Corporate censorship is censorship by corporations. It is when a spokesperson, employer, or business associate sanctions a speaker's speech by threat of monetary loss, employment loss, or loss of access to the marketplace. It is present in many different kinds of industries.

By industry

E-commerce and technology
Corporate censorship in the E-commerce and technology industry is usually the explicit or implicit ban or suppression of certain material by a tech company from the product it offers. Earlier in 2018, Bloomberg reported that Google and Amazon are involved in a case of Russian censorship of a Russian company called Telegram. After Russian intelligence Federal Security Service (FSB) attempted to gain access to and found terrorist messages on Telegram, a messenger service in Russia with 15 million users, the app was banned by a Moscow court. In April 2018, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft were thanked by Telegram's founder for "not taking part in political censorship." It is said that Google and Amazon were thanked because they were possibly engaged in domain fronting, a technique that circumvents Internet censorship. However, things later changed as Google and Amazon disabled domain fronting and helped in the Russian censors' endeavor.

Art and music
Corporate censorship in the music industry involves the censorship of musicians' artistic works by the refusal to market or to distribute them. One example given by Jay is that of Ice-T altering the lyrics of "Cop Killer" as a result of the pressure applied to Time Warner by William Bennett along with various religious and advocacy groups.

The 2012 PEN World Voices Festival focused on corporate censorship in the publishing industry with Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses, tackling censorship as "anti-creation". Giannina Braschi, author of United States of Banana, offered a critique of 21st century capitalism in which she condemned corporate censorship as financial control. Braschi declared: "Nobody owns a work of art, not even the artist."

DeeDee Halleck opines that describing the corporate censorship of independent artists, which she notes is often less overt in form, as self-censorship "smacks of blaming the victim." She describes such self-censorship as being simply a survival stratagem, the tailoring of an artist's choices to what is acceptable to those in power, based upon widespread knowledge of the acceptable themes and formats at institutions such as (her examples) the Public Broadcasting Service, the Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits gallery, or the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art.

Journalism, media, and entertainment
Croteau and Hoynes discuss corporate censorship in the news publishing business, observing that it can occur as self-censorship. They note that it is "virtually impossible to document", because it is covert.  Jonathan Alter states that "In a tight job market, the tendency is to avoid getting yourself or your boss in trouble. So an adjective gets dropped, a story skipped, a punch pulled … It's like that Sherlock Holmes story – the dog that didn't bark.  Those clues are hard to find."  The head of the Media Access Project notes that such self-censorship is not misreporting or false reporting, but simply not reporting at all. Self-censorship is not the product of "dramatic conspiracies", according to Croteau and Hoynes, but simply the interaction of many small daily decisions.  Journalists want to keep their jobs and editors support the interests of the company.  These many small actions and non-actions accumulate to produce (in their words) "homogenized, corporate-friendly media".

Nichols and McChesney opine that "the maniacal media baron as portrayed in James Bond films or profiles of Rupert Murdoch is far less a danger than the cautious and compromised editor who seeks to 'balance' a responsibility to readers or viewers with a duty to serve his boss and the advertisers".  They state that "even among journalists who entered the field for the noblest of reasons" there is a tendency to avoid any controversial journalism that might embroil the news company in a battle with a powerful corporation or a government agency.  They observe that although such conflicts "have always been the stuff of great journalism" they are "very bad business", and that "in the current climate business trumps journalism just about every time".

Croteau and Hoynes report that such corporate censorship in journalism is commonplace, reporting the results of studies revealing that more than 40% of journalists and news executives stating that they had deliberately engaged in such censorship by avoiding newsworthy stories or softening the tones of stories.  More than a third of the respondents stated that news organizations would ignore news that might hurt their financial interests.  A similar fraction stated that they self-censored in order to further, or not endanger, their careers.

Specific case: Westway project
Halleck states that journalists are well aware of where self-censorship is required, and what they have to say or not say in their stories in order to keep their jobs.  She gives Sydney Schanberg as an example. A high-profile, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Schanberg breached corporate censorship when reporting on corruption in New York City with regards to the Westway project.  In Schanberg's column in The New York Times he asked why the Times was not investigating the issues, and was subsequently laid off. Halleck notes that the negative feedback that enforces corporate censorship is usually not as well documented as in the case of Schanberg, nor as clear-cut.  Corporations may change the assignments of problem journalists, accept fewer stories from them, downgrade their office space, or deny them raises.

Self-censorship is not the only form of corporate censorship in the news and entertainment businesses.  Croteau and Hoynes also describe managers censoring their employees, subdivisions of conglomerates applying pressure upon one another, and pressure applied upon corporations by external entities such as advertisers. They note that many incidents of corporate censorship are "unlikely to become public", but give the following (and several other) case studies of incidents of corporate censorship that have become part of the public record:

 The decision by the Walt Disney Company to prevent Miramax from releasing Fahrenheit 911 in 2004. (See Fahrenheit 9/11 controversy.)  Croteau and Hoynes observe that this was a business decision, and state that "even when such business decisions are not politically motivated, then can have substantial political consequences".
 The decision in 1998 by HarperCollins to drop plans for publishing East and West, the memoirs of Chris Patten, out of concern it might affect the relationship between Star TV and the Chinese government.  (Milner, who also cites this decision as an example, places them both alongside the decision by HarperCollins not to publicize Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and observes that Patten, as a member of the U.K. Conservative Party, demonstrates corporate censorship is not confined to left-wing writers such as Moore.)
An example given by Henry of censorship by a corporation rather than by a government is the censorship in May 2004 by The Sinclair Broadcasting Group of an issue of ABC News' Nightline entitled "The Fallen" wherein Ted Koppel recited the names and showed the faces of all Americans killed in action in Iraq.  Sinclair, a strong proponent of the U.S. actions in Iraq, prohibited the six ABC affiliates that it owned from broadcasting the show, on the grounds that the program was "motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq". (See Sinclair Broadcast Group#Nightline controversy and Nightline#Reading of the names.)

Milner also notes, in addition, the list of songs circulated by Clear Channel Communications, and the 2003 ban on the Dixie Chicks (see Clear Channel Communications#September 11.2C 2001 and Dixie Chicks#Political controversy), stating his inference that "these relatively public actions are merely the tip of a veritable iceberg of corporate censorship", and arguing that publishers are "by no means passive conduits for the transmission of cultural products from producers to consumers" but are influenced to take an active rôle in that transmission by motives of profit, ideology, values, or even reasons of state.

Major corporations such as Walmart are also responsible for such acts. They refuse to sell musical CDs produced by artists which contain parental advisory stickers on them to their customers. Because of this, artists who want to reach out to Walmart customers with their music need to change and edit their songs without any profanity in order for them to be put on shelves.

Media conglomeration
One of the incidents of corporate censorship that Croteau and Hoynes find to be "the most disturbing" in their view is the news reporting in the U.S. of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which made fundamental changes to the limitations on ownership of media conglomerates within the U.S. and which was heavily lobbied for by media interests, and yet which was subject to, in Croteau and Hoynes' words, "remarkably little coverage" by U.S. news media.  They report one study that found that in the nine months between the introduction of the bill into Congress and its passage in February 1996, there were only 12 major stories, comprising 19.5 minutes of air time, about the Act on the three major U.S. television networks, with much of this coverage focussing upon television content ratings and the V-chip and "largely ignor[ing]" the major changes to the media ownership rules.  Croteau and Hoynes observe that history repeated itself with the 2003 review by the FCC of the media ownership rules, with a study by American Journalism Review concluding that the plan to alter the ownership regulations in favor of "a handful of large companies" was "barely mentioned" by most newspapers and broadcast outlets that were owned by those companies.

