It's not exactly the first thing I'd put on my list as the basis for a good economy right now.
This just leaves private commercial investment. Given the aforementioned problems of excess capacity and tapped out consumers, they too are strangely reluctant to splash their cash pile around.
The 0.1% have money and many are willing to spend it, of course. But there's a limit to how many houses, cars, glitzy nic naks and so on they are willing to buy and they don't eat / buy socks / send Christmas cards in appreciably larger quantities than you or I do. So their contribution is necessarily limited.
Do then please explain to me how cutting government spending -- at a time when no-one else is either willing or able to spend -- will do us any favours.
Its just that sort of (ill)logic that will get us into more trouble. The some people still insist on thinking that will actually help and are, worse, urging the Conservative party to whip the horse harder that makes me frightened. Because many in the Conservative party are genuinely nutty enough to do it.
Clive - so your solution is more Government Spending...8 years after recession...the next one is closer.
We have had QE, we had had Plan B. What we need is a few years of 1.5% growth, not 4% debt fuelled. 1.5% with the debt falling.
It's a tricky balance, the current lot have njot managed it as they were too wussy to cut anything that would have a real impact today - like pension entitlements or in work benefits, or foreign aid, or, well or anything.
Your plan is to keep gov spending high on a misguided idea that GDP growth is the only ting that matters. Not if the debt ratio is growing faster than GDP. Quite wisely many years ago Osborne, who if you read here a bit you know I don't like, said you can't borrow your way out of a borrowing crisis.
We have a very deep structural problem with a ballooing structural deficit the key cause of which is government overspending on vote winning subsidies for poor and middle class people.
Anyone for a Monarchist Party and the divine right of kings?
as long as you vote for me as king!
... oh.
@CU
Oh, I do read here often and while I agree with some of the overall narrative, sometimes, as here, I think you're all barking up the wrong tree. But being familiar with opposite positions to one's own helps you sharper your arguments and -- you never know -- you may find from time to time that you've got it completely wrong. So it never hurts to keep an open mind.
From what I can tell, then, you seem to be in favour of some sort of what I'll call a "cathartic recession" to shake out whatever is believed to need shaking out from both public and private sectors. We'll never agree totally on that one, it calls to mind Mellon's enthusing:
"liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate... it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people,"
Which was fine in theory but in practice the amount of pain required was more than society was prepared to endure. No doubt you think that we should have a higher tolerance for pain. So I'll just agree to differ.
Where we may agree is that, regardless of whether a draconian deficit reduction plan was/is needed, or whether more government spending was/is needed, the distribution should be progressive. If there has to be pain, we should all be in this together. If there should be government stimulus, it should be to the benefit of all, equally.
What the Conservative have done instead though is implement policies which have benefited no-one except a few holders of certain very specific asset classes. We're hardly a better country for that.
john miller said...
Cameron, Miliband and Clegg stand tried and convicted of transferring billions of pounds from the public to the energy companies and the Treasury, while at the same time trying to bankrupt the British economy.
It fell to Miliband to enact a law (which is what Ministers do given the whip system) which means that we get rid of foul nuclear and coal power stations and replace them with renewables and diesel generators, paying 34x the cost of energy.
But all three, desperate to outdo each other in terms of their Greenness, conspired to appoint A Green Activist (ooh, it spells AGA, I wonder if they got confused with what Cook used to use)to write the suicide note that is our current energy policy.
May they all burn in Hell (using windmill energy, so it may take a few centuries)for their crimes against this country.
Mansion House Tax
Isn't this the wrong name for it ?
Shouldn't it be The Overpriced House Tax ?
This is what happens without a 'hard-nut' regime. We end up with all manner of taxation which won't even solve our problems. It will lead to diminishing returns and exodus.
The policy of providing generous welfare, NHS cover, large scale house building, low interest, inflation... is one of 'build it and they will come'
And for that there will never be enough tax.
JOhn, your on the right track there.
Clive, very interesting to read your thoughts. I don't agree the rich got richer.The GENI co-efficient so belvoed of the left has reduced. Not becuase the poor got richer, they did not; the rich got poorer.
I am rich average standards, I pay more tax and am poorer in real terms than I used to be, by a considerable margin.
What Government have done, and there will be a post of this, is use the automatic stabilisers to buy the votes of the populace. This spending cannot be controlled and so Government spending - pushed also by terrible Energy and Health policies - has rocketed to way over 40%. The tax base cannot catch up.
So in your world, we need more debt. In my world I see the debt will kill us. But I don't want another great recession.
Take a simple example, houses are overpriced. Perhaps a crash woul dbe good, but that would be painful for many. A period of no rises and real terms falls over say 5 years would be great. The overall public finances need the same treatment - I am not advocatina shumpeterian carnage.
However, none of the politicians can deliver this because they are all in de nile.
As for QE, I thought it was a shit idea to keep doing it when there was so little evidence that more was going to work. the first bit helped keep the lights on in the very bust banks - so avoiding a crash.
Also, so what if asset prices rose - they rose from a dangerously low level - this was the point.
The fact that rich capitalists benefit is a side-effect; not the aim of the policy, which was to avoid economic collapse. How would that have worked out for the poor people?
I advocated handing our money to all like in Switzerland at the time as it would have been fairer and driven a quicker recovery.
but that choice would also make people see money has become a fallacy and no controlling Government is going to sign up to that.
Clive @ 4.52
"Which was fine in theory but in practice the amount of pain required was more than society was prepared to endure."
OK then. We'll opt out of austerity. Keep the debt coming instead.
Where do you think this is going to end ?
Do you believe in the Money Tree ?
A Smith said...
"Mansion House Tax"
Tax all land. They can't move it overseas.
Remove the taxes on added value - slash VAT.
Slash Corporation Tax to Irish levels. Get a few more Amazons in
Slash Uni Fees. See tax on added value.
If we can make it, sell it and consult on it worldwide, its far better than sitting on it reading the Daily Mail like a poor man's FTSE.
Suffragent said...
Seems you've dropped a couple of clangers.
The first is the holy grail of GDP. A never ending exponential growth, open to the interpretation of any statistician (lies, damned…………………..)
The second is Government spending, an economic term which originally meant that the government stepped in to take up the slack in the economy and keep the workforce busy with infrastructure projects. Build things or improving services that would make it easier for business to turn itself around. Government spending is now directed at an ever increasing overpaid state, who's only job is to increase the tax take in the form fees (and if rejected fines) and subsidise the poor to the point, that actually taking a job would be financial suicide. All of which stagnates business and kills the work ethic. The parasites have truly taken over the tree.
It isn't better to have somebody in a job than on the dole, when that incompetent twat is on a quarter of a million a year, plus pension, to run a failing NHS trust, school, Police force …..(or successful paedophile ring)
PS I've noticed the blog getting darker over the last few months.
So what can we do to make our lives better? The politics, while funny isn't the answer.
MyCuriousName said...
@Clive - I am intrigued by your posts but the question raised by Electro-Kevin could scupper you -
"Do you believe in the Money Tree ?"
PS - I greatly appreciate the ability on this site to post continuously and (fairly) anonymously, changing my user name for each post. Long live Liberty (of this sort)
@MyCuriousName @Electro-Kevin @Suffragent
Please rifle through your pockets / wallets / under the sofa cushion etc. and take a look at the £5 note or whatever coins come to hand.
Please then evaluate what the actual true value of that object is. The notes and coins cost fractions of a penny to produce. And that's just the physical stuff. The billions on the government "balance sheet" have zero marginal cost of production.
Those objects are worth something because we and everyone else thinks they're worth something. If I gave you a fiver, you could go out and buy a sandwich and the shop selling the sandwich would happily accept this bit of paper and you'd have a full stomach (if you at the sandwich). The sandwich -- and the full stomach -- would be real.
If there was some terrible mistake by the DWP and your bank accounts got credited with £10,000 (perhaps they thought you were an asylum seeker or something), and you could go out and have a nice holiday with this money which has "magically" appeared in your account.
