#sparta consulting group

[calgarymover]

SPARTA MOVERS – AGENT FOR ATLAS VAN LINES

Sparta Movers, a reputable moving & storage company based in Calgary, Alberta, has officially become an agent of Atlas Van Lines, a major player in the moving industry in Canada. Atlas Van Lines has a long-standing reputation for providing high-quality local, long-distance and International moving services since 1963.

This new partnership represents a significant milestone for Sparta Movers. As an agent of Atlas Van Lines, Sparta Movers, known for their professionalism, will continue to cater to both residential and commercial moving and storage needs. Sparta Movers' dedication to quality service combined with Atlas Van Lines' extensive network and resources will provide an even broader range of moving and storage services.

This collaboration marks a pivotal moment and is expected to set new standards in the quality of moving services available to Calgary residents and businesses.

Sparta Movers Overview

Sparta Movers was founded in 2016 in Calgary, Alberta when two brothers, Slava and Eugene Kashaev, purchased a used Ryder moving truck and started offering local moving services. Sparta Movers has since grown their operations from a single truck in 2016 to six trucks and two trailers in 2023 and counting.

Sparta Movers is known for its full-service moving solutions, catering to a wide range of relocation needs. Their commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction has been a cornerstone of their operations since their inception in 2016.

Sparta Movers attracted some of the finest industry experts over the years. Their current office team in Calgary is comprised of:

Darren Nickel – Dispatch & Operations

Began in the industry in 2001 and has Dispatch and Operations experience within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Darren has solid knowledge of operations, the industry and Alberta market.

Angela Scott – Sales Manager & Relocation Consultant

Has been in the moving industry since 1993 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Angela has a background in Sales, Dispatch and Operations, Customer Service & Administration

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services.

Dale Feniuk – Special Accounts & Relocation Consultant

Began in the industry in 1997 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Dale has a background beginning in the front lines driving as an owner operator, moving onto Operations, Dispatch and Sales

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services

Slava Kashaev – Founder & CEO

Came to the Moving Industry from an Oil & Gas industry where as a Chemical and Petroleum Engineer with 10 years of experience in Canada, US and Russia

Oversee overall functions and growth of the company.

Optimize processes via automation.

Warehouse Services

Sparta Movers opened their first warehouse in 2021 in Calgary, which they quickly outgrew and in 2023 moved its operations to a brand-new larger warehouse located on Deerfoot Trail near the Calgary International Airport.

[calgarymoverssparta]

SPARTA MOVERS – AGENT FOR ATLAS VAN LINES

Sparta Movers, a reputable moving & storage company based in Calgary, Alberta, has officially become an agent of Atlas Van Lines, a major player in the moving industry in Canada. Atlas Van Lines has a long-standing reputation for providing high-quality local, long-distance and International moving services since 1963.

This new partnership represents a significant milestone for Sparta Movers. As an agent of Atlas Van Lines, Sparta Movers, known for their professionalism, will continue to cater to both residential and commercial moving and storage needs. Sparta Movers' dedication to quality service combined with Atlas Van Lines' extensive network and resources will provide an even broader range of moving and storage services.

This collaboration marks a pivotal moment and is expected to set new standards in the quality of moving services available to Calgary residents and businesses.

Sparta Movers Overview

Sparta Movers was founded in 2016 in Calgary, Alberta when two brothers, Slava and Eugene Kashaev, purchased a used Ryder moving truck and started offering local moving services. Sparta Movers has since grown their operations from a single truck in 2016 to six trucks and two trailers in 2023 and counting.

Sparta Movers is known for its full-service moving solutions, catering to a wide range of relocation needs. Their commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction has been a cornerstone of their operations since their inception in 2016.

Sparta Movers attracted some of the finest industry experts over the years. Their current office team in Calgary is comprised of:

Darren Nickel – Dispatch & Operations

Began in the industry in 2001 and has Dispatch and Operations experience within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Darren has solid knowledge of operations, the industry and Alberta market.

Angela Scott – Sales Manager & Relocation Consultant

Has been in the moving industry since 1993 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Angela has a background in Sales, Dispatch and Operations, Customer Service & Administration

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services.

Dale Feniuk – Special Accounts & Relocation Consultant

Began in the industry in 1997 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Dale has a background beginning in the front lines driving as an owner operator, moving onto Operations, Dispatch and Sales

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services

Slava Kashaev – Founder & CEO

Came to the Moving Industry from an Oil & Gas industry where as a Chemical and Petroleum Engineer with 10 years of experience in Canada, US and Russia

Oversee overall functions and growth of the company.

Optimize processes via automation.

Warehouse Services

Sparta Movers opened their first warehouse in 2021 in Calgary, which they quickly outgrew and in 2023 moved its operations to a brand-new larger warehouse located on Deerfoot Trail near the Calgary International Airport.

[spartamover]

SPARTA MOVERS – AGENT FOR ATLAS VAN LINES

Sparta Movers, a reputable moving & storage company based in Calgary, Alberta, has officially become an agent of Atlas Van Lines, a major player in the moving industry in Canada. Atlas Van Lines has a long-standing reputation for providing high-quality local, long-distance and International moving services since 1963.

This new partnership represents a significant milestone for Sparta Movers. As an agent of Atlas Van Lines, Sparta Movers, known for their professionalism, will continue to cater to both residential and commercial moving and storage needs. Sparta Movers' dedication to quality service combined with Atlas Van Lines' extensive network and resources will provide an even broader range of moving and storage services.

This collaboration marks a pivotal moment and is expected to set new standards in the quality of moving services available to Calgary residents and businesses.

Sparta Movers Overview

Sparta Movers was founded in 2016 in Calgary, Alberta when two brothers, Slava and Eugene Kashaev, purchased a used Ryder moving truck and started offering local moving services. Sparta Movers has since grown their operations from a single truck in 2016 to six trucks and two trailers in 2023 and counting.

Sparta Movers is known for its full-service moving solutions, catering to a wide range of relocation needs. Their commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction has been a cornerstone of their operations since their inception in 2016.

Sparta Movers attracted some of the finest industry experts over the years. Their current office team in Calgary is comprised of:

Darren Nickel – Dispatch & Operations

Began in the industry in 2001 and has Dispatch and Operations experience within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Darren has solid knowledge of operations, the industry and Alberta market.

Angela Scott – Sales Manager & Relocation Consultant

Has been in the moving industry since 1993 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Angela has a background in Sales, Dispatch and Operations, Customer Service & Administration

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services.

Dale Feniuk – Special Accounts & Relocation Consultant

Began in the industry in 1997 within the Atlas Van Lines group.

Dale has a background beginning in the front lines driving as an owner operator, moving onto Operations, Dispatch and Sales

Well versed in Local Moving, Office Moving, Long Distance & International Relocations and associated services

Slava Kashaev – Founder & CEO

Came to the Moving Industry from an Oil & Gas industry where as a Chemical and Petroleum Engineer with 10 years of experience in Canada, US and Russia

Oversee overall functions and growth of the company.

Optimize processes via automation.

Warehouse Services

Sparta Movers opened their first warehouse in 2021 in Calgary, which they quickly outgrew and in 2023 moved its operations to a brand-new larger warehouse located on Deerfoot Trail near the Calgary International Airport.

