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Brand Breakdowns
Better ingredients. Better cigars. A look inside Aganorsa.
Author: Nicolas Jimenez
Eduardo Fernández took a pizza fortune and built a world-class tobacco business. Now he's ready to take his cigars to the next level.
Photography by Ricardo Acuña
She looks tired and disinterested, unwilling to come over and pose for a photo. Still, we want the shot, so we have a young employee at the factory drag her over to a wall, where we figure the uniform pattern of the bricks will juxtapose nicely with all the curves and wrinkles of her saggy body. She's not exactly the most beautiful bitch you've ever seen, but she's Aganorsa's bitch and they're proud to show her off.
So much so, in fact, that the Aganorsa bulldog has a cigar named for her: Guardian of the Farm. She's the first one to greet you when you drive through the gates, even if unenthusiastically.
Then again, maybe she's just tired from all the guard-dogging. After all, she's got a lot on her plate keeping watch over Estelí's sleeping giant.
The secret is still in the dough
"We've been labeled the sleeping giant," said Aganorsa founder Eduardo Fernández after a tour of his factory and some of his farms. "In the sense that we have this great leaf, great capacity to produce it, yet we don't make that many cigars and we're not well known. But that's going to start changing."
Especially if you're just a casual smoker, you can be forgiven for not knowing who Eduardo is. For starters, while his cigar business is vertically integrated, its names are a little confusing. You see, Aganorsa is an agriculture conglomerate. Among many other things, it's one of the largest growers of premium cigar tobacco in Nicaragua. Eduardo sells most of his harvests, then produces cigars at his Estelí factory, Tabacos Valle de Jalapa, S.A., (or TABSA for short) and at his Miami factory, Tabacalera Tropical (which he bought in 2002 from cigar legend Pedro Martín, who continued to work as a blender and tobacco broker for Aganorsa after the sale). Some of those cigars are made for clients who run some very successful boutique brands, while others end up in his own cigar portfolio under the Casa Fernandez and JFR family of brands.
Yes, it's a little confusing, which is part of why the company is moving to streamline the branding for its farming and manufacturing under the "Aganorsa" banner. Like Eduardo said, things are going to start changing.
Still, even absent changes, this is a celebrated cigar maker. Case in point, this magazine's list of the Top 25 Cigars of 2017 included three cigars made at the company's factories: Casa Fernandez Miami Aniversario Serie 2015 (No. 2), Sindicato Miami Edition (No. 14) and San Isidro by HVC (No. 15). The first two are made at Tabacalera Tropical, and the last is made at Tabacos Valle de Jalapa.
The story of Eduardo's journey into tobacco and cigars is unlike that of just about any other cigar maker. While so many other Cuban-born cigar men cite long family histories on tobacco farms or extensive careers that started in Havana factories, Eduardo, who arrived in the U.S. at 10 years old and eventually settled with his parents in Ft. Lauderdale, attended a boarding school in Connecticut and later graduated from the Wharton School of Business.
"I was right next to the Connecticut valley," he said of his boarding school days. "So often I would see the buses of tobacco pickers — mostly Puerto Ricans — going to pick tobacco. Little did I know at that time — I was 14 to 17 years old — that that would be my life's calling down the road."
After graduation from Wharton, Eduardo ended up in New York to pursue a career in international banking. He lived there 10 years before being transferred to Miami. Throughout, Eduardo knew he had an entrepreneurial itch that needed scratching. He, along with his brother Leopoldo, finally got to scratch when they saw an opportunity in Spain.
"When I lived in New York, I used to eat a lot of pizza because there was almost a pizza on every corner. You would always eat a slice. Spain was and still is a very traditional, excellent food experience, but fast food was just appearing. So we seized the opportunity. I felt like Hernán Cortés. I burned my ships and sold my house. I lived in Pinecrest, which was an up and coming area [in Miami] with a very good school district. I sold my car and went to open a pizzeria in Madrid."
To say that Eduardo "opened a pizzeria" is an understatement. His and his brother's company, Telepizza, introduced the concept of the pizza delivery chain to Spain in 1987. Within 10 years, the company had opened 300 stores. They went public in 1996, becoming the first restaurant company on the Madrid Stock Exchange. By 1999, shares of Telepizza were up 990 percent from their initial offering.
"We were a huge success," he said. "Domino's Pizza, we beat the hell out of them. They all came thinking big and that they could conquer us, and they were just not able to. Still, the business exists. I learned marketing there. We used to work 17 hours a day because everything happened very quickly."
Eduardo sold stock in Telepizza and went into an early retirement, settling back into the financial world and later moving to London. When he got tired of reading stock prices, he contemplated whether this was how he wanted to spend the rest of his days.
"I was 48. I had always liked farming. From early on, when I was kid, I always cut grass and planted trees and I had a nursery. I even looked at that business early on in Davie, outside of Ft. Lauderdale."
As you might have figured, though, his plans for a new career in agriculture became much bigger than South Florida plant nurseries. The idea of a future in farming had been swirling in his head for a while. Ever the long-term planner, he'd visited Central America to scope things out well before Telepizza even went public. Costa Rica wasn't for him. Most places were too far from the ocean, he says, and the Costa Rican people are, by and large, too "aloof" for his liking.
But Nicaragua… Even in Estelí, you're never too long of a drive away from the sea, and the people made him feel a bit more at home. What's more, Nicaraguans needed help in rebuilding their country, so they were receptive to the idea of foreign investors. As he made his way around the country to get the lay of the land and scope out opportunities, he met Nestor Plasencia.
"He said that tobacco was great business. He introduced me [to the idea that] it's very Cubanesque and that the soils of Nicaragua were first class. That to me was very important."
When the time finally came for Eduardo to move forward setting up shop in Nicaragua, he knew he would need more expertise behind the new venture than he could bring to the table. Rather than look for talent in Nicaragua, he went to "the source": Cuba. Eduardo sought talent specifically from Vuelta Abajo, the famed Cuban tobacco growing region. He also found Cubans in Nicaragua who had been working on contracts through the Cuban government. Among them was Jacinto Iglesias, who has now been the general manager for Aganorsa's farming and production for 10 years.
"I got to Nicaragua in 1997 and I started working with another company on the island of Ometepe," said Jacinto, who is an engineer specializing in resistance to disease. "And, coincidentally, in 1998, I meet Eduardo. I've been working for Eduardo since January 1999. We started in Jalapa planting covered tobacco."
In 1999, though, the Cuban government forced Jacinto and other tobacco men to return to Cuba rather than stay in Nicaragua. So he and others found ways off the island to return to Nicaragua and Aganorsa. By the end of 2001, Jacinto was back in the saddle in Estelí, this time totally disassociated from the Cuban government.
"Nicaragua has the resources and it has the human capital to deal with [the normal problems of a farming operation]. In Cuba, it's a problem of allotment and bureaucracy," said Jacinto. "If I'm a farmer and I need to use a fertilizer or some product like that now, there might not be product available immediately. Maybe they'll get it to me in two or three days. But by the time it gets to me, the crop is destroyed. The conditions are right for Nicaraguan tobacco to be the best in the world. Tobacco is a short-cycle crop. You plant it and about 45 days later, you're harvesting. If you don't give the plant what it needs in those 45 days, it's not going to come out right."
After learning the hard way that it's best to own the farm yourself rather than contracting farmers to grow for you exclusively, Eduardo began to invest heavily in farmland, and his team of Cuban experts went to work ramping up production of the tobacco that would later become the foundation of his company's identity. Other growers in the region took notice, wondering who was growing all this tobacco on land worked by Cubans. The cigar industry behaves a bit like a high school cafeteria sometimes, and as word spread of these farms and the fact that nobody in Estelí was buying all that tobacco, some even speculated that it was being sold to the Cuban government.
"We used to have a saying," said Eduardo, recalling his pizza days in Spain. "The secret is in the dough."
These days, the secret is in Aganorsa's Criollo 98 and Corojo 99. In particular, Aganorsa's Corojo 99 is among the most recognizable aromas in the cigar industry. Its signature sweetness is unforgettable and its aroma cuts through a room full of smokers so you always know when someone's lit up around you.
But when you do smell it, it's not necessarily burning in a Casa Fernandez cigar.
Tested in the fighting arena
It seems like any time you walk through a really great cigar factory, you notice something different about the way its owners have chosen to do things. Some quirk or nuance that lets you know the people who built the place didn't just follow a paint-by-numbers guide to making cigars.
