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The Rise of Borussia Mönchengladbach
Fun football facts to impress your friends
Tal Ben Haim: A convenient scapegoat for Portsmouth
When Soccer and Religion Collide
The Donkey Kick
Why Arsene Wenger is one of the best managers in the world
Pay Piermario Morosini Respect That Really Means Something
Eleven Hardest Players of the Modern Era
Toni Brace Helps Verona Past Lacklustre Milan
In the city where Shakespeare set his famous play, Romeo and Juliet, there was little romance in the Rossoneri's performance as Max Allegri's Milan began their league campaign just as they had done last season, with a loss.
Andrea Mandorlini's Hellas Verona side were making a return to Serie A after a gap of 11 years and marked the occasion with a very impressive performance. The home side had most definitely earned the 3 points on the day against a lacklustre Milan side through a Luca Toni brace after Andrea Poli had given Milan an early lead.
Team Shapes
Both teams began with a 4-3-3 shape with 3 midfielders packed into midfield and 2 wide players either side of the centre-forward.
Verona Width
The most fascinating aspect about Verona's play was just how wide their wingers were. Most 4-3-3 shapes in Europe usually see at least one wide player cutting inside once the side gets possession. Verona on the other hand, seemed happy to have both wide players hug the touchline as much as possible.
What this meant was that Verona did not present one of the major weaknesses of a 4-3-3 – they did not let the opposition full-backs have space to run into. Not only had Verona made things congested down the middle with their 3 central-midfielders, they also managed to restrict space down the flanks very well.
This is unique for an Italian side. If there's one thing Italian sides lack, it's the inability to provide natural width. This is one of the reasons why 3 at the back has increased in popularity both at club level and La Nazionale in recent years.
Montolivo in Front of the Defence
The way the teams shaped up, it was Montolivo who would find the most space for Milan and made 112 passes in the game. There was no direct opponent marking him. Sometimes Toni would drop deep to get tight to him and on other occasions Jorginho would press him but he was midfielder who found the most space.
But Milan had problems in terms of midfield balance. Montolivo did not get any help from his fellow midfielders. Nocerino's contribution in the first half was minimal. He had no defensive steel beside him and Milan were hence prone to the counter as the game went on.
This is the build-up to Verona's eventual winner and as you can see, the Verona midfielders found ample space to run into once they got past Montolivo.
Milan Marking or Rather the Lack of
Both Verona goals were a result of some hideous marking from Milan, which in fairness is not all that uncommon from the Rossoneri.
Verona got their equalizer through a corner. As you can see, there were only 3 Verona players in the penalty box but inexplicably, it is Constant who ends up marking Toni (red) which is probably the equivalent of André the Giant facing off against Santino Marella. Not to mention that another Verona player was also left completely free.
The 2nd goal came from a cleverly executed outside-of-the-boot ball from Jankovic to Toni, who smashed home the header. Once again, the marking was non-existent as Zapata was caught ball-watching and left the only attacker in the box, Toni, completely free.
Toni Turns Back the Clock
Luca Toni was undoubtedly the star of the match. The veteran target-man, who almost joined Milan in 2007 before eventually moving to Bayern Munich, did not let his lack of pace stop him from being a threat in this game. His stats were incredible in this respect – 4 shots on goal, 4 shots on target and 2 goals. He was always the target for Verona, from deep or from out wide.
What Verona did well was to make up for their striker's lack of pace by getting players to make runs beside him. This is essential for any system using a target-man. If you leave your target-man isolated, you will be gifting possession back to the opposition by constantly hitting long-balls.
With a big, strong striker and wingers that stay wide, the game-plan was obviously to get crosses into Toni. In this game, thanks to Milan's marking, it was a very successful approach. Toni was an impact option off the bench for Fiorentina last season but could enjoy a lot more starts this season for Verona.
Milan go for Broke
Allegri needed to make changes in the second-half. Ideally, he should have brought on a defensive midfielder to provide some stability beside Montolivo but resources were limited and the scoreboard didn't allow him to make such a move.
Petagna and Emmanuelson were brought on for the disappointingly quiet duo of El Shaarawy and Niang as Milan went 4-4-2. Later Robinho was brought on for Constant and Milan became even more top heavy.
Although Milan did force Rafael into a couple of saves late on, Milan never provided a consistent threat to the Verona goal while the home side had looked threatening on the counter for the most part before tiring late on.
Sandwiched in between the 2 legs of a Champions League qualifier against PSV, Milan would have hoped for a comfortable afternoon but that was far from the case. The marking from set pieces was awful, the midfield shape unbalanced and the forwards were kept quiet. Needless to say, this is a performance that they'll want to put behind them quickly.
Verona were very impressive. They could be a surprise package this season because they have something that not many Serie A teams have in wingers that provide width. They also defended resolutely but it will be interesting how long coach Mandorlini can keep Luca Toni firing. He could be key to their hopes this season.
Incredible Fan View of Pogba's goal against Udinese
This is a perfect video a fan caught of Paul Pogba's screamer against Udinese earlier in the Serie A season. The angle of the camera, the silence of the crowd as they realise how good the strike is, the swerve and ferocity on the ball and the explosion of noise […]