That "credit" to your account would be matched by a "debit" on the DWP's ledger which would sit with a million million other debits accrued over time and represented by the outstanding issuance of Gilts. The Treasury can issue as many of these as it wants to. It costs them practically nothing to do so. It may try to "sell" these, as people exchange this type of asset for another asset they hold but where the holder has decided they would rather have Gilts. instead. Or it can buy them off itself either via straight monetisation (not yet done overtly in the UK) or through QE which is an exchange of one type of institutionally-held asset class for another (less liquid securities for cash). So again, money can be produced for "nothing".
If I take the metaphor of "a magic money tree" to mean that money can be produced by some mechanism (the "tree") for free (the money "grows") then yes, that's a pretty good description of how it works on a simple Noddy level of explanation.
How would you describe then the reality I've just outlined above ?
I know it's an almost physical shock to the system to realise that, in a fiat currency system, money really isn't intrinsically worth anything and it is only of value because we keep believing as such. What, we might wonder, would happen if we all stopped believing ? Do we trust ourselves and each other to keep everything ticking along together ? Would we all act responsibly ? What about the people who we know wouldn't ? How would we keep them in line ?
Scary stuff. But really, isn't it time we all wised up and assessed the reality of our fiat monetary system and worked out how best to make it function for the benefit of everyone ?
Or you can keep believing in your "hard money" fairy tales...
and @Everyone, generally...
While politically you'd definitely find my on the left of centre, probably it would be me in the corner with Polly Toynbee, necking. Actually, maybe not.
But anyway, I'd concur 100% with knobs on that we have -- be you on the left or the right -- a political problem. In that, our politicians are a hopeless lot and misrepresent all of their tribal constituencies. I would normally vote Labour, but with the joke that is Miliband as leader, I'll probably end up just spoiling my ballot paper...
I get the feeling Clive is too young to remember the 60s and 70s at first hand, or he is one of those people - to quote Shankly - who has all of his brains in his head.
Increasing the money supply in the reckless manner he demands is very useful to those who enjoy the purchasing power by getting first dibs on it (investment bankers, for the hard of thinking) but as soon as it circulates it thieves from my pension savings and yours via inflation, screwing the average white or blue collar worker. We can tolerate mild inflation because we don't notice 1% p.a.... But once you let inflation rip it is very hard to stop.
Clive has either not read 'When Money Dies' by Adam Fergusson - and he should, then he wouldn't be so blase about printing cash to meet government obligations - or he is Robert Mugabe's finance minister, and I claim my 500 billion Zim dollar reward, with which I may buy a loaf of bread, provided I can get to the shops before 10am when the price goes up for the fourth time this morning.
*Increasing the money supply in the reckless manner he demands *
I don't see him suggesting that, he's saying "let's think about it", not lets just recklessly spend.
He may be wrong, but I think you lot are all trying to read between lines that are not there.
SW quite.
Clive, no need to explain the vagaries of of currency to us here.
As well as Zim or Argentina I would also ask you to look at Japan.
Endless Government spending, endless debt. You will say, yes look no collapse.
Everyone else will say, no GDP growth, no future.
Like a house price crash a debt crash is hard to predict. We predicted the 2008 crash here from 2006 onwards. WHEN it will happen is impossible to get right.
If Britain's debt dynamics go vertical then we will have a 1970's mess at best.
Printing money is not the answer. Velocity of money is key, not the base quantity. We have increased the base to make up for the velocity.
SW I can see where you are coming from but do you really beleive that we are no already de facto doing this? Do you seriously believe we are on the verge of hyper inflation?? I trust you are not really Andrew Sentance in disguise?
More generally:
The conumdrum is that the money is funding the machine of state ( including large transfer payments and debt interest), not anything useful.
That said Clive has touched on something interesting in FR Banking that the system of money creation (in the hands of private banks not the government.)
So Bradbury pound anyone?
Suffragent a reasonable analysis imho but I would disgagree that it is just "the state" we live in a corporatist state where public /private domain is blurred and the idiocy you describe is carried out by the so called private sector. Also you rightly skewer GDP as a nonsensical measure and ever increasing growth as a fantasy, both ideas loved by economists and financiers. Interesting to note our GDP growth partly inflated/ fuelled by drugs and prostitution lead directly to the extra EU membership fees.
We are all living beyond our means at all levels....individually, at government level and on a global level. It's that simple. People blame others for their own greed..I just heard someone on the radio blaming Wonga for allowing her to get herself too deep in debt. If you can't afford it don't buy it. It really is that simple to take personal responsibility but we seem to have lost that mindset.
We collectively in the west use more than our fair share of the earth's resources so we need to consume less. The magically increasing year on year growth and GDP will have to go into reverse to allow others in the world to catch up.
I agree we are in danger of allowing the debt to kill us off. If we didn't have debt (interest) to repay we'd have more to spend on the sacred cows NHS/schools etc.
Fancy money creating schemes just disguise the bare facts and at some stage will lead to inflation or if we're lucky maybe there'll be a crash in asset values (hopefully property/fine art etc)which will hit the ultra rich much more than the rest of us plebs.
I asked you if you believed in the Money Tree and you answered in the affirmative (thanks for the good explanation btw).
I've never disagreed with your understanding of fiat - but the other question I asked you originally was "Where do you think it will end ?"
Especially when that magic money loses its power to repay anything.
A Smith - 'Tax land'
My issue isn't with how tax is raised but that it has to be raised at all (or nearly as much as it is)
The big growth 'industry' in Britain is government. And government doesn't even solve problems - it makes them so as to increase its own work and self importance.
So I pay tax on the home I've bothered to buy to live in. Yet another blow for self sufficiency. I may as well go on the dole and try to get a council house (fat chance these days)
MyDisappointedName said...
@Clive -
Thats very disappointing.
A simple question and all you could produce was an intellectual skidmark.
Money with nothing backing it and no limits on its production isnt money.
Youre a fool.
Y Ddraig Goch said...
Clive @ 9:25
I've heard that story before. While you are on a roll, could you explain something else to me? It's this ...
Why do we pay tax?
I don't just mean income tax, I mean any tax at all, ever, on anything. You rather eloquently explained how cheap and easy it is for the government to conjure money out of thin air. And you didn't mention a single problem following from that. Not one. So, why do we pay tax? Why doesn't the government just magic money out of thin air?
Bonus supplementary question ...
Why do we have a national debt? Why not magic money out of thin air and make it go away? Then magic even more money out of thin air to avoid ever borrowing again.
@Hovis: I do believe we are doing it already, and I also believe it needs to stop. Immediately. We need to restore moral hazard. We need to jail the likes of Diamond and Dimon. We need interest rates to go up. We need a house price crash and we need the BTL crowd to go bust. It's going to happen in the end anyway and the longer we wait the worse it will be.
Inflation is not low. They've just kept housing costs out of the stats because it's easier than ending the free money party.
The BoE took great pains to explain this all and they needed 12 pages (and there's a load of references to plough through if you want to get a full understanding):
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf
.. so it is a little above my abilities to boil that (which was an abstract in itself) into a quick blog comment !
But that basically is where money comes from and if you can accept the BoE's statement (and if you think they're fibbing then it really is tin foil hat time for you) that by walking into a bank and borrowing a few quid, the bank doesn't actually have that few quid, it creates it out of nothing which then triggers a long sequence of accounting entries to represent the newly created money. You might well never have thought of banks as magic money trees, but that, in a one-liner is what they are.
They could lend the hundreds of billions which are in reserves out. That might trigger some sort of Weimar-like inflation nightmare like I often read about round here. But only if there was a stampede of people or business borrowing it and spending it. But we're in a (in my opinion) deflationary spiral whereby the people who are credit worthy won't borrow and the people who might borrow aren't credit worthy.
Finally, before this thread collapses under it's own weight, @ Y Ddraig Goch -- a very very very good question. What the buggery are taxes for ? Taxes are NOT to "fund" government spending, NOT to redistribute wealth, NOT to pay off the national debt and NOT even to pee money against the wall by giving it the EU or foreign aid -- or any other hot-button bogeyman you might like to imagine.
Taxes have one purpose: to drain savings. You pay tax because you've got more money that you can immediately spend. If you didn't have any money, HMRC couldn't take anything off you in tax. The government decides that, if you have more money than you need at this particular moment in time, you shouldn't splurge it all on cars, holidays, the horses or fast women or whatever. It takes, under the pain of imprisonment some of your excess money. What it gives in return are skoolz 'n 'ospitels to educate your kids and patch you up if you get sick, military forces to -- notionally -- keep us safe from nasty people in other places, roads to drive on, duck houses for MPs and goodness knows what else.
