text stringlengths 1 330k |
|---|
San Marino Etnofestival |
festival etnico san marino |
Since 1998, San Marino through the notes of the music you can meet ethnic cultures and distant peoples. From the Amazon to Africa, from Eastern Europe to the Caribbean for a week every year in July, bands can be found on the stage of Cava dei Balestrieri, in the heart of the historical center of San Marino, to bring th... |
3 September- Festa della Fondazione della Repubblica di San Marino |
festa fondazione |
Day national holiday commemorating the saint patron, not only with religious functions. For the occasion, San Marino comes alive with Palio delle Balestre, the military band concert, the traditional bingo and the grand finale with fireworks show. |
Gran Premio Cinzano di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini |
World Championship MotoGP. The races are held at the Misano Adriatico circuit, meanwhile in San Marino take place a variety of sporting events and shows. |
In Borgo Maggiore, a weekend dedicated to chocolate, with pastry chefs, chocolatiers, workshops, tastings and sales of chocolate. |
Il Natale delle Meraviglie |
Christmas street market in the historical center of San Marino. Crafts, sweets and children’s entertainment, all weekends and holidays from 1 December to 6 January. |
Friday, April 22, 2011 |
Friday, April 8, 2011 |
The chart at the bottom shows Nigeria's ranking (WORLD BANK GROUP) in ease of doing business. Nigeria is 137 out of 183. It means that we rank among the most difficult countries to do business in. |
I am concerned about starting a business which, as far as legal and administrative processes go, begins at the Corporate Affairs commission (CAC). The CAC is a torturous hell-hole and a reminder of why we are called a third world country. To get a name approved for a company or business name takes these days anywhere f... |
The above is no breaking news. In fact each time I complain, I am told by mycolleagues (quite unfortunately) to just get used to it and move on. However, there has been recently the movement of the stamp duties section, without which a company cannot be registered, to a different part of town in Abuja. This means that ... |
My opinion is simply that you should not need a lawyer to get a basic business unit registered. Most processes at the CAC are still done manually and the many computers in the building are as worthless to the computerisation of the process as external hard drives to a man seeking internet connection. People should be a... |
Lawyers have no business standing in queues and struggling for sheets of paper like touts at the CAC. I am sad each time I go there and observe just how cheap and unprofessional it makes us look. |
Nigeria is not a serious country, yet. Perhaps someday. |
Ps. The table below shows where we are today from a survey of 183 countries around the world. Things are getting worse every year. |
REGIONSub-Saharan Africa |
INCOME CATEGORYLower middle income |
GNI PER CAPITA (US$)1,140.00 |
137134down -3 |
TOPIC RANKINGSDB 2011 RankDB 2010 RankChange in Rank |
Starting a Business110109up -1 |
Dealing with Construction Permits167165up -2 |
Registering Property179178up -1 |
Getting Credit8987up -2 |
Protecting Investors5957up -2 |
Paying Taxes134131up -3 |
Trading Across Borders146146No change |
Enforcing Contracts9797No change |
Closing a Business9995up -4 |
Saturday, June 03, 2017 |
Ireland Elects Gay Man as Prime Minister |
In yet another display of how low the Roman Catholic Church has fallen in Ireland, Leo Varadkar, a 38 year old gay man, was elected prime minister yesterday. Also of note is that Varadkar's father was from India and married his Irish mother. CNN looks at this surprising development which represents yet another rebuke... |
Ireland is to get its youngest prime minister, and the first who is openly gay. |
Leo Varadkar, the 38-year-old Minister for Social Protection, was elected leader of the ruling Fine Gael party on Friday. He will be confirmed as Taoiseach, or prime minister, when the Irish parliament reconvenes on June 13. The outgoing Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, stepped down as party leader in May, a position he held sin... |
In 2015, as Minister of Health, Varadkar came out on Irish national radio, joining a handful of other openly gay politicians in Ireland in support of the Marriage Equality Bill, which allows same sex couples to marry. Varadkar might seem to be an unexpected pick for leader of Ireland -- a country that's still finding ... |
Varadkar is expected to officially take up the role as Taoiseach on June 13 after a formal confirmation from parliamentary members. |
On Kushner, There’s No Innocent Explanation |
Trump apologists - which, of course includes Fox News and almost every Congressional Republican other than perhaps Lindsey Graham and John McCain on some occasions - continue to concoct explanations for Jared Kushner's secret meeting with Russian officials to set up a "back channel for communications" using Russian Rus... |
I’ve written elsewhere about possible ‘innocent explanations’ of the Trump/Russia story, particularly Donald Trump’s role in it. I will leave that all-encompassing question aside for the moment. Here I’m talking about Jared Kushner’s attempt to set up a secure line of communication to Moscow, as well as meeting with th... |
In commentary on these revelations we’re hearing a variety of possible explanations. The first was that this was an attempt to hold confidential discussions over Syria. As we’ve discussed, that’s very hard to believe. There are plenty of ways to have those conversations, plenty of ways to get detailed briefings on what... |
