"Effective October 4, 2008, all framebuilding materials, including lugs, fork crowns, bottom bracket shells, front & rear dropouts, and braze-ons, will only be sold to tradesmen who carry an active product liability insurance policy for the bicycle frames they construct and put into the marketplace, whether by sale, barter, or gift."

- Richard Sachs

Requerimientos:

The background to the march is not dissimilar to the situation we find ourselves in today. Back in 1936, the global depression had brought particular suffering to the North East. With many being ordinary miners and ship-builders, the collapse of domestic and international trade in shipbuilding, coal-mining and the steel industries led to severe unemployment and hardship. At the time, unemployment benefit lasted for just 26 weeks, and the Unemployment Assistance Board - established to support those suffering from unemployment - provided inadequate relief for those experiencing long term unemployment. The 'Poor Law' of the time also forced the long-term unemployed to work for less money than normal, resulting in many generations of families being forcibly evicted from their homes.

National Shipbuilding Securities (NSS) was set up to try and counter the increasingly dire situation in the North East. It recommended 'rationalisation', a process that meant closing down a number of shipyards. GIven that the yard at Jarrow was one of the older ones, the NSS closed it in an attempt to protect the more modern yards. In 1935, the yard's huge cranes were dismantled leaving the town and its people to face a bleak future.

The National Unemployed Workers' Movement had arranged several similar marches before the Jarrow Crusade, albeit with little political support given the Movement's links with the Communist Party. Because of this, when Jarrow Borough Council organised the protest in July 1936, they named it a 'Crusade' to make it clear that their protest was not affiliated with the Movement in the hope of gaining more support.

The march was organised in the hope of finding jobs to support Jarrow men and their families. It was also a bid for respect and recognition, not only for the people of Jarrow but for all others that were facing a similar situation elsewhere in the country. The marchers had no resources other than their own commitment and a bus that carried cooking equipment and ground sheets for them to sleep on. Beyond this, their boots were supplied to them by the general public and their food provided by locals from wherever the marchers stopped for the night.

Marching army style, the men marched for 50 minutes before having a 10 minute break. They carried blue and white banners. A harmonica band and communal singing kept their morale high. Sometimes, the local Member of Parliament for Jarrow, Ellen Wilkinson - or 'Red Ellen' as she was known - marched with them to give credence to the Crusade. The petition the marchers took with them to Parliament was signed by 11,000 people from Jarrow and was carried in an oak box. Supporters along the way were able to add to an additional petition.

The Crusade arrived in London on October 31, nearly a month after leaving Jarrow. The total number of signatures on the petition when it reached it's destination was 12,000 and was handed into Parliament by Red Ellen. The Prime Minister of the day, Stanley Baldwin, refused to meet with any of the marchers or their representatives, stating that he was too busy. Whilst the marchers received some empathy from MPs, no proposal was made to help Jarrow. The ship yard remained closed and the marchers were each given £1 to get the train back from London.

It was not until two years after the Jarrow Crusade in 1938, that a ship-breaking yard and an engineering works were established in Jarrow. The following year, a steelworks was established. The effects of the depression continued in Jarrow until after the beginning of the Second World War when industrial production increased due to the need for re-armament.

At a time when we are experiencing a global economic crisis (Depression? Recession?) the story of the Jarrow Crusade is a reminder of the fact that it is often the poorest people that suffer the most at these times - despite the fact that our politicians and media fixated focus is on the multinationals, merchant bankers, hedge fund profiteers and all round professional capitalists. As I wrote after the demise of Lehman Brothers, despite images of 'poor' and 'unfortunate' bankers being forced to clear their desks amid a flurry of head-hunters ready to snap them up for other posts with six and seven figure salaries, there are many, many more 'workers' that don't even have a desk to clear that are also being shown the door. These are the people that the Jarrow Crusade was for.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.