[alexandrahoney]

Trans dude here 😁 I hope things are going well for you. My new temporary ID is on the way and I finally found an endocrinologist! My first appointment isn’t until May but I’m just glad I found someone who’s only an hour away and who accepts new patients at all. When I got off the phone after making the appointment I screamed in triumph for a while like the dudes in that “this is Sparta” movie 🤣

I’m also out to everyone now. My brother immediately went “I gotta be careful now when talking about my family cause I have a brother now, I mustn’t forget”. The last ones to know were the people in my sports club. I messaged the trainer privately first cause I didn’t wanna surprise the group chat out of nowhere and he was super nice and told me to let him know if I need anything to feel more accepted 🥹 and he said I could of course come out in the group chat so I did and a few people were like “see you at training, [new name]” and so far it’s been a non-issue at training. Everyone treats me the same and the trainers use my new name like nothing ever happened 😁

And a nice bonus: the 15-year-old trans dude at the sports club messaged me privately to tell me how happy and excited he was when he read that I’m trans too, cause now he’s not the only one anymore. He hasn’t been at training for a while but I’m looking forward to seeing him again cause he’s a cool dude and we get along great 😁 and now we’re trans bros 😁

And tbh I almost wanna message you off anon cause it’s kinda exhausting to stay hidden and mysterious 🤣

I am so happy for you!! I'm still waiting for my shot at getting to see an endo, so it makes me really smile that you've got one lined up, haha! Also wonderful to hear that your coming out to your brother went well, and your club as well. It feels like every step is a little easier, but there's still that trepidation of risking the loss of someone or something you care about. Doesn't it feel so fucking good to be fully out at last? :D

Trans solidarity is so important, and definitely something that I have relied on a lot in my own transitioning. I don't have any other trans people around me IRL - in the city, yes, but not in my circle - but I know that even just seeing an openly trans individual on the street emboldens me, and makes me want to be that same thing for someone else.

I'm doing okay, not much has happened lately. I'm waiting for my first HRT consultation in December. Doing my laser, practicing my voice. My voice therapist did inform me that my "base" frequency has risen 20 hertz since I started seeing her in April, which feels pretty huge. Still a long way to go, but it does actually put my average voice sound squarely in the feminine register. To say that I was giddy about that is an understatement!

You are more than welcome to come out of hiding, dear Anon, but I also respect it if you prefer anonymity. If you ever want to talk privately, please just send me a private message. Your messages continue to bring a smile to my face, and I hope I do the same for you. :3 <3

[thegrapeandthefig]

Maenadism, Artemis and Dionysus

(Warning: Very long. Sorry.)

This is a topic that has been requested by @aimee-maroux and prompted by this quote by Richard Seaford in "Tragedy, Ritual and Money in Ancient Greece: Selected Essays":

"Maenads leave home where they resist men, become like animals, and perform sacrifice. Hence the frequent association of Artemis with Dionysos. [...] They go rather to reject the men of their own household and polis. Accordingly, the Dionysiac thiasos contains married as well as unmarried women, whose departure disrupts the household in different ways. [...] In the Bacchae, the Theban maenads are compared to fillies that have LEFT the yoke."

There is actually a lot that can be said about this short 5-sentence quote. So much so that we will be focusing on two main points: First, we will address what Seaford refers to when he says "Hence the frequent association of Artemis with Dionysos." and then, I will comment briefly comment on the distinction between literary and cultic maenadism.

Dionysus and Artemis are mythologically and ritually connected, for they share an important common theme: wilderness. The term alone is muli-faceted. It can refer to the wildness of nature, animals and vegetation alike, or it can refer to the wilderness of spirit. Both deities know how to play with the duality of the concept. Because of their respective nature, neither were expected to be predictable. On a symbolic level, there is an union and contrast between the god of vegetal fertility and Artemis' link to virginity.

The city of Patras and human sacrifice

Pausanias tells us of the tale of how the city of Patras came to be freed from performing human sacrifice to Artemis Triklaria. According to him, the ancient custom of human sacrifice itself was a punishment from the goddess in response to the actions of one of her priestesses. The priestess, Comaetho, had made love with her lover in the sanctuary of the goddess. Insulted, Artemis sent pestilence upon the city. The Pythia is then consulted to figure out how to appease Artemis, and she tells them to ritually sacrifice Camaetho and her lover to the goddess and that this sacrifice must be repeated annually with the fairest maiden and young man as victims. A prophecy indicated that the sacrifices would cease when a foreign king  would bring with him a strange god. And so, it happened: when Troy was captured and the king Eurypylos recieved as war bounty a chest containing a statue of Dionysus crafted by Hephaestus himself. A statue so powerful that it would drive mad anyone who looked at it, and so it drove Eurpylos mad.

Trying to understand the source of his madness, he consults the Pythia as well, who proceeds to tell him that he will come across a city that performs strange sacrifices, and that this is where he should set down the chest and make his home. And indeed, the winds carried his ship to land in Patras. Upon landing, he comes across the couple that was to being carried to the altar that year and he understood the meaning of the oracle. The people of Patras, also recognizing the events of the prophecy, adopted the cult of of Dionysus (under the title of Aesymnetes) and stopped considered themselves fred from their bloody obligation to Artemis. As for Eurypylos, his madness faded away.

Still according to Pausanias, the cult of Dionysus Aesymnetes and Artemis Triklaria included that a procession of children led by a priest who would go down at night to the Meilichos River wearing wreaths made of ears of corn (not maize, corn as in some type of cereal). The children first wear this wreath of grain, a reminder of the wreath worn by the ancient sacrifical victims, and once they have bathed in the river, they change to wear a wreath of ivy and go to the temple of Dionysus Aesymnetes. This ritual thus symbolizes the city's the liberation from Artemis' punishement.

This ritual has been interpreted in various ways and we unfortunately probably don't know enough about the rest of the festival(s?) to pinpoint the exact meaning of the cult. It does seem that the rites to Artemis Trikalia and Dionysus Aesymnetes were not held simultaneously. We also know that by the second century AD the cult of Artemis Triklaria in Patras was no more. However, what is interesting to keep from this is that Dionysus and Artemis seemed to have been considered as sharing enough common features to be substituted for one another.

There seems to have been other Greek cities where the cult of Artemis and Dionysus where somehow closely linked and suggestions have been made (eg. Dionysus' absence in Sparta might be explained by the fact that Artemis held similar cultic functions), but the evidence is too sparse to make serious claims.

Other notable links

Now that we've seen the biggest chunk, I'll quickly go through some smaller elements:

In the Odyssey, Artemis kills Ariadne "Dionusou marturiêisin" (on the denunciation of Dionysus), which some have interpreted as “on Dionysus' indictment.” If this interpretation is correct, it would highlight Dionysus' and Artemis' role as destructive deities.  

The use of masks during the Spartan Ortheia

They are the only Olympians to ever have the epithet "polynumia" (of many names)

A common ability for natural madness.

Maenadism in the Bacchae vs. in cult So, we now have commented one (1) sentence of the original quote. Let's move on to the main topic, that is, maenadism. It's very important to point out what exactly Seaford is commenting on here: he is not making claims based on cultic reality. Rather, he is commenting on maenadism as portrayed in the Bacchae and, by extension, maenadism in the collective imagination of the Athenians.

The reason I'm bringing this up and making the clarification right away is because maenadism has been very discussed and debated, especially when asking the question of "does the Bacchae, and Greek art in general, portray a faithful image of a maenadic ritual?". The general consensus since Henrichs articulated his thoughts about it in the 70s leans more towards the no, in the case of Athens. Maenadic rites were for the most part organized celebrations to which only restricted groups could participate. They more likely belonged to the elite of society.

While the maenads in the Bacchae do reject the men of their households, the sources we have rather seem to indicate that women had to gain their husband's consent to participate in the ritual (as Plutarch tells us with the women of Amphissa). Of course nuance is needed also when handling those sources, which might have also tried to convey the idea that men were still in charge afterall, but it is also not impossible that men considered those rites as a necessity to please Dionysus. What is sure however, is that Greek women who participated in maenadic rites must have greatly enjoyed those short escapes from reality.

Sources: Pausanias, Description of Greece, 7. 19. 1 - 20. 1 (exerpt available on theoi.com) Bremmer J.N., Greek Maenadism Reconsidered, in; Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 55, 1984 Henrichs, A., Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina, in: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 82, 121, 1978 Hughes D., Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, Routledge, 1991 Rangos, S., Cults of Artemis in Ancient Greece (Doctoral thesis), University of Cambridge, 1996

[arcticdementor]

In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

For my last column I spoke with The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman about an article he wrote more than a decade ago, during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. His important piece documents the exact moment when the American elite decided that democracy wasn’t working for them. Blaming the Republican Party for preventing them from running roughshod over the American public, they migrated to the Democratic Party in the hopes of strengthening the relationships that were making them rich.

A trade consultant told Friedman: “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the Eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”

In the more than 10 years since Friedman’s column was published, the disenchanted elite that the Times columnist identified has further impoverished American workers while enriching themselves. The one-word motto they came to live by was globalism—that is, the freedom to structure commercial relationships and social enterprises without reference to the well-being of the particular society in which they happened to make their livings and raise their children.