In the last 48 hours, we’ve increasingly heard it suggested that the issue was Kushner’s naïveté or inexperience in government. Perhaps he simply didn’t realize that this would be a problem. Let’s call this the ‘naive Jared’ theory. Like the Syria back channel it simply does not add up. I would say it’s absurd on its f... |
There’s one other argument that gets tossed around a lot now and seems widely believed even though I think there’s little to no basis for it. Even if it’s paranoid or weird or suspicious it’s now treated as a given that the Trump Team was wary of being monitored by the Obama administration. But is there really any evid... |
The idea that the Trumpers were afraid of being surveilled by the Obama team is something we’ve now projected back onto the transition because of things that happened months later – specifically, President Trump’s early March claim that Obama had “wire-tapped” him in 2016. |
The idea that Kushner and Flynn would use Russian secure communications facilities to set up a secure channel to Moscow is so inexplicable and beyond the pale that it almost beggars the imagination. Critically, this key part of the story has not been disputed by the White House. The only possible explanation of this ef... |
There’s simply no innocent explanation for that. Not naivete, no fear of Obama snooping, not plausible deniability. The only explanation for that level of secrecy and security, that level of collaboration with an adversary foreign power is that they were doing something wrong, something that had to stay secret. What it... |
I concur with the author. I think were are talking about possible treason, plain and simple. |
The "Disability" Epidemic in Rural Red America |
One of the ironies of the white voters who supported Donald Trump is that many seemingly were motivated by animus towards "those people" - read black, Hispanic, immigrant, and to a lesser extent, LGBT - whom they viewed as free loaders who "abused the system." Yet, rural whites in red states receive more welfare benef... |
And yet others say it’s about money. |
There is much more, all of it depressing or maddening depending upon one's believe in self-responsibility and accountability. The latter, of course, are much talked about by conservatives and the "godly folks" but rarely applied to themselves. I feel bad for the children who sadly have been born into disastrous famil... |
Saturday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1 |
Friday, June 02, 2017 |
Friday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 2 |
Why Evangelical Christians Reject Climate Change |
Throughout our lives we face many choices some of which are easy and others of which are difficult - for Fox News viewers, sexual orientation isn't one of them. Often making decisions or failing to make them comes down to intellectual laziness and/or an unwillingness to face facts and knowledge that cut against childh... |
The United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, President Trump announced Thursday. Environmental scientists say the consequences could be catastrophic for the planet. But for some Trump supporters, there’s no reason to worry. |
Among conservative evangelicals, that is not an unusual opinion. . . . only 28 percent of evangelicals believe human activity is causing climate change. Confidence that God will intervene to prevent people from destroying the world is one of the strongest barriers to gaining conservative evangelical support for enviro... |
In my view, the author is too optimistic about the Republican Party. Evangelical Christians are akin to a cancer within the party that has metastasized and rendered the party in a terminal condition. As for the fears of an Anti-Christ , I would argue that their vote him in the White House. The only way to deal with ... |
Head of Russian Orthodox Church Compares Gay Marriage to Nazism |
Kirill and his puppet master, Putin |
As I have noted in numerous posts, the Russian Orthodox Church has a centuries old history of being on the wrong side of history, embracing ignorance, and supporting autocrats (often it encouraged reactionary extremism) so as to protect its own wealth and privilege. Under the Soviet Union, the Church suffered greatly ... |
The last comment is particularly hypocrisy-filled since Kirill's predecessors worked hand in glove with the Soviet regime. |
California Intends to Defy Trump on World Stage |
California dwarfs all other American states both in the size of its population (approximately 40 million) and in terms of its economy (which exceeds that of France and Brazil). Indeed, if it were a separate country, California would currently be in the top six largest economies in the world. In contrast, think of Wyo... |
For the past two years, California Gov. Jerry Brown has been aggressively recruiting other state and local governments to sign onto their own, sub-national climate pact. |
But world leaders, not governors, sign international agreements with the force of law, and for years Brown was relegated to a supporting role. Only after the election of Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, did Brown’s climate diplomacy find new prominence as a counterweight to a Republican-held White House. |
Trump’s disengagement from international climate politics has left open a political opportunity for Brown, with climate-minded politicians abroad running into resistance in Washington seeking other partnerships in the United States. Even if Trump had remained in the Paris accord, his rejection of mainstream climate sci... |
Earlier this week, the state Senate passed one bill requiring utilities to obtain 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2045 and another folding Obama-era water, air and engendered species standards into state law, preserving them in California regardless of reversals at the federal level. |