Croteau and Hoynes state that this "inadequate" coverage of the legislation and FCC actions suggests a built-in conflict of interest for news media – one that is not just limited to television and radio news media, given that many newspapers are also owned by the same corporations that own the television and radio stations.  Reporting fully the views of critics of the legislation would have been counter to the economic interests of the news media companies which benefited directly from the legislation, lobbied in its favour, and even helped to draft it.  This conflict of interest was observed by John McCain during debate of the Telecommunications Act in the U.S. Senate, who stated that "You will not see this story on any television or hear it on any radio broadcast because it directly affects them."  Sohn similarly observed, in a 1998 critique of the deregulation by the Telecommunications Act, that increased concentration of media ownership "often leads to a type of corporate censorship by which information affecting the large media company's economic interest is kept from the public's eyes and ears".

Nichols and McChesney similarly observe that the exclusion of Ralph Nader from the three presidential debates in the 2000 presidential race by television networks guaranteed that the debates would not address controversial issues of media conglomeration.  They note with irony that this was seemingly against the self-interests of the television stations, since it served to also reduce public interest in the televised presidential debates by rendering them, in their view, "duller than dirt agreeathons" that viewers would not be interested in watching.

Notable cases

Amazon
Amazon, as one of the largest e-commerce businesses in the United States, has been involved in controversies that point to its censorship-like actions. In 2010, Macmillan Publishers, along with some other publishers, asked Amazon to increase the prices of the electronic books it offered for sale on Amazon by 50% from $9.99 to $15, after obtaining permission from Apple to raise its prices, who was more lenient in allowing the publishers to determine prices themselves. Amazon disagreed with its proposal, and they didn't reach a consensus on how to deal with this problem. Amazon later removed all books published by Macmillan Publishers, including electronic books and physical books, from the website. Later, Amazon "surrendered" to Macmillan Publishers' request of price increase.

Amazon has also engaged in activities where it censored customers' negative reviews. For example, in 2012, authors Joe Konrath and Steve Weddle reported that Amazon deleted their reviews in response to a wave of "sock puppet" controversies. In the scandal, many authors used anonymous accounts on Amazon to provide positive reviews for their own books and negative reviews for the competitors' work, on grounds not of quality but of who wrote the books. Amazon sought to rectify this problem by prohibiting authors from publishing reviews about other writers' works.

In 2013, a British website the Kernel published an article accusing Amazon, Kobo, and other e-book retailers of containing books with erotic material such as "rape, incest, and 'forced sex' with young girls." It turned out that these were books written by self-published writers who wrote erotica books. Amazon responded to the Kernel's article by removing books under the categories mentioned in the article, including books depicting rape, incest, and child pornography. In response, some self-published writers engaged in a protest against Amazon's censorship, which had implicated some books that did not include erotic material as offensive as what Amazon should be and was targeting.

In 2014, in an effort to exert more control on online pricing, Amazon banned preorders of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in disc form. It was a continuation of similar strategies that Amazon once used with book publisher Hachette and film studio Warner Bros. Because the movie studios needed the sales profits from DVDs and Blu-rays while Amazon could afford losing one customer, Amazon used this technique to add pressure on Walt Disney Co. for more pricing power.

In January 2021, after Google and Apple removed Parler's app from their respective app stores in response to its use in the January 6 attack, Amazon also took down Parler's AWS servers, effectively removing the service from the internet. Parler has sued in response for breach of contract and antitrust violations.

Google

One of the censorship practices Google is involved in is the censorship of information on Google China. Before Google's service was disabled in China, it complied with China's Internet policies and removed some content not appropriate to appear in the Chinese context. Google was criticized for violating its principle of promoting "a generally open Internet." Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, affirmed Google's commitment to this, and also mentioned that complying with China's regulations was better than not being present the Chinese market at all. In January 2010, Google made an announcement that it wouldn't engage in further censoring activities. In September 2010, Google launched Google Transparency to share information about governments' and corporations' activities regarding information access and control.

There are increasing instances across the world that involve censorship in Google, banning information from the general population. Google Maps' Street View, for example, does not cover military bases in the U.S. out of security concerns. The European Union also suggested that the Street View violates EU privacy laws.

Facebook

Facebook is a site in which people frequently publish information on their political stances or engage in political and social debates. Since 2009, Facebook has been supporting the rights of Holocaust deniers on posting on its website. In 2018, however, Facebook announced a new policy that it will remove "misinformation that contributes to violence," while not enforcing a complete censor on those speeches. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, said that there are certain information people post because they took it wrong, but perhaps not because they intentionally took it wrong. Even if they did it on purpose, Facebook couldn't have found out their intentions and wouldn't try to do so. Thus, they are reviewing information on Facebook and taking down misrepresented, misleading, or offensive information, but not outright censoring information in certain categories, such as Holocaust denial. As a result of this policy, posts that falsely report on Muslims and Buddhists in Sri Lanka were removed.

In 2018, Facebook removed hundreds of pages related to U.S. politics on grounds of "inauthentic activity" one month before the midterm elections. Facebook representatives claimed that the posts and user accounts were deleted not because of the content of the posts, but because they violated Facebook's terms of service.

Facebook has a set of community standards governing users' behaviors. These standards detail Facebook's policies on topics including "hate speech, violent imagery, misrepresentation, terrorist propaganda and disinformation." Facebook mentioned its intention to let the users dispute its decisions by disclosing their standards. Facebook also wishes to assuage the concerns of critics who accused it of mistakenly or unjustifiably removing contents before. The process which Facebook uses to delete posts and block accounts was not transparent and the criteria not explicitly stated. In November 2018, Facebook published its first Transparency Report on how the Community Standards are adhered to in regulating the languages that appear on Facebook.

Debates

TV Guide debate
In 1969, Nicholas Johnson, United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, and then president of CBS News Richard Salant, debated the scope and existence of corporate censorship in a series of articles published in TV Guide.

Johnson
Johnson's view, put forward in an article entitled The Silent Screen is that "Censorship is a serious problem" in the United States, and that he agrees with the statements by various network officials that television is subject to it, but disputes "just who is doing most of the censoring".   He states that most television censorship is corporate censorship, not government censorship.  One of the several examples that he gives in support of this argument is that of WBAI in New York City, which the FCC declined to censure for the publication a poem that was alleged to be anti-Semitic.  He argues that "[m]any broadcasters are fighting, not for free speech, but for profitable speech. In the WBAI case, for example, one of the industry's leading spokesmen, Broadcasting magazine, actually urged that WBAI be punished by the FCC – and on the same editorial page professed outrage that stations might not have an unlimited right to broadcast profitable commercials for cigarettes which may result in illness or death."

Johnson quotes examples of corporate censorship reported by Stan Opotowsky in TV  – The Big Picture: "Ford deleted a shot [of] the New York skyline because it showed the Chrysler building [...] A breakfast-food sponsor deleted the line 'She eats too much' from a play because, as far as the breakfast-food company was concerned, nobody could ever eat too much."  He quotes Bryce Rucker writing in The First Freedom that "Networks generally have underplayed or ignored events and statements unfavorable to food processors and soap manufacturers".  He notes that "corporate tampering with the product of honest and capable journalists and creative writers and performers can be quite serious".  He points to a 3 September 1969 report by Variety that ABC "had tailored some of its documentaries to fit the corporate desires of Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company", and cites examples given by Bill Greeley in a 4 February 1970 Variety article of "shrunken or vanished" documentaries at CBS, which have been "shelved, turned down, or killed".