In the case of Casa Fernández, it didn't take me long to find that quirk. As is the case in most every factory in Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, cigars are made by pairs of rollers. The first, the buncher, prepares the filler and binder to go into a mold, where it sits a while — usually several hours — before being opened back up by the buncher's partner, who applies the wrapper.
The bunchers at Casa Fernández, I realized, went through an extra step. It's quick, but it's there. Every time binder is applied to the filler, that bunch is placed on a digital scale to ensure it's the right weight before it goes into the mold. At most other factories, cigars are weighed in bundles of 25 or so. If your bundle weighs what it should, there's always a chance that one cigar's a little overfilled, another a little underfilled. Not here. Aganorsa weighs every single cigar. It's a system that was put in place by Cuban master and Aganorsa master blender Arsenio Ramos, who blended by weight rather than leaves and fractions of leaves. And they weigh each stogie more than once. Cigars are weighed at least twice: once by the buncher and once by quality control.
A select few are weighed three times.
"We pay attention to the weight. We have one customer, Dion Giolito… When that cigar goes to his store, I imagine him always at the counter weighing the cigars," said Eduardo.
Dion was in the room for the interview. He nodded his head as if to say, "You know me too well."
"And he gives me a call as well [if a cigar's weight is off]," Eduardo continued. "Which is good! He's the final control. To us, weight is extremely important and I'm extremely sensitive to it."
Dion has a special stake in the weight of the cigars. As the founder of Illusione Cigars, he's relied on Aganorsa tobacco to help set his product apart from everything else on the market. And it's worked. Illusione is one of the most highly regarded boutique brands in the business. It's the name behind Fume D'Amour, Rothchildes, and many more. On this trip to Estelí, Dion was — among other things — checking in on production of OneOff, a revival of a brand that had a cult following in the early 2000s and was recently acquired by Illusione.
"It's a real special relationship that a brand like mine has with Aganorsa and Eduardo," Dion said. "Eduardo has really extended the luxury of letting me root through his entire business. He's really entrusted a person like me to be able to go look at pilones and tobacco. That's 90 percent of what I do here — just making sure that the tobacco, from the quality standpoint that I look for, makes its way to the galera floor. Having that ability and access to be able to put my hands on any and all of his tobaccos is a rare opportunity for a person like me in this business."
Dion isn't alone in having access to that tobacco. Eduardo has managed to put together a group of clients who all — despite not having their own factories — are recognized in the cigar world for having real credibility on cigars and tobacco. Also on the factory floor during my visit was Nick Melillo, who launched Foundation Cigars in 2015.
"Having lived here in Nicaragua since 2003 and not being on the sales and distribution side, it was very important for me to express my love for Nicaragua. So I really wanted to make a blend that was a hundred percent Nicaraguan and a brand that really expressed the heart and soul of what Nicaragua was to me, but also the Nicaraguan people," said Nick, who had previously worked for Drew Estate as a blender and tobacco purchaser. "I had purchased a lot of tobacco over the years from Aganorsa, and so I was very familiar with the tobacco. I knew in order to make a hundred percent Nicaraguan cigar, the key to that was going to be the wrapper. Having a Nicaraguan wrapper is not an easy thing because of the sun exposure and the land. Wrappers are usually coming from Ecuador, from Mexico, from other parts of the world, and I knew that the team here at TABSA and Aganorsa had been working on growing wrapper for many, many years. For me, it was the best wrapper for El Güegüense, the Wise Man, that I was going to launch. So that was crucial."
Credible, familiar faces like Dion's and Nick's — as well as Eduardo's son Max, who plays a major role in managing the day to day operations of the factory — give the factory a feeling of familial collaboration. These are all people who not only respect one another, but enjoy each other's company.
Other Aganorsa clients include Viaje, Warped and HVC, all well respected brands releasing acclaimed cigars. As we sat around a long table to enjoy a roasted whole hog (naturally, an Aganorsa pig; remember that they do more than tobacco) with Eduardo, some of his team and a number of his private label clients (including a small delegation from a factory in Moscow), it was clear that he is looking for partners he can treat like family. He's observed that these people can not only be trusted with access, but also that they fit in with a seat at the table… whether for a blending session or a Cuban feast.
Side note: This might have been the best Cuban-style lechón I've ever had.
"People prove themselves in the fighting arena, which is the marketplace," said Eduardo. "With their vision, we make the best cigar in their profile. Some take that opportunity and take it to another level with their vision. To me that's a great sense of pride and accomplishment. Because I'm not the only guy in the world who knows how to do something well. Other people bring a lot to the table.
"I love that people take our leaf and do something with their own vision. I take pleasure in people making our leaf even more beautiful, even more expressive. That, to me, is an accolade."
The business of tradition
Moving forward, Aganorsa is poised to tell its story and earn even more accolades for cigars that bear its own name. The tobacco, as Eduardo puts it, has its own identity.
"We sell Aganorsa leaf. We don't sell tobacco leaf," he said. "It has a personality, it has a name, it has a backing to it, a culture behind it, a vision. To us it's extremely important."
Whatever you call it, Aganorsa is churning out a whole lot of it. All together, the company's 1,000-plus acres of Nicaraguan farm land in Jalapa, Condega and Estelí produce 13,000 bales of tobacco. To give you a sense of scale, that's enough for them to sell off about 85 percent of their harvest and still have enough for their own factory to make 20,000 cigars every day.
"We're not one of the huge factories. We're boutique-ish," Eduardo said. "We aim to do things right, not just produce massive numbers of cigars. Our trajectory is to keep growing, but always have quality in mind. [José Orlando] Padrón taught me that … It's not just about producing cigars. It's producing great cigars year in year out."
"Eduardo is a good friend of my family's. He had a good friendship with my father, and many of the people who work with him are also good friends of ours. It's a good thing he's here in Nicaragua," said Jorge Padrón of Padrón Cigars.
As the company works to build its name recognition among smokers, Terence Reilly, who recently joined the Aganorsa team on the sales and marketing side after a long tenure at Quesada Cigars, will play a pivotal role.
"We have a great selection, but there's that signature flavor that permeates all of them to varying degrees," Terence said. "So that's what I think is our focus, is to express that flavor profile in different ways. We're for a certain smoker that enjoys Nicaraguan tobacco with a clear Cuban influence. If you're into other profiles, that's great, but you're probably not going to be into what we're doing."
Pedro Martín died in 2010 and, when I visited Nicaragua for this story, Arsenio Ramos was ill in Cuba. By now, Eduardo has soaked up enough knowledge to walk, talk and act like a genuine tobacco man himself.
"Nobody's born with knowledge. You have to acquire it, in tobacco especially. Tobacco teaches you because every year is different. Things behave differently, people behave differently, so you have to adjust and that knowledge takes time to acquire. Maybe five or six years ago, things started really coming together."
As Eduardo moves into a new chapter for Aganorsa tobacco, he can look confidently back on the plunge he took in the late '90s and know that it paid off. And that might be the most incredible thing about this company that showed up relatively recently considering it's so damn big in the premium cigar tobacco space. Eduardo left pizza delivery and international finance for a much quieter life in a much quieter place.
And despite his having caught lightning in a bottle all over again, Eduardo still talks about it as the quiet retreat of a business he was looking for in his early retirement.
"My vision grew to do things the old-fashioned way," he said. "I don't experiment with new tobacco or new flavors. [The idea is] to do what was done for hundreds of years in Cuba. If I can do that, I'm the happiest man in the world."
Tags: Aganorsa, Casa Fernandez, Eduardo Fernandez, profiles
Nicolas Jimenez
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Wikipedia has an article about Virgo.
From [[w:Template:lang:la language|Template:lang:la]][[Category:Template:lang:la derivations]] virgo.
(astronomy): One of the twelve zodiac constellations, supposedly shaped like a maiden. It contains the bright binary star Spica.
Now, masters, draw. [They shoot.] O, well said, Lucius! Good boy, in Virgo's lap.
(astrology): The Zodiac sign for the virgin, covering August 24–September 22.
This page was last modified on 8 October 2008, at 14:12.
This article uses material from the English Wiktionary entry "Virgo".