California exemplifies why it is crucial that Democrats be elected to the governorships of as many states as possible, including Virginia this November. They are critical to the resistance against the foul policies of Der Trumpenführer and the Vichy Republicans in Congress. |
Friday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1 |
Thursday, June 01, 2017 |
The Winners From Trump's Foreign Policy Shifts: Russia and China |
To whom does Donald Trump/the Trump Organization owe his/its financial survival? Russia and its oligarchs and the Bank of China, a entity controlled by the Chinese government. The Russian oligarchs and their laundering of dirty money have kept Trump properties going, and the Bank of China is one of Trump's main financ... |
In ditching the Paris accord on climate change, President Trump has cemented his reputation as the international disrupter in chief with the latest in a string of decisions that foreign policy analysts believe could have profound consequences for U.S. global leadership. |
The decision to exit the Paris agreement is sure to anger many of the almost 200 nations that signed the commitment to reduce emissions. In one sign of shifting alliances, the European Union and China were expected to issue a joint statement Friday vowing to take a leading role in stemming climate change. China in part... |
“Having pulled out of the Paris accord, after sowing doubt at NATO and killing the TPP, President Trump is on the way to ending the U.S.-led international order,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a firm that assesses political risks. “I think we’re heading toward a Hobbesian, each-on-his-own world.” |
Many in the foreign policy establishment believe the pullbacks have undermined U.S. influence and credibility. |
“Other countries will be less willing to engage with us,” said David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego. “It creates a vacuum others will try to fill. It will make it harder for the United States to advance its interests.” |
Now, China is positioned to move into the void left by the United States. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech extolling the virtues of globalized trade as the United States appeared to be turning inward. The U.S. abandonment of the Paris accord repres... |
“Xi Jinping is sitting in Beijing and can’t believe what’s happening to him,” said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. representative to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “The United States’ retreat from leadership means China can move in America’s wake. We’re seeing the possibility of a shift in ... |
A column by a Nobel prize winning economist in the New York Times likewise trashes Trump's actions. Here are highlights: |
As Donald Trump does his best to destroy the world’s hopes of reining in climate change, let’s be clear about one thing: This has nothing to do with serving America’s national interest. The U.S. economy, in particular, would do just fine under the Paris accord. This isn’t about nationalism; mainly, it’s about sheer spi... |
About the economics: At this point, I think, we have a pretty good idea of what a low-emissions economy would look like. I’m sure that energy experts will disagree on the details, but the broad outline isn’t hard to describe. |
Clearly, it would be an economy running on electricity — electric cars, electric heat, with internal combustion engines rare. The bulk of that electricity would, in turn, come from nonpolluting sources: wind, solar and, yes, probably nuclear. |
Meanwhile, there would be compensating benefits. Notably, the adverse health effects of air pollution would be greatly reduced, and it’s quite possible that lower health care costs would all by themselves make up for the costs of energy transition, even ignoring the whole saving-civilization-from-catastrophic-climate-c... |
Why, then, are so many people on the right determined to block climate action, and even trying to sabotage the progress we’ve been making on new energy sources? |
Don’t tell me that they’re honestly worried about the inherent uncertainty of climate projections. |
Don’t tell me that it’s about coal miners. Anyone who really cared about those miners would be crusading to protect their health, disability and pension benefits, and trying to provide alternative employment opportunities — not pretending that environmental irresponsibility will somehow bring back jobs lost to strip mi... |
Beyond this, much of today’s right seems driven above all by animus toward liberals rather than specific issues. If liberals are for it, they’re against it. If liberals hate it, it’s good. Add to this the anti-intellectualism of the G.O.P. base, for whom scientific consensus on an issue is a minus, not a plus, with ext... |
And if all this sounds too petty and vindictive to be the basis for momentous policy decisions, consider the character of the man in the White House. |
It will be divine justice if China rises to the challenge and takes over American leadership on international trade and climate change. One can only hope that the cretins and morons that Trump is pleasing by such harmful actions suffer immeasurably as the consequences come home to roost. Meanwhile, take a good look a... |
Thursday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 2 |
click image to enlarge |
Good Versus Evil: The Battlefield for American Values |
Congress/FBI Investigating Another Possible Undisclosed Sessions-Kislyak Meeting |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.