Undergirding the globalist enterprise was China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For decades, American policymakers and the corporate class said they saw China as a rival, but the elite that Friedman described saw enlightened Chinese autocracy as a friend and even as a model—which was not surprising, given that the Chinese Communist Party became their source of power, wealth, and prestige. Why did they trade with an authoritarian regime and send millions of American manufacturing jobs off to China thereby impoverish working Americans? Because it made them rich. They salved their consciences by telling themselves they had no choice but to deal with China: It was big, productive, and efficient and its rise was inevitable. And besides, the American workers hurt by the deal deserved to be punished—who could defend a class of reactionary and racist ideological naysayers standing in the way of what was best for progress?

…

A decade ago, no one would’ve put NBA superstar LeBron James and Apple CEO Tim Cook in the same family album, but here they are now, linked by their fantastic wealth owing to cheap Chinese manufacturing (Nike sneakers, iPhones, etc.) and a growing Chinese consumer market. The NBA’s $1.5 billion contract with digital service provider Tencent made the Chinese firm the league’s biggest partner outside America. In gratitude, these two-way ambassadors shared the wisdom of the Chinese Communist Party with their ignorant countrymen. After an an NBA executive tweeted in defense of Hong Kong dissidents, social justice activist King LeBron told Americans to watch their tongues. “Even though yes, we do have freedom of speech,” said James, “it can be a lot of negative that comes with it.”

Because of Trump’s pressure on the Americans who benefited extravagantly from the U.S.-China relationship, these strange bedfellows acquired what Marxists call class consciousness—and joined together to fight back, further cementing their relationships with their Chinese patrons. United now, these disparate American institutions lost any sense of circumspection or shame about cashing checks from the Chinese Communist Party, no matter what horrors the CCP visited on the prisoners of its slave labor camps and no matter what threat China’s spy services and the People’s Liberation Army might pose to national security. Think tanks and research institutions like the Atlantic Council, the Center for American Progress, the EastWest Institute, the Carter Center, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and others gorged themselves on Chinese money. The world-famous Brookings Institution had no scruples about publishing a report funded by Chinese telecom company Huawei that praised Huawei technology.

…

But if Donald Trump saw decoupling the United States from China as a way to dismantle the oligarchy that hated him and sent American jobs abroad, he couldn’t follow through on the vision. After correctly identifying the sources of corruption in our elite, the reasons for the impoverishment of the middle classes, and the threats foreign and domestic to our peace, he failed to staff and prepare to win the war he asked Americans to elect him to fight.

And because it was true that China was the source of the China Class’ power, the novel coronavirus coming out of Wuhan became the platform for its coup de grace. So Americans became prey to an anti-democratic elite that used the coronavirus to demoralize them; lay waste to small businesses; leave them vulnerable to rioters who are free to steal, burn, and kill; keep their children from school and the dying from the last embrace of their loved ones; and desecrate American history, culture, and society; and defame the country as systemically racist in order to furnish the predicate for why ordinary Americans in fact deserved the hell that the elite’s private and public sector proxies had already prepared for them.

For nearly a year, American officials have purposefully laid waste to our economy and society for the sole purpose of arrogating more power to themselves while the Chinese economy has gained on America’s. China’s lockdowns had nothing to do with the difference in outcomes. Lockdowns are not public health measures to reduce the spread of a virus. They are political instruments, which is why Democratic Party officials who put their constituents under repeated lengthy lockdowns, like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, are signaling publicly that it is imperative they be allowed to reopen immediately now that Trump is safely gone.

That Democratic officials intentionally destroyed lives and ended thousands of them by sending the ill to infect the elderly in nursing homes is irrelevant to America’s version of the Thirty Tyrants. The job was to boost coronavirus casualties in order to defeat Trump and they succeeded. As with Athens’ anti-democratic faction, America’s best and brightest long ago lost its way. At the head of the Thirty Tyrants was Critias, one of Socrates’ best students, a poet and dramatist. He may have helped save Socrates from the regime’s wrath, and yet the philosopher appears to have regretted that his method, to question everything, fed Critias’ sweeping disdain for tradition. Once in power, Critias turned his nihilism on Athens and destroyed the city.

…

The chief publicist of the post-Cold War order was Francis Fukuyama, who in his 1992 book The End of History argued that with the fall of the Berlin Wall Western liberal democracy represented the final form of government. What Fukuyama got wrong after the fall of the Berlin Wall wasn’t his assessment of the strength of political forms; rather it was the depth of his philosophical model. He believed that with the end of the nearly half-century-long superpower standoff, the historical dialectic pitting conflicting political models against each other had been resolved. In fact, the dialectic just took another turn.

Just after defeating communism in the Soviet Union, America breathed new life into the communist party that survived. And instead of Western democratic principles transforming the CCP, the American establishment acquired a taste for Eastern techno-autocracy. Tech became the anchor of the U.S.-China relationship, with CCP funding driving Silicon Valley startups, thanks largely to the efforts of Dianne Feinstein, who, after Kissinger, became the second-most influential official driving the U.S.-CCP relationship for the next 20 years.

…

Nearly every major American industry has a stake in China. From Wall Street—Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley— to hospitality. A Marriott Hotel employee was fired when Chinese officials objected to his liking a tweet about Tibet. They all learned to play by CCP rules.

“It’s so pervasive, it’s better to ask who’s not tied into China,” says former Trump administration official Gen. (Ret.) Robert Spalding.

Unsurprisingly, the once-reliably Republican U.S. Chamber of Commerce was in the forefront of opposition to Trump’s China policies—against not only proposed tariffs but also his call for American companies to start moving critical supply chains elsewhere, even in the wake of a pandemic. The National Defense Industrial Association recently complained of a law forbidding defense contractors from using certain Chinese technologies. “Just about all contractors doing work with the federal government,” said a spokesman for the trade group, “would have to stop.”

…

Apple, Nike, and Coca Cola even lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. On Trump’s penultimate day in office, his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States has “determined that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting Uyghur Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.” That makes a number of major American brands that use forced Uyghur labor—including, according to a 2020 Australian study, Nike, Adidas, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and General Motors—complicit in genocide.

The idea that countries that scorn basic human and democratic rights should not be directly funded by American industry and given privileged access to the fruits of U.S. government-funded research and technology that properly belongs to the American people is hardly a partisan idea—and has, or should have, little to do with Donald Trump. But the historical record will show that the melding of the American and Chinese elites reached its apogee during Trump’s administration, as the president made himself a focal point for the China Class, which had adopted the Democratic Party as its main political vehicle. That’s not to say establishment Republicans are cut out of the pro-China oligarchy—Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s shipbuilder billionaire father-in-law James Chao has benefited greatly from his relationship with the CCP, including college classmate Jiang Zemin. Gifts from the Chao family have catapulted McConnell to only a few slots below Feinstein in the list of wealthiest senators.

Riding the media tsunami of Trump hatred, the China Class cemented its power within state institutions and security bureaucracies that have long been Democratic preserves—and whose salary-class inhabitants were eager not to be labeled as “collaborators” with the president they ostensibly served. Accommodation with even the worst and most threatening aspects of the Chinese communist regime, ongoing since the late 1990s, was put on fast-forward. Talk about how Nike made its sneakers in Chinese slave labor camps was no longer fashionable. News that China was stealing American scientific and military secrets, running large spy rings in Silicon Valley and compromising congressmen like Eric Swalwell, paying large retainers to top Ivy League professors in a well-organized program of intellectual theft, or in any way posed a danger to its own people or to its neighbors, let alone to the American way of life, were muted and dismissed as pro-Trump propaganda.

…

There is a good reason why lockdowns—quarantining those who are not sick—had never been previously employed as a public health measure. The leading members of a city, state, or nation do not imprison its own unless they mean to signal that they are imposing collective punishment on the population at large. It had never been used before as a public health measure because it is a widely recognized instrument of political repression.