He also gives several examples of television network officials who have resigned over issues of corporate censorship: Fred Friendly resigning from CBS News because on 10 February 1966 it did not televise the Senate hearings on the Vietnam war; the head of the National Association of Broadcasters Code Authority resigning "in disgust over the hypocrisy exhibited by the NAB's stand on cigarette advertisements".

He points out several commonalities in a long list of incidents that he cites:

 the involvement of human death, disease, dismemberment, or degradation;
 the existence of great profit for manufacturers, advertisers, and broadcasters; and
 the deliberate withholding of needed information from the public.

Johnson states that "many pressures produce such censorship", some deliberate and some by default, but that "all have come, not from government, but from private corporations with something to sell".  He notes an exchange in the letters page of The New York Times between Charles Tower, chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters Television Board and a reader, with Tower saying "There is a world of difference between the deletion of program material by Government command and the deletion by a private party [such as a broad-caster] [...] Deletion by Government command is censorship [...] Deletion of material by private parties [...] is not censorship." but his respondent rebutting this with "Mr. Tower's distinction [...] is spurious. The essence of censorship is the suppression of a particular point of view [...] over the channels of the mass media, and the question of who does the censoring is one of form only."  Johnson concurs with the latter view, stating that the outcome is the same.

Salant
Salant's view, put forward in an article entitled He Has Exercised His Right – To Be Wrong was that Johnson was "totally completely, 100 percent wrong – on all counts", providing many examples of CBS' coverage of the things enumerated by Johnson, saying, "In the 11 years I was a CBS corporate officer and in the six years that I have been president of CBS News, to my knowledge there is no issue, no topic, no story which CBS News has ever been forbidden, or instructed directly or indirectly, to cover or not to cover, by corporate management."

Internet

The constitutional and other legal protections that prohibit or limit government censorship of the Internet in some countries do not generally apply to private corporations. Corporations may voluntarily choose to limit the content they make available or allow others to make available on the Internet. Or corporations may be encouraged by government pressure or required by law or court order to remove or limit Internet access to content that is judged to be obscene (including child pornography), harmful to children, defamatory, pose a threat to national security, promote illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution, theft of intellectual property, hate speech, and inciting violence.

Corporations that provide Internet access for their employees, customers, students, or members will sometimes limit this access in an attempt to ensure it is used only for the purposes of the corporation. This can include content-control software to limit access to entertainment content in business and educational settings and limiting high-bandwidth services in settings where bandwidth is at a premium. Some institutions also block outside e-mail services as a precaution, usually initiated out of concerns for local network security or concerns that e-mail might be used intentionally or unintentionally to allow trade secrets or other confidential information to escape.

Some websites that allow user-contributed content may practice self-censorship by adopting policies on how the web site may be used and by banning or requiring pre-approval of editorial contributions from users that do not follow the policies for the site.

In 2007, Verizon attempted to block the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America from using their text messaging services to speak to their supporters. Verizon claims it was in order to enforce a policy that doesn't allow their customers to use their service to communicate "controversial" or "unsavory" messages. Comcast, AT&T and many other ISP's have also been accused of regulating internet traffic and bandwidth.

In February 2008, the Bank Julius Baer v. WikiLeaks lawsuit prompted the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to issue a permanent injunction against the website WikiLeaks' domain name registrar. The result was that WikiLeaks could not be accessed through its web address. This elicited accusations of censorship and resulted in the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepping up to defend Wikileaks. After a later hearing, the injunction was lifted.

On 1 December 2010, Amazon.com cut off WikiLeaks 24 hours after being contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security. In a statement Lieberman said:
[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call on any other company or organization that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.
Constitutional lawyers say that this is not a first amendment issue because Amazon, as a private company, is free to make its own decisions. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agreed that this is not a violation of the first amendment, but said it was nevertheless disappointing. "This certainly implicates first amendment rights to the extent that web hosts may, based on direct or informal pressure, limit the materials the American public has a first amendment right to access".

eNom, a private domain name registrar and Web hosting company operating in the U.S., disables domain names which appear on a U.S. Treasury Department blacklist.

In January 2007, Eli Lilly and Company obtained a restraining order from a U.S. District Court that forbade activists in the psychiatric survivors movement from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly showed that Eli Lilly and Company intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed this as prior restraint on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets. It was later held that the judgment was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.

Schools and libraries may use Internet filters to block material deemed inappropriate for the school or library setting or inappropriate for children, including pornography, advertising, chat, gaming, social networking, and online forum sites.

Public and private K-12 schools and libraries in the U.S. that accept funds from the federal E-rate program or LSTA grants for Internet access or internal connections are required by CIPA to have an "Internet safety policy and technology protection measures in place".

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, in September 2013:
 12 U.S. states had Internet filtering laws that apply to publicly funded schools or libraries,
 14 states required school boards or public libraries to adopt Internet use policies to prevent minors from gaining access to sexually explicit, obscene or harmful materials, and
 5 states require Internet service providers to make a product or service available to subscribers to control use of the Internet.

Some corporations practice greater levels of self-censorship in international versions of their online services. This is most notably the case in these corporations' dealings in China.

Corporate Enemies of the Internet
On 12 March 2013 Reporters Without Borders published a Special report on Internet Surveillance. The report included a list of "Corporate Enemies of the Internet", companies that sell products that are liable to be used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information. The five "Corporate Enemies of the Internet" named in March 2013 were: Amesys (France), Blue Coat Systems (U.S.), Gamma (UK and Germany), Hacking Team (Italy), and Trovicor (Germany), but the list was not exhaustive and is likely to be expanded in the future.

See also
Ag-gag
Censorship by Apple
Corporate censorship in the United States
Corporate secrecy
DMCA takedown notice
Food libel laws
Chinese censorship abroad
Regional lockout
Strategic lawsuit against public participation aka "SLAPP"

References

Further reading

Censorship
Concentration of media ownership
Self-censorship
Corporate conduct

Corporate censorship


Mieczysław Norwid-Neugebauer (15 February 1884 in Rzejowice, near Radomsko – 18 October 1954 in Toronto) was a minister in the interwar Polish government, and a lieutenant general in the Polish Army.

Life
He moved to Galicia in 1906, where he attended Lviv Polytechnic. Before World War I, Norwid-Neugebauer was a member of various Polish patriotic organizations. From 1914 to 1917, he was an officer in the Polish Legions. He commanded the 6th Infantry Regiment, and even temporarily the 3rd Brigade.

After Poland regained independence in November 1918, he occupied various command positions within the Polish military: General: Head of Logistics, later on he was at the same time an Executive officer to the Polish Head of all the Armed Forces, and later, he was the Commanding Officer of the 4th General Command (the last two during the Polish-Soviet War). In 1919, he was promoted to a Brigade General, and in 1924, he was promoted to a Major General. Between 1921 and 1924,  he was a commanding officer of the 28th Division of Infantry. Between 1924 and 1925, he was a commanding officer of the reserves in charge of conscription. In October, 1925, he was transferred to become a Minister of Defense as well as officially sent for the 3rd Level Course at Center of Higher Military Education (University).  In December of the same year, he was nominated to be the 1st Officer of the Commander of the Administration of the Army.