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10 Frightening Facts About Nuclear Weapons That You Might Not Know
A nuclear weapon or nuclear bomb is an explosive that derives its force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission.
Kevin Green
You might not know about nuclear weapons in detail, but you must be aware of the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons have become more advanced since then. However, the bombs that are created today are powerful in comparison to those dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Those were the only two powerful bombs that made a strong impact during wartime. Still, several reasons exist to worry about the potential atomic conflicts. Nuclear weapons make a blast but also emit radiation and damage the environment. Nuclear Weapons have been deployed by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
Nuclear Weapons are designed to release energy as a combination of two processes. While Fission weapons are called atomic bombs, fusion bombs are referred to as thermonuclear bombs. Some nuclear weapons are made for special purposes. A neutron bomb is a weapon that yields a small explosion and a large amount of neutron radiation.
The variation in the design of nuclear weapons aims to achieve different yields for different situations. The maintenance, design, and delivery of systems are the expensive parts of a nuclear weapons program. For instance, nearly 55% of financial resources have been spent by the United States on nuclear weapons since 1940.
Let us read some more about Nuclear Weapons and the facts associated with them.
The Nuclear Weapons
Source = Angelusnews
An atomic explosion is a chain reaction in which atoms are divided. The explosion releases amounts of energy and particles that strike with atoms and causes a growing chain reaction. The most powerful fission is achieved by using enriched plutonium and uranium atoms, which are radioactive.
Atomic bombs produce their energy through nuclear fission reactions. Hydrogen bombs produce energy through nuclear fusion reactions and could be more powerful than fission bombs. The destructive power of a nuclear explosion is measured in kilometers and megatonnes.
The Testing of Nuclear Weapons
Source = Npr
Do you know there have been over 2000 nuclear test explosions experienced underwater and underground? The bombs had a combined explosive equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs and resulted in 50 times more radioactive contamination in comparison to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Exposure to the radioactivity produced by tests caused the death of over 1.5 million people. The largest nuclear weapon tested was the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba in 1961.
It was developed in the USSR by several nuclear physicists under the leadership of I.V. Kurchatov. The bomb was dropped from a Tu-95V aircraft and detonated 13,000 ft above the Sukhoy Nos. The bomb was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most powerful thermonuclear device that has passed the test.
Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Human Health
Scientists estimate that the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost the lives of tens of millions of people. People who survived the explosion suffered different medical effects. In the initial stage, in the first few weeks, the majority of deaths happened due to thermal injury and super-thermal radiation exposure. In the intermediate week, i.e., from 10-12 weeks, the death during this time happened from ionizing radiation.
The late period showed improvements in survivor's conditions. Nuclear explosions produce air blast effects. The shock wave directly injures humans by rupturing lungs. However, the majority of casualties occur because of structures and flying debris. Unlike conventional explosions, nuclear explosions can generate thermal radiation that burns skin over large areas.
Nuclear detonations release amounts of gamma and neutron radiation. In comparison to other effects, initial radiation is the important cause of casualties for low-yield explosions. Furthermore, when a nuclear detonation occurs close to the ground, soil mixes with highly radioactive fission products from the weapon. The debris is carried by the wind and then falls on the earth for minutes or hours.
Costing of Nuclear Weapons
Source = Aljazeera
In the 21st century, over $40 billion a year of the annual US military budget is spent on nuclear weapons. This cost is similar to the services provided like healthcare, clean water, and food for the world's population.
The secret Manhattan project, through which the US developed the nuclear weapons in 1945, cost $20 billion. The US spent nearly $5.8 trillion on nuclear weapons between the 1940s to 1996.
Lesser Known Facts About Nuclear Weapons
Source = Express
1. A nuclear weapon is a device that produces energy by splitting the nucleus of an atom from material that could sustain a nuclear fission chain reaction. The two types of nuclear bombs use fission or a two-stage process that uses fission and fusion. Those that use fission are referred to as atomic bombs, and those that use fission and fusion are thermonuclear weapons.
2. The destructive energy of nuclear weapons or the explosive yield is measured in TNT equivalent, in megatons or kilotons. The nuclear weapon or atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima was nearly 13-18kt, whereas the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was 20-22kt. The Tsar bomb detonated had a yield of 50,000kt. The largest nuclear weapon currently in the US stockpile, B83, has a yield of 1200kt.
3. Besides explosive yield, the danger of nuclear weapons comes from radioactive fallout. The material attaches to dirt and other debris during the explosion and settles on a broad area. The radiation hazard could pose a danger for years even after the attack.
4. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1970 describes five states as nuclear weapons states. They are Russia, China, The United Kingdom, The United States of America, and France.
However, India and Pakistan have also tested nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons, but it hasn't admitted to keeping or testing nuclear weapons. According to reports, the U.S Defense Department maintains over 4760 nuclear heads. It is estimated that nearly 2080 warheads are deployed, while 2680 warheads are in storage.
5. The shortest range of a US nuclear shell called Davy Crockett is a smaller nuclear head warhead with a weight of 51 pounds, which was fired by a gun mounted on a jeep.
Source = Unitednations
6. Countries like Germany, Italy, Turkey, Netherlands, and Belgium are believed to host U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons. Here are other countries that are believed to have lethal nuclear weapons.
7. The total number of nuclear bombers in the US built from 1945 to the present is 4680. The number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built are over 70,000.
8. The two bombs dropped on Japan were code-named Fat Man and Little Boy. Fat Man was detonated over Nagasaki by the United States on 9th August 1945. It was the one out of two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare. The other one, named Little Boy, marked the third explosion in history.
It was built by engineers at the Los Alamos Laboratory using plutonium from the Hanford site. Fat Man was an implosion-type nuclear weapon with a plutonium core. The Fat Man was retired in 1950. Little Boy was developed by Commander Francis Birch's group at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.
9. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was the only man who survived both nuclear weapons attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was a Japanese engineer and the only person to be officially recognized by the Japanese government as the survivor of both explosions.
He was a resident of Nagasaki and was in Hiroshima for his business when the city was bombed at 8:15 a.m. He returned home the same day, even after wounds, and returned to work the next day. He died of stomach cancer in 2010 at the age of 93.
He lost hearing in his left ear after the Hiroshima explosion. He went bald temporarily and also suffered radiation-related ailments, including acute leukemia.
10. The Japanese White Pine, or a bonsai tree planted in 1626, survived the blast at Hiroshima is now kept in a museum in the United States. The tree belonged to a family that lived within two miles of where American forces dropped the atomic bomb. They cared for the tree for five generations before giving it to the United States in 1975.
For 25 years, the tree sat near the entrance of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the National Arboretum in Washington D.C. The Arboretum was not aware of the Hiroshima connection until 2001, when grandchildren of bonsai master Masaru Yamaki visited the museum, looking for their grandfather's tree. Today, the tree sat a few feet tall with stubby green, yellowed noodles and a thick trunk.
Indeed, nuclear weapons have played an important role in securing the country in the 20th century. They are the component of defense strategy that includes conventional forces and diplomacy.
Do you know other facts or interesting things about Nuclear weapons? If so, then share them below.
Simulation Hypothesis: Are We Living in an Artificially Simulated World?
Posted By: Kimberly Campbell
What Is Trypophobia – A Disgust More Than Fear
"I can't really face small, irregularly or asymmetrically placed holes, they make me like, throw up in my mouth, cry a little bi...
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A lefty or left-handed uses his left hand more naturally and dominantly than the right hand. And the righty or right-handed is o...
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Do your feet turn cold when someone asks you to take a casual swim in the ocean? Do you feel afraid of the eternal abyss, empti...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Pablo Jiménez
pjimenez@vwys.com.mx
Master of the Science of Law (J.S.M.), Stanford Law School, California.
Licensed to practice law in both Mexico and Illinois (US).
Certified as a foreign legal consultant by the Supreme Court of Texas (US).
Member of the Board of Directors, AbogadasMX, since 2021.
Member of the Board of Directors, International Chamber of Commerce – Mexico, 2015-2017.
Professor of Civil Law – Property Law, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), 2002-2009.
The 2020 Influence 100 – PRovoke Media, GC Powerlist 500 - The Legal 500, and 30 in their 30s - Expansión
ESG management: novelty or necessity?
Von Wobeser hires former AB InBev executive
Ex-Grupo Modelo counsel joins Von Wobeser y Sierra as partner
Prepárate para el próximo cisne
Does your business contribute to changing the world? Consider an ESG perspective.
Crisis Mode: Have Your ESG Team on Speed Dial
Pablo is a partner at Von Wobeser y Sierra. He has nearly 20 years of experience as a lawyer and public affairs expert. He co-heads the Corporate and M&A practice group and is a member of the Consumer Goods industry group. He is also part of the ESG practice group (Environmental, Social and Governance).
In addition, he works with the Executive Committee on the firm's overall strategy and oversees our communication, marketing and business development function.
Prior to joining our firm in 2021, Pablo was the Global Vice President of Reputation and Communications at Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), the world's leading brewer, based in New York City. His previous position at AB InBev was Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs for Grupo Modelo and the Middle Americas zone, where he was responsible for the legal function, as well as the company's public affairs, including corporate reputation, communications, crisis management and social responsibility.
Previously, he was the General Counsel and Head of Institutional Relations for Cinépolis, a Mexican movie theater chain with presence in more than 20 countries. Earlier, he was an associate at a top-tier Mexican law firm and a visiting attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
Pablo is admitted to practice law in Mexico and Illinois (USA). He is also certified as a foreign legal consultant in the state of Texas (USA).
He has been recognized in the Legal 500 GC Powerlist and was named by The 2020 Influence 100 - PRovoke (formerly Holmes Report) as one of the most influential communication experts worldwide.
He has been recognized by The Legal 500, Latin Lawyer 250, among other publications.