"Ah-ha !" you may say "but why should I have to pay those taxes ? If I have savings (extra income, i.e. more money than I can spend right now) who the cluck is the government to take it from me ? If it left me my savings, I would pay for my own and my depedents' healthcare, education, private security for my town, toll roads etc. etc."
Yes, you could indeed.
But your monthly / annual / and even lifetime income and expenditure wouldn't balance. You'd need to put your savings somewhere. £20k for little Johnny's schooling, £50k for if the other half had a nasty disease, £100-1000k for my retirement needs yada, yada, yada. You might want to speculate with some of that savings. But for a lot of it, you absolutely have to be able to get it back at par the second you need it.
So you'd take it to the bank. But what does the bank do with it ? It needs -- even under a fraction reserve as opposed to a full reserve system -- to put it somewhere. What the bank needs is an asset class which is completely liquid and utterly failsafe. So it goes out to buy some government Gilts.
OOOPSiE !
You've all just decided that the government should run a balanced budget and not issue any Gilts.
So, that's why we have taxes and that's why governments can -- and should -- run deficits.
Clive - Thanks once again. Sincerely.
I used to ask how on earth countries had gone into trillions of debt - way beyond the amount of stuff in the world that money could buy.
Of course, it's not just the central banks which create money but the commercial banks too - in the form of loans. And this is the foundation of the global crash.
We have gone so far beyond balanced budgets that some of our economies are unreal.
No one here is saying that there shouldn't be deficits and debt. But where debt has exceeded real stuff by so much then we have a problem.
There IS a Magic Money Tree, we'll agree on that. (Bankers pick the juciest fruit from it) But the fact is that its roots can no longer keep the tree upright and there must come a season when it's drained all of the nutrients out of the ground in which it stands.
I shall stop talking like Peter Sellers in Being There or I'll end up President of the USA by mistake.
Clive, wow, that is really intellectual madness.
The government do not own my money. There was not always tax, they do not own my savings. This is a silly starting place.
I can buy my own healthcare, my own schooling for my kids ( I do of course). I can't even continue on this bit as its bizarre that you think our labour is the state's to start with.
Anyway, back to reality a little, The Government, if it was really investing money, would be on to something running a deficit. After all, that would produce money in the future.
But the deficit is to pay benefits, tax subsidies and foregin aid. Not investment, CURRENT spending. There is no future benefit, just immidiate consumption.
Once day, that will cause an almighty collapse. Japan will go first and us sometime thereafter if we continue on the same policies.
SW - There is no inflationary crash coming because imports and commodities are going down in price. But wages are stagnant - its a varation of stagflation but at a low level.
The danger to adding debt at this point is there is no inflation to correct it. the debt becomes too burdensome, prices low, wages low, interest rates get decreased.
Everything reverts to zero. A singularity if you like. It ends badly, I don't know fully how - again, Japan will show us one day.
I think there is a difference of opinion over what money is.
It is nice to have clive here (with a different pov), at least he can spell and is vaguely coherent.
"Taxes have one purpose: to drain savings..."
Just - no.
Taxes move money from people to the government so the government can spend that money (ideally on something really useful like the NHS, often on something that turns out to be worthless like not of the money spent on NHS IT projects).
Savings are taxed because it is easy to tax them (*).
(*) except if you are vv rich.
'When Money Dies' by Adam Fergusson is a good read on the history of the abuse of fiat money.
There has been a couple of vv good articles on how assets are being hidden by the vv rich at alphaville and Izabella Kaminska writes well on what money really is.
Not sure I completely agree with her - but she is cleverer than me.
Clive - I thought this worth reproducing:
Japan is one of the World's largest economies but it is also the world's largest debtor. The UK is the number 2 in the latter league. A big difference is in the international spread (External) of that debt.
It is the Japanese people who have been buying a large proportion of Government Bonds and keeping their external debt low, whereas much of UK Gilts have been bought up by outside sources. That is reflected in the External Debt League where the UK, with 400% of GDP = $160K per capita, is the number 2 and Japan is 5th with just $24000 per capita. To put that in perspective, each person in this country effectively owes the rest of the world $160,000. In Japan each citizen owes just $24000, a fraction of ours. Now, how will WE be able to repay that debt, given that the Average Wage is just £25000 and the average tax take per person is £7400? I believe that it will never be repaid and it will become a rolling debt funded by even more debt until the buyers stop buying. When that happens, catastrophe rears its fearsome head and we go down the path of serious default and the collapse of the Pound. The outstanding debt must be paid off but the last Labour Government locked in so much Public Sector expenditure that it would be impossible to do within the first Parliament. They knew they were going to lose and deliberately set this trap but at the expense of the UK Tax payers of course. Come May 2015 anyone inclined to vote for Red Ed, should seriously bear this in mind. Labour would borrow more and accelerate the decline of the UK. They have, many times, proven themselves untrustworthy to hold Office in our country. Do not give them another chance to wreck the UK.
Hmm .. Well..Not sure about any of this.
However, historically, most government taxation before 1900 was for the purposes of warfare.A little was needed for government itself and its offices and administrators, but only around 10% of all taxation.
Clive @ 3:04pm
A couple of people have already responded but I'd like to follow up one or two points as well.
Taxes are NOT to "fund" government spending
Yet that is, in fact, what they are used for. So your statement is factually wrong out here in the real world.
NOT to redistribute wealth
Yet, once again, that is what happens when governments confiscate money from some people and gift it to others. The political left all agrees that this is what tax does (eg listen to Toynbee squeal at the slightest hint that tax might become less redistributive). So again, you are factually wrong in the real world.
Then we get to this. (Presumably an answer to my question about why we have to pay tax when the government could so easily magic money into existence.)
Taxes have one purpose: to drain savings.
Obviously, this statement is utter rubbish. For this to be true, there must have been a time in the past when the government decided that people were saving too much. And, in order to curb that bad behaviour, they invented the - previously unheard of - idea of taxation. Sadly they soon found themselves inundated with huge piles of money - so huge that the warehouses were overflowing. Then, one day, some bright spark suggested that they could spend the money, and in that way empty the overburdened warehouses. Thus was government spending born.
It's complete insanity isn't it?
So three things that you wrote are quite obviously totally wrong and I'm not even half-way through the comment yet. What does that suggest to you about the rest of it?
As best I can tell from the rest of what you wrote you think that the government must borrow merely in order to create some gilts that people can then use as a store of value. Again, this is complete nonsense. We could achieve exactly the same effect with gold - which is already completely liquid - and there are plenty of other alternatives as well.
Finally you triumphantly announce your conclusion
Except that what you wrote before this line is self-evidently wrong. Where does that leave your conclusion?
To my mind Norway has it right. They wisely didn't spend their lucky North Sea Oil revenues and saved it instead. Then they have plenty to spend on pensions,schools, hospitals etc especially as they could GAIN interest on it by lending it out to idiots like us who owe so much as pointed out by EK above.
The rot set in when the gold standard was abandonned. Paper money and electronic money can easily become worthless and if/when this happens the UK will be in a very bad position second only to Japan. All it takes is a loss of confidence.
A great thread wasn't it?
Thanks to ALL contributors.
Who'd a thought a piece about Dark Forces Ed would lead to entire thesis on "what is money" ?
Jan - in 1914 ALL the waring nations abandoned the gold standard.
Spending on war was met by a take up of bonds from the general populace, taxation and loans from the New World.
This worked surprisingly well.
In Germany, 10pf would buy 6 eggs in 1914.
In 1918 it would buy 1.
But considering the blockade and the war and all, that inflation is under control.
The US confederate states, over their war for the same length, in 1861 war and by 1865 the cost of living was almost 100 times greater.
The confederate states managed to maintain their currency at a stable, if high inflation rate, for 4 years through the same methods as the WW1 nations.
Public subscriptions of their savings into government binds and external borrowing.
But the confederate sates, after 1864,when all was lost, found their currency and also their goods, to be worthless, as no one wanted to take the risk of having a devalued currency.
And devalued currency is something we never even touched upon!
What price £1 to S1 in 1955 ? Around $2.90 to a £1.