He was the Commander of the Inspector General of the Polish Army in between 1926 and 1930 and stationed in Lviv, 1932-1935 stationed in Toruń, and in 1935-1939 stationed in Warsaw. During 1930 to 1932, he was Minister of Public Works in the cabinets of Walery Sławek and Aleksander Prystor. On 3 September 1939, he was nominated as the head of the Polish Military Mission to London—in London, put in charge of pleading with the Great Britain to fulfill her obligation as an ally of Poland. Norwid—Neugebauer's pleas, addressed to the British Government to start an air offensive as promised in May 1939, were unsuccessful; the British Government and RAF did not fulfill their promise in spite of his pleas (possibly because of the French government's fear of retaliatory nazi German bombing).

He resigned as head of the Polish Military Mission in January 1940. From November 1942 to 1947 he headed the administration of the Polish Armed Forces.

He published a book, Kampania Wrześniowa (The September Campaign), in London in 1941. An English translation came out in 1942.

Honours and awards
 Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari
 Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta, previously awarded Commander's Cross
 Cross of Independence
 Cross of Valour - four times
 Officer's "Parasol" badge
 Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honour (France)

References

Sources

See also
 Aleksander Jeljaszewicz Commander of the Tatar / Islamic Squadron in 1939
 Berek Joselewicz, Polish—Jewish Colonel in the Polish Legions of Napoleon's armies
 Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, murdered by the Soviet NKVD
 List of Poles

1884 births
1954 deaths
Polish Army officers
Polish generals
People from Radomsko
Officers of the Legion of Honour
Recipients of the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari
Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Recipients of the Cross of Independence
Recipients of the Cross of Valour (Poland)
Lviv Polytechnic alumni
Polish emigrants to Canada

Mieczysław Norwid-Neugebauer


The brant or brent goose (Branta bernicla) is a small goose of the genus Branta. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra.

The Brent oilfield was named after the species.

Description

The brant is a small goose with a short, stubby bill. It measures  long,  across the wings and weighs . The under-tail is pure white, and the tail black and very short (the shortest of any goose).

The species is divided into three subspecies:
 Dark-bellied brant goose B. b. bernicla (Linnaeus, 1758)
 Pale-bellied brant goose B. b. hrota (Müller, 1776) (also known as light-bellied brent goose in Europe, and Atlantic brant in North America)
 Black brant goose B. b. nigricans (Lawrence, 1846) (sometimes also known as the Pacific brant in North America)

Some DNA evidence suggests that these forms are genetically distinct; while a split into three separate species has been proposed, it is not widely accepted, with other evidence upholding their maintenance as a single species.

The body of the dark-bellied form B. b. bernicla is fairly uniformly dark grey-brown all over, the flanks and belly not significantly paler than the back. The head and neck are black, with a small white patch on either side of the neck. With a population of about 250000, it breeds on the Arctic coasts of central and western Siberia and winters in western Europe, with over half the population in southern England, the rest between northern Germany and north-western France.

The pale-bellied brant B. b. hrota appears blackish-brown and light grey in colour. The body is different shades of grey-brown all over, the flanks and belly are significantly paler than the back and present a marked contrast. The head and neck are black, with a small white patch on either side of the neck. The total population is about 250,000, with the main population breeding in northeastern Canada and wintering along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. from Maine to Georgia, and two smaller populations, one breeding in Franz Josef Land, Svalbard, and northeastern Greenland and wintering in Denmark, northeast England, and Scotland, and the other breeding in the far-northeastern Canadian islands and wintering in Ireland, southwest England, and in a small but significant area, le Havre de Regnéville, centered on the Sienne Estuary in Manche (Northern France). In Ireland it is recorded in winter from a number of areas including Lough Foyle, Strangford Lough, Tralee Bay and Castlemaine Harbour.

The black brant B. b. nigricans appears blackish-brown and white in colour. This form is a very contrastingly black and white bird, with a uniformly dark sooty-brown back, similarly coloured underparts (with the dark colour extending furthest back of the three forms) and a prominent white flank patch; it also has larger white neck patches, forming a near-complete collar. The population of about 125,000 breeds in northwestern Canada, Alaska and eastern Siberia, and winters mostly on the west coast of North America from southern Alaska to California, but also some in east Asia, mainly Japan, also Korea and China. The population has been as high as 200,000 in 1981, and as low as 100,000 in 1987.

The Asian populations of the black brant populations had previously been regarded as a separate subspecies B. b. orientalis based on purported paler upperparts coloration; however, it is generally now believed that this is not correct, and they are assigned to B. b. nigricans.

A fourth form (known variously as gray brant, intermediate brant, or grey-bellied brent goose) has been proposed, although no formal subspecies description has been made as yet, for a population of birds breeding in central Arctic Canada (mainly Melville Island), and wintering on Puget Sound on the American west coast around the U.S./Canada border. These birds are intermediate in appearance between black brant and pale-bellied brant, having brown upperparts and grey underparts which give less of a contrast with the white flank patch. It has also been proposed that, rather than being a separate subspecies, it is actually a result of interbreeding between these two forms, given that this population exhibits mixed characters.

Individual birds when wintering generally remain in loose family-groups, together with others of the same sub-species, but there is overlap in some areas (for example Western Europe, see above); and this is also true in the breeding colonies. Outside the breeding season, individuals with characteristics of any subspecies may occasionally turn up with regular migrants, and there has been debate as to whether this is related to migration routing accidents, or to breeding range overlap, or even interbreeding.

Habitat

The brant goose was strictly coastal bird in winter, rarely leaving tidal estuaries, where it feeds on eelgrass (Zostera marina) and the seaweed, sea lettuce (Ulva). On the east coast of North America, the inclusion of sea lettuce is a recent change to their diet, brought about by a blight on eelgrass in 1931. This resulted in the near-extirpation of the brant. The few that survived changed their diet to include sea lettuce until the eelgrass eventually began to return. Brants have maintained this diet ever since as a survival strategy. A similar collapse in eelgrass in Ireland in the 1930s also negatively impacted the population. In recent decades, it has started using agricultural land a short distance inland, feeding extensively on grass and winter-sown cereals. It has been suggested that they learnt this behaviour by following other species of geese. Food resource pressure may also be important in forcing this change, as the world population increased over 10-fold to 400,000-500,000 by the mid-1980s, possibly reaching the carrying capacity of the estuaries. In the breeding season, it uses low-lying wet coastal tundra for both breeding and feeding. The nest is bowl-shaped, lined with grass and down, in an elevated location, often near a small pond.

The brant goose is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds applies.

Etymology
Branta is a Latinised form of Old Norse brandgás, "burnt (black) goose", and bernicla is the medieval Latin name for the barnacle.

The brant and the similar barnacle goose were previously considered one species, formerly believed to be the same creature as the crustacean. That myth can be dated back to at least the 12th century. Gerald of Wales claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber, William Turner accepted the theory, and John Gerard claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells. This myth arose because in the 1100s the migration of birds was unknown, but it was known that none of these birds was ever seen nesting, nor were eggs found, nor were goslings seen.

The legend persisted until the end of the 18th century. In County Kerry, until relatively recently, Catholics could eat this bird on a Friday because it counted as fish.