>     :book1 dc:title "SPARQL Tutorial" .
>     :book1 ns:price 41 .
so it should be AND &op:lessThan(?price, 42).
triples and closer to rules.  I oppose this expansion.
>     :book1 ns:price :price .
The only answer for graph pattern matches.
>     :book1 ns:price 43 .
Requires a rules engine - seems out of scope for this WG to me.
Sounds like asking for proof information, also out of scope.
Next message: Simon Raboczi: "ACTION: propose test case for scalar constraint with syntax"
In reply to: Eric Prud'hommeaux: "tests around comparators in the graph constraint"
Next in thread: Steve Harris: "Re: tests around comparators in the graph constraint"
Reply: Steve Harris: "Re: tests around comparators in the graph constraint"


CHICAGO — A police officer who fatally shot a black teenager last year was charged with first-degree murder on Tuesday as graphic video of the killing, just released, sparked unrest.
Throngs of protesters filled the streets of downtown Chicago on Tuesday night, with a large crowd gathering outside a police building. Around 11:15 p.m. EST Tuesday, a crowd that had largely been peaceful turned confrontational.
Skirmishes broke out between protesters and police, who surrounded officers after they apparently made arrests. Protesters also tried to stop a police SUV from leaving with arrestees — an effort that failed. As the sound of sirens filled the air, police were met with shouts of "16 shots" — the number of times an officer fired at Laquan McDonald in October 2014 — and demonstrators taking selfies. Some protesters showed up in gas masks, and some pushed against a police line, but no smoke or tear gas came.
Police ordered protesters to disperse, evidently arresting some. Eventually, marchers retraced their route back to State Street and traveled north. What had been a march turned into individual standoffs as temperatures fell. Dog owners walked their animals alongside protesters; a man on a treadmill on the second floor of a building looked down on the rally.
Asked early Wednesday for information about reported arrests, a police department spokesman said no information would be released until morning.
Chicago officials were worried about possible unrest in response to the video's release. The video depicts Jason Van Dyke, a white 14-year veteran of the police force, drawing his weapon on McDonald, an African American teen carrying a knife.
Van Dyke's attorney, Daniel Herbert, said the officer feared for his life when he opened fire. Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) took another view.
"The officer in this case took a young man's life and he's going to have to account for his actions, and that's what today is all about," said Garry F. McCarthy, the Chicago police superintendent.
Chicago is not the only city in American roiled by officer-involved shootings and their aftermath — far from it. The video's release comes amid intensified scrutiny of police forces following fatal encounters between law enforcement and black men and boys. Police shootings, propelled into the public eye after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year, have led to demonstrations in city streets and debates on college campuses across the country.
Indeed, the rapid developments on Tuesday — an officer charged, a horrific video's release — recalled similar situations that unfolded this year. In North Charleston, S.C., and Cincinnati, similar videos showing officers fatally shooting black men were released; in both cases, officials announced murder charges the same day. In both cities, protests followed, but they were far less heated than those seen in cities such as Ferguson and New York after grand juries declined to indict officers.
Even as protesters filled Chicago streets, a similar drama unfolded in another large Midwestern city. Police in Minneapolis took three men into custody after gunshots were fired at a "Black Lives Matter" rally, wounding five demonstrators in an attack that inflamed tensions already high over the recent police killing of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man.
The shooting Monday night, which occurred one block from a police station that protests had centered around, shook demonstrators who nonetheless said they would not be driven away.
In a Facebook post, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis said that "white supremacists" attacked the group on Monday night "in an act of domestic terrorism," and the group vowed not to be intimidated.
Police said Tuesday they had three white men in custody: a 23-year-old arrested in Bloomington, a nearby city, as well as a 26-year-old and a 21-year-old who turned themselves in to investigators. A fourth person, a 32-year-old Hispanic man arrested in south Minneapolis, was released after it was determined he was not at the shooting scene, police said.
Minneapolis police said they received multiple 911 calls on Monday night about the gunfire, a block away from the 4th Precinct. All five people, who had been protesting at the police building, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
Protesters said the shooting occurred after a group of people — three men and a woman, all wearing ski masks — were seen filming the activity. The people in ski masks went down Morgan Avenue, and some demonstrators followed them.
A fight ensued and then gunshots rang out, said Henry Habu, who has been at the protests since Sunday. Habu said that protesters had been told to watch out for white supremacists wearing masks or camouflage clothing, and said the group filming the demonstrations matched those descriptions.
After the gunfire at 10:40 p.m. on Monday, police said dozens of officers rushed to the scene to investigate. Demonstrators rushed to tend to the injured, and others flocked to the area.
One demonstrator was shot in the leg and was among "four boys on the ground," said Carrie Brown. "He just kept saying, 'Don't leave me, don't leave me,'" she said.
Federal authorities said Tuesday they were in close contact with local police.
Police have said that Clark, a suspect in an assault, was shot on Nov. 15 when he interfered as paramedics tried to treat the assault victim.
The officers involved were Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze. Both have served with the Minneapolis police for a little over a year, and each has been an officer for a total of seven years, according to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency investigating the shooting. Police have not said which officer fired the fatal shot.
The FBI announced it will conduct its own investigation into Clark's death. The U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota and Justice Department prosecutors said they will review evidence to see whether there were any federal civil rights violations.
Some witnesses said Clark was handcuffed when he was shot. Police said that did not appear to be the case. Drew Evans, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said authorities were still working to determine whether Clark was handcuffed when he died.
Demonstrators have called on police to release video footage of the shooting. Evans said there is no complete video, though investigators have multiple videos related to the encounter.
"We want justice," said Jayme Ali, a local minister who marched near the front of the crowd.
Ali, 44, was born and raised here. She said it is time this city address issues of racial inequity, especially in policing. While she attended many of the first days of protests, she had not come out for three days because of an illness.
Lowery reported from Minneapolis and Berman from Washington. Alex Baumhardt in Minneapolis and Lindsey Bever and Michael Miller in Washington contributed to this report.


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Galveston Election Preview: Monday's Show (March 14, 2016)
The Texas primary may be over, but another vote is close behind in Galveston where the mayor and all six city council seats are up for election in May. This happens every two years — does that make it harder for Galveston Island officials to do their jobs? On this edition of Houston Matters, we […]
| Posted on March 14, 2016, 6:00 AM
The Texas primary may be over, but another vote is close behind in Galveston where the mayor and all six city council seats are up for election in May. This happens every two years — does that make it harder for Galveston Island officials to do their jobs?
On this edition of Houston Matters, we preview the upcoming election in Galveston and discuss some of the issues that may be top of mind for voters there, including funding for longstanding and ongoing repairs related to Hurricane Ike in 2008. We welcome your questions for John Wayne Ferguson, Galveston Island Reporter for the Galveston Daily News.
Also this hour: Maggie Martin talks with Jessica Marsh, general counsel for the newly revamped Office of Violent Sex Offender Management, about changes to the state agency responsible for supervising, monitoring and providing treatment for the most violent sex offenders in Texas.
Then: Once again, Houston Matters goes to the dogs...and cats. We welcome your canine and feline questions for veterinarian Dr. Lori Teller from the Meyerland Animal Clinic.
Plus: The Houston Texans have a new quarterback. Is there reason to believe Brock Osweiler will bring an end to the revolving door of quarterbacks, or are the Texans setting fans up for another disappointment? We talk it over with Jeff Balke, who writes for Houstonia Magazine and Houston Press.
Houston Matters offers a free daily, downloadable podcast here, on iTunes, Stitcher and various other podcasting apps.
Full Show Houston Matters News Politics SportsBrock Osweiler galveston Houston sports houston texans Hurricane Ike repairs Jeff Balke John Wayne Ferguson Lori Teller Maggie Martin Paige Phelps politics sex offender veterinary care
Executive Producer & Host, Houston Matters
Craig Cohen is the executive producer and host of Houston Matters, which airs weekday mornings at 9:00 on Houston Public Media, News 88.7 FM. Craig is a 20+ year veteran of broadcast journalism. He's spent the bulk of his career in public media, in roles ranging from programmer and manager,...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Made some slight changes to wording. I elaborated on some aspects that went untouched previously. Added a bonus section that gives a bit of an advanced look at map/mode applications, and weapon match ups. Next update will have more detailed map oriented strategies.


« When did Arsenal win their first ever trophy? Clue: the anniversary is tomorrow.
Last week, I took a look at the Arsenal season review of 2007/2008 because it was the nearest trophy to Arsenal on these 7 trophy-less years. And in doing this I noticed many refereeing decisions which were harsh and against Arsenal.
These decisions led Arsenal to losing the title to Manchester United by just 4 points and losing to Liverpool in the champions league.
There was only one error from ref that let Man United scored the 1st goal, Brown pushed Hleb down that led many Arsenal players to demand that the ref take action. What happened however was that Brown passed to Ronaldo who assisted Rooney's 1st goal.
The ref was the" Mighty" Howard Webb who seemed to help Man United many times.
This match was the 1st match Arsenal lost this season, their 1st goal was a penalty kick but if we see the replay, Aliadiere (the ex-Arsenal player) dived to get a penalty and Downing scored it.
That was the worst moment in Eduardo's career; although I know ref did the right thing in sending off their player after his tackle on Eduardo. But the draw came in the last minute after ref gave them a penalty when Clichy tried to clear the ball but a player from Birmingham fell down. If you watch the replay, we can see that Clichy's leg was on the ball and the decision was harsh to say that least.
In the 1st half, a Middlesbrough player gave the ball to his goalkeeper and guess what? RVP was ruled offside. Yes, he scored but the ref said it is an offside goal. According to FIFA rules, if a player passes the ball to his goalkeeper and opposition player takes it, it should never be an offside. Even their 1st goal Aliadiere was offside on the play but he didn't touch the ball.
Drogba scored twice, but one of his goals was from a clearly offside position.
The collection of points are 8 points and taking 1 point from Man United because the draw , if we have half of the 8 points we will see Arsenal winning that league but for the referees.
In the 1st leg, we drew against Liverpool at the Emirates stadium. There is one mistake that the ref admitted; he was biased when he took his decision which involved Kyut and Hleb and the shirt pull. Interestingly the referee was from the Netherlands and indeed from the same city that Kyut from. That perhaps was his reason.
In the 2nd leg, on the 89 minute, Babel dived and the ref gave them penalty.
All we have to do is imagine that if just a handful of these calls were given to Arsenal, they would be crowned with the EPL; and I suspect the number of wrong calls from them is increasing season by season.
It really is getting worse by the month!
Agree. We haven't won a trophy in 7 years but for this particular season we can't blame Wenger because the actions of officials are beyond his control.
Already this season we have had a nailed on penalty disallowed against Fulham when Gervhino was hacked down, a disgraceful dive by Nathan Dwyer at Swansea gifting them a penalty when it was really a foul on Rambo and of course the Bale dive (yet Dean didn't see fit to give Gibbs a penalty earlier in the game.
Same old Arsenal, always cheated.
I am a gooner – but where is your analysis on Man United's dropped points from incompetent refs? Article is a bit meaningless without both sides….
Richard – if you have looked at Untold Arsenal http://www.blog.emiratesstadium.info you will see that we now publish detailed ref analyses of matches of Arsenal and other clubs.
To get to that situation has taken a number of years, and to keep it going takes a bunch of dedicated referees hours and hours of work.
These analyses are now lauded widely, and appear to be read by the powers that be to day – but as I say it took us ages to get there.
If you would like to help put in the work of analysing what happened during the season in question here – in relation to other clubs – we will of course publish it. But if not, please accept this as a starter – an opening of a new topic that could lead to all sorts of other explorations.
@seagoon go to @Tony Attwood other blog, i wrote an article about how the refs are bias this season !
Arsenal that season had the best players in the EPL, Did we forget How Cesc & Flamini were with Rosicky & Hleb !
Eduardu was the best transfer that season but thanks to Taylor Birmingham players for what happened to him !
Did we forget hoe Man United players that season when the ref blow the end of the 1st half, most of their players will go directly to him even if they are winning to effect his future decision on the 2nd half !
even last season, the refs gave the EPL to Man United by taking more than 10 points from Arsenal !
Yes,agreed that 2007/2008 season is the most likely Arsenal will win the title..but,after so many season till now,I've realized one fact is that,the ref,most of them,favours Man Utd that cost Arsenal dropping points and most important of it,Man Utd play their formation 4-4-2-3.You might be wondering why there is another 3 infront..??The 3 ref that's matters.Agree?
@Kevin i agree with you, refs tried to take lets say more than 6 points each year and give the same the United & guess what ? the difference will be between us more than 10 points. I don't know why the media don't focus on the refs wrong calls !!