Today ? - about $1.60 to £1


It's been 3 months today since I received my PRP hair loss treatment with Dr. Joseph Greco last November 2009. I have been meaning to write my PRP update for quite sometime, but I wanted to wait until I was sure of what I felt my results (if any) actually were.
So rather than keep you in total suspense, I'll start with a few self-imposed questions.
Now with that out of the way, let me start by saying that ever since I had this done last November I have just felt better about my hair loss in general. Nothing works instantly, I know that, but my mind was for the first time in a long time, optimistic that something positive could happen. So I essentially started to feel good right from the start, way before being able to actually tell if the PRP treatment did anything at all. At times I have wondered whether or not my favorable results were a bit of a placebo effect, you know, all of a sudden thinking my hair is going to get better and tah dah it does. Whatever it is, my results are real, tangible and visible.
Up until this morning I knew the following things, 1) my shedding decreased 2) the color improved and 3) my hair quality improved. Then this morning I scheduled a haircut with a woman who has been cutting my hair since 2005. I sat in the chair, she clipped on the apron, spritzed my hair with the water bottle and started to part the hair down the middle. Then she just looked closely at my head, then a little closer, as she leaned in she appeared to be slightly confused. With that final lean towards my head she said the most wonderful words, "You Look like You Have More Hair." What? Let me say it again for all you ladies, in case you missed it, "YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE MORE HAIR." Hot diggity dog, do my ears deceive me? Nope. She told me my hair looks thicker, and that I have tons of little baby hairs growing in all over the place. Well praise the lord and raise the roof, I have a happy dance to do.
I had to laugh because before she came over (I have my haircut at my house) my fiance said, "I bet you she is going to tell you that your hair looks thicker." Ha! I'll gladly take the "I told you so" on this one. He's been telling me for over a month that he really thinks that the PRP has helped my hair loss. I felt it, I knew it, but I didn't want to jump the gun in writing my update prematurely.
I feel confident in sharing my results now, and I hope it helps to give other women hope. I will continue to keep everyone updated as I go through more treatments.
I had written awhile back but wanted to send you my story again, and this time post some positive updates.
One thing that I noticed way back when my hairloss journey started, was that the negative posts and testimonials by far outweighed the positive ones. My fear was that most women were losing this hairloss battle. My hope was that once they solved their hairloss nightmare, they were too busy not worrying about their hair to post their updates. I want to submit my story because I am having positive results as I attempt to figure out what has happened to my hair and how to stop the cycle of loss.
It was 2004 when my life changed. It was 3 months after I had stopped taking birth control (alesse) and my hair was coming out in ropes. I'll never forget taking a shower before going out one Friday evening, and my hands were covered with hair. At the time, I had no clue that it was related to the cessation of using birth control. I thought I was dying, from cancer, from something. I stayed home that night and didn't go out, I'll never forget sobbing the whole evening, scouring the internet trying to figure out what was going on. My vanity was bruised. I remember feeling too ugly and embarrassed to be social or even go to the gym. I took a 3 week leave of absence from my job to go be with my then-boyfriend (now wonderful husband!) in Europe where he was for work. I needed his support and he was truly there for me no matter how embarrassed I was. I had extensions put in after much research, just to make me feel like I had hair again. I did everything I could to mask what was going on with my hair, while I devoured information to figure out what happened to me. It was then that I realized it was the birth control pill.
Before I share my story, I would like to thank this site for opening the door to a world of hope, understanding, and amazing strength. You are truly a remarkable young lady with a tremendously huge heart. Your words and intellectual spirit speak volumes about the very fibers of your being. Having this site, is a delight…… for sometimes, we have all been in a very dark and desperate place. Again, Thank You So Much!!!!!
I thought it was time to share some inspiration and background to my hair loss experience. I will tell you at times…. There where moments when I didn't want to see the light from the sun, peer through my windows. The very thought of getting out of bed was a chore, a dreaded routine that was both exhausting and draining. At the age of 45 I have suffered with hair loss for well over 20 years. At first … it wasn't that noticeable, after all, I was younger and had a busy schedule. Although it reared its ugly head I can honestly tell you I really didn't put it all together until some 10 years later.
At 41, I gave my hairdresser free reign. She cut off everything but 1 inch of outgrowth in my natural color – grey. Under the lights in the salon, my scalp glowed just as brightly, but the white hair complimented the pink shine much better than the chestnut stained trimmings that covered the floor around the chair. There is no question in my mind that facing my reality – infertile, grey and balding at 41 – saved my mental health, and contributed to the end of my marriage. The disappointment in my husband's face that day when I returned home from the beauty salon, showed me he could never accept me for who I was now, instead of wishing for the woman he'd met 15 years earlier. I knew that living with the truth was the only way for me, and that I would be doing it alone.
When my hair began to shed at age 31, I had thought nothing of it. It was so thick and wavy, I hardly noticed a difference, and simply passed it off as a slight change. By the time I looked in the bathroom mirror and realized the shiny spot on the top of my head was my scalp, it was too late. The Prempro I had been taking to mitigate the symptoms of premature ovarian failure certainly contributed to the loss, but because of the hormone changes from the POS, likely there would have been hair loss if I had not taken any hormones.
After denying the reality for a decade, mainly with new hairstyles and hair color, I couldn't live any longer pretending to myself that nothing had changed. With barely an inch of outgrowth, I didn't care if I looked bald when my stylist was done with me – I just wanted to have myself to look at in the mirror – whatever I actually looked like.
I just want to share my story with all of the women who experienced stress related hair loss. I started noticing that I was loosing my hair when I moved to a different state to pursue a completely new career. I was so stressed with my job, my new home, my family life that I ignored that problem. Until I went home (I'm originally from Poland) and my friend asked me what's up with my hair and how come I don't have as much hair as I used to have. I realized that I did have much less hair to play with and every time I combed/ washed or styled my do I was loosing tons of it.
I noticed hair everywhere. My car seat, my coat, everywhere. I panicked when I noticed bald spots on the side of my head. I started taking vitamins for hair, using the best available shampoos and conditioners but that didn't help a bit. I was loosing more and more hair. I couldn't wear my hair down, I had to wear ponytail styled carefully so the bald spots wouldn't show. I went to a doctor (dermatologist) four times and she couldn't help me. I mean she completely ignored my problem and told me to use Rogaine!! I was furious with her, because I already did my research I knew that my hair problem was stress related. It wasn't genetic so Rogaine was a completely wrong solution. I tried couple other doctors, but they were as ignorant as the first one. All they could think of was Rogaine and maybe a hair transplant.


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Viewpoint: September 4, 2012
September 4, 2012 at 2:57 PM CDT - Updated June 28 at 5:46 AM
It's been a tough few days for south Louisiana as Hurricane Isaac left its mark, flooding homes that in some cases never flooded before. Once again, we saw the unpredictable and destructive impact of a storm that wobbled its way toward our communities, leaving the National Hurricane Center's best models pointing in opposite directions.
We saw Isaac stall as it was making landfall, dumping massive amounts of rain, pushing high water into rivers and lakes, flooding communities where people thought they were safe. It's not uncommon to hear someone say, "I didn't leave because it was only a category one."
Maybe after Isaac, people will think differently. We live in a state that continues to be vulnerable to hurricanes. Coastal islands and marsh that once acted as speed bumps to slow surge, are disappearing. Isaac has taught us a tough lesson. The effects of a hurricane are still unpredictable and even a category one storm can be devastating.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Ystrad Mynach Hospital closed in late 2011 to make way for the new £172m Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital on the other side of the road. Several of the areas local hospitals closed to make way for a state of the art 250 bed hospital aimed at triggering a major change in provision of secondary care services for patients across Caerphilly county borough.
I can still remember the hospital in better times.


In the ancient book of Isaiah, there's an incredible story of Isaiah, who has a crazy vision where he's in the Temple and he's right in God's presence. He's completely terrified, mainly because Isaiah knows the rules. He shouldn't even be in there. And he's worried about being destroyed because he's unclean and God is perfect. This moment in the Scriptures reveal to us much about one of the misunderstood attributes of God's character: His holiness. But as we dive into this story, we find that fear and terror are not the endpoints to Isaiah' story, and find something even more surprising: that God's holiness doesn't simply expose us, but also clean us and - if we let it - can heal and change us.