…

China had cultivated many friends in the American press, which is why the media relays Chinese government statistics with a straight face—for instance that China, four times the size of the United States, has suffered 1/100th the number of COVID-19 fatalities. But the key fact is this: In legitimizing CCP narratives, the media covers not primarily for China but for the American class that draws its power, wealth, and prestige from China. No, Beijing isn’t the bad guy here—it’s a responsible international stakeholder. In fact, we should follow China’s lead. And by March, with Trump’s initial acquiescence, American officials imposed the same repressive measures on Americans used by dictatorial powers throughout history to silence their own people.

Eventually, the pro-China oligarchy would come to see the full range of benefits the lockdowns afforded. Lockdowns made leading oligarchs richer—$85 billion richer in the case of Bezos alone—while impoverishing Trump’s small-business base. In imposing unconstitutional regulations by fiat, city and state authorities normalized autocracy. And not least, lockdowns gave the American establishment a plausible reason to give its chosen candidate the nomination after barely one-third of the delegates had chosen, and then keep him stashed away in his basement for the duration of the Presidential campaign. And yet in a sense, Joe Biden really did represent a return to normalcy in the decadeslong course of U.S.-China relations.

…

What seems clear is that Biden’s inauguration marks the hegemony of an American oligarchy that sees its relationship with China as a shield and sword against their own countrymen. Like Athens’ Thirty Tyrants, they are not simply contemptuous of a political system that recognizes the natural rights of all its citizens that are endowed by our creator; they despise in particular the notion that those they rule have the same rights they do. Witness their newfound respect for the idea that speech should only be free for the enlightened few who know how to use it properly. Like Critias and the pro-Sparta faction, the new American oligarchy believes that democracy’s failures are proof of their own exclusive right to power—and they are happy to rule in partnership with a foreign power that will help them destroy their own countrymen.

What does history teach us about this moment? The bad news is that the Thirty Tyrants exiled notable Athenian democrats and confiscated their property while murdering an estimated 5% of the Athenian population. The good news is that their rule lasted less than a year.

[hereticaloracles]

TNO Watch: Eris

Helios on Eris– So, somehow in my accounting of the Transneptunians, I managed to overlook the biggest, most prolific of them all (however not the first to be discovered past Pluto!)- Eris! Now I can’t rightly finish off the archive without her, now can I? So without further ado, let me formally welcome back the most controversial dwarf planet back into the party! Gird your loins, y’all

The Astronomy– Eris is the most massive and second-largest (by volume) dwarf planet (and plutoid) known in the Solar System. Eris was discovered in January 2005, and in September 2006 it was named after Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Eris is the ninth most massive object directly orbiting the Sun, and the 16th most massive overall, because seven moons are more massive than all known dwarf planets. It is also the largest which has not yet been visited by a spacecraft. Eris was measured to be 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi) in diameter. Eris’s mass is about 0.27% of the Earth mass, about 27% more than dwarf planet Pluto, although Pluto is slightly larger by volume.

Eris is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) and a member of a high-eccentricity population known as the scattered disk. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. As of February 2016, its distance from the Sun was 96.3 astronomical units (1.441×1010 km; 8.95×109 mi), roughly three times that of Pluto. With the exception of some long-period comets, until 2018 VG18 was discovered on December 17, 2018, Eris and Dysnomia were the most distant known natural objects in the Solar System.[

Because Eris appeared to be larger than Pluto, NASA initially described it as the Solar System’s tenth planet. This, along with the prospect of other objects of similar size being discovered in the future, motivated the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term planet for the first time. Under the IAU definition approved on August 24, 2006, Eris is a “dwarf planet”, along with objects such as Pluto, Ceres, Haumea and Makemake thereby reducing the number of known planets in the Solar System to eight, the same as before Pluto’s discovery in 1930. Observations of a stellar occultation by Eris in 2010 showed that its diameter was 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445.3 ± 7.5 mi), very slightly less than Pluto, which was measured by New Horizons in July 2015.

The Myth– Eris is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. The most famous tale of Eris recounts her initiating the Trojan War by causing the Judgement of Paris. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.

She, therefore (as mentioned at the Kypria according to Proclus as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and Themis) tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed Ancient Greek: τῇ καλλίστῃ, “For the most beautiful one”, or “To the Fairest One” – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the fairest by Zeus. The goddesses stripped naked to try to win Paris’s decision and also attempted to bribe him. Hera offered political power; Athena promised infinite wisdom; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.

Another story of Eris includes Hera and the love of Polytekhnos and Aedon. They claimed to love each other more than Hera and Zeus were in love. This angered Hera, so she sent Eris to wreak discord upon them. Polytekhnos was finishing off a chariot board, and Aedon a web she had been weaving. Eris said to them, “Whosoever finishes thine task last shall have to present the other with a female servant!” Aedon won. But Polytekhnos was not happy by his defeat, so he came to Khelidon, Aedon’s sister, and raped her. He then disguised her as a slave, presenting her to Aedon. When Aedon discovered this was indeed her sister, she chopped up Polytekhnos’s son and fed him to Polytekhnos. The gods were not pleased, so they turned them all into birds.

Eris has been adopted as the patron deity of the modern Discordian religion, which was begun in the late 1950s by Gregory Hill and Kerry Wendell Thornley under the pen names of “Malaclypse the Younger” and “Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst”. The Discordian version of Eris is considerably lighter in comparison to the rather malevolent Graeco-Roman original, wherein she is depicted as a positive (albeit mischievous) force of chaotic creation.

A quote from the Principia Discordia, the first holy book of Discordianism, attempts to clear up the matter: One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historical matters. “They were,” She added, “victims of indigestion, you know.” Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But she is mischievous and does get a little bitchy at times.

The story of Eris being snubbed and indirectly starting the Trojan War is recorded in the Principia and is referred to as the Original Snub. The Principia Discordia states that her parents may be as described in Greek legend, or that she may be the daughter of Void. She is the Goddess of Disorder and Being, whereas her sister Aneris (called the equivalent of Harmonia by the Mythics of Harmonia) is the goddess of Order and Non-Being. Their brother is Spirituality.

Discordian Eris is looked upon as a foil to the preoccupation of western philosophy in attempting to find order in the chaos of reality, in prescribing order to be synonymous with truth. Discordian Eris teaches us that the only truth is chaos and that order and disorder are simply temporary filters applied to the lenses through which we view the chaos. This is known as the Aneristic Illusion.

Why She Matters– Okay, its no secret that Eris is fantastic and I love her. Yes, Eris is chaos, but you know what? So is life. You can try and plan and make things nice and neat, but then the Universe comes through like a toddler who just learned how to walk, hellbent on getting to the other side of the room- consequences be damned. Eris is that universal action. Make no mistake, she is a destroyer and lives for the battlefield, but she also loves to dance, finding the beat in the deaths of men clamoring to prove that they are right to unseen forces (but most of all, themselves). If Mars ever did drag, she would look like Eris (and you bet your ass there would be death drops and shablams like you’ve never seen before!)

When people (read: hecklers) try to come at me with proof that astrology works (but who don’t have their birth time handy for me to utterly eviscerate them) I point to Eris. I remember when she was discovered, and the excitement that her unveiling brought to all of us. And then I remember, quite vividly, the fallout from the IAU decision after she was named but then relegated to dwarf planet status. It was a repeat of the Judgement of Paris myth! She was snubbed, yet again, by the authority, and Pluto was caught up in the fallout as collateral damage just because she was bigger than him (men and size issues, amirite?). And the authority paid for it in the end! Even total luddites who don’t follow the whirling and twirling of the planets (dwarf or otherwise) have a strong opinion about the decision. It made people care about these crazy space rocks, which brings me great happiness.

We aren’t all running around fighting all the time in this modern age, so how do we look at Eris now? A primal force of chaos doesn’t really mesh with our modern sensibilities- or does it? One of the more enlightening views on Eris comes when we consider her in terms of Justice, especially against any kind of oppressive authority. This can be seen in almost every major social movement to demand better treatment, to deny an oppressive ruling class its ability to exploit those below it- Stonewall, May Day, Ferguson, Rodney King, The Arab Spring…. Hell, even the Boston Tea Party! Eris is that urge we feel to stand our ground and refuse to roll over to the bad guys. Eris is the urge to fight for our rights. Yes, it can get violent- but better short violence that changes things for the better than the long, slow violence of inaction. Far better to live boldly and bravely. More commonly though, Eris spurs us on to fight with our racist uncles on Facebook or send petty gifs in the group chats calling out our friends for being slutty… but like, in an endearing way. In fact you could solidly call Eris the Goddess of Shade. Hey, not every action can be a revolutionary one after all- sometimes you just want to get brunch with your girls.