References

Further reading
Millington, Richard (1997). Separation of Black Brant, Dark-bellied Brent Goose and Pale-bellied Brent Goose Birding World 10(1):11–15; an identification paper

  (this paper presented claims that Black Brant and Dark-bellied Brent Goose were interbreeding extensively in the Russian Arctic)
Sangster, George (2000). Taxonomic status of bernicla and nigricans Brent Goose British Birds 91(12):565–572 (a critical re-evaluation of the claims made in the above paper by Syroechkovski et al.)

External links

 BirdGuides Brent Goose Page
 Brent Goose at RSPB: Birds by Name
 BBC Nature – Brent Goose
 Stamps from Canada, Germany, and Jersey at bird-stamps.org (the Brent goose has also featured on stamps from Eire, Finland, and Oman; these can easily be found via any internet search-engine).

 Brant Goose, B.C. Outdoor Wilderness Guide

Branta
Geese
Birds of the Arctic
Natural monuments of Japan
Native birds of Alaska
Birds described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Holarctic birds

Brant (goose)


The Politics of Pakistan has seen many changes over the years. The military have sometimes been running the country. Recently however the country has returned to democratic rule.

Pakistan is a federal republic, at the moment, the President of Pakistan is the head of state and the Prime Minister is head of government.

References

Politics of Pakistan


Diego Pacheco Téllez-Girón Gómez de Sandoval, also called Diego Fernández de Velasco y Pacheco or Diego Pacheco Telles Giron Fernandez de Velasco y Enrique (1754 – Paris, 1811), was a Spanish noble and politician, who supported the French during the Peninsular War, and who was therefore known as an Afrancesado.

Family

He was the son of Andrés Manuel Alonso Téllez-Girón Pacheco y Toledo and María Portería Fernández de Velasco y Pacheco. His mother was the daughter of Bernardino Fernández de Velasco, 11th Duke of Frías, who was succeeded by his brother Martín Fernández de Velasco y Pimentel. When the 12th Duke died in 1776 without children, the title of 13th Duke of Frías went to Diego, who called himself since then Diego Fernández de Velasco y Pacheco.

Pedro had an impressive collection of titles :

 Grandee of Spain
 Duke of Frías nº 13.
 Duke of Escalona n° 13.
 Duke of Uceda nº 8.
 Count of Alba de Liste nº 18.
 Count of Alcaudete nº 14.
 Count of Fuensalida nº 16.
 Count of Oropesa nº 16.
 Count of Peñaranda de Bracamonte nº 9
 Count of Haro (last).
 Marquess of Frómista nº 10.
 Marquess of Villena nº 13.

He was also a Knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece since 1808.

He married with Doña Francisca de Paula de Benavides de Córdoba, and one son, called Bernardino Pacheco Téllez-Girón y Benavides. When Pedro died, he also changed his name to Bernardino Fernández de Velasco y Pacheco.

Career

In 1798, during the reign of Charles IV of Spain, Pedro was ambassador in Portugal.
When the French invaded Spain in 1808, he chose their side and received some important functions in the government of Joseph Bonaparte. He played an important role in editing the Bayonne Statute, which was approved on 8 July 1808.

Diego died in 1811 in France, where he was Spanish ambassador. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in París.

References

Bibliography

 Ignacio FERNÁNDEZ SARASOLA . La Constitución de Bayona, (1808). Edit. IUSTEL. Referencia Iustel: 91907001 ;  Colección Las Constituciones Españolas . 432 pages, (edited November 2007).

1754 births
1811 deaths
115
Afrancesados
113
113
108
Knights of the Golden Fleece of Spain
Counts of Alba de Liste
Grandees of Spain
Spanish nobility


In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout the year and more distinct seasonal changes compared to tropical climates, where such variations are often small and usually only have precipitation changes.

In temperate climates, not only do latitudinal positions influence temperature changes, but sea currents, prevailing wind direction, continentality (how large a landmass is) and altitude also shape temperate climates.

The Köppen climate classification defines a climate as "temperate" C, when the mean temperature is above  but below  in the coldest month to account for the persistency of frost. However, some adaptations of Köppen set the minimum at . Continental climates, classified separately as "continental" D according to Köppen, are considered as a variety of temperate climates but have more severe temperatures, with mean temperatures of the coldest month usually being below .

Zones and climates
The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer (approximately 23.5° north latitude) to the Arctic Circle (approximately 66.5° north latitude). The south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn (approximately 23.5° south latitude) to the Antarctic Circle (at approximately 66.5° south latitude).

In some climate classifications, the temperate zone may be divided into several smaller climate zones, based on monthly temperatures, the coldest month, and rainfall. These can include the subtropical zone (humid subtropical and Mediterranean climate), and the cool temperate zone (oceanic and continental climates).

Subtropical zone
These are the climates that are typically found toward the more equatorial portion of the temperate zone between 23.5° and 35° north or south, and thus are far more influenced by the tropics than any other temperate climate type, usually having warmer temperatures over the year; longer and hot summers; and shorter, mild winters. Freezing precipitation is uncommon in this portion of the temperate zone.

Humid subtropical (Cfa) and monsoon subtropical (Cwa) climates

Humid subtropical climates generally have long, hot and humid summers with convective showers in summer and a peak seasonal rainfall in the hottest months. Winters are normally mild and not freezing in the humid subtropics, and warm ocean currents normally are found in coastal areas with humid subtropical climates. This type of climate is normally located along leeward lower east coasts of continents such as in southeast and central Argentina, Uruguay and south of Brazil, the southeast portions of East Asia, southern and portions of the northeast and midwestern United States and portions of, South Africa, Ethiopia, and eastern Australia. In some areas with a humid subtropical climate (most notably southeast China and North India), there is an even sharper wet-dry season, called a monsoon subtropical climate or subtropical monsoon (Cwa). In these regions, winters are quite chilly and dry and summers have very heavy rainfall. Some Cwa areas in southern China report more than 80% of annual precipitation in the 5 warmest months (southwest monsoon).

Mediterranean climates (Csa, Csb)

Mediterranean climates have the opposite rainfall pattern to the humid subtropical and monsoonal climates, with a dry summer and wet winter. This climate occurs mostly at the western edges and coasts of the continents and are bounded by arid deserts on their equatorward sides that brings dry winds causing the dry season of summer, and oceanic climates to the poleward sides that are influenced by cool ocean currents and air masses that bring the rainfall of winter. The five main Mediterranean regions of the world are the Mediterranean Basin in northwestern Afro-Eurasia, coastal California in the United States, the southwest of Australia, the Western Cape of South Africa and the south and southwestern coast of Chile.

Subtropical highland climates (Cwb, Cfb)

Subtropical highland climates are subtropical variants of the oceanic climates found in some mountainous areas of either the tropics or subtropics. They have characteristically mild temperatures year-round, featuring the four seasons in the subtropics and no marked seasons in the tropics, the latter usually remaining mild to cool through most of the year. Subtropical highland climates under the Cfb classification usually have rainfall spread relatively evenly in all months of the year similar to most oceanic climates while climates under the Cwb classification have significant monsoon influence, usually having dry winters and wet summers.

Middle latitude zone
These climates occur in the middle latitudes, between approximately 35° and 66.5° north and south of the equator. There is an equal climatic influence from both the polar and tropical zones in this climate region. Two types of climates are in this zone, a milder oceanic one and more severe seasonal continental one. Most prototypical temperate climates have a distinct four-season pattern, especially in the continental climate sector.

