Oil firms hike prices a day before ChristmasNone
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Jonah Goldberg Among elites across the ideological spectrum, there's one point of unifying agreement: Americans are bitterly divided. What if that's wrong? What if elites are the ones who are bitterly divided while most Americans are fairly unified? History rarely lines up perfectly with the calendar (the "sixties" didn't really start until the decade was almost over). But politically, the 21st century neatly began in 2000, when the election ended in a tie and the color coding of electoral maps became enshrined as a kind of permanent tribal color war of "red vs. blue." Elite understanding of politics has been stuck in this framework ever since. Politicians and voters have leaned into this alleged political reality, making it seem all the more real in the process. I loathe the phrase "perception is reality," but in politics it has the reifying power of self-fulfilling prophecy. Like rival noble families in medieval Europe, elites have been vying for power and dominance on the arrogant assumption that their subjects share their concern for who rules rather than what the rulers can deliver. Political cartoonists from across country draw up something special for the holiday In 2018, the group More in Common published a massive report on the "hidden tribes" of American politics. The wealthiest and whitest groups were "devoted conservatives" (6%) and "progressive activists" (8%). These tribes dominate the media, the parties and higher education, and they dictate the competing narratives of red vs. blue, particularly on cable news and social media. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of Americans resided in, or were adjacent to, the "exhausted majority." These people, however, "have no narrative," as David Brooks wrote at the time. "They have no coherent philosophic worldview to organize their thinking and compel action." Lacking a narrative might seem like a very postmodern problem, but in a postmodern elite culture, postmodern problems are real problems. It's worth noting that red vs. blue America didn't emerge ex nihilo. The 1990s were a time when the economy and government seemed to be working, at home and abroad. As a result, elites leaned into the narcissism of small differences to gain political and cultural advantage. They remain obsessed with competing, often apocalyptic, narratives. That leaves out most Americans. The gladiatorial combatants of cable news, editorial pages and academia, and their superfan spectators, can afford these fights. Members of the exhausted majority are more interested in mere competence. I think that's the hidden unity elites are missing. This is why we keep throwing incumbent parties out of power: They get elected promising competence but get derailed -- or seduced -- by fan service to, or trolling of, the elites who dominate the national conversation. There's a difference between competence and expertise. One of the most profound political changes in recent years has been the separation of notions of credentialed expertise from real-world competence. This isn't a new theme in American life, but the pandemic and the lurch toward identity politics amplified distrust of experts in unprecedented ways. This is a particular problem for the left because it is far more invested in credentialism than the right. Indeed, some progressives are suddenly realizing they invested too much in the authority of experts and too little in the ability of experts to provide what people want from government, such as affordable housing, decent education and low crime. The New York Times' Ezra Klein says he's tired of defending the authority of government institutions. Rather, "I want them to work." One of the reasons progressives find Trump so offensive is his absolute inability to speak the language of expertise -- which is full of coded elite shibboleths. But Trump veritably shouts the language of competence. I don't mean he is actually competent at governing. But he is effectively blunt about calling leaders, experts and elites -- of both parties -- stupid, ineffective, weak and incompetent. He lost in 2020 because voters didn't believe he was actually good at governing. He won in 2024 because the exhausted majority concluded the Biden administration was bad at it. Nostalgia for the low-inflation pre-pandemic economy was enough to convince voters that Trumpian drama is the tolerable price to pay for a good economy. About 3 out of 4 Americans who experienced "severe hardship" because of inflation voted for Trump. The genius of Trump's most effective ad -- "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you" -- was that it was simultaneously culture-war red meat and an argument that Harris was more concerned about boutique elite concerns than everyday ones. If Trump can actually deliver competent government, he could make the Republican Party the majority party for a generation. For myriad reasons, that's an if so big it's visible from space. But the opportunity is there -- and has been there all along. Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch: thedispatch.com . Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!