A green corner of the Apennines, between Albareto and Borgotaro (PR). Pastures and woods of oaks, stone houses and paths marked by animals' traces. The Reserve is the ideal place for schools and teachers who are willing to discover biodiversity, from flowers to big trees, from insects like butterflies to the "big" predator like the wolf.


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Secretary Haaland Discusses Climate Impacts with Indigenous Youth at COP26 Event
Date: Friday, November 5, 2021
Contact: Interior_Press@ios.doi.gov
GLASGOW — Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland hosted a virtual question-and-answer session today with Indigenous youth to discuss the impacts of climate change on the rising generation. During the "Elevating Indigenous Youth" event at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), Secretary Haaland heard from youth from around the globe on how climate change is affecting their communities as well as actions they would like world leaders to undertake to achieve our international climate commitments for future generations.
"Indigenous youth recognize that the traditional life ways that are being threatened by climate change are grounded in the outlook that will lead us out of this crisis," said Secretary Deb Haaland to the Indigenous youth. "Science includes Indigenous knowledge. Our bold action to address the climate crisis is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and the voices of Indigenous youth."
The youth represented diverse Indigenous voices from across the globe, including representation from the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Micronesia, Kenya, Ecuador, Alaska, and Maine.
During the event, Secretary Haaland discussed how she became "climate aware" in her youth and affirmed the importance of Indigenous voices in solving the climate crisis. She also emphasized the importance of taking bold climate action to ensure that current and future generations can enjoy access to our lands, waters, and wildlife.
"We all have a lot of work to do, but I want young people to know that every time I consider the impacts of decisions we make at the Department of the Interior, I think about the generations to come who will have to live with that decision," added Secretary Deb Haaland. "Today, we are at the turning point and though we face the climate crisis, the voices that are here today give me hope for the future."
Via pre-recorded videos, invited school children shared concerns that their communities and cultures are at risk of being lost to the perils of climate change. The youth also spoke about how the natural resources that have sustained Indigenous peoples for centuries are in jeopardy of being destroyed by extreme weather events. The youth recognized this as a pivotal moment for communities like theirs across the globe and called for bold action to lead the world toward a sustainable, equitable and inclusive future.
Joining Secretary Haaland for the virtual session was Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, Executive Director of Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners Stanley Kimaren Ole Riamit, and General Coordinator of Global Alliance of Territorial Communities and Vice Coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organization of the Amazon Basin Tuntiak Katan.
Archives of the live-streamed events are available at the U.S. Center's YouTube webpage.
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It was 9 o'clock in the morning, and everything in sight was bathed in the brilliant, blazing light of an Arabian Peninsula sun. I had my sunglasses on and still felt the need to hold up a hand to shield my eyes from the glare. Around me stood men buying fresh produce, men selling khat for camel feed, men chatting amiably in long white dishdashas with colorful kumas perched atop their heads. I was standing in a souk in Ibra, Oman—the lone female and the lone foreigner—surrounded by Omani men going about their morning business in a market scene so customary to them it surely felt banal. Little here seemed ordinary to me, though, and I was savoring every second. I was the Other, the outsider, the ferenji, and my senses were heightened in anticipation of the unfamiliar, my eyes wide open to novelty. Situated somewhere between the dunes of the Wahiba Sands desert and the mountains of the al Hajar range, Ibra is an old city in a very old part of the world. Not for the first time, nor surely the last, I found myself wondering how did I get here?
Peru is a country of color. There are the terraced hillsides of carefully tended crops whose greens range from basil to emerald to pistachio. There is the Andean sky built like a layer cake of ever-varying blues stacked high into the atmosphere. There are the 3,800 potato varieties plucked out of Peruvian soil whose outer skins range from canary yellow to beige to aubergine. There are the fish markets of Lima with their dark red tuna steaks, mottled brown squids, blush pink whitefish fillets, and mounds of mossy seaweed. And, of course, there are the densely crowded markets from which goods and foods explode out of tiny stalls—white alpaca ponchos and multicolored tablecloths with an orange-pink-green-blue pattern best resembling neon Sour Skittles draped along the walls; vibrant red wool blankets and hand-knit rainbow belts heaped atop chartreuse skirts and cobalt scarves; and bouquets of cilantro sitting alongside spicy scarlet and orange peppers next to mounds of purple potatoes all spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The eyes feast in Peru.
"Let's go somewhere. We need an adventure," a dear friend once said to me. We were sitting on the couch in my Denver, Colorado apartment, digesting Thai food and drinking wine. I had just earned a Master's degree; Nicole was slated to begin medical school in the fall. We were both feeling equally free and adrift and antsy at that particular moment of our lives. Let's go somewhere exotic. Somewhere far away. Somewhere where we could lose ourselves for a few weeks and forget our respective realities. Let's go on an adventure—that's what was said, but the subtext was so much greater than that statement. It took us five minutes of naming destinations—Turkey, the desert (but which desert?), somewhere beautiful in Europe—to settle on a trip so vast it would feel more like three trips in one: The Trans-Mongolian Railway. Rather than end in Vladivostok, the traditional terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, we would switch trains in Irkutsk and venture through Mongolia to our ultimate destination, Beijing. The distance from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing, China via train is approximately 6,000 miles. Eight time zones are crossed en route. We would begin our trip in Europe, end in Asia, and circumnavigate the globe before it was all said and done.
"Let's go somewhere," Nicole said. And so we went around the world.
For a detailed summary of the St. Petersburg to Beijing via the Trans-Mongolian Railway itinerary, see the full post in the Travel Itineraries section.
Peak Bloom in Washington, D.C.
When it's springtime in Washington, D.C. only two words matter: Peak Bloom.
tell us what we are.
There are more than six million people living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Traffic is incessant; trendy, new bars are standing room only even on weeknights—and there are trendy, new bars everywhere; politics somehow seeps into all conversation, innocuous at first but injurious to your mental health once you realize you've been debating fiscal policy all day. The reasons you love the city can soon become the reasons you resent the city. Escapes are essential. Nature is necessary.
Shenandoah National Park lies a mere 75 miles west of our nation's capital, a narrow strip of undulating mountains which extends from north to south for over 100 miles. Skyline Drive runs the length of the park, bisected by the Appalachian Trail as it snakes its way back and forth over the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the fall, birch, ash, and oak trees flaunt their autumnal colors. This lasts for a few weeks, then the blacktop becomes a carpet of red, orange, and yellow leaves that flutter skyward as car wheels roll over them. It is during this ephemeral window of time—after the hills are set aglow and before leaves coat the ground—that I try to make my much-needed pilgrimage to the Blue Ridge.


Welcome to join Carmar Taiwan for the exhibition TIMTOS! Join us with our premium products and service to elevate the quality of your products and your factory production capacity, and it is our 31 years old birthday!
Welcome to join Carmar Taiwan for the exhibition TIMTOS! It is our 30 years old birthday!