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Running late tonight! Want to catch other authors in the process of creating a book? Check out the WeWriWa page. For even more – Snippet Sunday. They're both great places to find new books.
Great. Bloodlines has grabbed my attention this week but I'm not ready to share quite yet. It's a train-wreck. Thankfully, there's this lovely thing called a second draft! So, this week, an early scene from Tau Scorpii. Taryn has recently met Garrett, and they are alone, in the desert, running from some nasty aliens, and he's hurt. They're both leery of each other. Things are a bit tense. Also a WIP, with some funky punctuation for the blog.
Next weekend is Labor Day weekend here in the US. I should have a snippet, but if not, everyone everywhere have a safe time.
The graphic takes you to my website, where you can find Backlash, The Vista, & Renegades, the books available in The Wildblood series.
Another weekend, another snippet. Check out even more at WeWriWa & Snippet Sunday. I know I will.
She smiled, pushing the door open and leading him inside. Woven tapestries covered the walls, depicting scenes he could guess were what the weavers thought SolTerra might look like – tall trees with green leaves, a blue ocean with white waves crashing on rocks, many smaller ones around the hall.
"Find me after star rise," she needed to talk to DeTessa, alone, about the weather, and Skye. Having been married twice, DeTessa would have good advice about one of those subject. The other, no one would, because it hadn't rained on Sedna, in the time humans had been there, until a month ago.
Sorry about the punctuation, I needed to get all that in there. I'm having fun with this one, being my first book with a romance that is right out there and obvious. I'm off to go write, it's dark out, that's what I do.
You can check out my website. The Wildblood series books are listed there, in eBook & print formats. Pretty soon, a cover reveal!
Hey, check out the WeWriWa blog for authors sharing their snippets. It's fun! So is Snippet Sunday.
Ok, back to me. Last week I had a post with a snippet from Bloodlines. From the page stats, Tau Scorpii is more popular. So, for now, another snippet from that. This is Skye and Taryn, a little farther along in the conversation. This is the previous bits.
"I was married," Skye said, straightforward.
That surprised her, and it showed.
Their problems are about to become substantially larger than dealing with past relationships, but this, first and foremost, a love story.
That's it for this week. Visit my website, all my books are listed there. I'm looking at an autumn release date.
Another week, another blog post. Someday, I hope to double that speed. If you enjoy blogs & books, check out WeWriWa and Snippet Sunday. My Kindle loves books, and I've found several through these places.
This week, I have to post a bit from Bloodlines: Book 3 of The Wildblood. Writing 2 books at the same time is interesting, and luckily, they are nothing similar. I have no idea who will win a blog spot next week, they are both demanding words be written. So, here's The Wildblood.
Shannon and Kyle are twins, a relationship that's new to them. They are cops, in this post-apocalyptic world, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. They are trying to get back to a normal version of their lives, after a year of conflict and discovery. Today, they are escorting trucks in from the city, with supplies. Nothing is easy, not even a routine day job.
"Kind of slick out on the pavement," Shan commented.
He grunted a response, immersed in a book, an actual paper copy; they had buildings full of them, for posterity.
"As long as he doesn't hit his brakes," he began, and the tail lights on the truck lit up, indicating that was exactly what was happening.
Then things go 'ouch!'. More next week, probably. Unless Tau Scorpii kicks into the way.
And now, some blurbs from the previous books.
Backlash, prequel to The Wildblood series. Set on a near-future Earth mostly devoid of humans, this reveals some of the harsh realities facing people of The Vista, and how Team Three began. When Security faces an unknown adversary that threatens to wreak havoc across what little civilization is left, they must rely on the unusual abilities of a new team, and hope it's enough to stop the chaos.
They made you strong, and smart. We kept you safe, and in the shadows.
It took them damned near twenty years to find you.
I don't have an actual blurb. Color me shocked! Here's some tidbits.
Bloodlines: Book 3 of The WIldblood – Team Three decide that their next best course of action is to go directly to the source of their conflict. Problem is, they don't know how.
Then there is the fact, every Nomad along the Front Range is hunting Wade and Shan. Their own Council has gone into full rebellion against Security. Even close friends seem to be distancing themselves. The team is fraying at the edges.
Not so easily deterred, they set out on separate paths, looking for answers about their heritage, the war, and if they can truly protect The Vista. It may earn them exile from their home. They know this. Failure is not an option.