Oceanic climates (Cfb)
Oceanic climates are created by the on-shore flow from the cool high latitude oceans to their west. This causes the climate to have mild summers and cool (but not cold) winters, and relative humidity and precipitation evenly distributed throughout the year. These climates are frequently cloudy and cool, and winters are milder than those in the continental climate.

Regions with oceanic climates include northwestern Europe, northwestern North America, southeastern and southwestern South America, southeastern Australia and most of New Zealand.

Humid continental climates (Dfa, Dfb, Dwa, Dwb, Dsa, Dsb)

Humid continental climates are considered as a variety of temperate climates due to lying in the temperate zones, although they are classified separately from other temperate climates in the Köppen climate classification. In contrast to oceanic climates, they are created by large land masses and seasonal changes in wind direction. This causes humid continental climates to have severe temperatures for the season compared to other temperate climates, meaning a hot summer and cold winter. Precipitation may be evenly distributed throughout the year, while in some locations there is a summer accent on rainfall.

Regions with humid continental climates include southeastern Canada, the upper portions of the eastern United States, portions of eastern Europe, parts of China, Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

Subpolar zone
These are temperate climates that compared to the subtropics are on the poleward edge of the temperate zone. Therefore, they still have four marked seasons including a warmer one, but are far more influenced by the polar zones than any other but the very polar climates (tundra and ice cap climate).

Subpolar oceanic and cold subtropical highland climates (Cfc, Cwc)
Areas with subpolar oceanic climates feature an oceanic climate but are usually located closer to polar regions. As a result of their location, these regions tend to be on the cool end of oceanic climates. Snowfall tends to be more common here than in other oceanic climates. Subpolar oceanic climates are less prone to temperature extremes than subarctic climates or continental climates, featuring milder winters than these climates but still with similar summers. This variant of an oceanic climate is found in parts of coastal Iceland, the Faroe Islands, parts of Scotland, northwestern coastal areas of Norway such as Lofoten and reaching to 70° north on some islands, uplands near the coast of southwestern Norway, the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and northern parts of the Alaskan Panhandle, some parts of Southern Argentina and Chile (though most regions are still classified as continental subantarctic), and a few highland areas of Tasmania, the Australian Alps and Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana of New Zealand. This type of climate is even found in tropical areas such as the Papuan Highlands in Indonesia. Cfc is the categorization for this regime. Even in the middle of summer, temperatures exceeding 20°C (68 °F) are exceptional weather events in the most maritime of those locations impacted by this regime. In some parts of this climate, temperatures as high as 30°C (86°F) have been recorded on rare occasions, while temperatures as low as  have still been recorded on rare occasions.

A cold variant of the monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate similar to subpolar oceanic climates occurs in small areas in Yunnan, Sichuan and parts of Bolivia, where summers are sufficiently short to be Cwc with fewer than four months over  due to the high altitudes at these locations. El Alto, Bolivia, is one of the few confirmed towns that features this variation of the subtropical highland climate.

Cold summer mediterranean climates (Csc)
Cold summer mediterranean climates (Csc) are present in high-elevation areas around coastal Csb climate areas, where the strong maritime influence prevents the average winter monthly temperature from dropping below 0 °C. Despite the maritime influence, they are classified alongside other mediterranean climates in the Köppen classification rather than oceanic climates like subtropical highland climates due to the opposite rainfall pattern. This climate is rare and is predominantly found in climate fringes and isolated areas of the Cascades and Andes Mountains, as the dry-summer climate extends further poleward in the Americas than elsewhere.

Subarctic climates (Dfc, Dfd, Dwc, Dwd, Dsc, Dsd)
Subarctic climates are considered as a variety of continental climates due to lying in the subpolar zones, although they are classified separately from other temperate climates in the Köppen climate classification. In contrast to humid continental climates, they are created by large land masses often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, generally at latitudes from 50°N to 70°N. This causes subarctic climates to have severe temperatures for the season compared to other continental climates, meaning a warm summer and cold winter. Precipitation may be evenly distributed throughout the year, while in some locations there is a summer accent on rainfall.

Regions with subarctic climates include most of Canada, the state of Alaska in United States, portions of northern Europe, and parts of China and Russia.

Human aspects

Demography, fauna and flora
The vast majority of the world's human population resides in temperate zones, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, due to its greater mass of land and lack of extreme temperatures. The biggest described number of taxa in a temperate region is found in southern Africa, where some 24,000 taxa (species and infraspecific taxa) have been described.

Agriculture
Farming is a large-scale practice in the temperate regions (except for boreal/subarctic regions) due to the plentiful rainfall and warm summers, because most agricultural activity occurs in the spring and summer, cold winters have a small effect on agricultural production. Extreme winters or summers have a huge impact on the productivity of agriculture which is less common.

Urbanization
Temperate regions have the majority of the world's population, which leads to large cities. There are a couple of factors why the climate of large city landscapes differs from the climate of rural areas. One factor is the strength of the absorption rate of buildings and asphalt, which is higher than that of natural land. The other large factor is the burning of fossil fuels from buildings and vehicles. These factors have led to the average climate of cities to be warmer than surrounding areas.

See also
 Geographical zone
 Habitat
 Köppen climate classification
 Middle latitudes
 Polar circle
 Subtropics
 Tropics
 Subarctic
 Highland temperate climate
 Humid temperate climate
 Subhumid temperate climate

References

Köppen climate types

Temperate climate


Emperor Fei of Chen (陳廢帝) (died 570), personal name Chen Bozong (陳伯宗), courtesy name Fengye (奉業), childhood name Yaowang (藥王), also known by his post-deposition title of Prince of Linhai (臨海王), was an emperor of the Chinese Chen dynasty. He was the son and heir of Emperor Wen, but after he came to the throne in 566, the imperial administration fell into infighting almost immediately. The victor, Emperor Fei's uncle Chen Xu (Emperor Xuan), deposed Emperor Fei in winter 568 and took the throne himself.

Background
Traditionally histories indicate that Chen Bozong was born in 554, but he could have been born in 552 or another year.  At the time of his birth, his father Chen Qian was serving as a general under Chen Baxian, Chen Bozong's granduncle, who was one of the more prominent generals of Liang Dynasty at that time.  His mother was Chen Qian's wife Shen Miaorong.  He was their first son.  (Lady Shen would bear one more son, Chen Bomao (), after him.)

In 555, Chen Baxian became even more prominent after overthrowing his commanding general Wang Sengbian and replacing the emperor Xiao Yuanming with Emperor Jing.  During the next few years, Chen Baxian consolidated power, and in 557, he had Emperor Jing yield the throne to him, establishing Chen Dynasty as its Emperor Wu.  Chen Qian, as the emperor's nephew and the only close male relative of the new emperor in Chen territory, was created the Prince of Linchuan.  In 558, Chen Bozong received the title of Heir Apparent of Linchuan.

In 559, Emperor Wu died after a sudden illness.  As Chen Qian was his only close male relative in Chen territory, the imperial officials supported Chen Qian to succeed him, and Chen Qian did so (as Emperor Wen).  He created Chen Bozong crown prince and created Chen Bozong's mother Princess Shen empress.