In these days people are a lot more interested about being healthy and what they place in their bodies. Because of this, water purification has become a remarkably fundamental part of our lifestyles. We all wish to consume the best and the cleanest water available to us in Hanover. For that reason, having a top quality water filtration system installed in our homes has become exceptionally popular. Regardless of your water source, the benefits of having a water purification system installed in your Hanover home definitely over-shadows the lack of using water filtration.
We sell, install and service all varieties of water filtration systems for residential and commercial purposes. Everything from whole house water filters to specific applications like kitchen water filtering systems.
Call Robinson Plumbing at (610) 351-9889 for all your odor, taste and chlorine treatment and removal, as well as any water filtration services in Hanover, PA.
Making sure that you hire the right plumbing company to size and install the best water filtration system for your Hanover property is important. There are many options available and we can help you identify the best technology to match your budget and needs. You can rest assured that your water filtration system will be installed professionally and will work seamlessly with the rest of your plumbing providing you and your family consistently excellent water quality.
Call Robinson Plumbing at (610) 351-9889 for sediment, smell and taste treatment solutions, chlorine odor or taste removal, as well as any multi-media water filtration services in the surrounding Hanover.
Hanover is located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. It is located at 40.65121 latitude and -75.44190 longitude. Hanover, PA contains these zip code(s): 18109. Hanover has 10893246 square meters and contains 74963 square meters of water area. According to the latest census, Hanover's median income is 50000 and it has 758 households.
If you are tired of dealing with issue water, don't stress, simply ask an authorized Hanover, PA, plumber about a house water purification system. Our high-performance filters can help attend to a wide range of water issues, from chlorine tastes and smells to unstable natural substances. You will experience a distinction right away, throughout your whole home.
Water quality is very important to Robinson Plumbing, not only for how it safeguards you when you consume or shower, however also in regards to how it impacts your pipes system in the long run. Buying water treatment choices is not only good for your health, however likewise extends the life of your plumbing system, tankless hot water heater, fixtures, etc.
Reverse osmosis is a procedure that requires water through a semi-permeable membrane and filters out inorganic impurities like metals and nitrates. It lets water, and only water, travel through the membrane and leaves the impurities behind to be flushed away. Prefiltration, done before the water reaches the reverse osmosis membrane, gets rid of larger particles and chlorine, if suitable, that can hurt or interfere with the membrane's purification efficiency. Furthermore, a post filter processes the water even further and provides it a last polish, removing any unpleasant tastes or smells that might stay.
Our experienced water purification specialists are licensed and accredited. They have the knowledge, skill and knowledge to examine, install, maintain, repair, change and evaluate most types of water filtration systems. Aside from being trained and experienced, all our plumbing experts have passed drug tests and background checks. You can rest assured that our personnel is safe, friendly and dependable.


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Regional And World News
Reports: First Charges Filed In U.S. Probe Into Russian Election Meddling
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has filed charges for the first time against an unidentified target of his investigation into Russian meddling in last year's U.S. presidential election, media reported late on October 27.
CNN and Reuters, citing anonymous sources who were "briefed on the matter," are reporting that a federal grand jury in Washington approved the first indictment in the Mueller investigation, which was launched in May under a mandate from the Justice Department to maintain independence in addressing possible violations of law by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
CNN, the first to report on the indictment, said the nature of the charges is "unclear." It said they are still sealed under orders from a federal judge, and plans were made on October 27 for anyone charged to be taken into custody next week, possibly as soon as October 30.
CNN said the special counsel's probe has focused on potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as possible obstruction of justice by Trump, who in May fired the FBI director, James Comey, who was leading the Russia investigation before Mueller was appointed.
CNN reported that investigators are also scrutinizing Trump and his associates' financial ties to Russia, and have examined lobbying on behalf of foreign governments by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Mueller has previously issued subpoenas for documents and testimony from people close to Manafort as well as other people who were involved in a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in New York between Trump's son Donald Jr., Manafort, and Russians who had offered to provide damaging information about Trump's Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Based on reporting by CNN and Reuters


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Information Courtesy of Hockey Canada. For more information visit www.hockeycanada.ca/sledgehockey
The Sport of Sledge Hockey, an innovative team sport that incorporates the same rules and discipline structure as able-bodied hockey, was invented by three Sweedish wheelchair athletes on a frozen lake in Stockholm in 1961.
The game was an instant success, and after only a couple of years of development, five teams competed for the Stockholm City Championship.
The Swedish players subsequently intorduced the sport to their Norwegian neighbors and regular matches between the teams ensued. Norway, inturn, introduced the sport to British wheelchair athletes.
Sledge Hockey Of Canada (SHOC) was created in 1993 and given the title of a national sport federation by the Government of Canada, to coordinate, develop, and promote the sport of sledge hockey in Canada.
In 1994, Sledge Hockey was introduced as a demonstration sport as the Paralympic Winter Games. Canada has participated in sledge hockey in each Paralympic Winter Games. In 2004, sledge hockey came under the umbrella of Hockey Canada.


The item Hot dog! : Eleanor Roosevelt throws a picnic, by Leslie Kimmelman ; illustrated by Victor Juhasz represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Austin Public Library.
Delaware Diamonds (book award), Intermediate (Grades 3-5), 2016.
Flicker Tale Children's Book Award (North Dakota) for Non-Fiction Books, 2017.


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Q: Integrate Highchart with Python Dash I want to integrate a Highchart code with the Dash that I have already developed . I referred the github linkDash alternate-viz but i did not find how to embed .
Can someone suggest any guidance.
The highchart code that I want to embed is

Highcharts.chart('container', {
    chart: {
        animation: false
    },

    title: {
        text: 'Highcharts draggable bubbles demo'
    },

    tooltip: {
        valueDecimals: 2
    },

    series: [{
        type: 'bubble',
        cursor: 'move',
        dragDrop: {
            draggableX: false,
            draggableY: true
        },
        data: [
            [100, 240, 3],
            [200, 130, 10],
            [450, 290, 15]
        ]
    }],

    yAxis: {
        softMin: 0,
        softMax: 350
    }
});

As per the requirement when I click a button in Dash I should be able to run this code and give the output in Dash.
Can someone help me with this requirement. Dash code I have written already but I don't know how to embed this highchart version.
Thanks,
Meera

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Hypaetha antiqua is een keversoort uit de familie van de loopkevers (Carabidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1917 door Lea.

Zandloopkevers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This generic language has accompanied each of the 302 trading days since January 17, 2018.
Since that time, these absolute daily changes add up to over 58,000 Dow points. Yet over this time, the index has gained less than 100 points.


Sangiovese is the noble grape of Tuscany in Italy. The King Valley thanks the Italian immigrants who settled here bringing their culture, wine and vines with them. Thanks to them the valley is fast becoming synonymous as the premier place for Sangiovese within Australia. Cherries and plum are predominate flavours however it finishes with a savoury note.


The sole purpose of IslamOverflow website is to implement an ideal culture and society, the practical example of which was given by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in Madina as mentioned in Quran and Hadees. The purpose is to clear misconceptions, false allegations and provide true and authentic information of Islam. We will base our information only on Quran, life of Prophet (SAW), and true speakers.
We never aim to promote sects, false information and misguide anyone. Our aim is to guide you to write path so that you can achieve salvation. We also do not want to provide one sided information, we try to cover all aspects of information, and place it in front of you so that you can easily decide what is truth.
Besides providing real Islam, this site serves as a purpose to help people in daily life issues for which we have dedicated a section called 'Causes'. We want to list issues people are having and let the helpful community like you come forward and heal the sufferings of these people. You can send us your cause and we will list it after evaluation.
Another section and cause for this site is to help people for their prayers, you can ask for prayers for right causes. We strive to develop sympathy, a bond of brotherhood and love amongst all of you.
Finally, we have a dedicated shop section, where you can buy everything about Islam like CDs, softwares, Islamic clothing, and other stuff.
Feel free to send us your feedback. We highly appreciate it. Thank you.


Car cleaning products do not need to be industrial strength or difficult to use to get great results. What is more important is having a proven formula that has worked for many years, giving professional results for generations. The Astonish brand satisfies both of these propositions, producing great products that work for you. Their car care range has a host of products that are not only easy to use, but leave your car with a professional finish, inside and out.