David Phelps and Toronto Blue Jays have agreed a one-year $ 2.5 million contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told the Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity on Thursday evening because the agreement had not yet been announced.
Phelps – a free 32-year-old agent who is returning from the Tommy John surgery who has been playing for the Yankees for three seasons – has performance bonuses in the deal, and the Blue Jays have an option 2020 team that includes an escalator.
He snatched the ulnar collateral ligament in his launch arm on March 17 during his last launch in a spring training contest against the Angels in Los Angeles, and operated on March 26th.
with an ERA of 3.12 in 10 appearances in 2017 for Seattle, who bought it from Miami on July 20th. He had a salary of $ 5.55 million last season.
During six major seasons with the Yankees (2012-14), Miami (2015-17) and the Inte Mar, Phelps is 30-33 with an ERA 3.89 and five saves in 64 starts and 164 appearances in relief.
His agreement was reported for the first time by ESPN.


text:
Q: png24 to png8 conversion I want to convert the input 24 bit PNG image to 8 bit, I have tried using Imagemagick and Python PIL, neither works.
for instance:
at Imagemagick I try convert console command as such:
convert -depth 8 png24image.png png8image.png

And here is the way I tried with python:
import Image
def convert_8bit(src, dest):
    """
    convert_8bit: String, String -> void.
    Converts the input image file into 8bit depth.
    """
    im = Image.open(src)
    if not im.mode == "P":
        im2 = im.convert("P", rgb2xyz)
        im2.save(dest)

Imagemagick doesn't even touch the image while the python function reduces to 8bit but keeps the number of unique numbers 164instead of 256. Photoshop used to convert the image to 8bit with 256unique numbers when converted to png8 from a 24 bit png image.
Thanks
EDIT:
Output of 24->8 png conversion via Photoshop (which I need)
alt text http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/934/psout.png
Converted via my Python function
alt text http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/6762/pythonout.png

A: It looks like the quantization method on the convert method isn't doing the right thing. Try this:
im2 = im.convert('RGB').convert('P', palette=Image.ADAPTIVE)

The extra conversion to RGB may be redundant. I got this hint from http://nadiana.com/pil-tips-converting-png-gif

A: I do it like this (using Imagick in PHP):
$colors = min(255, $im->getImageColors());
$im->quantizeImage($colors, Imagick::COLORSPACE_RGB, 0, false, false );
$im->setImageDepth(8 /* bits */);

A: ImageMagick and PIL have low quality PNG8 support.
For best quality/filesize ratio (and full alpha support as a bonus) use pngquant2:
pngquant *.png