Eris isnt just Chaos, by the way- she also represents Strife. More specifically, what you are striving for. What do you want out of this life? If you are lost, look to Eris and she can help you find your way when you’ve lost it. Mind you, you’ll be in for a HELL of a trip with her (more Thelma and Louise than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- That’s solidly Arawn territory) and you might not survive, but at least you’ll know!

Now, we all have all of these planets and asteroids SOMEWHERE in our chart, so in you is the seed of chaos- even the most holier-than-thou Libra. As with all of the Transneptunians, look at her house placement, not necessarily the sign, to see her effect. To find out where she shows up in your chart, go to astro.com, put in your birth details and in the extended options, all the way at the bottom of the next page, there will be a menu of additional objects. Under that is a blank space where you can enter the number 136199, for Eris. Once you have it entered, generate the chart! Where does Eris affect your life? Let us know in the comments below!

Support us on Patreon so that we can keep delivering content like this! https://www.patreon.com/hereticaloracles

TNO Watch: Eris was originally published on Heretical Oracles

[aguirregrau74-blog]

Truths, Statistics & You

If we had the cash money our experts would certainly go for it on cars and trucks, check outs, outfits as well as tech however our experts would love to assume that our team 'd fix a limit at a $26k computer system mouse and also the $100k hat. Thucydides, our 1st great chronicler, discussed the Peloponnesian War-- the excellent battle in between Sparta as well as Athens. Thus there is actually fact to the idea that men along with swagger get the female, as well as this self-assuredness could be actually partially embeded in T. In the USA, all medical insurance plans are called for to give prenatal treatment under the Affordable Care Show (ACA). Stopping coffee is actually most likely the craziest thing a reasonable male will perform. Having said that, research studies presented that coffee is actually only well-balanced when you consume 4 mugs with just ONE HUNDRED milligrams coffee material. For http://superfit-blog.com , ashwagandha may substantially strengthen cardiovascular wellness by minimizing irritation, reducing the amount from lotion triglycerides, increasing the really good" HDL-cholesterol (~ 17%), and reducing the negative" LDL-cholesterol (~ 9%) 177. Imagine if your loved ones can incorporate its consultations, exam dates, job target dates, and invitations to the super-local updates so everybody in the family may find it. This would be actually made easier through enabling loved ones to select just what sports groups and class put on their little ones so each of that timetable information inhabits the calendar instantly. Properly, as much, well-liked limelights is positioned on the resentment from ladies's goals and adoration from size double-zero waistlines, three-way D busts and lengthy streaming blonde hair, males do not obtain that much of a very easy flight either; ruthless photos of wide, basted, muscled Adonises along with thick tussled hair, complete thick bristle, along with boxers total to breaking. Feature displaced manner, so in to the pocket men's timepieces went, just to become secured when needed to have. Possessing an entirely different base for our respective world sights carries out kind of cease the initial arguement in it Performs but's keep tracks of create another. However, the researches over are still very hefty proof in the direction of the fact that the cannabis coming from the mint loved ones and also mint foods lessen testosterone level levels in men. A) This individual research off 2007 ended in the Thi-Qar University from Medicine in Iraq, discovered that 25 milligrams's (a small amount) of Royal jelly blended in honey was enough to increase testosterone level amounts through TWENTY% on unable to have children males (the research study lasted for 3 months). Alcohol can be risky to health in quantities greater than one offering per day for a lady and 2 every day for a guy. Although menopause is a completely all-natural stage from a female's life cycle and not an illness, a collection of awkward bodily and mental signs normally accompany that. Several forms of therapy can normally reduce these indicators. One research study, for example, discovered that after 4 years of therapy with both the alpha-blocker doxazosin and the 5-alpha-reductase prevention finasteride, signs got worse in only 5.3% of the men compared with around 10% of those that got either medication alone. Many guys hesitate to talk about urination issues along with their doctor, yet this is very important in order to get these problems analyzed as very early as achievable to stop any kind of difficulties that could exist, regardless if the person recognizes them. Pack your desk draw, bag or satchel along with healthy treats like almonds (certainly not the natural honey baked kind) and also you'll feel a million dollars by edge from the month. Health authorities will definitely also consult with other people these individuals might have possessed sexual exchange. Perishing in 1895, Douglass had risen off enslavement to end up being one of the best well-respected as well as prominent black males in the United States. Paleo-style eating has a great deal of high quality: It focuses on entire foods, lean healthy proteins, veggies, fruits, and also well-balanced fats. A physical exam and blood stream examinations can rule out health issue that can easily result in anxiety. Meanwhile, Globe Diabetes mellitus Time was actually launched by the International Diabetes Federation in 1991 to call attention to this worldwide prevalent, and also that obtained a huge improvement when the United Nations issued a solution on that in 2006. So all we should perform is charge pork eaters 4 opportunities as high as vegetarians for health insurance. To always keep alive their memory, as well as perhaps to mobilize the power of their brave forebearers, these guys would proclaim Usuthu!" during the course of war.

[anushakotturi]

Business Analyst Course

Designed along with your future in mind, the CFA Program provides a powerful foundation in advanced investment analysis and real-world portfolio management skills. current input from trade consultants ensures that the programme remains relevant and prepares charterholders to enter today’s market. Since 1967, publications have hierarchic Master in Business Administration programs victimisation varied ways.

Leverage information of behavioral priorities to boost your effectiveness as a pacesetter. As organizations become a lot of wide-ranging it's vital to know and embrace all types of diversity – cultural, ethnic and even behavioral. Sales Professionals– perceive your customers higher and learn to form a publicity that resonates with the consumer priorities. Master the art of delegation and motivation to form extremely driven groups. we offer gold customary client service to our DiSC certified trainers and facilitators. Strengthscape offers the DiSC Trainer certification as a Face to face Program, on-line Live Virtual Program, E-learning based mostly and therefore the Enterprise Certification.

To be the most effective and most relevant science and technology coaching company for career commencement and skilled development therefore on profit people to achieve success and reach their life goals. Through our greatest services to our purchasers, we glance forward to feature worth and augment their success and within the method, become one in every of the prime technological institution/university within the country. you will additionally find out how to document conditions in an exceedingly legible however usable format. Business Analytics may be a skilled course that has copious scope for growth within the future. operating professionals WHO choose to pursue a Business Analytics course from prime management colleges usually manage to urge offered six-figure salaries by a number of the highest firms in India. it's a viable career path, particularly for those who have an interest in problem-solving and knowledge analysis.

Hard skills devolve on learning instead of inherent temperament traits. for instance, systems analysts should demonstrate proficiency in Microsoft workplace and programming languages like Structured source language . Throughout coaching and time on consumer web site, Sparta international supports the technical progression and private development of our consultants. we offer current support and mentoring throughout your amount of employment with North American nation, together with the chance to diversify your skillset with further train­ing and technical support. At the Sparta Academy we’ll equip you with the technical and cooperative skills you wish to feature worth to any consumer team and become a future leader in technology.

GPS additionally uses knowledge science to guide the user to achieve his destination. the work roles offered during this domain area unit thought of in concert of the foremost fascinating job roles in India and abroad. In fact, the work role of a knowledge individual is said because the sexiest job role of the twenty first century. several kids and existing career professionals area unit assuming to become knowledge Scientists and Business Analysts. “The most stunning side of this program is that you simply area unit able to apply the learnings to the real-life business analytics issues further. Introduction to knowledge visualisation the method of the graphical illustration of knowledge and knowledge is thought as knowledge visualisation.