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Opinion | Process | Process | Process | Jul 22, 2021
Heavy on the "Mayo," But No Hot Sauce
Mila Sohoni
CIC Services avoided anti-administrative rhetoric while securing the check of judicial review on the IRS.
In CIC Services v. Internal Revenue Service, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that the Anti-Injunction Act did not bar the plaintiff from bringing a facial, pre-enforcement challenge to an IRS regulation mandating that taxpayers and their material advisors report information concerning micro-captive insurance agreements.
Asleep already? You should not be.
CIC Services is not—or not just—a case about regulating tax shelters. Rather, it is a case that reaffirmed the breadth of core commitments of administrative law—commitments that extend well beyond the arena of tax regulation. And it did so without any of the justices voicing the sort of "anti-administrativist" rhetoric that has characterized several other Roberts Court administrative law decisions.
This case arose when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a notice designating micro-captive insurance agreements as "reportable transactions" and imposed reporting requirements both upon taxpayers engaged in such transactions and upon their tax advisors. CIC—a firm that helps taxpayers engage in micro-captive insurance agreements—contended that the IRS violated the Administrative Procedure Act because its decision was not issued after notice-and-comment rulemaking. CIC also argued that the IRS notice was arbitrary and capricious. But if CIC prevailed and the notice was invalidated, the IRS would not be able to collect tax penalties for noncompliance with the notice's reporting requirements. The lower courts therefore held that the suit was barred by the Anti-Injunction Act, which strips courts of jurisdiction over any suit "for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax."
The Supreme Court, however, unanimously reversed, holding that the suit's purpose was to challenge "a regulatory mandate—a reporting requirement—separate from any tax." Because CIC's suit targeted "the upstream reporting mandate, not the downstream tax" penalty, the Court held that CIC's suit could proceed.
The decision in CIC Services is notable for several reasons, some of which I have elsewhere canvassed. One is that—as law professor Kristin Hickman of the University of Minnesota notes—the decision lands "another blow to tax exceptionalism." A decade ago, the Court held in Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research v. United States that the same deferential standard of review that applied to other agencies, known as Chevron deference, would also apply to regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury. Because Mayo arose in the context of a tax refund suit, that decision did not address whether tax regulations would be subject to Abbott Labs-style facial, pre-enforcement challenges of the sort brought by CIC notwithstanding the barrier to judicial review posed by the Anti-Injunction Act. At least one federal circuit court had previously held that the Anti-Injunction Act created "a narrow exception to the general administrative law principle that pre-enforcement review of agency regulations is available in federal court." In CIC Services, however, the Court rejected that logic, holding that an Abbott Labs-style challenge to a stand-alone IRS regulatory mandate could proceed even though violating that mandate would incur penalties designated as "taxes."
Taking Mayo and CIC Services together, the Court has now made clear that the IRS must take the bitter (Abbott Labs-style facial challenges) with the sweet (Chevron deference).
Equally interesting is what was absent from the CIC Services decision. The IRS has broad authority to identify transactions with the potential for tax abuse. More specifically, the Treasury Secretary may designate as reportable any transaction that has the "potential for tax avoidance or evasion," and the relevant statute specifies no criteria for making that determination. Pursuant to that delegated authority, the IRS issued the notice in dispute in CIC Services. And willful noncompliance with the notice triggers not just steep monetary penalties, but criminal consequences of up to one year in prison.
Just three years ago, in Gundy v. United States, the Court addressed an analogous regulatory setup. The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), the statute at issue in Gundy, allowed the U.S. Attorney General to "specify the applicability" of SORNA's registration requirement to people convicted of sex offenses before the date of SORNA's enactment. Pursuant to that delegated authority, the Attorney General issued a regulation covering pre-SORNA sex offenders. Noncompliance with the registration requirements triggered criminal consequences of up to 10 years in prison.
A four-Justice plurality, with a fifth vote supplied by an unhappy Justice Samuel Alito who concurred in the judgment, deflected a nondelegation challenge to that statute by construing the statute to require that the Attorney General apply the registration requirements to "pre-Act offenders as soon as feasible." In the plurality's view, sustaining the constitutionality of the SORNA delegation was essential to sustaining the administrative state: "If SORNA's delegation is unconstitutional, then most of Government is unconstitutional—dependent as Congress is on the need to give discretion to executive officials to implement its programs."
Gundy prompted an impassioned dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. Decrying the long "quiescence" of the nondelegation doctrine, Justice Gorsuch contended that SORNA gave the Attorney General "unfettered discretion" rather than confining it to "deciding the factual predicates to a rule set forth by statute." In Justice Gorsuch's view, SORNA left the Attorney General with an unconstitutional degree of power—"the power to write his own criminal code."
In the wake of Gundy, it would not have been surprising to see Justice Gorsuch—or one of the other two justices that joined his dissent—lodge a similar protest in CIC Services. The fundamental structure of SORNA does not differ so very much from the regulatory scheme at issue in CIC Services. As noted above, the Treasury Secretary has the authority to decide if a transaction has "a potential for tax avoidance or evasion." That is a delegation that would appear to fall short of the more exacting standard that Justice Gorsuch's Gundy dissent endorsed. His Gundy dissent, for instance, maintained that "as soon as feasible" was an "evasive standard," because "feasible" can have many meanings. The terms "potential," "tax avoidance," and "tax evasion" are similarly ambiguous.
Gorsuch's Gundy dissent also disapprovingly cited a 1948 case sustaining a statute that gave the executive branch the power to recover excessive profits from government contractors, describing it as a decision in which the "mutated version of the intelligible principle remark" began to take hold. But if an instruction to determine what qualifies as excessive profits leaves too much fact-finding latitude for the executive branch, then it is hard to see why the same would not be true for the delegation underlying the IRS notice at issue in CIC Services. The naked phrase "having a potential for tax avoidance or evasion" is not any less evasive, nor does it pronounce a standard discernibly more intelligible, than the delegations that the Gundy dissent evidently regarded as inadequate.
Moreover, the parallels between the IRS reportable-transaction regulatory regime and SORNA extend to the potential consequences for those regulated. In both situations, a regulatory decision by the executive branch imposes on a vast set of private parties an obligation—either to register or to report—and disobedience triggers criminal sanctions specified by statute.
All in all, the IRS reportable-transaction regulatory scheme, in a fashion not obviously different than SORNA's, allows the executive branch to expose private parties to criminal penalties through issuing a regulation pursuant to a loosely worded delegation. Yet nothing about this arrangement seems to have drawn the ire of any of the justices.
It is worth stressing that concerns about delegation did loom in the backdrop of this decision, although they made no appearance in it. In dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc by the circuit court, Judge Amul Thapar stated that the IRS "exercises the power to tax and to destroy, in ways that the Founders never would have envisioned." Another circuit court judge accused Judge Thapar of trying to "inflict death by distorted originalism on the modern administrative state." A similar note was struck at oral argument when Justice Gorsuch alluded to "the growing power of administrative agencies over the national economy" and noted that the IRS "regulates enormous swaths of the national economy." Yet Justice Gorsuch chose not to revisit his constitutional arguments against "the growing power of administrative agencies" in CIC Services, instead joining the Court's opinion in full and otherwise keeping his peace.
Judges—including Justice Gorsuch—sometimes choose to voice constitutional doubts or broadsides in separate writings, even when doing so is, strictly speaking, wholly unnecessary for the task of deciding the cases before them. But they are of course under no obligation to air their views in that way. So court watchers should not read too much into this silence concerning nondelegation for the longer term.
For now, however, it is worth noticing that CIC Services offered a refreshing instance of a unanimous Court deciding an important administrative law case without any of the heated rhetoric concerning "administrative absolutism" in which some recent opinions have partaken.
Mila Sohoni is the Associate Dean of Faculty and professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law.
This essay is part of a nine-part series, entitled The Supreme Court's 2020-2021 Regulatory Term.
Tagged: Administrative Law, agency authority, IRS, Judicial Review, Supreme Court, Tax, U.S. Supreme Court
Series | PPR | YIR Dec 31, 2022
Top Saturday Seminars of 2022
Series of Essays
The Regulatory Review highlights the most popular Saturday Seminars of 2022.
News | PPR | YIR Dec 29, 2022
Featured Regulatory Series of 2022
The Regulatory Review highlights its series published over the past year.
Top Staff Essays of 2022
The Regulatory Review highlights the top regulatory stories written by our staff in 2022.