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Chicago Muckrakers
Will the arrest of a cartel leader affect Chicago-area deportees' safety?
This weekend, the Mexican authorities arrested Mario Ramirez Treviño, an alleged leader of one of the country's deadliest drug cartels, CNN reported. According to CNN, which cited Eduardo Sanchez, the Mexican government's security spokesman, Ramirez is a "ranking member" of the Gulf Cartel that controls most of the drug trafficking through the state of Tamaulipas,... Read more »
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Activist, educator uses indigenous traditions to heal his community
Tomas Ramirez grew up with the understanding that to be healthy as an individual, his community had to be healthy. He believes it's his responsibility to help maintain and heal his community. Ramirez moved to Chicago from Central Mexico 20 years ago to reunite with family. He has since become an essential member of Chicago's... Read more »
By Leah Varjacques,
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Journalists and developers combine forces, explore immigrant issues at MigraHack
It was a busy weekend for some of us at The Chicago Reporter. By 9 a.m. on Saturday, we were already glued to our computers at Cibola, a tech incubator community space in Pilsen, and it was nearly 6 p.m. before we ventured out into the evening's chill. This wasn't for a work project–it was... Read more »
By YanaKunichoff,
Proverbial wall to legalization in new immigration bill is border security
There are undocumented immigrants in Chicago who crossed the border to get here; came on expired visas and were brought by their parents as minors. They are high school students, university graduates, dishwashers and mothers. Many of these immigrants are my neighbors. And they've all been waiting for the immigration legislation that President Barack Obama... Read more »
The Chicago Reporter awarded two grants to bolster data, immigration reporting
We're excited to announce that The Chicago Reporter has won two grants that will bolster our data-driven reporting and will give us the tools necessary to look at immigration policy in Mexico. The first grant we won was for $5,000 from IRE Data Journalism Fund, sponsored by Google Idea, best known for applying technological solutions... Read more »
Undocumented Life: Slideshow on Caravan for Peace links drug war in Mexico, Chicago violence
Javier Sicilia sat quietly smoking from an electronic cigarette waiting to go on stage. "This country is difficult," Sicilia told The Chicago Reporter before delivering a speech earlier this week. "Americans don't want to assume responsibility." Sicilia, a renowned Mexican poet and writer, said the United States provides two deadly things that feed the Mexican drug war:... Read more »
By MariaZamudio,
Undocumented Life: Mexicans in U.S. watched presidential election, but few participated
When Mexicans headed to the polls on Sunday, it was to vote in one of the most contentious elections in years, marked by allegations of fraud and media bias. It was a vote closely watched by Mexicans around the world, not least in the United States, the country with the largest Mexican immigrant population. But... Read more »
News Roundup: New estimate predicts record poverty rate increase: more than 1 in 7 in poverty
The highest increase in the country's poverty rate since the 1950s may have happened last year. Census data being released this week is expected to show that the nation experienced the large single-year increase in 1959. Also in the news: U.S. Rep. Luis Guiterrez and State Sen. James Meeks have begun to take steps towards... Read more »
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The National College "Preaching in Action" Conference is just around the corner. It begins on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018 and ends with a commissioning liturgy on Sunday, May 27. This year the conference is being held at Caldwell University in Caldwell, NJ. We are expecting 85 participants.
Please keep all of our young people who will be attending as well as their mentors in your prayers! They are our "Preachers" of the future!
Any Sister or Associate who might want to come to the conference is "MOST WELCOME! If you happen to be in the area, drop in to say hello! Thank you in advance for your prayers and perhaps I will see some of you there!


Churchmans Brook is a very popular location for rock climbing and abseiling. A lot of rock climbing enthusiasts consider this place as one of the best in the Perth region because of the selection of its grades and the easy access. Graded between 14 and 21 and classified as easy to hard, the spot is suitable for all different levels. In addition,the cliff is up to 30 m/98.4 ft high, with 60 routes among the grades.
Furthermore, it can seep for a few days after heavy rain, so it is advisable to wear helmets. It is worth to mention that the spot is well developed in terms of established routes. The cliff is pretty sunny during the day, especially in summer. Last but not least, the ideal period for rock climbing is from September to May.


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The English love their Seville orange marmalade on toast for breakfast. Every January and February, the cooking pages of magazines and newspapers, as well as the fast-growing food blog sector, are filled with recipes using the famously bitter naranjo amargo. And Sevillanos can't help but fall about laughing when they see an unwitting tourist pick up an orange from the floor and try to eat it, screwing their faces up as its sour juices give their taste buds a nasty shock.
For, if you weren't already aware, those beautiful shiny citrus aurantium which you see adorning the trees of Sevilla – one of the city's icons, along with the Giralda, tapas and flamenco – are not table oranges. Noone (in their right mind) eats them straight off the tree, not the Sevillanos, not the tourists, noone. No: they're used to make Seville orange marmalade.
Until now, the Sevillanos have found this fondness for using their tree-decorations to make mermelada rather strange. Now, in an effort to embrace the foreigners' unfathomable tastes, they have decided to celebrate the Seville orange, with a week-long festival, the 1as Jornada Gastronomica de la Naranja de Sevilla. Restaurants in Sevilla capital and around the province will produce dishes in a competition, from 12-18 March, to find the best use of this distinctive local ingredient.
Making the most of visitors' afición for a famous, visually arresting and emblematic local ingredient – not just the English, but Americans and other nationalities like their mermelada de naranja amarga too – seems like a complete no-brainer to me. Most Spanish towns are experts at promoting their own seasonal produce, whether wine, jamón, olives, chestnuts or mushrooms. Not a case of a great idea, but more like, why on earth haven't they done it before?
For a full list of participating restaurants and their chosen dishes – starters, main courses, desserts and drinks – see 1as Jornada Gastronomnica de la Naranja de Sevilla.
i would like to buy a seville orange tree to grow my own sevilles as i am an ardent marmalade maker.
last year the oranges i purchased here were not real sevilles…much less bitter…..not good.
please can you put me in touch with a grower of seville trees…i feel sure that it might be possible to buy one or two. i hope so.