It's hard to believe that Gran Turismo, the awesome racing simulator known worldwide for its long list of realistic cars and racetracks, has been around since the late '90s. As part its 15th anniversary, its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, asked the world's carmakers to make their own interpretation of a Gran Turismo car dubbed "Vision Gran Turismo." Over two dozen carmakers have designed a special car for the simulator. After just over a year, 15 unique concepts have already been launched, and now we welcome concept number 16.
Enter the Peugeot Vision Gran Turismo, the French carmaker's response to Kazunori Yamauchi's request. The company's designers worked together with Peugeot Sport engineers to come up with a car that handles well on the virtual track without compromising styling.
Sleek, low and futuristic, the Peugeot Vision Gran Turismo has no massive wings nor spoilers interrupting the sleek lines of this concept car; nearly everything is integrated into the body. Up front is a slimmer version of Peugeot's familiar corporate face. At just 1,040mm tall, the concept car has an exotic profile, something you'd expect from the Italians. One look at it and you know it's ready to tear up the digital racetrack.
What motivates this digital French beauty? A turbocharged 3.2-liter V6 with an impressive 875 virtual horses channeled to all four wheels! Like a true driver's car, this one is equipped with a six-speed manual transmission. Another secret weapon of this car is its amazing power-to-weight ratio. Weighing an estimated 875kg, it has one horsepower per kilogram, allowing it to have a projected 0-100kph acceleration time of only 1.73 seconds.
Now, what goes fast must also stop fast, so the virtual car employs ventilated Brembo carbon disc brakes on all corners, measuring 380mm up front and 337mm at the rear.
While this awesome creation may not materialize in the real world, we will get the chance to enjoy this virtually in the digital world of Gran Turismo, provided that you still have your trusty old PlayStation 3. The Peugeot Vision Gran Turismo will soon be available as part of a free update for Gran Turismo 6. Virtual race car drivers can choose between six different colors and enjoy it on 40 amazing racetracks with 107 layouts.
Who's excited to take this virtual exotic for a spin?


Kickin' a** and taking names, TOGETHER!
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What are you praying for? What are you asking for? How are you doing it?
1.) On the macroscale, YHWH answers in the Storm Cloud and in the Whirlwind. This is a Judgment upon a nation, a people, or a tongue, which indirectly benefits you.
2.) On the microscale, Shekinah answers but a question, which is Compassion personified. And it benefits you directly, Her answering your question about a nation, a people, or a tongue.
Such a prayer is seldom, if ever, answered.
But not always. For even the Stars, have their freewill.
What is your motive, in asking for that? Are you being selfish? For YHWH considers your motives far, far more than He does your actions, in His Judgments.
Selfish prayers are seldom answered, unless the one praying unwittingly asks for something which will benefit a large number of people, or perhaps, the entire world. Such a prayer may result in a Sampson, or a Brahms, or the next C.S. Lewis.
Shekinah does, generally, answer every proper question Her child puts to Her; and generally She does it within the same day, and sometimes within seconds.
For He Truly tries to use it sparingly.
The Tiny Whisper in the Ear, the Small Voice of Shekinah, is a Slight Touch and Breath and Rustling of the New Leaf, the New Bloom, the Green Branch of the Prophet, Newly Sprung from the Stump, from the Root.
And when Shekinah no longer has to answer any of these questions, the Prophet has grown into the Rod, the Trunk, the Green Branch, which Overshadows the entire earth, as with Outstretched Wings.
But the thing is, that you have to learn the lingo first. And it is different for everyone, depending upon the Dimension and the Universe that you have chosen to Come down here to Live within.
After you read the story to follow, think over your own prayers, and decide if they are truly being answered by Hashem. And open your eyes and ears, so that you may see how the Tiny Whisper is speaking to you.
Like I said; you gotta know the lingo.
I rebuilt my picnic table in the grove, and threw my tools into the black and blue and yellow bucket, and took them in. It took me all day.
I managed to salvage six boards for reuse. But since I replaced the 2 x 4s with treated decking, I had to salvage two more of the old boards for legs, for additional strength and stability, which made eight saved.
The two other legs were free in the air, both up and down, hanging suspended between Heaven and earth. And these are the Six Directions. (You have to keep your eyes on the Goal, and you feet on the Path, to Zion; and you have to be paying attention to the Way and Word of Hashem, 24 / 7 / 366).
I took two other uncut stones, which were thicker and bigger, and put them under my leveled table. And then the other four legs were in up the air, and the table was tottering like a seesaw. So I dug them in; but I was not satisfied with the result.
The place was abandoned; and they obviously did not know where it was; and no one had been in here for months. I could have easily taken it home, for they did not know what they had done with it.
The head was not at all rusty, which I puzzled over, as the hammer had been out here in the open likely all winter.
I picked it up, and put it in the piping which held the post to the recut building, where they could easily find it again.
Someone else may take it, who needs it; but it is not going to be me.
I find tools like this all of the time. But I only take home those which I find out on the road, as no one knows who dropped them. You will find all kinds of stuff on finders keepers, in the Pentateuch.
From the massive scrap pile, I took two small scraps of the right size and thicknesses, which had been cut and split by the hand of man, for my leveled place, my pad beneath the picnic table, within my grove. And I found a better one; so I switched the second one out, for the third.
1.) The operator had told me that I could take as much rock off of the scrap piles as I wanted, and as often as I wanted. And if I wanted anything specific, if I came by the yard, he could give it to me at a good price, or perhaps even free, depending upon what it was, or how much of it I wanted.
2.) When I asked about the landowner, he said that he lived in Baltimore, and only came up on weekends and vacations; he owned 3,000 to 8,000 acres; and he didn't care what he did anyway – It was his production and rock, and he could do what he wanted with it, as long as the checks kept cashing. And besides; they had been friends for years.
3.) It was two tiny pieces of scrap rock, which was destined for burial in the fill.
4.) Only God, and I, and the ravens were there.
So I had full permission to take them; but still, for some reason, it did not feel right. So when I got to the next site in the same property down the hill, I tossed them out into the weeds, and felt better with myself, for it.
The site operator used to ride on my bus, when we both went to Nazareth. He was a year ahead of me. Imagine meeting him way up here all over again, after all of these years!
I pondered this stuff, all of the way home. I had advance permission to take buku more; it was not much; and I wanted and could definitely use it. So, why did it somehow still feel like stealing, to me?
I could make do, with what I already had.
All the way home, I pondered upon all of the nuances of this, and when do you punish a mother or a brother for having to steal bread to feed their own, when Hashem duty-binds all of the nation to provide for the safety and welfare of all of their own? Where is Righteousness become the Thief in the Night? Where does Judgment and, and Forgiveness begin?
Like I said: 24 : 7 : 366.
At least, for a time.
I had not even missed my carpenter's hammer. I did not even know, where it was.
And as I leaned over, my eyes filled with the colored sparkles of the half-sphered fronts of the Scrolls that were grasped in the Claws of the Eagle, in the half-light of this morning. And as my hand grasped the blue handle of the East Wing, right from where the handle hit the head, oriented west, north, and south, a white Sephirah struck me right between the eyes, right upon the forehead, within the Third Eye, fast-coming and fast-going, leaving a hole in the Universe, within which is seen the Beginning, and the End.
That it was lying in almost the exact position and referential closeness and angle to the tree, as was the black and yellow and silver and stone hammer of three days before to the iron pipe of the posthole, far to the north of here.
And that is how Shekinah whispers in my ear. And all of my questions of the day before, and of the long night in between, were answered in but a Single Flash of the Sephirah, and a recognition of the similarities of repetition.
For it is an entirely symbolic language; and it is interactive, and it is relative to the needs and wants and mindset and knowledge and level of observation of the receiver of the Message.
Pay attention, and observe. Open your eyes, and your ears. And learn how Hashem Is always speaking to you, and thinking about you, and Is caring for you, though you may choose to deny this, and His Very Presence. He Is always there; She Is always holding you, and picking you up, and trying to comfort you.
It Is within His Hand.
Will He place it in your own hands, as your True Inheritance? Or will He lay it hard upon your stiffened back, as a further burden, and punishment?