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TUESDAY HOMILY: Learning from Judas' Betrayal
Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes
No matter what we've done in the past, no matter what we might do in the future, no matter how bad we think our lot is, no matter how unforgivable we think we might be, we can always turn to and trust in the Lord's mercy.
We ask you, humbly, to help.
By Fr. Roger J. Landry
Catholic Online	(https://www.catholic.org)
3/26/2013 (8 years ago)
Published in Year of Faith
Keywords: year of faith, lent, Fr. Roger J. Landry, daily homilies, Judas
FALL RIVER, MA (Catholic Online). We are in the midst of the holiest week of the Year and as we prepare to enter into Jesus' passion, death and resurrection anew, the Church has us ponder, all three days before Holy Thursday, the tragic figure of Judas Iscariot. It does this not merely because his betrayal chronologically preceded the events of the new and eternal Passover, but also because all believers have much to learn from the way the devil successfully tempted him.
In this Year of Faith, it's important for us to ponder in Judas' vices the virtues faith requires. Judas' greed puts the lavish love that should flow from faith, seen yesterday in Mary of Bethany's generosity in anointing Jesus' feet. Judas' despair highlights in contrast the type of trust Peter had, even though, like Judas, he was filled with shame for having betrayed and abandoned the Lord.
So let us look together at this tragic figure, the most notorious betrayer of all time, about whom Jesus said it was better for him never to have been born.
We learned yesterday from St. John that Judas was a thief. He robbed from Christ, from the other apostles, from the incipient Church. Jesus, for him, had become merely an excuse to seek after his own interests. Jesus was not the one thing necessary, as he was for Mary of Bethany. Jesus wasn't even an end, but merely a means for Judas to satisfy his own greed.
Judas supposedly had serious qualms of conscience about the failure to sell the year's worth of aromatic nard with which Mary had anointed Jesus' feet, but he thought nothing about selling Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Judas had been a disciple merely in his body, not in his heart. Judas had been called personally by the Lord, had lived with him for about 1,000 days, had followed him for three years, had heard him preach and teach, had seen him walk on water, still stormy seas, feed thousands with a five rolls and two sardines, raise three people from the dead, heal on countless occasions the sick, blind and lame and have mercy on countless sinners, had even received from the Lord the power to do many of these same things himself, and had been entrusted by him with the money bag for the Twelve.
But he tragically had never gotten to know Jesus, and even more tragically had never gotten to love him. He remained just a follower of Jesus on the outside, not on the inside. In betraying Jesus, Judas valued him less than a handful of coins, forgetting that it would profit him nothing to gain the whole world and forfeit his life.
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This is in contrast to the example of St. Peter, whom we also see up close in today's Gospel.
Peter was an internal disciple, someone who followed the Lord not just with his body but also his heart. He desired to know the Lord with all his mind and to love him with all his heart, soul and strength. Peter wanted to do Christ's will. He wanted to follow the Lord.
I believe Peter really meant what he said, that he would lay down his life for the Lord (as he ended up doing upside-down on a Cross in the Vatican valley). But Peter failed to recognize what Jesus tells him in St. Matthew's Gospel: that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Peter's spirit did want to give himself entirely to following the Lord, but his flesh was so weak that he was willing to swear that he didn't even know the Lord - ultimately, to apostasize - just to stay warm on the cold dark night of Jesus' Passover!
A similar thing happened to Peter when Jesus was walking on water. Peter begged the Lord to give him the ability to come to him - Peter always wanted to come to the Lord and be with him - and then actually began to walk on water. As soon as he took his eyes off of the Lord, however, as soon as his weak flesh took account of the wind, he sank and this fisherman, who lived on that lake and who obviously had to be a good swimmer, cried out to the Lord to save him from drowning. Peter's spirit was always willing, but his flesh was frail. Even though his flesh would betray the Lord, his spirit believed.
We see the contrast between Peter and Judas especially in the response each had to betraying the Lord Jesus. During the scene in today's Gospel when all the apostles said, in response to Jesus' declaration that one of them would betray him, both Peter and Judas had protested with the rest, "Surely not I." But Peter couldn't fathom that before the cock crowed he would have denied the Lord three times. Judas, on the other hand, was continuing to live the lie he had been living at least for months with Jesus and the other eleven.
What is particularly and tragically moving in all of this the scene in the Gospel was taking place on what would be the last night of Judas' life. The following morning, as Jesus was about to be hanged by his limbs via nails on the man-made tree of the Cross to the northwestern part of Jerusalem, Judas would hang himself out of despair on a tree to the south in a field that became known as Hakeldama, or Field of Blood. He would hang himself with such force that an eviscerating disembowelment would result, as Peter tells us in the Acts of the Apostles. Judas, who betrayed the Lord ultimately to death for a handful of silver coins, would die even before the Lord himself died.
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His personal catastrophe prompts us to ask: What had happened to this man? How could things have gone so wrong? How could, after three years with Jesus, he have given up all hope?
In speaking about his betrayer in the upper room before Judas had departed into the night, Jesus said "Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Better for him if he had never been born!" Jesus said this not because he would seek divine vengeance upon him for his betrayal, since Jesus came to die even for Judas and called him "friend" until the end. He said it not because Judas' very name would become ignominiously attached to betrayal for the rest of human history. He said it because Judas went to his death, as far as we can discern, never having known and loved the Lord, who would have forgiven him even this betrayal of betrayals.
Jesus went freely to the Cross. He himself said, "I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father" (John 10:17-18). Jesus freely went to his "fate," and if Judas hadn't been involved in it, someone else would have. After all, the Scribes, Pharisees and Herodians had been plotting to kill Jesus for over a year by this stage.
Judas had never realized that the point of life is to come to know and love Jesus, to trust in his mercy, to participate in his salvation, even if one doesn't explicitly know Christ, as Judas did for at least three years. Judas never realized this, and hence his life ultimately was tragically a waste - and it was better that he had never been born.
Unlike Peter, who - after his apostasy when he swore that he never knew the Lord after having sworn hours earlier that he would never abandon him - wept when he realized he had sinned against the Lord and who turned to the Lord for mercy; unlike the Good Thief on the Cross, who hoping in God's love and mercy, turned to the Lord and asked him to remember Him when he came into his kingdom hours before his death; Judas never understood the depths of God's love and mercy.
He never understood the meaning of the parable of the prodigal Son. He never understood the meaning of Jesus' teaching on the lost sheep and heaven's rejoicing more for one repentant sinner than for all those who never sinned and needed repentance. He never understood the meaning of Jesus' statement to Peter of the infinite forgiveness of God, seventy-seven times. He never understood that Jesus' whole mission was to come to save sinners, to save men just like Judas, to save Judas himself.
After Judas had recognized how wrong his action was, after he saw that Jesus was condemned to death, he returned to the high chief priests and elders, as we'll see in tomorrow's reading, and said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood," throwing the silver pieces on the floor. Yes he had sinned! But rather than have that sin lead him to the One who was about to die to save him from that sin if only he would turn back to him, Judas, despairing of that forgiveness, went to field and took his own life. What a tragedy indeed!
Where is the good news in the tragedy of Judas? Only God knows if there were any good news for Judas between the tightening of the noose and his sad death seconds later. For us, however, there is good news in the fact that Judas' example illustrates just how essential hope and trust in the Lord's mercy are for our Christian lives.
No matter what we've done in the past, no matter what we might do in the future, no matter how bad we think our lot is, no matter how unforgivable we think we might be, we can always turn to and trust in the Lord's mercy. St. Peter did, even though he had considered a little warmth more valuable than his allegiance to Christ. St. Paul did, even though he used to kill Christians for a living, terrorizing the Christians in the 30s just like Nero would in the 60s and Roman emperors after that. And so should we.
St. Paul himself wrote, "If God is for us, who can be against us? . He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:30-39). Nothing can keep us from God's merciful love - not even our sins against the Lord, unless we let them by refusing to come to receive God's mercy!
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The same Satan who entered into Judas and turned everything dark seeks to enter into us. Very often we've sold out Jesus for far less than 30 pieces silver, choosing instead to work for minimum wage rather than attend Mass, or to choose some momentary warm of the fire of illicit love instead of remaining faithful. So often we have opted for Barabbas in disguise rather than uniting ourselves with Christ through picking up our Cross everyday and following him. We have denied Jesus many more than three times out of weak flesh. And this week we will remember the Crucifixion he had to endure because of those betrayals.
At the same time, however, we need, like Peter, never to lose hope in the Lord's merciful love for us. Jesus knew Peter would betray him, but Jesus also knew what Peter would do for him after he had received his forgiveness. That's why during the Last Supper, Jesus told Peter, "Satan has desired to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Peter, that your strength may not fail, and that after you have converted back to me, you will strengthen your brothers and sisters in the faith." And Peter did. The same Lord Jesus prays for us, for our conversion.
But he wants us to pray, too. In order to try to strengthen the weak flesh of Peter, James and John, he told them in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Be vigilant and pray that you may not undergo the test, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." We know that rather than doing that, Peter, James and John fell asleep, and that was doubtless part of their betrayal. This week the Lord wants us to stay away and pray that when Satan seeks to sift us like wheat this week and beyond, we may pass that test we undergo with a strengthened flesh to accord with a loving spirit.
Father Roger Landry is pastor of St. Bernadette Parish in Fall River, MA and national chaplain of Catholic Voices USA. His homilies and articles are found on catholicpreaching.com.
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I can't believe that June is over already. It's seriously messing with my mind (like, where did all the time go???). June's been a pretty exciting month for me. I got my advanced divers card and have been scuba diving quite a few times. I made summer travel plans and am going to visit a lot of friends. I also graduated from school last night!
and more. So if your interested in winning any of those awesome prizes be sure to keep your eyes peeled this month!
Now, back to the June Wrap Up! Here are all the books I've read this month and a few thoughts on them!
Thoughts: I loved this book so much it hurts. Really. The story is moving and beautiful and real and emotional and I ugly cried right around the ending. It was just great.
Also look at that cover. That is one beautiful cover. I need to go to the book store and get a hard copy of this book. It's too beautiful not too!!
Thoughts: This was a pretty good book. It was a little bit of a slower paced book than I usually read, but the story was great and it kept me guessing every step of the way.
I especially loved how well the characters stories were woven together. It was masterful.
Thoughts: It was a cute story, but a little too unrealistic for me to really get into and enjoy. The characters didn't feel real to me.
I feel like this book would be great for a middle school crowd… especially those kids that love zombies!
Thoughts: I think this may be my new favorite book. It was amazing! Hawthorn Creely, the main character, is hilarious and full of imagination and fresh and a wonderful narrator. I didn't want this book to end!
Also, this is another cover I am completely in love with! I can't wait for the book to come out cause this is another one that I need a hard copy of!!
Thoughts: Honestly Fangirl fell flat for me. I just didn't get what was so special about it. There was no plot line, no driving force, and nothing really special about the characters (unless you count Cath's writing and her fan-fic following).
I guess I just feel like this book could have been so much more. There was so much unused potential.
Thoughts: This book definitely lived up to its tagline; dark and disturbing. It was really short, so it didn't take much time to read, but its the content that matters. This is a book that could seriously give someone nightmares (luckily for me I don't really have nightmares).
I don't think I'm ever going to pick this book up again. No way.
And there you have my June book wrap up. Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What books did you read this month?