Port Jervis City Council on Dec. 9 unanimously approved a budget for 2025, with a tax levy increase of around $200,000, or 2.5 percent. The total budget stands at $22.5 million, up by $532,000 from that of the current year. In other words, the city property tax on a single-family house with an assessed value of $50,000 will increase by around $40 in the coming year. For average business owners, their tax rate, or taxes owed per thousand dollars of assessed value, has decreased by nearly 4 percent, meaning many will see a modest reduction in their city tax bills for 2025. That is a direct result of a growing business tax roll in Port Jervis, which includes the continued revitalization of vacant downtown shops and new special franchise charges to utility companies and others, according to city assessor Teresa Spradling in an interview. From 2024 to 2025, the city’s assessed value for business properties and residences with four units or more increased by more than $4 million. In a Dec. 11 interview with The Epoch Times, Mayor Dominic Cicalese said the city has tried its best to hold in tax increases in the face of increased employee expenses under obligated union contracts and more expensive fuels and supplies due to inflation. “The department heads were very modest with their budget requests,“ Cicalese said. ”They understood that we didn’t want to hammer the taxpayers, and they honestly kept their spending in line.” The budget does see a new in-house information technology position, which Cicalese said will help the city cope with the growing cybersecurity challenges. Neither the mayoral position nor the city council posts get a raise next year. Veteran city councilman Stanley Siegal said at the meeting following the budget vote: “I am glad to be able to have voted ‘yes’—my third time in 21 years [on the council] ... 2.5 percent [tax increase] is a doable amount of money. “I would like to thank the mayor, councilman-at-large, and all those people who were involved in the budget this year.” Following the budget vote, Cicalese thanked Stacey Hosking, the new city treasurer and clerk, for her professionalism during his first budget cycle as mayor. As for new initiatives in 2025, Cicalese highlighted to the publication the anticipated upgrade and expansion of the municipal water plant with millions of dollars of incoming state grants.None
Phillip Hughes’ family shares new ‘hope’ on 10-year anniversary of his tragic passingLook. Santa’s been around for a while. A spring chicken he isn’t. Plus — as us collaborators know only too well — he has bad habits. It’s not the drugs or the drink. It’s the snacks. You know the way we use the word ‘treats’ to excuse scoffing salted caramel anything? Covers a multitude, that word ‘treats’, with its implication of rarity and its paired implication of somehow having been earned by earlier privation or meritorious effort. The world may not owe you a living, or fame, or fortune, but we still feel entitled to treats and extrapolate from that to the conviction that we must all reward/bribe Santa by setting out a saucer of cookies and a glass of milk. It’s a reprehensible form of cause and effect. Parents spend the year conscientiously refusing ever to link food with their children’s occasional good behaviour. Back in the day, this wasn’t a problem because, once you had the bonding thing nailed, parenting was down to training your kids like dogs: “Homework done? Who’s a good boy, then?” Then enlightenment struck and the instructions to well-behaved offspring to sit and gratefully snaffle a KitKat morphed into as shameful exemplar of your parental inadequacies so vile that you knew, if you stood for election, even a crime gang leader would do better than you. Santa, of course, bypasses all this child development woke stuff. He still operates the canine training model: “Been a good girl? Here’s a whole stocking full of reward for you (insert ear-scratch here)!” Understandably, the dog-training model works both ways. You use it to ensure reasonable pre-teen behaviour in your offspring, then accept that the quid pro quo is that the overweight guy in the red suit gets a few cookies left out for him. We don’t even do the political reproach where Santa is concerned. No parent ever complains: “We never see you except when you want free cookies, and I bet you haven’t declared the carrots for Rudolf to Sipo either.” Santa: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell It’s arguable that the success, over these many generations, of the Santa Claus model of social conditioning is behind the benign Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell approach to Saint Nick himself regnant in the western world. Presenters on radio programmes get more warnings from their producers about not breaching the unspoken rules than if the next guest was the Israeli ambassador. Signs on it, when some bunch of medics this year raised reservations about Santa as a health model, the story died on the vine. Leave the old charmer alone, was the unspoken message, a bit like the consensus around Michael D. Nor will the dire example of the Anglican priest Paul Chamberlain be readily forgotten. This eminent cleric shared his truth with a congregation of 10-year-olds. Let’s not even delineate the shape of his ecclesiastical truth. All anybody needs to know is that it broke the Yuletide Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell rule, and peace on earth plus goodwill to all ceased, right there. His public defrocking, defenestration, and forced pyre-toasting was averted only by him seeing the light and outing himself as a complete eejit. In the litany of public sinning covered by the grandees of many religions, what he’d done might be regarded as down the scale a bit, but it represented a profound failure to read the room. The reverend priest would’ve been a lot better off finding a saucer, a couple of cookies, and a space beside the hearth for their display. The 'Late Late' connection Santa may be all ho ho ho and product placement but, when it comes right down to it, you know you shouldn’t cross him. It’s a bit like Pat Kenny quoting Gay Byrne to the effect that “one for everybody in the audience” was a dreadfully counterproductive move, the negative consequences of which meant that, on any given show, you might have a stunning lineup of guests and topics, but if the Late Late Show audience freebie that particular week wasn’t up to much, it tainted the in-studio appreciation and subsequent recollection of the entire show, turning the presenter into a freebie-shill and the audience into discount Olivers, always asking for more. Perhaps — because those of us who love the programme — perhaps in the distant future, someone as wise as Gay will condemn the Toy Show and its relentlessly greedy brand extension to a full-day festival rather than the 90-minute celebration of the commercially mawkish and precocious that it really is. Of course, the very minute you say anything against the Toy Show, you’re in trouble. I blame my misfortune, this year, on that. Definitely. If I’d never bad-mouthed the Toy Show, I’d be fine. 'Ho ho' turns to 'oh no' Off I flew to spend Christmas in warm climes, and — before exiting the plane in Newark airport — dutifully checked I had phone and wallet. Two hours into a four-hour layover, I realised I’d left my iPad on the flight. “Oh-oh,” I went, in a Santa Claus reversal. Inevitably, the plane had been turned around and was off to Cancún. The customer service guy on the phone said he’d email me a lost property form, which I filled in and filed, before wandering the airport to locate a customer service human in the flesh. This, after an hour and a half, I duly did. Lifted me out of it, she did. Stood there and ate the face off me. I was supposed to check my seat and surroundings for property before I left the plane, she snapped. She effectively refused to help locate my battered little computer with its Sink the Rich sticker because I didn’t obey all the instructions. ‘Customer service’, said her United Airlines label but not her mouth. (The Sink the Rich sticker came for free when I ordered Bernie Sanders’ most recent book.) I got on the second flight facing a future wherein all my colleagues, friends, and relations cast me aside as an incompetent inattentive old fool for losing an iPad that was too good for me in the first place. My inner discourse tends towards the punitive and ageist at the best of times but after my bracing encounter with the customer service woman, it hit rock bottom. I decided to lie or at least not tell on myself. Me? Lose an iPad? Perish the thought. Then my phone started to buzz with messages from colleagues who could see United Airlines’ acknowledgment of my lost property form and they all began doing technological things to find out where it was (Newark Airport, surprise, surprise) and assure me that iCloud would have everything I’d ever put into the iPad stashed safely somewhere. Aoife in the office found the iPad before the lost one and started to reprogramme it as a fallback. This greatly helped the grieving process. Santa, meanwhile, continued the ho ho ho in his promiscuously cheerful way from every hoarding and radio programme.