Will you be Forgiven, and be taken under Her Wing, to rest Hedged within the Warmth of the Wisdom of Her Plucked Bare Bosom?
Or will you be Judged, and feel the Hard Cold Rod upon your back, and have the Frozen Thunderstones from Above crack your foolish head wide open?
It has always been yours, since from the Very Beginning.


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Teen Girls Flooding Kenya's New No-Cost Schools
Kenya's recent introduction of free primary education helps girls forced out of school by poverty to regain lost ground. The girls, however, still face many challenges, from the humiliation of worn-out uniforms to views favoring boys' education.
Nicole Leistikow
NAIROBI, Kenya (WOMENSENEWS)–Sixteen-year-old Redempta Syombua knows she is "really lucky," one of the 22 percent of Kenyan girls currently enrolled in secondary school.
From Mathare, a shantytown on the outskirts of Nairobi, Syombua wouldn't be in school without her scholarship. Her 18-year-old sister Rosemary had to drop out of school for two years and now attends only in starts and stops for lack of school fees.
Before January, when Kenya's newly elected government implemented Free Primary Education, 12-year-old Faith Katheu would have had to do the same. She and her 5-year-old sister are orphans, a group often stigmatized in a country where an estimated 890,000 children have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS.
Katheu, who dropped out of school in 1999 after her mother became sick, now attends Mbagathi Primary, in a special class for older students who have re-enrolled since the start of the no-fees policy.
"This free education has done something," marvels Jane Ndunge, Redempta Syombua's mother, from the outskirts of Nairobi, where poverty forces many girls to leave school before eighth grade to become breadwinners or caregivers. "Right now, even those who are housemaids, even those who dropped, most of them have gone back to school."
Some 1.2 million children flooded Kenyan primary schools in January, when the National Rainbow Coalition abolished fees in an attempt to fulfill, within its first hundred days of office, one of its major campaign promises. Supported by grants from the World Bank, UNICEF and Department for International Development, the policy was welcomed by the public. Figures from 1990 to 1998 show the percentage of Kenyan children in primary school actually dropped and the country's combined primary and secondary enrollment rate rested at only 34 percent.
Yet the question remains as to whether those who have re-enrolled in school will be able to stay. Despite national statistics that show narrowing disparities, girls in Kenya still receive less education than boys, particularly in the northeastern provinces, on the coast, and in the Nairobi slums.
Early Marriage, Genital Mutilation Limit Learning
Though reduced in the last decade, early marriage and female genital mutilation are rites that often mark withdrawal from school. Motherhood is still a common cause of Kenyan girls dropping out or being expelled. In 1993, 55 percent of adolescent girls were mothers.
"Previously, more boys were taken to school than girls," says Ndunge, who stopped school in seventh grade. "These days, people have realized that teaching girls is just as important; the only problem is the resources."
As a single-mother in Mathare, Ndunge knows about scarce resources. Her family of seven lives in one room made of mud, without electricity or running water. She has a small business selling vegetables, but doesn't make enough to pay for secondary school fees. Her third daughter, Redempta, is one of the five students sponsored yearly by Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization, an organization focused on uplifting women.
"Of course she'll be the first one (in the family) to finish school," says Nduge proudly. "And maybe the last."
While the numbers in secondary school haven't changed, Nairobi's primary school enrollment has skyrocketed, with girls especially benefiting. However, it's only a start.
"Despite the fact that education is free, there are so many other things that will hinder the girls from performing well," says Anne Mukunya, the head teacher at Mbagathi Primary, where the population of 600 has tripled since January. She says girls still need school meals so they won't have to go home and cook for their families, sanitary pads so they won't stay home when menstruating, more bathrooms, pit latrines for when water pipes are disabled by seasonal flooding and perhaps most important, school uniforms.
"If you told the girl to come without a uniform, (she) will not last a month in school," predicts Mukunya. The teacher says that many students trek the longer distance to Mbagathi because its uniform is cheaper than other schools, and can easily be obtained second-hand. New, it costs about $7.50 for a tunic and blouse, a little more than Ndunge's monthly rent.
The Ministry of Education has made it clear that students without uniforms should not be turned away. Yet, for girls, the stigma of having even a torn uniform is enough to discourage class participation or even attendance. Teachers say shy Faith Katheu is made more so by the patch clearly visible on the seat of her tunic when she stands to answer a question.
Girls and boys returning to school after having left for several years are already made conspicuous by their age. That's why Mukunya has placed Katheu in a class with 41 other returners, many of them girls working as maids, whose median age seems to be 13. Their teacher says some have lied, claiming to be younger, so as not to be sent away.
Attitudes Remain Unchanged
Government and donor money also may not be sufficient to address teacher attitudes, which Kenya's Ministry of Education identified as one of the factors hindering girls. They found teachers allowing boys to bully girls in class, assigning more menial chores to girls and awarding more prizes to boys.
The idea that it is less important to educate girls is still prevalent among many communities. At Nairobi's buzzing downtown market, Jane Wanjiru carries her infant son in a bundle on her back while asking shoppers for change. She had to stop two years into secondary school when her church sponsorship dried up but doesn't resent that her younger brother, in his third year of secondary school, is still being sponsored.
If she had to choose between educating a daughter or a son, she would choose the boy: "A girl will not care for me. A boy is better than a girl."
"A girl will get a husband," explains Susan Wanjiru, from the same tribe. She is also begging in the market with her son. When her mother died, she had to drop out one year before completing primary school. If forced to choose, she, too, would educate a boy over a girl. Yet in a country where 62 percent of the population earns under $2 a day and jobs are scarce, she views the question skeptically: "It's better to have work than be educated."
Nicole Leistikow, a freelance writer and news editor for Inthefray.com, is currently based in New Delhi.
Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization:
http://www.maendeleo-ya-wanawake.org
UNICEF–Girls' Education:
http://www.unicef.org/programme/girlseducation/action/ed_profiles/Kenyafinal.PDF
Second Strip-and-Freeze Suit Hits Courts
no-author
Governor-in-Limbo Decides Battered Woman's Fate
Pamela Burke


SRS Cinemas of Shubham Tower is a single screen cinema. The cinema has recliner seats that can be easily adjusted. It has huge leg space. The cinema is fully air conditioned. The seats are well cushioned for complete comfort and are easily adjustable. The cinema boosts an excellent sound and picture quality. The cinema has completely computerized ticket booking system to ease availability of tickets to its patrons. The cinema has clean washrooms that are regularly sanitized. The multiplex also has a cafeteria that serves snacks and refreshments at a cheap rate. The cinema also provides parking facilities to its patrons. Outside food is strictly prohibited inside the hall. The price range here is from 70 - 150.
SHUBHAM TOWER, 4TH FLOOR NIT, NEELAM BATA ROAD.


text:
Hydrothermal monitoring using embedded sensors of the actual roof system of the prado museum
Sanchez, J. and Andrade Perdrix, María del Carmen and Fullea García, José (2010). Hydrothermal monitoring using embedded sensors of the actual roof system of the prado museum. "Construction and Building Materials", v. 24 (n. 12); pp. 2579-2589. ISSN 0950-0618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2010.05.018.
Sanchez, J.
Andrade Perdrix, María del Carmen
Fullea García, José
Título de Revista/Publicación:
Civil Engineering and Construction
Freetext Keywords:
Sensor; Monitoring; Museum
E.T.S.I. Caminos, Canales y Puertos (UPM)
Creative Commons Licenses:
Recognition - No derivative works - Non commercial
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer, such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
El Prado Museum in Madrid has been recently submitted to a refurbishment of its roof which from been made with the traditional tiles has been changed to the use of modern waterproofing layers covered with a metallic lead finishing. Due to an unexpected damp patch that produced leaking in the hall in which Las Meninas by Velázquez was exhibited, the authors were commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture to study the suitability of the roof and its waterproofing properties. The study led to suggestions of modifications in the design of the roof layers, which are out of the scope of present paper. In present paper are given the behaviour of the sensors embedded in two specific areas of the roof. The sensors installed were of: temperature, relative humidity, measurement of local strain and detection of liquid water. The liquid water sensors reveal that some water is withheld in the layer just below the thermal insulation material, although it is standing. The results of over four years of readings show that the temperature attenuates over distance away from the outermost layer, where the readings are very high in summer, due to it consists of lead. During the colder seasons, in turn, the temperature in the inner layers of the roof is higher than in the outer layers. The strain recorded follows the logical evolution of temperature with no abnormal behaviour being detected. Some of relative humidity sensors had measuring problems due to water condensing on them. In summary however, if the behaviour in this area is extrapolated to the rest of the roof, it can be considered to perform correctly as intended. No more leaking events have been detected from the design modifications were incorporated to the existing roof.