In 562, Emperor Wen selected the daughter of the official Wang Gu () to be Chen Bozong's wife.  She thereafter carried the title of Crown Princess. They had a son, Chen Zhize (), in 566.

In his youth, Crown Prince Bozong was considered to be weak in his personality.  In 566, when Emperor Wen grew ill, he, worried that Crown Prince Bozong would not be able to keep his position as emperor, offered to pass the throne to his brother and Crown Prince Bozong's uncle Chen Xu the Prince of Ancheng.  Chen Xu declined, and the official Kong Huan () also opposed.  Emperor Wen therefore did not make Chen Xu crown prince, but entrusted the important matters to Chen Xu, Kong, Dao Zhongju (), Yuan Shu (), and Liu Shizhi (). He soon died, and Crown Prince Bozong took the throne (as Emperor Fei).

Reign
Emperor Fei honored his grandaunt (Emperor Wu's wife) Empress Dowager Zhang Yao'er grand empress dowager and his mother Empress Shen empress dowager.  He created his wife Crown Princess Wang empress.  (Her son Chen Zhize was created crown prince in fall 567.)

As per the arrangement left by Emperor Wen, Emperor Fei's reign was characterized initially by a collective leadership of the key officials Emperor Wen left in place.  However, by spring 567, the officials have largely coalesced into two factions—one led by Dao Zhongju and Liu Shizhi, and one faction led by Chen Xu.  Dao, Liu, and Chen Xu took up residence in the palace and handled most of the sensitive matters.  In spring 567, Liu tried to exclude Chen Xu by having the official Yin Buning () informing Chen Xu that he should leave the palace to attend to the affairs of the capital region Yang Province (), of which Chen Xu was also governor.  When Chen Xu considered doing so, his associate Mao Xi () and the general Wu Mingche persuaded him that he needed to remain in the palace.  Chen Xu therefore invited Liu to a meeting—and while the meeting was still going on, had Mao confirming with Empress Dowager Shen and Emperor Fei that it was not their order that he leave the palace.  Once Mao confirmed so, Chen Xu arrested Liu and ordered him to commit suicide, while demoting Dao to a lesser position.  From this point on, the administration was controlled by Chen Xu.

Fearful of what would come next, Dao and the general Han Zigao () considered actions against Chen Xu, but before they could take any actions against Chen Xu, their plot was reported to Chen Xu, and Chen Xu arrested them and then had Emperor Fei issue an edict ordering them to commit suicide.  Emperor Fei's brother Chen Bomao the Prince of Shixing, whom Chen Xu believed to have participated in both Liu's and Dao and Han's plots, was stripped of his governmental posts and ordered to keep Emperor Fei company.

The deaths of Liu and Han, both of whom were close associates of Emperor Wen, brought fear into the heart of another associate of Emperor Wen—Hua Jiao () the governor of Xiang Province (湘州, modern central Hunan).  In summer 567, Hua therefore submitted himself to Northern Zhou and Northern Zhou's vassal state, Western Liang.  Chen Xu sent Wu and Chunyu Liang () to lead a fleet against the joint forces of Hua, Northern Zhou, and Western Liang.  The opposing sides met at Dunkou (沌口, in modern Wuhan, Hubei).  Wu and Chunyu were able to ram Hua's, Northern Zhou's, and Western Liang's fleets, causing them to collapse.  Both Hua and the Northern Zhou general Yuwen Zhi () the Duke of Wei fled to Western Liang's capital Jiangling (江陵, in modern Jingzhou, Hubei), while the Northern Zhou general Yuan Ding () were captured.  Wu followed up by putting Jiangling under siege in spring 568, but was not able to capture it and subsequently forced to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Chen Xu was receiving greater formal titles and authorities.  Chen Bomao, angry over the situation, was making repeated denigrations of Chen Xu, who then resolved to take the throne himself.  In winter 568, Chen Xu had an edict issued in Grand Empress Dowager Zhang's name, falsely accusing Emperor Fei of having been part of the plots of Liu and Hua.  The edict further stated that Emperor Wen had already known that Emperor Fei was unsuitable, and that Emperor Wen's stated desire to have Chen Xu take the throne should be carried out.  Emperor Fei was deposed and demoted to the title of Prince of Linhai, while Chen Bomao was demoted to Marquess of Wenma and subsequently assassinated.

After reign
More than a month after Emperor Fei was deposed, Chen Xu took the throne (as Emperor Xuan).  Little is known about the Prince of Linhai's activities during his uncle's reign.  He died in spring 570, and his title was inherited by his son Chen Zhize.

Family
Consorts and Issue:
 Princess consort, of the Wang clan of Langya (), personal name Shaoji ()
 Chen Zhize, Prince Linhai (; b. 566), first son

Ancestry

References

 Book of Chen, vol. 4.
 History of Southern Dynasties, vol. 9.
 Zizhi Tongjian, vols. 167, 169, 170.
 Chén Bózōng 陳伯宗, Emperor Fei of Chen, 108, 100, 67, 20, 4世

Chen dynasty emperors
554 births
570 deaths
People from Zhenjiang
6th-century Chinese monarchs

Emperor Fei of Chen


Elijah Kellogg Jr. (May 20, 1813 – March 17, 1901) was an American Congregationalist minister, lecturer and author of popular boy's adventure books.

Professional life
Born in Portland, Maine, Kellogg was the son of a minister and missionary to local Native Americans. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1840 and Andover Theological Seminary. Kellogg served as a minister of the church in Harpswell, Maine 1844–54, as chaplain of the Boston Seaman's Friend Society and pastor of the Mariners' Church of Boston 1855–1865; and ended his life as minister of the church in Topsham, Maine from 1871 until his death in 1901.

Family and heritage
Kellogg married Hannah Pearson Pomeroy and had three sons and one daughter. Wilmot B. Mitchell of Bowdoin edited Elijah Kellogg, the Man and His Work: Chapters From His Life and Selections from His Writings (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1903). Bowdoin College offers an online collection guide to Kellogg's personal papers and those of his father (who was a trustee of Bowdoin). Elijah Kellogg Church, Congregational in Harpswell, Maine (where he served as pastor) is now named for him.

Writing
Kellogg began writing children's books in the 1860s, and was highly productive. While he is best known to students of rhetoric as the author of the once-popular monologue "Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua" (written for a student competition while he was still an undergraduate at Bowdoin), he later produced several series of books. These include:

Elm Island Series
 Lion Ben of Elm Island (1868)
 Charlie Bell: The Waif of Elm Island (1868, copyright renewed 1896)
 The Ark of Elm Island (1869)
 The Boy Farmers of Elm Island (1869)
 The Young Ship-Builders of Elm Island (1870)
 The Hard-Scrabble of Elm Island (1870)

Pleasant Cove Series
 Arthur Brown: The Young Captain (1870)
 The Young Deliverers of Pleasant Cove (1871)
 The Cruise of the Casco (1871)
 The Child of the Island Glen (1872)
 John Godsoe's Legacy (1873)
 The Fisher Boys of Pleasant Cove (1874)

Whispering Pine Series
(Set at Bowdoin College, his alma mater, of which his father was later a trustee.)
 The Spark of Genius; or, The College Life of James Trafton (1871)
 The Sophomores of Radcliffe; or, James Trafton and His Bosom Friends (1871)
 The Whispering Pine; or, the Graduates of Radcliffe Hall (1872)
 Winning His Spurs; or, Henry Morton's First Trial (1872)
 The Turning of the Tide; or, Radcliffe Rich and His Patients (1873)
 A Stout Heart; or, the Student From Over the Sea (1873)