Cultivating the habit to put away money on a regular basis is not only very important but it is also something very beneficial to the overall lifestyle and mindset of an individual. The discipline factor alone that this exercise involves is well worth practicing as it will help the individual develop stronger skills for future commitments.
Ideally a young working adult should be able to comfortably save about 10% of his or her income. The individual should then be disciplined enough to save this amount without touching or tapping into it for unnecessary and frivolous expenditure. If this is successfully achieved then the individual would be able to venture into other types of commitments on a long term basis without the probability of defaulting at the first sign of a challenge or trouble.
There are several tools available to assist an individual in creating and tracking a complete savings plan. These can be monitored periodically depending on the individual's preferences.
Learning to save as much as possible is always a good habit to form, thus there is no real need to have a reason to practice this positive attitudes than for its sheer benefits which are rather extensive.
Keeping track of one's personal financial statues is something that can be practiced or learnt with some tips and careful and diligent observations. In order to have healthy financial standing the individual should take a serious view on cultivating good and wise spending habits very early on.
Making resolutions is easy but making them stick is something else which requires much more than just some words and thoughts. In the quest to make financial resolutions that eventually see some level of success there needs to be some careful planning and thought exercised beforehand.


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text:
The Big Story |
How the Conservative Party declared a cold war on Islam
Published date: 10 May 2022 08:16 UTC | Last update: 7 months ago
In this exclusive extract from his new book, award-winning MEE commentator Peter Oborne explains how neo-conservative ideologues in David Cameron's government saw British Muslims as a subversive community
During the first two decades of the 21st century, the British Conservative Party mutated. I watched this happen first-hand. When I arrived at Westminster as a reporter in 1992, the Conservative Party could boast that it was the most successful and enduring political organisation in the Western world, having been a frequent party of government ever since its conception in the early 19th century. Caution, scepticism and pragmatism were the secret to its success. The party supported the British welfare state and membership of the European Union, though in neither case with much enthusiasm.
This type of conservatism slowly died, or at any rate went into abeyance, after the general election calamity of 1997. By the turn of the century, the Conservative Party appeared to have run out of steam. This reflected puzzling changes in society that it couldn't cope with. Above all, it was suffering a collapse in its membership base. After the Second World War, the party could boast 2.8 million members, or approximately one in ten of the British adult voting population. By the time David Cameron became prime minister in 2010, party membership had collapsed to less than 200,000. This meant that the party had lost much of its connection to civil society and was increasingly controlled by donors and special interest groups, a process which was accepted and even welcomed by Cameron and the clique that surrounded him.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron visits the Jamia Mosque in Manchester ahead of Eid in August 2013 (Gov.uk)
Cameron and his allies modelled themselves not on the traditional Tory leadership, but on Tony Blair and his fellow New Labour modernisers who had positioned themselves in opposition to the traditional Labour Party. Cameron's chief strategist and Chancellor, George Osborne, boasted to his friends "how easily we have taken over the party".
This state of affairs was hidden, in part because of David Cameron. Educated at Eton and married into the landed aristocracy, he had the hallmarks of an old-fashioned establishment grandee. This background was not misleading and many of David Cameron's instincts were Tory. But he was simultaneously – thanks to one of those paradoxes which are admittedly entirely characteristic of the British governing class – a member of a fluid international and financial elite.
It's helpful to compare the young David Cameron to the emergent George W Bush. Before he entered the White House, Bush rarely seemed troubled by thoughts about anything much. This may have been one of the reasons the US electorate warmed to him. Once in office, however, he was quickly captured by a clique led by his vice president Dick Cheney. It was the same with Cameron. His chief strategist, George Osborne, and his ideologist, Michael Gove, intellectually dominated the young Tory leader. Their views came from the right wing of the Republican Party; in terms of power politics, this was logical. New Labour was dominant in the UK, while left-wing parties were ascendant in Europe. So it made sense for ambitious young Conservatives like Osborne and Gove to seek to emulate Republican success in the US.
Political journalists labelled the Osborne Tories as "modernisers'" It is true they were young, metropolitan, well connected and (for a while) fashionable. But this label did not tell the full story. These young Tories had become adherents to a new and influential worldview: neo- conservatism. This is a term which needs to be treated with caution because it sounds as if it is an up-to-date way of talking about conservatism. It is actually nothing of the sort. It is more accurate to think of neo-conservatism as the opposite of conservatism.
Traditional conservatives are suspicious of change. They like long-established ways of doing business and ancient institutions, which they view as embodying wisdom. They hold a pessimistic view of human attempts to influence world events, which makes them sceptical of dramatic or sweeping reform. Neo-conservatives, on the other hand, seek to transform the world. They believe human nature is malleable and can be created afresh. This optimistic view explains their disastrous belief that they can export their democratic ideals into foreign lands.
David Cameron evolved from traditional Tory to revolutionary neo-conservative over the course of his leadership. In his early years as Conservative leader, he worked closely with Muslims, took a generally optimistic view of Islam and spoke up for Muslim causes. He saw this as part of the modernising project. He claimed that the Israeli blockade had turned the Gaza Strip into a "prison camp'". His foreign affairs spokesman William Hague also criticised the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 as "disproportionate", arousing Israeli fury.