text:
Investigations and enforcement policies
Body-worn video cameras
Our officers have access to body-worn video (BWV) technology and officers on patrol routinely wear BWV camera units attached to their uniforms. They will always be worn overtly, are marked CCTV, and may be switched on at the scene of an incident or to record an encounter with a member of the public. The BWV cameras in use are capable of capturing both moving images and audio information. They provide a transparent and accurate account of events and officer-public interactions.
Experience of using BWV cameras has shown that they are useful at helping diffuse confrontational situations and they have provided a reliable version of events, protecting officers from false allegations and clarifying any dispute. The use of BWV has also resulted in convictions of those making false allegations against our officers and of those giving false details.
The BWV cameras are not used for continuous non-specific use. Officer will not be recording as part of normal patrolling. The principle purpose of the BWV cameras is to film encounters between officers and members of the public and to make a record of that contact. In some circumstances, BWV cameras may also be used to record events as they unfold.
The majority of on-street enforcement actions taken by our patrol officers relate to litter and this is an offence that takes so little time to commit. Such an offence would be missed by activation of a camera at the time the offence started. To record continuously for littering incidents would be indiscriminate and would be contrary to the requirement to minimise collateral intrusion. BWV cameras will be activated in advance of the subsequent encounter with an alleged offender.
For situations where officers are approaching on-going offending, they may activate their BWV camera unit for evidential purposes (observational footage) and continue recording throughout any subsequent interview with a suspected offender. BWV does not replace traditional forms of collecting evidence, such as written statements and interviews.
The use of BWV cameras do not require specific statutory powers. Our officers don't have to get your consent to be filmed.
The taking of photographs, and in its wider sense video or sound recordings, is deemed lawful in a public place (Wood v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2009]).
The benefits to the service have been identified as including a reduction in complaint investigations by providing impartial, accurate evidence; improvement in service delivery and identifying good practice; and (in some cases) improvement in evidence capture, which potentially increases early guilty pleas and therefore reduces officer case preparation and court time.
The use of this type of technology raises concerns associated with how any information is being captured, processed and retained. The use of BWV by our officers follows an operational policy and privacy impact assessment. The following provides some advice on privacy issues and risk mitigation.
Frequently asked questions on privacy
Privacy Issue
Privacy Risk Mitigation
BWV introduces new and additional information technologies that have a substantial potential for privacy intrusion.
The BWV technology will be deployed in an overt manner. All captured data will be processed and managed in compliance with the relevant legislation such as Data Protection Act 2018 and the Human Rights Act 1998.
BWV technology allows information to be shared with multiple agencies
Any material which is deemed as evidential and part of a criminal case may be shared with HM Courts & Tribunals Service in the context of a prosecution, and/or with police forces and others in the criminal justice system for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime and the apprehension of offenders. Any sharing of the information outside these parameters is generally not permitted.
Is the data processing exempt from legislative privacy protections?
No. Data processing and storage is subject to the Data Protection Act 2018.
Are there any additional issues handling BWV footage?
It is policy that designated officers upload footage onto the server in a timely manner and erase the memory of the camera at the earliest practicable opportunity.
Will BWV significantly increase the quantity of data captured and processed in respect of that held on any one individual or a wider group?
Footage captured via BWV will be associated against particular incidents/crimes/dates and not individuals unless that individual is subsequently prosecuted.
The BWV will not be running continuously.
What are the procedures for dealing with the loss of any BWV devices?
Where a device is lost, all possible attempts will be made to identify and notify persons captured on the device. The Council may also notify the Information Commissioner's Office.
The PR6 BWV models have an in-built encryption feature which therefore mitigates against the severity of the loss because the information held on the device cannot be played on unauthorised devices.
Collateral intrusion is a risk, how will this be handled?
Collateral intrusion in this context extends to the capturing of the movements and actions of other persons when this equipment is being used. It is inevitable that in some circumstances this will occur, albeit officers are trained to ensure that, wherever possible, the focus of their activity is on the person the subject of the officer's attention. In circumstances where members of the public are captured in any video or audio information and they are unrelated to any offence under investigation, attempts will be made protect their identities should the matter be presented to a court and the footage would not be disclosed under a subject access request to any other person.
Is consent required to record an individual?
The BWV units are marked CCTV and worn overtly. In addition the officer using the BWV will normally inform the parties concerned that filming is taking place.
There is no requirement to obtain the express consent of the person or persons being filmed since the actions of the Council, in fulfilling a public function and applying the law, are deemed to be lawful.
Filming in a public place is lawful. An officer can make a recording both in public or private premises so long as it is proportionate, legitimate and necessary. An individual being filmed may however make representations to the officer not to film. This will not prevent filming taking place. The decision to film, continue filming or not to film rests with the officer. The officer should make a note of why he or she ceased filming while still with the person.
Officers give consideration to circumstances or environments where a greater degree of privacy would be expected and, where possible, restrict recording to those individuals and areas where it is necessary in order to provide evidence relevant to the incident.
Are recordings permitted in private dwellings?
All recordings require a lawful basis in order to justify infringement of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. An officer can make a recording both in public or private premises so long as it is proportionate, legitimate and necessary. An officer at an incident in a private dwelling may therefore use BWV if there is a genuine reason for doings so. Normally use of BWV will take place in a public place.
The officer will be mindful to exercise discretion and recording should only be used when it is relevant to a incident and necessary, and other methods of information gathering would not be as effective. In circumstances where an occupant of a dwelling objects to the recording taking place, but where an incident is on-going or allegations of a criminal nature are being made, officers are recommended to continue with a recording, but explain their reasons for doing so.
Am I entitled to a copy of the footage taken?
The footage captured by BWV will in most cases amount to personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 2018. Data subjects have a right under the Act to be told what personal information an organisation holds about them and to be provided with a copy if requested – commonly referred to as a subject access request. Exemptions apply. Section 15 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Data Protection Act 2018 provides that the rights to restrict processing or object to processing of data, to request erasure of date, or ask for the supply of the data, do not apply to personal data processed for the prevention or detection of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders.
How long is footage retained?
Footage is retained by the Council for six months, or longer if it is being used in a criminal prosecution. Retention periods set by the Attorney General then apply. One of the reasons for the six month period is that prosecutions can take six months to come to court and occasionally, after convictions, details of misrepresentation as to identity come to light. The Council aims to get cases into court within three months.


To keep you in the loop, here's a round-up of the biggest news stories involving Gazprom Energy from the month of November, including advice from our CCO Jon Feingold, and more coverage on our strategic energy management tool, InSight.
On the road to success, growing businesses can lose the spirit that initially fuelled them early on. Fresh Business Thinking sat published a piece from our Chief Commercial Officer, Jon Feingold, discussing how to retain the energy and enthusiasm that kick-start businesses in those initial stages.
Depending on how you approach your successes, and as third parties become involved in key decision making, Jon says that the values of your business can fade over time. Although tricky to balance your integrity with acquisition-based growth, addressing key business areas in different ways mean you still have a way of retaining the initial essence that originally set your business apart.
Implementing and seizing on your growth strategy without compromising on your processes and beliefs from the early days is key to staying in line with the ethos you detailed on day one. Jon points to running parts of your business like a microbusiness and emphasising collaboration. From LinkedIn to the New York Red Bulls, Jon points to thriving businesses who still do things the way they've always done them.
Conversely, Jon suggests never to be afraid of reinventing practices if things have grown stale. If something, such as a new company's values aligning with your own, strengthens the way you do things then embrace them. Change is inevitable, so don't shy away from trying new things.
Our energy management tool, InSight, continues to go from strength to strength; Energy Manager Magazine gave us some column inches last month, once again detailing this innovative tool's many benefits to consumers and consultants alike.
InSight streamlines the process of energy procurement between Gazprom Energy and its customers, allowing organisations to track market movements and make more agile energy purchases. The article details InSight's multiple functions, such as accessing live market prices and information, alerts, and analysing market conditions to buy when the time is right.
As the first UK energy retailer to provide its customers with this free market and trading tool, we allow users to view the exact position of the energy market 24/7 from any internet-connected location, including mobile. Reports are updated in real time, allowing users to establish energy prices and identify the best times to buy. Strengthened by support from Gazprom Energy's Energy Procurement team, buyers can receive information direct from InSight based on what they need.
Our own Thomas Meredith, Customer Relationship Analyst, says: "Through InSight, our customers will have access to a one-stop shop for strategic energy buying, and benefit from a more streamlined and automated energy procurement process.
"Our experience with customers finds that some businesses spend as long as a whole day a week pulling together reports to share with other departments such as finance. We wanted to give all of our flexible energy buying customers a transparent and cost effective service, and the ability to retrieve the information they need instantly".