Business strategy forecasts future risks and helps business in building skillsets to beat the potential threats. Business Strategy includes the vision, mission, goals, business model, business set up & strategy for all the functions inside the organization. CPA detects the minimum & the most time involvement of a selected individual or team to execute the task, thereby incoming at the deadlines related to the project. CPA outlines key tasks across the project, their turnaround & the dependencies of tasks upon one another. important Pathway helps in understanding the unimportant & not pressing tasks which can jeopardize the execution of the project owing to Associate in Nursing sudden snag! It additionally maps out the potential bottlenecks which could be exhibit owing to the dependencies of tasks upon one another & cases wherever succeeding task can not be commenced before the completion of the previous one.

Once a student completes his course and receives the Course Completion Certificate, he's eligible for Associate in Nursing position. At the tip of the position, they'll receive Associate in Nursing position Certificate in recognition of their efforts. you may learn the foremost celebrated business intelligence tool Tableau and its capabilities. Learn the information visualisation rules and differentiate a decent visualisation from a foul visualisation. within the trade, the classification techniques area unit preponderantly wont to solve prediction issues. you may learn these common techniques and therefore the mathematics behind these algorithms.

 Business Name: ExcelR Solutions

Address: Cyber Towers, PHASE-2, 5th Floor, Quadrant-2, HITEC City, Hyderabad, Telangana 500081

Call us: 9632156744

Visit Us: Business Analyst Course

[xtruss]

Disillusioned By Two Decades of Dreams, Discerning ‘10 Illusions’ of the US From the ‘Kabul Moment’

— Shao Xia | September 26, 2021 | Global Times

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

In 2001, the US entered Kabul, and it was the Taliban who confronted the US. In 2021, the US fled Kabul in chaos, and it was still the Taliban who "sent off" the US. What's different, however, is that the Taliban updated their weapons with captured high-tech American armaments, and has learned from their opposition during the 20 years of US occupation.

This Kabul moment is far more dramatic than the Saigon moment of 1975. When the US started the war in Afghanistan two decades ago, its national strength was almost at its peak. But now the US became another superpower lost in the Graveyard of Empires, just like the Soviet Union and Great Britain. As Russian President Vladimir Putin noted, the US is now walking the Soviet Union's path.

Perhaps what the US is most worried about today is that the Kabul moment might just be the first domino to fall down and the first hole of the Broken Windows theory. History never ends. History is proceeding.

The world is undergoing a great change unseen in a century, and the momentum of change is accumulating fast. However, imperialists and hegemonists will never willingly admit their defeat, and will never honestly admit the end of "American mythology". They did their utmost to project the aura of the peak era into the shadow of today's America, and created "10 illusions" for those who yearn for America and fear America. These illusions should be considered in detail.

Illusion 1: America is invincible

Relying on advanced weapons and equipment, the US military killed numerous lives, including those of Afghan civilians, as if the operators of high-tech weapons were "playing video games."

However, in the long term, "weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor. It is the people, not things, that are decisive." Calculating the strength of the two sides is not a simple mathematical question of comparing GDP, but an analytical problem of political economy.

An economic "star" may indeed be a "black hole" in politics. For example the Wall Street titans may earn a lot, but they are also powder kegs that cause polarization between the rich and the poor, creating national turmoil. America's strength is glamorous, but it is by no means invulnerable, let alone invincible, as the Taliban has confirmed.

Illusion 2: The US could play with the concepts of grand geopolitical strategy at will

The US always boasts of its military supremacy-based strategies, while completely ignores the gap between its capabilities and aspirations.

John Gaddis, an American scholar, pointed out in his book On Grand Strategy that to succeed in geostrategy, you must recognize what kind of restrictions and constraints exist. There is a saying in Sun Tzu's Art of War, "plan before moving, gain something by stopping." Napoleon, who rushed into Russia and eventually lost the war, and Perikles, who blindly pursued hegemony and eventually lost Athens to Sparta, were unwilling to be bound by realistic conditions and stubbornly pursued their overambitious goals, thereby doomed to failure.

Today, the American hegemony is falling apart, as the Economist bluntly points out that the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan had demonstrated Biden's "Great Defeat." Under such circumstances, the US is still addicted to playing with a grand geostrategy out of its control, making excuses for the Kabul moment, arguing that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan is a great turn to the grand strategy of the Indo-Pacific, as laid out by former president Barack Obama.

Even if the US does pivot to the Indo-Pacific, regional countries might have to ponder: Will the US run away again as it did in Afghanistan?

Illusion 3: American democracy could heal itself

American democracy has died in Afghanistan, and has been admitted to an intensive care unit in the US. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is not the end of disasters in the past 20 years, but the beginning of an American political civil war in the next 20 years. We saw its origins in the forced storming of Capitol building earlier this year.

Francis Fukuyama said recently that the Afghan crisis marks the end of American hegemony, while the real crisis in the US lies in internal polarization, which will result in almost no consensus on all issues. There is no sign of American democracy healing itself. On the contrary, American democracy has become an accelerator of political division and social confrontation.

Biden came to power in the general election controversy and congressional riots, talking endlessly about vaccination and infrastructure plans, rather than taking care of the American people in their time of great need. Afghanistan issues have hit Biden's approval rate hard, leading the US into a fierce political battle before the mid-term elections. No matter what happens on the US domestic political scene, the current political division in the US will not be the worst seen, it will become worse.

Illusion 4: The US could still do whatever it wants by virtue of its position of strength

People with real strength never talk about strength all the time, but recently the "position of strength" has become the mantra of American diplomacy.

The US made use of its so-called position of strength to engage in unilateral sanctions and "exerting maximum pressure," but all its expected goals have failed. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. Anti-sanction, anti-pressure, anti-bullying. More countries and people are on the way to an era of awakening.

Americans often say, don't "bet on America to lose." This makes America look like an anxious gambler, who wants to win too much but only loses more. The international community is not a casino, and no country would like to place its future and destiny on the roulette wheel.

More peace-loving countries now stand up and say no to the US, and safeguard the morality, conscience and justice of the international community.

Illusion 5: America is 'back'

Biden made a high-profile announcement, "America is back" at the Munich Security Conference in early 2021, trying to create the impression that America is returning to the world stage and intends to expand again. However, the Kabul moment has shown that this was not the case. "America is back" has changed to "America is home." The Republican Party has sarcastically stated: "The Taliban is back, not the United States."

Whether it is the crazy withdrawal from international treaties in the Trump era, or the failure to fight the epidemic, or the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, it all confirmed what Czech President Zeman noted, Americans have lost "the prestige of a global leader."

The expansionist America needs to go home, have a physical check-up, and seek remedies while reflecting on its past. On the other hand, the US should engage in true multilateralism, learn to listen and discuss, resort to problem-solving through political dialogue instead of the wanton and futile use of aircraft and artillery.

Illusion 6: The American alliance system has been 'repaired'

The Biden administration expects to create a "Grand West" through its European allies, the Group of Seven (G7), the QUAD mechanism, the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and the "Summit for Democracy". However, the US did not consult or even inform its allies about before deciding on the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Europeans lament that the United States merely treats its allies as a tool.

It is not difficult to tell whether it is "America first" or putting allies interest first. It is the US that forced its allies to revise bilateral free trade agreements on the grounds of trade deficit. It is again the US that hoarded scarce anti-epidemic materials such as vaccines, regardless of the demands of its allies. The fate of its interest-based alliance system is doomed as it will break up upon the exhaustion of interests.

Britain, the devoted supporter of the US in the group, has repeatedly vented its dissatisfaction with the US recently. The British defense secretary expressed the idea that the US was no longer a superpower. Britons may still remember that the US betrayed Britain and dealt the last blow to "the empire on which the sun never sets" during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. Will history repeat itself? Let's wait and see.

The Anglo-Saxons believe strongly in self-interest. "Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost." A man may be stabbed with a knife in the back as soon as it is deemed expedient to do so.

Illusion 7: Universal values are the soft power of the US

"When poor, you get no friends. When rich, you get more friends than you know." The soft power depends on the hard power. When the hard power of the US declined sharply, e.g. at the Saigon moment in the 1970s, it kept a low profile and turned from ideological diplomacy to realistic diplomacy, with Kissinger as the representative.

However, it is different this time. The Biden administration propagated "universal values" vigorously and even arranged the "Summit for Democracy" after the "Kabul moment".

"Universal values" are "luxuries" given to the "third world" by the US. At the moment of severe lack of national strength, the US, unable to fulfill its promise to the followers, has only brought disgrace on itself in Afghanistan.