Cameron identified Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim woman then in her mid-thirties who had unsuccessfully fought the Dewsbury seat in the 2005 general election, as a new face for his Conservative Party. He offered her a peerage and a place in his Shadow Cabinet. What's more, he gave her the sensitive role of shadow minister for community cohesion, which had responsibility for relations with Muslims and other minority groups.
These young Tories had become adherents to a new and influential worldview: neo- conservatism
The second of five daughters to Pakistani immigrant parents, Warsi had studied at Leeds University and qualified as a solicitor. She also helped run the family business, a furniture factory in Yorkshire. In due course, she was to be given a job as joint chairman of the party. For a few years, the entrepreneurial and family-minded Warsi appeared to be the future of Muslims in David Cameron's Conservative Party. But not for long, and the story of Warsi's downfall is instructive.
In 2007, two years after becoming leader of the party and on the advice of Warsi, Cameron stayed for a week with a Muslim family. This involved entering a mosque, something that, it seems, he had never done before. It was one of only a handful of times that he would do so in his 12 years as Conservative leader.
He wrote about his experience for the Guardian. Reading it today is like entering another world; at the time, he set out a series of positions about Islam which he would go on to diametrically oppose as prime minister, positions only a brave mainstream politician would dare utter today. He insisted that "we cannot bully people into feeling British", adding that "by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the [terrorist] threat, we actually help do the terrorists' work for them'" Cameron was adamant that "those who say that faith-based schools hinder integration are wrong". More remarkable still, he suggested that "it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around". He added that "if we want to remind ourselves of British values – hospitality, tolerance and generosity to name just three – there are plenty of British Muslims ready to show us what those really mean" Alarm bells started to ring.
Warsi vs Gove
In 2007, Cameron's leadership hit a crisis point as the new Labour leader Gordon Brown pondered calling an election with the Tories sinking in the polls. It was only when he hired Andy Coulson – a former editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World, who later went to jail in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal – as media handler that Cameron began to recover. One of Coulson's main jobs was to make sure the views of the Murdoch press were reflected in Cameron's policy announcements. The Murdoch press tended to adopt, with uncritical and even unbridled enthusiasm, the narrative about Muslims developed by Policy Exchange, the neo-conservative think tank then shaping the agenda at the top of the Conservative Party.
Meanwhile, the neo-conservatives around David Cameron were engineering a conservatism which had no room for Sayeeda Warsi. The most famous protagonist – and beneficiary – of this project was Michael Gove, the Murdoch protege who had given up a Fleet Street career to enter politics as a Tory MP in 2005.
The UK coalition cabinet in the Downing Street garden in May 2010, including Sayeeda Warsi (front row, fifth from right), David Cameron (front row, seventh from right) and George Osborne (front row, ninth from right) (Reuters)
Gove had been the first chairman of Policy Exchange. In 2006, the year after Cameron was elected leader, Gove wrote a celebrated book. Titled Celsius 7/7, it was a call to action, and an attempt to reshape the UK and the world. Gove – and this came naturally to a founder of Policy Exchange – distinguished Islam from Islamism, asserting that the latter was a form of 'totalitarianism' that was fundamentally hostile to Western liberal values. "Islamists", thundered Gove, "are a self-conscious vanguard who look down on other Muslims and consider the majority of their co-religionists as sunk in barbarity or error."
He believed that Islamists were at war with the West, with Israel standing at the frontline of the battle. Gove announced his belief that "a sizeable minority" of the UK's then 1.8 million Muslims held "rejectionist Islamist views" which, so he said, presented a threat comparable to Nazism or communism. He declared that Islamists were on the march and that the West had collectively failed to act.
Gove's polemic has reportedly since been handed to every new member of the Conservative Friends of Israel group, to which an estimated 80 per cent of all Conservative MPs belong. In a short space of time, Mr Gove's treatise created an enduring Tory narrative about Islam.
The views of Gove and Warsi were impossible to reconcile. On the one hand, Warsi argued that Muslims were law-abiding, family-minded and naturally conservative. Gove and his allies painted a darker picture. For him, Policy Exchange was a constant source of intellectual support, as well as fresh ideas and material. Warsi had no comparable intellectual secretariat.
After the 2010 general election, I became chief political commentator on the Daily Telegraph, then the most important Tory-supporting paper. As such, I found myself in the perfect position to witness the clash between Gove's neo-conservatism and Warsi's last-ditch defence of multiculturalism. At first, the coalition government looked promising for Warsi. She had natural allies and supporters in the shape of the Liberal Democrats and, above all, the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.
Even with Clegg as an ally, however, Warsi was no match for her opponents. The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, defence secretary Liam Fox (before his resignation in October 2011), Cabinet office minister Oliver Letwin and Home Secretary Theresa May all leant towards the same side as Michael Gove. So did the mainstream Tory newspapers.
Furthermore, Gove was advised by the most effective backroom political operator of the modern era: Dominic Cummings. Cummings, who was an adviser at the Department for Education before being appointed as Gove's chief of staff, was at this point an almost unknown figure, and had none of the national recognition that followed several years later when Boris Johnson foolishly appointed him his senior adviser in July 2019. Nevertheless, Cummings had already brooded hard on techniques of campaign management, popular mobilisation and press manipulation, and was all the more effective for being unrecognised outside a small circle.
How the right-wing press smeared Sayeeda Warsi