There used to be a tapestry

Of nature's verdant artistry

A hill where trees and wildlife grew

But now it's gone from scenic view

Replaced by station and a shed

Both, painted blue and garish red

Like bleeding wounds upon the earth

Replacing years of ancient birth

No treetops where a breeze can sigh

In tender leafy lullaby

That cast their shadows down below

In summer=s rain and winter=s snow

No fingered roots to run down deep

Entwining willows that would weep

Embracing those of elm and spruce

And those with fruits once ripe with juice

No lovely blossoms, pink and white

Emitting fragrance day and night

Where bees paid visit in the spring

With busy wings that seemed to sing

No place for birds to stop and perch

On nesting-trees, like oak and birch

Where butterflies were wont to rest

While on relentless nectar quest

No more birds of brilliant hue

That flashed their colors as they flew

No place for squirrels to race around

On branch and trunk, down to the ground

The grove is gone and can't return

Tall trees and bushes - flower and fern

And soon all spots of earthly class

Will be replaced by steel and glass

If I could only have my way

Such spots would be designed to stay

So in the future you could see

Nature as it used to be

7/16/92           Phyllis DeWitt VanVleck

VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Steel Association has asked that the government bans export of iron ore so that local companies can use it for production.

The Finance Ministry had last Monday cut export tariffs on steel products to 10 percent against the five percent proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The appeal comes as at least four companies have stopped producing steel ingots because they are sitting on huge stockpiles that remain unsold although prices are falling.
 
The county presently has nearly one million tons of steel ingots worth US$1 billion in stock
 
Dinh Huy Tam, general secretary of the association, said steel prices have dropped very quickly and producers were caught between decreasing domestic demand and the government’s unreasonable tariffs.
 
The Finance Ministry had last Monday cut export tariffs on steel products to 10 percent against the five percent proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
 
Suggesting the ban on iron ore exports, the association said many steel producers have built blast furnaces to produce pig-iron since the demand for iron ore has increased more and more.
 
Just three companies: Hoa Phat, Van Loi and Dinh Vu, each needs millions of tons of iron ore per annum, the association noted. 

(Source: SGGP)

Update from: http://english.vietnamnet.vn//biz/2008/10/806957/

Robert Steel is a slippery little weasel

Mid-September, two of the greatest weasels in the financial world, Robert Steel and Jim Cramer, had a chat on Cramer's excuse of a show.The sheer weaselly concentration level in the studio was enough to cause power outages in several nearby buildings. "We have a great future as an independent company," spouted Steel as Cramer pumped up the stock and implored viewers to go buy this incredibly-stable-and-never-to-be bankrupt $12 stock that would shortly be going-nuclear-and-headed-for-a-firesale at a buck (even Cramer later admitted that he'd been "taken advantage of").

This is a familiar situation for any guy who's told an ugly girl she's the prom date purely as a backup plan for being rejected by the pretty girl. Except in this case, our shy bookworm is wheeling out an exclusivity agreement that prevents pretty girl from even going to the prom. Citi is pretty pissed this morning, having bought a nice dress and arranged for a limo, and the lawyers are literally lining up to dissect the signed documents that you just know are finding shredders in Steel's office today.

Robert steel will say anything

Given his stint on Cramer's Mad Money, it's not a far stretch that Steel saw the writing on the wall and knew that Wachovia would be going the same way as it's long-term competitor WaMu, which collapsed late in the week before. To stave off a bank run and buy some time, the hurriedly-arranged marriage with Citi effectively bought him the 4 days needed to close on the Wells deal - 4 days they may not have survived without Citi. It's good to know that the CEOs of these organizations - whom the government wishes to give $700 billion - are so principled and honest. We were going to call Steel's mother to see if he's always been like this, but apparently he sold her long ago.