The Afghans who believed in the commitment of the US for democracy were either abandoned without mercy, fell from airplanes they cling to and died, or became miserable refugees. I'm afraid it will be difficult to reproduce the highlight of "universal values" at the "Summit for Democracy" in December as we still remember the Afghan children murdered in drone strikes.

Illusion 8: The economies will continue to rely unilaterally on the US

The supremacy of the US dollar has created economic dependence on the US. The US frequently abuse other economies by using tools such as tariffs, sanctions or even decoupling when necessary.

However, the epidemic has hit the US economy continuously, and the crazy financial capital injection used as a "cure" has caused the skyrocketing of prices and inflation. The trade war with China revealed the long-standing industrial and financial problems of the United States. The US's deficit with China even rose rather than fell.

More and more countries have begun to enhance their autonomy in economy and finance. A "de-dollarization" movement has begun. Countries have started to reduce their US debts substantially, give up anchoring US dollars, and increase commodity trading in currencies other than US dollars and non-US dollar currency or gold reserves.

The dominance of the US dollar is not guaranteed by sufficient real economy and a gold standard; instead, it is endorsed by national credit. A mudslide of the dollar collapse is not far away when the US Congress continually abuses its credit without any restraint every year.

Illusion 9: America would have the last laugh on epidemic prevention and control

COVID-19 has infected tens of millions of Americans and caused more deaths than the sum of those lost in World Wars I and II, accompanied by more severe social conflicts and crisis.

In the past few days, the daily average number of confirmed cases has exceeded 150,000 consecutively. There have been over 1,000 new fatalities each day, drawing sharp criticism even from its own allies. The European Council decided to take America off the "EU safe travel list" and suggested its member countries take epidemic prevention restrictions against American travelers. Despite "natural disaster" factors at the beginning of the epidemic, America's current situation where a large number of hoarded COVID-19 vaccines still cannot reverse the tide of considerable deaths of its people can only be called a "man-made disaster".

However, America attempts to shirk its responsibility and hide its incompetence by blaming China. It declared that "China's so-called anti-pandemic achievement is the result when authoritarianism defeated "human rights" and China's "Zero-Covid" policy would lead to huge economic costs and would only make itself into an "island isolated from the world".

In fact, the countries imitating American anti-pandemic measures have had to swallow bitter pills. Europe once interrupted their lockdowns against the epidemic and is now suffering from a variant of the virus that is bouncing back. India, passively taking measures for epidemic prevention and control, has been completely trapped in uncontrollable consequences. Vietnam, a country that relaxed its vigilance during the fight against the epidemic, has been faced with tough results.

America may have false hopes that vaccines will save its people from misery, the economy would reinvigorate itself, and it would successfully shirk its responsibility for its repeated mistakes in the fight against the epidemic. Please wake up. The result can only be that, American measures against the epidemic will meet the final failure, American people will be the victims, and the whole world will have to face the resulting consequences.

Illusion 10: America could determine the development of history

30 years ago, the dissolution of the Soviet Union once gave America a reason to cheer. The "end of history" has made America unreasonably believe that it could determine the development of history.

Today, history does not advance straight along the designed route of "end of history", instead it shifts to other paths. Today, America stands against global trends of history, and heads towards a mirage of ideology built on hegemonism and neoliberalism. The "American myth" has been stricken by a financial crisis, Donald Trump's failed administration, failure in the anti-epidemic fight, riots on Capitol Hill, defeat in Afghanistan, and America has arrived on the brink of an edifice falling apart under the weight of its own dreams.

It should be remembered, America's historical view was built on its short story of 250 years, and thus it has no concept of "sunset", only "sunrise". There has never been any era of America solely. America was, is and will be only a country in the era.

— The author is an observer on current affairs. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

[as24484historyassignment]

Today I visited the city of Sparta it’s a small town now but it was one of the most powerful city-states home to a unique form of government it consisted of all male Spartan citizens. They had many duties the first of which was the two kings which were equal in power. These kings had relatively little power, their primary duty was to be the religious leaders of the city-state, they would preside over festivals and consult the original of Delfi. the kings were also empowered to lead armies when the city was at war. That was accompanied by government officials called Effors who were members of the legislative branch of the government called the legislative body was the “ephors” which was consisted of which was to regulate the kings the Effors were the only people who could bring charges against the two kings and if convict could impose a sentence on the king. This could range from a small fine to removal or even execution. Even in the case of execution, the kingship falls to the next is inline. The second and more commonly used power was to write or introduce legislation and put it before the assembly. Effors were chosen at random from a group of elected Spartans,  which consisted of all male spartan citizens, the vote was done by the “yes” and “no” shouting their vote. Another government body called the “Geruousia” ruled in based on who was louder. This body was made up of 28 men who served for life as well as the two kings. This body also with the help of the Effors tried major crimes. The Effors at the end of their one-year term were reviewed by the next set of Effors thew were done as a check on their power. Another unique fact was that when a man died his estate went to his daughters, not his sons. This meant that that unlike most cultures the women were often the ones whit the money not the men, this meant that some women had money and could use it to sponsor political campaigns giving them soft power within the government.

[spartaconsultinggroup]

Our very own Sparta 😎❤️ #SpartaConsultingGroup https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi-KiQJhi3G/ | http://spartaconsultingroup.com/

[ertuomamort1981]

coverra insurance sparta wi

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :insuretips.xyz

coverra insurance sparta wi

coverra insurance sparta wi, in the interest of our customers, in accordance with the provisions of section 4.2.8. If another person, or a group of persons, were entitled to withdraw a claim against the insured party, in the interest of our customers, in accordance with the provisions of section 4.2.2.2.1.1.1.1.a.21. If the insured party or person is covered by more than one driver’s automobile liability insurance policy, it may be covered under the terms of its contract with the insurer. If the driver is in violation of its contract with the insurer, then the terms of the liability insurance plan will be extended to cover each driver in the insured party as compared with all other drivers on the same vehicle. If a driver, or a group of drivers are in violation of its contract with the insurer, then it may be covered under the terms of its contract with the insurer. The name of the plan is indicated by the name on the. coverra insurance sparta wiplacare. Get the cheapest car insurance quotes in Milwaukee from local farmers. Here are the cheapest carriers in Milwaukee for the following user profile: a single, 30 year old male with a clean driving record who drives a 2012 Honda Accord and pays a $1,000 deductible for the state’s minimum liability insurance. We averaged rates for the twenty most populous cities in Wisconsin. The Insurify Composite Score is calculated by analyzing multiple factors that indicate the quality, reliability, and health of an . coverra insurance sparta wihtit nara nahan, mauraja na sa thirangarakadai thirakamagadai jaayuranga, sa sa mazagati sa kannan se rajda, saya dalai nachalani jaah. What should i go with this for my wife? I am an insurance consultant myself and I will help you with what you need. If i have no claim and have to be involved if i want to be involved, i would ask for help in my place. If i don t have help then I am going to ask for help. How can I save the difference in cost, for the first time in months, for someone whose primary vehicle was not an insured vehicle is the loss of their vehicle? How do I get my vehicle to repair in a repair shop is the cost of car insurance for the first time? I have a car. Why would I have to give the insurance company for the car to.

Coverra Insurance Services, Inc.

Coverra Insurance Services, Inc. and its affiliates, is a licensed property and casualty insurer in the State of Texas. Property and casualty rates are generally provided by in-force independent agents who serve an in-force market. Not all properties in the state of Texas are insured by a bank. Rates are subject to change. This material is for informational purposes only. The information provided here is not a recommendation nor is all information available from any insurance provider. Nothing on this site is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any insurance or securities or insurance product, and none of the information provided herein is a solicitation to purchase any insurance or securities product. Not all products are available in all states or to all persons. Exclusions, limitations and reductions may apply. This site is not a contract or endorsement. © 2020 Smartfinancial.com Ins LLC DBA SmartFinancial Insurance. All rights reserved. SmartFinancial Insurance is a digital insurance comparison engine, providing real-time rate and reports from leading insurance companies in the United States Dental.