TSX extends rebound as investors eye 'Santa Claus rally'‘What do you say now?’... Petr Yan sends message to Merab Dvalishvili after flawless win over Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC Macau
The soulful rhythm of African acapella music, with its deep harmonies and vibrant cultural roots, resonates with audiences worldwide. This article shines a spotlight on the trailblazing artists and ensembles defining this genre, celebrating their achievements and distinctive sounds. By honoring tradition while pushing boundaries, these artists amplify Africa 's voice on the world stage, inviting global listeners to share in the continent's rich musical tapestry. Pioneering voices in acapella South Africa 's Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been the beating heart of African acapella music since the 1960s. Their collaboration with Paul Simon on his 1986 album Graceland catapulted them to international stardom, introducing the world to their complex rhythms and harmonies rooted in Zulu tradition. Their influence on global music is undeniable, with five Grammy Awards under their belt and a legacy as Africa's cultural ambassadors. Contemporary harmonies The Kenyan band Sauti Sol has been making waves in the African acapella scene, infusing traditional Kenyan folk melodies with a fresh, modern twist. Since their inception in 2005, they have cultivated a massive fanbase across Africa and beyond. Their unique take on acapella infuses elements of Afro-pop, allowing them to reach a wider audience while remaining authentic to their cultural heritage. Women in acapella Since 2011, Nobuntu, the all-female a cappella sensation from Zimbabwe , has been shattering expectations and redefining the rules of this traditionally male-dominated genre. Their performances are a mesmerizing fusion of vocal artistry and traditional dance, leaving audiences spellbound. Nobuntu's music is a vibrant tribute to African womanhood, sharing narratives of strength and resilience through their empowering harmonies. The global stage African acapella groups are hitting high notes on the world stage! The prestigious Real Group Festival in Sweden regularly invites African ensembles, giving them a global platform to shine. This spotlight has opened doors to collaborations with artists across genres and continents, further infusing the world of music with Africa's vibrant rhythms and harmonies. Educational impact More than just entertainment, African acapella music serves as a powerful tool for educating global audiences about African cultures. Workshops held by these groups at schools and festivals provide a unique opportunity to learn about African history, languages, and social issues—all while enjoying the universal language of music. This educational component is key to promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation for Africa's rich cultural diversity among international listeners.DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones' 21 points helped UC San Diego defeat James Madison 73-67 on Friday night. Tait-Jones also contributed six rebounds for the Tritons (4-2). Hayden Gray scored 16 points and added four steals. Nordin Kapic went 5 of 8 from the field (1 for 4 from 3-point range) to finish with 12 points. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
This victory is a stamp on the BJP's governance model, PM Modi said. Top Quotes from PM's Speech "Development, good governance, and social justice have won in Maharashtra. Lies and deceit have suffered a crushing defeat. Divisive forces and dynastic politics have lost in Maharashtra today," Prime Minister Modi said. "Today, several bypoll results have been declared too and we have also increased our Lok Sabha tally after winning one more seat. We have done well in every state and it shows that people want development I want to thank the people, especially the mothers and the farmers for the win. I want to thank the people of Jharkhand too and we will work for its development, PM Modi said. "In the last 50 years, no party or pre-poll alliance has secured such a big win as Maharashtra's. This is the third consecutive time, that a BJP-led alliance has won in a state. This is indeed a historic win," he said. "This is the third consecutive time that the BJP has emerged as the largest party in Maharashtra, which is undoubtedly a historic feat. This victory is a stamp on the BJP's governance model," the Prime Minister said in his speech. "The voter sees that those who promise big things in one state, how are they faring in the other states. Maharashtra voters saw how in Karnataka, and Himachal, Congress cheated people. You will get to see this in Punjab as well, Prime Minister said. "Now only one constitution will be applicable in the entire country... that constitution is the constitution of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, the constitution of India," the Prime Minister said. "After Haryana, the biggest message of this election is unity. 'Ek hain toh safe hain' has become the 'maha-mantra' of the country," the Prime Minister said after the BJP secured a second win in Assembly elections after the Lok Sabha polls. "This Maharashtra election has exposed the true faces of the INDIA bloc and Aghadi groups before the entire nation. We all know that Balasaheb Thackeray made significant contributions to this country. However, the Congress, driven by a lust for power, managed to take a faction of his party along, but no Congress leader can ever praise Balasaheb's principles," he said. "I challenged the Aghadi leaders to get Congress to praise Balasaheb's principles and policies, but they've failed to do so to date," he added. "I also tell the Congress people and their allies to listen carefully... now no power in the world can bring back Article 370," Prime Minister said.UConn, football coach Jim Mora agree to contract extension through 2028