DC Identifier:
https://oa.upm.es/8740/
OAI Identifier:
oai:oa.upm.es:8740
10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2010.05.018
Memoria Investigacion
Edit (repository staff only)


Members of the Virginia SAR Color Guard. CMM past President Bill Schwetke, who commanded the Color Guard, is on the far left.
Virginia SAR President Pat Kelly led 22 compatriots in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, DC this Memorial Day. There were participants from both the DC and Virginia Societies, including from six chapters: Culpeper Minutemen, Dan River, Fairfax Resolves, George Mason, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. SAR participation was hosted by the George Washington Chapter, which also provided medals for first time participants in this parade.


text:
Empty aircraft fly from Bangkok
Filed under: Business News, Latest, Politics News — Tags: Add new tag, AFP, Air France, Airasia, aircraft, airlines, airport, alliance, Australia, Bangkok, Bangkok Airways, British, businessmen, Commerce, crisis, Deal, Democracy, fly, foreigners, Hajj, Industry, International Airport, KLM, news, Phuket, plane, protesters, Saudi Arabia, Siam GA, Spain, Suvarnabhumi, Thai, Thai Airways, Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, tourism, travellers, UK — expressyoureself @ 6:18 am
Thousands of passengers have been stranded by the protests
About 40 empty planes have flown out of Bangkok's international airport after authorities reached a deal with protesters camped there for seven days.
Thousands of travellers have been stranded since anti-government groups took over two airports last week.
The deal allows a total 88 planes to be flown out to other Thai airports, where it is hoped they can evacuate some of the blockaded tourists.
The crisis has economically damaged the country since it intensified last week.
Thailand's deputy premier for economic affairs is reported to be meeting senior figures in commerce, industry and tourism today to discuss the damage being done.
As the backlog of stranded foreigners grows with each day, foreign embassies are beside themselves with frustration.
A spokeswoman for Airports of Thailand said: "Thirty-seven aircraft have left Suvarnabhumi (international airport) since the first aircraft of Siam GA (a regional airline) took off on Sunday evening.
"International airlines will have to contact us to take those stranded aircraft out of Suvarnabhumi."
Twelve planes belonging to foreign airlines are stranded at Suvarnabhumi, as well as 29 from Thai Airways, 16 of Thai Airasia, 15 from Bangkok Airways, and 22 aircraft from other airlines.
With thousands of British citizens among the estimated 100,000 travellers, a spokesman for the UK's Foreign Office said: "Bangkok's two main airports remain closed but airlines have been able to arrange flights and transfers to and from alternative airports.
"Some British nationals have been able to fly out but not in the necessary numbers.
"We have continued our consultations with airlines and Thai authorities…and action is being stepped up to enable people to travel in greater numbers, for example via Chiang Mai."
Chiang Mai, in the north, is 700km (435 milies) by road from Bangkok, while the other option – Phuket, a resort in the south – is 850km (530 miles).
France has said it will send a "special plane" to fly its citizens out of Thailand on Monday, with "those in the most pressing situations…given priority," AFP news agency reported.
Air France-KLM has already said it would fly travellers out of Phuket.
A few airlines have been using an airport at the U-Tapao naval base, about 140km (90 miles) south-east of Bangkok.
On Sunday more than 450 Muslim pilgrims stranded at the international airport were taken by bus to the base where they were to board a plane for the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Spain and Australia have been arranging special flights to evacuate their citizens.
Thailand's tourist industry is losing an estimated $85m (£55.4m) per day, and the government warns that the number of foreign tourists arriving next year may halve, threatening one million jobs.
The protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) are a loose alliance of royalists, businessmen and the urban middle class.
They opposition want the government to resign, accusing it of being corrupt, hostile to the monarchy and in league with exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Are you stranded in Thailand or do you have family affected by the protests? What are your or their experiences? Send us your comments
Thai party 'drops Samak for PM'
Filed under: Latest, Politics News — Tags: candidate, cookery show, elction, election, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Friday, job, Kuthep, Kuthep Kuthep, largest party in parliament, MPs, Mr Samak, parliament, party member, People's Power Party, PM Samak Sundaravej, power, PPP, PPP spokesman Kuthep Kuthep, protesters, Samak, Shinawatra, show, Thai, Thai party 'drops Samak for PM', Thailand, Thaksin, Thaksin Shinawatra, Thousands of protesters, TV cookery show — expressyoureself @ 2:11 pm
Protesters have consistently demanded that Mr Samak leave office
Thailand's ruling party has dropped ousted PM Samak Sundaravej as its nominee for the job, say party sources.
The decision marks an apparent U-turn by the People's Power Party (PPP), which earlier seemed determined to re-nominate him to the post.
Protesters have been demanding for weeks that Mr Samak should resign.
The apparent confirmation that he is no longer in contention for the post may pave the way for a settlement of the political crisis, analysts say.
Mr Samak had vowed not to bow to the protesters' demands, but was eventually forced out earlier this week, over an apparently unrelated appearance in a TV cookery show.
The protesters call him a puppet for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in an army coup in 2006 amid accusations of corruption and abuse of power.
New candidates
Reports are confused as to whether the pressure to drop Mr Samak came from within the ruling party or from its five coalition partners.
The Associated Press news agency quoted PPP spokesman Kuthep Kuthep Saikrajang as saying the party had short-listed three party members as its prime ministerial nominee, though they were not named.
Mr Samak was a TV chef before becoming prime minister
The party will need to agree on a compromise candidate before Wednesday, when parliament has scheduled a new vote for prime minister.
Earlier on Friday, a planned vote in the Thai parliament to re-elect Mr Samak as prime minister was postponed because too few MPs turned up.
Thousands of protesters who have been holding a sit-in outside Government House calling for Mr Samak's resignation were enraged by his re-nomination.
Protesters pledged to continue their protest until a suitable replacement for Mr Samak was found – a scenario which may now have materialized, say correspondents.
Although the PPP is the largest party in parliament, it does not have an outright majority and four of its five coalition partners had already said they wanted an alternative candidate.
On top of that, Mr Samak also faces disqualification again later this month if the verdict in a defamation case goes against him.
Thai coalition looks for new PM
Filed under: Latest, Politics News — Tags: Add new tag, administration, Bangkok, caretaker, Constitutional Court, cookery show, corruption, Democrats, financial support, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Mr Samak, Mr Thaksin, new PM, office, parliament, Party leader, People Power Party, political, PPP, prime minister, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, protesters, Samak, Samak Sundaravej, Shinawatra, show, successor, Sundaravej, Surapong Suebwonglee, Thai, Thai coalition, Thai coalition looks for new PM, Thai Party, Thailand, Thailand's political parties, Thaksin, Thaksin Shinawatra, TV, TV cookery show — expressyoureself @ 1:02 pm
The mood in Thailand was reportedly tense as the coalition met
Thailand's political parties are meeting to discuss who should replace Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a day after he was stripped of office.
Mr Samak has not been seen since the Constitutional Court ruled he broke the law by appearing on a TV cookery show.
Parliament is due to elect 73-year-old Mr Samak's successor on Friday.
His People Power Party (PPP), the biggest in the six-member coalition, appeared to back away from an earlier pledge to re-nominate him as PM.
"What the party spokesman said yesterday was not the party's resolution. Our resolution is the next prime minister must come from the People Power Party," Reuters news agency quoted finance minister and PPP secretary general Surapong Suebwonglee as saying.
'Fuel the fire'
Now that the dust has settled after the Constitutional Court's astonishing decision on Tuesday, the bargaining has begun, according to the correspondent in Bangkok, Jonathan Head.
Party factions have been holding meetings throughout the day; some have been in contact with the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is still influential because of his continued financial support.