And talking of that $700 billion. Sorry, $835 billion

Well, I guess it happened and Congress decided to completely ignore the people. As our friends at The Housing Timebomb noted yesterday, CNBC says there are $14 trillion of mortages in the US, and if 5% fail, that plan just got gobbled up. Congress spent more time debating gay marriage than the bailout (hey, the Senate didn't even wait for a bathroom break, though we know what many of them like to do in airport bathrooms). Don't forget to keep calling your Congressmen today and let them know you won't be reelecting them!

Harsh industrial applications often expose plant equipment to caustic chemical substances, shorten the lifetime and cause deterioration of the device. The stainless steel encoder is resistant to corrosive agents in wash-down and chemical applications, making it suitable for the chemical, petrochemical, food and medical industries.

The encoder includes: optical incremental (resolution up to 10.000 pp; NPN, push pull and line driver output stages), optical absolute (single turn with a resolution up to 13 bit and multi turn up to 27 bit; both with SSI or Profibus output) and magnetic incremental (resolution up to 2.048 ppr) and magnetic absolute (up to 13 bit single turn with SSI and Profibus output). The series is available with optical (wider resolution range, single or multiturn) or magnetic technology (higher temperature range, resistance to shocks and vibrations).

trailer

Prodotto da BB productions e FastForward in associazione con Filmmasterclip con il sostegno della Film Commission Torino Piemonte e patrocinato dalla Provincia di Torino e dalla Regione Piemonte, il corto si inserisce in un progetto video-musicale più ampio culminato nella mostra: "Afterville The Underground Exhibition" svoltasi a luglio 2008 presso le Stazioni della metropolitana di Torino. Una mostra per fare il punto su un secolo di fantascienza e su come in un secolo la fantascienza abbia raccontato la città del futuro.

Il corto vede nella parte dei protagonisti 3 giovani promesse del cinema italiano, Roberto Laureri, Giorgia Wurth (nella foto) e Paolo Giangrasso. Nel cast figura anche David Zed, noto come “Mister Zed” (su CNN, MTV, “Tonight Show” di Jay Leno).

Torino, 2058. 50 anni fa, numerosi corpi celesti precipitarono sul nostro mondo, cambiando per sempre lo skyline delle più importanti città del pianeta. Le astronavi, soprannominate “Le Rocce”, non diedero mai nessun segno di vita, e vennero ben presto inglobate nell’urbanistica e nel sistema socioeconomico terrestre. L’unica cosa che gli scienziati riuscirono a scoprire riguardo Le Rocce fu un segnale geomagnetico proveniente dal loro interno, che venne codificato nella nostra lingua come un Conto alla Rovescia alla fine del quale nessuno sa cosa succederà. Oggi, le ultime ore dell’Ultimo Giorno vengono raccontate attraverso gli occhi di due innamorati, Sam e Lisa, che cercano disperatamente di ritrovarsi prima che il mondo, così com’è conosciuto, possa finire.

Viners is renowned for its high quality stainless steel products.

The company was founded in 1901 by Adolf Viener.

Sheffield is the home of British steel manufacturing and Viners grew into the biggest cutlery factory in the city.

Ruben Viner, one of the founder's sons, became the firms driving force, and it really prospered in the 1960s.

This period saw our favourite range of products with wonderful shapes & textures - by designers such as Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin. Even the packaging looked great!!

Their cutlery ranges from this era such as Mosaic, Shape and Sable are now much sought after.

Mosaic

Shape

Sable

The stainless steel was sometimes combined with woods such as rosewood and teak...

...as in this fabulous ice bucket...

...or these Polynesian teaspoons.

The company invested in a modern factory in Sheffield with subsidiaries in Ireland, France and Australia. Unfortunately, this major investment was to be the firm's undoing. Crippling loan repayments at a time of stiff competition from cheaper, Far Eastern imports saw the family-run business close in 1982.

The brand is now owned by US-based Oneida, the world's largest cutlery company.

There are some great vintage pieces out there - have a look at H is for Home's current Viners pieces.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Pretty soon there will be no more of this. I'd still rather mow than rake.

Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure: 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 27 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Flash: Flash did not fire