[phgq]

PCOO partners with DAP for FOI officers’ certification course

#PHnews: PCOO partners with DAP for FOI officers’ certification course

MANILA – The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to formalize the creation of a Certification Course for Information Officers.

The virtual signing event was held last March 10 and streamed live on Freedom of Information (FOI) Philippines’ Facebook page.

It was graced by PCOO Secretary Jose Ruperto Martin M. Andanar, DAP President and CEO Atty. Engelbert C. Caronan Jr., PCOO Undersecretary and FOI Program Director Atty. Kristian R. Ablan, DAP Graduate School of Public and Development Management Dean Dr. Lizan E. Perante-Calina, and DAP Consultant Dr. Archimedes C. Articulo.

The Certification Course’s Technical Working Group includes representatives from the National Archives of the Philippines (NAP) and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA).

“I thank DAP for its consistent support and confidence in our projects and initiatives… when we started from square one to the rollout of the FOI 101 online course [in collaboration with Project SPARTA and Coursebank], and now with the certification course for our FOI officers,” Ablan said in his welcome remarks during the virtual event.

He also expressed his appreciation to the partner agencies – NAP, NICA, and National Privacy Commission (NPC) – for sharing their expertise in co-building the course content. “DAP and FOI PMO deserve all commendation for conceptualizing a comprehensive capacity development program in the midst of operational challenges brought by the pandemic and for envisioning means of institutionalizing FOI in government, through education,” Andanar imparted in his inspirational message.

Andanar also reiterated his support for the passage of the FOI Law in Congress. Caronan, for his part, underlined in his inspirational message the role of FOI in the empowerment of Filipino citizens to engage in an informed dialogue with the government.

“We hope the Certification Course may contribute to the full realization and institutionalization of the FOI Program in government,” Caronan added.

Calina said being beneficiaries of a participative Filipino democracy “only shows half of the picture.”

“People must combine their efforts to actively build this culture of democracy,” she added.

She said the creation of this Certification Course for Information Officers will certainly align with the DAP-Graduate School of Public and Development Management’s aim to advance a new kind of public administration where governance is not merely a management unit, but a real service to the Filipino public. The DAP, NAP, NICA, NPC, and FOI-PMO will be working closely to co-develop the course content which includes the people’s right to information, records management, Data Privacy Act, and classification of documents. The pilot testing and assessment of the course will be conducted in the 4th quarter of this year. (PR)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "PCOO partners with DAP for FOI officers’ certification course." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133753 (accessed March 16, 2021 at 09:27PM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "PCOO partners with DAP for FOI officers’ certification course." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1133753 (archived).

[ccesparta]

Christ Episcopal Church

                                           Memorial Garden

                                       Sparta, North Carolina

                                      Policies and Regulations

Allocation of Plots and Niches:  Plots and niches are available for assignment to the church members and the community at large. Applicants may request specific plots or niches either individually or in groups.   If a group is requested, a separate application must be filled out for each.

Prices: There is a fee for burial in any space.  The fee or a percentage of the fee will be placed in a Perpetual Care Fund.

The current fee schedule is as follows:

Single interment of cremains in plot:                 $500/member              $1000/nonmember

Double interment of cremains in plot:               $750/members             $1500/nonmembers

Single inurnment of cremains in columbarium:   $750/member              $1500/nonmember

Double inurnment of cremains in columbarium: $1200/members          $2200/nonmembers

Scattering of ashes in memorial garden:            $100/member             $200/nonmember

The holder of a certificate for a single plot or niche who wishes to upgrade to a double plot or niche shall pay the difference between (a) the then current price for a double niche, and (b) the price initially paid by the holder for the single niche.

Books and Records: The Parish Administrator shall be the Custodian of all Books and Records of the Memorial Garden and Columbarium, including all Certificates of Assignment of plots and niches.   Such records shall include a chart or diagram designating by number each plot and niche.

The Parish Administrator shall receive applications for the assignment of plots or niches on a first come- first served basis.   Applications shall be completed in writing on the form approved by the Vestry.   It shall be the duty of the Parish Administrator, in consultation with the Vestry to determine that applications for assignment are in proper order.  

Transfer of Plots or Niches:  The right to interment is personal and is retained only by the person(s) designated on the Certificate of Assignment. Upon approval by the Vestry of the church, the transfer of Certificates of Assignment of plots or niches may occur by will, intestate succession, gift or otherwise.   The church has no obligation to approve a transfer.  The church has no obligation to reclaim a plot or niche, although the Parish Administrator will endeavor to re-issue plots or niches upon written request and upon approval by the Vestry.

                                     In-ground Interment of Ashes

In-ground gravesite dimensions will be one foot by one foot by three feet deep.   The opening is sized to accommodate the container of ashes, which is not to exceed seven and one half (7 ½) inches in width and length and height.  A container for the ashes is required for interment.     However vaults cannot be accommodated.

Markers: for the in-ground burials will be polished granite of uniform size  (12” x12”) and color, as designated by the Vestry.  Each marker will be set flush with the ground.

Inscriptions  will be carved upon the markers.  Inscriptions shall be limited to the name of the deceased, the month, day and year of birth, and the month, day and year of death.   In case of double occupancy interment, both names and dates will be on a single unpolished granite marker.   The Church will assist in contracting for the stone marker and carving, but the cost for the marker and carving of inscription will be billed to the space holder or estate directly by the supplier. Due to space constraints, epitaphs are not possible.

Modifications and Decorations: No artificial flowers may be placed on plots or niches.  Flesh flowers may be placed on burial spaces at anytime. Plot markers and niche covers shall be inscribed in a uniform manner approved by the Vestry.   Modifications are prohibited

                                              Columbarium Spaces

Containment of Cremains in Columbarium:  Because of the design of the niches, a maximum of two persons’ cremains may be inurned in a niche. All cremains deposited in a niche shall be enclosed in a container included with purchase of niche.  Inscription of the marker will be carved when the space is used.   Inscriptions shall be limited to the name of the deceased, the month, day and year of birth, and the month, day and year of death.   In case of double occupancy interment, both names and dates will be on a single marker.  The Church will assist in contracting for the engraving, but the cost for engraving of inscription will be billed to the space holder or estate directly by the supplier. Due to space constraints, epitaphs are not possible.

                                                     Scattering of Ashes

The scattering of ashes in the Christ Episcopal Church Memorial Garden is available for the disposition of ashes. Inscription of the name, date of birth and date of death will be provided on a wall in the garden. The Church will assist in contracting for the inscription, but the cost will be billed to the space holder or estate directly by the supplier. Due to space constraints, epitaphs are not possible.

                                                           Other Policies

Performance of Services of Burial:  Only the Rector of Christ Episcopal Church or an ordained minister approved by the Rector shall be authorized to place cremains in a plot or niche or for a scattering of ashes.  A Committal Service must be held.    Only the ashes of the cremated human dead will be interred at Christ Episcopal Church Memorial Garden and Columbarium.

Right to Remove Cremains and Niche Covers:  The Church retains the absolute right, in its discretion, to remove containers of cremains, niches and niche covers and to relocate all or part of the columbarium (including niches) as it may deem necessary or advisable.

Opening of Niches or Inground Cremains:  Except as provided above, a niche or plot may be opened only written request of a proper person, upon a showing of good cause, as authorized by the Vestry, and only upon the payment to the Church of all expenses associated with such opening.   All such openings shall be documented in the records maintained for the Memorial Garden and Columbarium.

Memorial Books will be kept in the church office, giving names and dates of those interred in all interment areas.

A Perpetual Maintenance Fund has been established and Christ Episcopal Church will be responsible for the care of the burial grounds.   Monies in this fund come from fees received for each space as well as gifts and memorials designated for this purpose.

Applicability of Policies and Regulations:  All holders of certificates as well as all other persons with direct interest in the Memorial Garden shall be subject to these policies and regulations and any amendments thereto.

Release: All holders of certificates, on behalf of themselves, their heirs, successors and assigns, release the Church from any and all liabilities arising as a result of unauthorized removal of cremains or vandalism of niches, plots, and their contents.

Amendments:  Amendments to these policies and regulations may be made only upon approval of a majority vote of the Vestry at a regular or special meeting of such Vestry.

© 2020 Christ Church