26 Aug: Protesters occupy government buildings, demand the government step down
28 Aug: PM Samak promises no use of force against the protesters
30 Aug: Samak rules out resignation, after meeting with Thailand's king
1 Sept: A late-night clash between pro- and anti-government groups leaves one dead. Samak declares a state of emergency
4 Sept: Samak proposes a national referendum
9 Sept: Court orders Samak to resign for violating constitution
The PPP insists any replacement for Mr Samak must come from within its ranks, but its coalition partners are angling to get one of their own into the seat.
The second-largest of the partners, the Chart Thai Party, said the PPP should not re-nominate Mr Samak.
But Chart Thai's leader, Banharn Silpa-Archa – who as prime minister a decade ago presided over a currency collapse that triggered an Asian economic crisis – told Reuters he had ruled himself out.
The opposition Democrats are proposing a new government of national unity as the best way out of the crisis – with the clear hint that their party leader should get the job.
Bangkok dangerous?
For the past two weeks, the Thai government has been paralysed by thousands of protesters who have occupied its headquarters, demanding Mr Samak quit.
Protesters are still laying siege to Government House
They accuse him of being a proxy for Mr Thaksin, who was ousted in an army coup in 2006 amid accusations of corruption and abuse of power.
The demonstrators said they would continue to besiege Government House while waiting to see who parliament selects as the new prime minister.
They have already warned that they will continue their protests if Mr Samak or anyone else closely associated with Mr Thaksin is chosen.
The caretaker administration has anticipated the continued protests by proposing that ministers move their offices to the old international airport.
Deputy PPP leader Somchai Wongsawat is acting as a caretaker prime minister until the new premier is named.
Correspondents say his new role could fan Thailand's political flames as he is the brother-in-law of Mr Thaksin.
Bush chides Beijing over rights
Filed under: Latest — Tags: America, Amnesty International, Asia, Bangkok, Beijing, Beijing Olympics, Britain, Burma, Burma refugees, Bush, camps, capital, chides, China, Christians, economy, education, eve, Games, George W Bush, health, human rights, International Olympic Committee, January, Kathmandu, labour, liberty, military, Mr Bush, Nepal, North Korea, office, Olympic stadium, Olympics, opposition, people, political, president bush, protesters, religious, rights, speech, Taiwan, Thai, Thailand, Tiananmen, Tiananmen Square, Tibet, US, US Christians, US policy, US President, Washington, Young — expressyoureself @ 9:40 am
US President George W Bush has expressed "deep concerns" over China's human rights record in a speech on the eve of the Beijing Olympics.
"The US believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings," he said in the Thai capital Bangkok.
He praised China's economy but said only respect for human rights would let it realise its full potential.
Mr Bush has been criticised by some campaigners for going to the Games.
He was due to fly to Beijing following the speech in Bangkok, a stop on his final trip to Asia before he leaves office in January.
The wide-ranging address, which included criticism of the regime in Burma, was more nuanced than Mr Bush's past speeches on China.
It is unlikely to cause much offence in China, our correspondent says, and many people will see it more as a valedictory speech for Mr Bush's record in Asia rather than an outline of future US policy.
'Firm opposition'
President Bush said he was optimistic about China's future and said change in China would arrive "on its own terms".
Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas…
But his criticisms of China's human rights record were clear.
"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists," he said.
When it was controversially awarded the games in 2001 by the International Olympic Committee, Beijing promised to make improvements in human rights, media freedoms and the provision of health and education.
But campaigners, such as Amnesty International, say Chinese activists have been jailed, people made homeless, journalists detained and websites blocked, while there has been increased use of labour camps and prison beatings.
In March, China suppressed violent anti-government protests in Tibet. Beijing said rioters killed at least 19 people, but Tibetan exiles said security forces killed dozens of protesters in the worst unrest in Tibet for 20 years.
The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, rejected Beijing's claims he was behind the riots and said he expressed good wishes for the success of Games.
On Thursday, at least 1,500 Buddhists were holding a protest in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu against what they called China's violation of religious freedom in Tibet. Correspondents say there have been scuffles with police.
In Beijing, police dragged away three US Christians who tried to demonstrate on Tiananmen Square in support of religious freedom.
Four pro-Tibet activists from Britain and the US were arrested and held briefly in the city on Wednesday after a protest close to the Olympic stadium.
Burma refugees
In his address, Mr Bush said the US recognised that the growth sparked by China's free market reforms was "good for the Chinese people" and the country's' purchasing power was "good for the world".
On foreign policy, he commended China's "critical leadership role" in the negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, and the "constructive relationship" between Beijing and Washington over Taiwan.
He also called for an end to what he described as tyranny in Thailand's neighbour, Burma.
Friday's Olympic opening ceremony coincides with the 20th anniversary of a democracy uprising in Burma, which was crushed by the military.
First lady Laura Bush flew to the Thai-Burmese border to spend the day at the Mae La refugee camp where about 35,000 refugees live, having fled their homes.


David Pelletier is a partner in the firm and a member of the Business and Litigation Practice Groups. He practices primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, insolvency law, creditor's rights, commercial lending, real estate transactions, Chapter 128 Receiverships and workouts. In his commercial lending practice, Mr. Pelletier represents lenders in real estate and business finance including low-income housing tax credit financing. In his real estate practice, Mr. Pelletier handles landlord tenant and adverse possession disputes, as well as construction defect litigation.
Mr. Pelletier also has extensive experience representing lenders and creditors in farm and agricultural work-outs, foreclosure, replevin actions and Chapter 12 bankruptcies. David is a frequent lecturer on bankruptcy litigation topics, foreclosures, and loan workouts.
Prior to joining Axley, Mr. Pelletier worked for several years as an attorney at the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania law firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. While there, he represented a wide array of clients in bankruptcy and civil litigation matters. He represented both debtors in large, complex Chapter 11 cases and creditors in large and small Chapter 7, 11 and 13 proceedings, and engaged in the prosecution and defense of adversary proceedings in Bankruptcy court. Mr. Pelletier also has extensive experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal civil litigation matters, in areas such as breach of contract, fraud, civil RICO, patent infringement and products liability.
Mr. Pelletier graduated from the Villanova University School of Law, where he served as associate editor of the Villanova Law Review, and was a judicial extern for the Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
In addition to practicing law, Mr. Pelletier also teaches a business law course at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The course, Business Law 301, is a required course for all graduates of the business school.
Admitted to practice in the State Courts of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Federal Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin and for the District of New Jersey.


Meek Is Not weak, on the contrary. Meek Is very strong! It takes a strong and courageous person to develop the characteristic of being meek. One cannot develop this characteristic on their own. It can only be achieved through Christ alone.
Blissfully she went about her day; caring over her child and tending to the daily chores. Her world came to a sudden crushing blow when he walked through the door. He started in on her, throwing insult after insult at her; leaving her standing there raw with the pain. The choice was hers to make. How will you respond was the whisper in her ear. The next day with as much courage as she could muster up, she recruited some help to reach some of his demands. Not because he demanded them or even because he threatened her with consequences if things did not change. It was because she wanted to display God's love to his life by allowing the fruits of the Spirit to be revealed through her life. Through he actions.
Is this someone you would call weak? No, she is meek. For meek is not weak in the eyes of God, when we interact with those around us in a way that brings glory and honor to Him. It was a grace that she can give, to one who was undeserving. Just as we are undeserving of God's graces and mercies. When we strive to display the fruits of the Spirit in our live with grace and humility. The Lord will be our strength and through Him alone we can be meek.
All the struggles we go through. We have a choice on how we are going to respond. Will you chose to show grace with humility and bring glory and honor to God?
"They will inherit the earth". In Revelations 21:1-5, it tells us that John saw a new heaven and a new earth. This is the earth the meek shall inherit. The reason I believe this is because when you go down to verse 7 of this same chapter, we read. "Those who are victorious will inherit all this". In order to be victorious, we need to be growing in our relationship with God. As we are growing, we will be able to reflect God more and more because we are opening our heart, mind and soul to His will and His ways.
Check back on Wednesday, when we study through Matthew 5:6. These two post will be linked together to share on GROW in His Word Fall Session 2014. Until then may God richly bless your walk in Him.
Loved reading your reflections here, Crisi! "Meek is not Weak" also stood out to me through these verses. 🙂 Thank you for sharing this!