Cummings was an important asset for Gove as he fought his battles as Cabinet minister. But the support that the new education secretary could take for granted from the Murdoch press was beyond price. Gove had worked for the Murdoch-owned Times newspaper for nine years before moving into politics. By far the most powerful media owner in the UK, Murdoch's papers produced a relentless diatribe of fabrication, propaganda and bile aimed at Muslims. The Murdoch press has been a powerful weapon in modern British politics, and it has always been on Gove's side.
Apart from Clegg (whose office was just a few feet down the corridor from Warsi's inside the Cabinet Office), Warsi could only rely on an incoherent group of One Nation Tories, of whom the most distinguished was probably the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve. Most of her supporters were on the back benches, a tiny group of elderly MPs who were going nowhere. She didn't have a hope.
The Cabinet split first entered public view in 2010 when Warsi was invited to speak at the Global Peace and Unity Conference in London, an event billed as the largest Muslim get-together in Europe. Warsi accepted and then withdrew at the last minute, acting under an instruction from Downing Street.
When I sought the reason for Baroness Warsi's humiliation, I was told about a secret memorandum that had been circulated round Whitehall around this time. This memorandum was said to make a sweeping division between 'good' and 'bad' Muslims. At the time I tried and failed to get hold of this memo, but in the course of researching this book, I finally did manage to find the briefing paper in an obscure corner of the internet. It had been sent by Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation to Charles Farr, then head of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism.
The paper described a number of mosques and Muslim organisations – as well as the Muslim Contact Unit in the Metropolitan Police – as being broadly sympathetic to Islamism. This statement was accompanied by the warning that "local and central government should be wary of engagement with these groups as it risks empowering proponents of the ideology, if not the methodology, that is behind terrorism".
It is impossible to say what influence this paper had, if any, or to what extent it was responsible for Baroness Warsi's withdrawal from the conference. Nevertheless, it sets out with clarity the view that was by then taking hold in official and media circles: that Muslims sympathetic to 'Islamism' were part of a suspect community. Any politician who met them or attended a public event in their company risked being damned by association.
The new McCarthyism
Now let's return to the Cold War. During the 1950s, the United States was infected by a malaise called McCarthyism. The infection is seen today in retrospect as a form of national madness. McCarthyism describes a technique of making reckless and unsubstantiated allegations against individuals for political ends. The essence of the technique was that the victims could not defend themselves by reason or evidence. If challenged, McCarthyites would invent new evidence or make a new allegation or simply move on to a new target, leaving the original victim still tarred by the original allegation. Anybody who had once been a communist, had ever expressed sympathy for communism, or had ever known a communist, was viewed as an object of suspicion.
McCarthyism operated with the co-operation of the security services, and its most damaging weapon was the blacklist, with many victims never aware that charges had been levelled against them. McCarthyism was mainly (although not exclusively) a phenomenon of the right. Joseph McCarthy himself was a Republican, while a strong supporter was the right-wing newspaper editor William Buckley, who called McCarthyism "a movement around which men of good will and morality can close ranks".
It is important to bear in mind that Senator McCarthy had an elastic definition of communism, which went far beyond membership or support of the minuscule American Communist Party, or even membership of its many 'front organisations' in the 1930s and 1940s. This allowed him to target anyone as an ally, agent or dupe. McCarthy and his allies targeted communist sympathisers, subversives, left-wingers, liberals, homosexuals – anyone whose conception of American society did not fit in with the mainstream. Above all, McCarthy promoted the idea of an enemy within, a secret nest of traitors or dupes, whose machinations had to be exposed.
The parallels between McCarthyism and the UK's own cold war on British Muslims, though far from exact, hit me hard soon after I started to research this book. Someone, somewhere, has made allegations against pretty well every senior British Muslim, with the exception of those who were officially sponsored or approved.
Like thousands in the 1950s, Muslims today are being asked to prove their loyalty to the American or British states. As in the 1950s, lawful movements and opinions held by Muslims are being identified as subversive and their adherents are being blacklisted. As in the 1950s with communism, there are special concerns over Islamist infiltration of schools and colleges, and about local cells seeking control over individual communities. As in the Cold War, there is a huge intellectual offensive against so-called radical Islam, with supposed independent organisations, journals and thinkers funded secretly from public sources. As in the 1950s for ex-communists, there are profitable careers to be made now for reformed radical Islamists as commentators and experts on detecting current radicals. There are tell-tale signs of potential radicalism as there were for potential communists in the 1950s (such as beards, in both eras).
As in the 1950s for anti-communism, anti-Islamism has nurtured, and been nurtured by, dozens of politicians who were otherwise mediocre, journalists, intellectuals and religious leaders. It has become an industry creating jobs and profits for public servants and private contractors.
The anti-communist crusade wrecked lives. But it also had its successes. It made its contribution to the Cold War, which was a huge triumph for the Western world against a real enemy. The anti-Islamist crusade has already claimed many more victims. It risks plunging the Western world into a new and ultimately unwinnable cold war against millions of people who are not its enemies at all.
Photo: Prime minister David Cameron speaks during the 2015 election campaign (AFP)
The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam is published on 12 May by Simon & Schuster. Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging at the Drum Online Media Awards in both 2022 and 2017 for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book, The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism, was published in February 2021 and was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.
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