Forest Glen Series
 Saved By the Wind; or, The Poor Boy's Future (1874)
 Wolf Run; or, the Boys of the Wilderness (1875)
 Brought to the Front; or, The Young Defenders (1875)
 The Mission of Black Rifle; or, On the Trail (1876)
 Forest Glen; or, the Mohawk's Friendship (1877)
 Burying the Hatchet; or, the Young Brave of the Delawares (1878)

Good Old Times Series
 Good Old Times; or, Grandfather's Struggle for a Homestead (1877, rev. 1905)
 A Strong Arm and a Mother's Blessing (1880)
 The Unseen Hand; or, James Renfew and His Boy Helpers (1881)
 The Live Oak Boys; or, The Adventures of Richard Constable Afloat and Shore (1882)

Stand-alone books
 Norman Cline (1869)

References

External links

1813 births
1901 deaths
19th-century Congregationalist ministers
American chaplains
American Congregationalist ministers
People from Harpswell, Maine
Writers from Portland, Maine
People from Topsham, Maine
Burials at Western Cemetery (Portland, Maine)
Congregationalist missionaries in the United States
19th-century American clergy

Elijah Kellogg


In France, the National Gendarmerie is one of the divisions of the French Armed Forces, the military police. They are responsible for the public safety. They act like police for the citizens of France. It also contains a military police force and a special forces component, the GIGN. In 2011 more than 98,155 people were working for the National Gendarmerie in France.

What do they do?
The Gendarmerie works together with the other national law enforcement agency, the Police Nationale. And since 2009, even though this force is a part of the armed forces establishment, it belonged to the Ministry of the Interior as its military component and it is part of its operations and the budget. They fulfill national security duties and duties in support of their ministry.

They are also responsible for road patrols. The police can stop drivers.  When they do so, it is called a contrôle.  They can ask for a driver's identification papers and car papers at any time.

Their weapon quote is Gendarmerie, une force humaine. This literally means "Gendarmerie, a human armed force."

Uniforms and armor

The name "Gendarmerie" comes from "gens d'arme," which means "armed people." This military corp has an exploding grenade as its logo. Instead of metal medals, Gendarmes wear ribbons.  These are called bâtons. They get ribbons, inter alia, for service abroad.

Since a few years ago, the Gendarmes' flat hat, called a képi, has only been used for special occasions.

The French did not have a uniform until the late 17th century, though some companies had recognizable coat colors. Light grey was common, but red and blue were also worn. It was said that the French in the 17th century had an addiction to bows, ribbons, and plumes, which was suitable to the future leaders of European fashion.  Guard Gendarmes probably had red coats. Many guard troops wore the royal badge on their back and their breast. In the 16th century, national signs were that they wore a white cross on their back and on their breast. In the 17th century this became a white sash.

Nowadays the Gendarmerie uses bulletproof and tactical vests and body armour. A anti-riot shield is used during a heavier riot. They also make use of the spectra helmet. This spectra helmet is fitted with a visor for extra protection of the face. If a tear gas is used, the operators use a special gas mask, which protects them from the dangerous gasses. They also have apparatus for throwing tear gas canisters and FAMAS riffles. This is a sort of weapon. This equipment helps protect Gendarmes while they are doing their jobs.

Departments

Departmental Gendarmerie
This is the territorial police branch of the Gendarmerie. It is the branch that is most similar to France's common police. It has regular contact with France's population and does jobs similar to the Police of France. The Departmental Gendarmerie is divided into Brigades consisting of 6 to 40 operators. A brigade performs observation and may give assistance to citizens in regulated periods, during both daytime and nighttime.

Mobile Gendarmerie
The Mobile Gendarmerie has several tasks, which include riot control, security of significant places (like embassies), conducting OPEX (External Operations), and providing support to the Departmental Gendarmerie. It is divided into 25 legions, including one advanced armoured anti-riot police group. The Mobile Gendarmerie has control over the GIGN, the counter-terrorism part of the Gendarmerie Nationale.

GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group)
The GIGN members are well trained to conduct special operations such as hostage rescue. They are also trained in maritime anti-terrorism operations. They are trained to conduct operations with no risk to the public and the hostages.

Republican Guard
A ceremonial unit that takes part in parades and secures important locations in a formal way.

Maritime Gendarmerie
Supervised by the Gendarmerie and the French Navy, the Maritime Gendarmerie conducts maritime surveillance, assistance and rescue at sea; police security at naval bases; and police at sea. They do these jobs not only in France, but also in other countries like French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and others.

Air transport Gendarmerie
The air transport gendarmerie is similar to the Gendarmerie de L'air. The Gendarmerie de L'air conducts safety operations in air force bases and goes to accidents involving military aircraft. Its missions include securing civilian airports, surveillance of technical things in the airport (like control towers), traffic control on the roads near airports, and making sure that important visitors are safe and well protected at airports.

Transport

Departmental gendarmerie
-Subaru Impreza WRX STI (In use until 2011)
-Renault Megane RS (In use since 2011 and on)
-BMW R1100RT Motorcycle
-IVECO Daily van
-Renault Trafic van
-Many other cars, like the Ford Focus and Transit.

Mobile Gendarmerie
-VXB VBRG Armored Personnel Carrier
-VBC-90 Armoured Combat Vehicle

Gendarmerie de l'Air & Air transport gendarmerie
-Eurocopter EC145 Helicopter

Maritime Gendarmerie
-1 Trident class Patrol boat
-2 Géranium class Patrol Boats
-2 Jonquille class Patrol Boats
-24 Vedette class Small Patrol boats
-2 Pétulante class Small Patrol Crafts
-8 Pavois Class Small Patrol Craft

GIGN

-Height Adjustible Rescue Assault System (HARAS): Based on a Chevrolet Suburban.
The GIGN makes use of the helicopters belonging to the French Air Force.
- 5 Aérospatiale AS532 Cougar Helicopter
- 2 Sud-Aviation SA330 Puma Helicopter
- 9 Eurocopter EC725 Caracal
- 1 Eurocopter EC665 Tigre

Republican Guard
-Horses

Weapons

Departmental Gendarmerie
-SIG Sauer P226 Pistol

Mobile Gendarmerie
-FAMAS Bullpup Assault Rifle
-Sig-Sauer P226
-Tear gas launcher
-T-Style Baton

GIGN
Pistols:
-Manurhin MR 73
-Glock 19
-S&W 686
-Sig-Sauer P228
-FN Five-Seven
-Giat PAMAS G1
-Sig-Sauer Pro SP 2022
-X26 Taser

Shotguns:
-Remington 870
-Benelli M3 Super 90
-Franchi SPAS 12

Sub-machine Guns:
-HK MP5
-FN P90

Assault Rifles:
-HK G3 TGS
-SIG-550
-SIG-551
-HK33
-FAMAS F1
-HK G36
-HK 416

Marksman weapons:
-MR-73
-AW .338
-PGM Hecate II

Republican Guard
-FAMAS F1
-Swords

References

Law enforcement agencies
Law of France

Gendarmerie Nationale


A market town is a settlement in Europe that has the right to have markets. This separates them from villages and cities. A town may be described as a market town or as having market rights even if it does not have a market anymore, provided the right to do so still holds.

Towns

Business law

Market town


A brute force attack is a term in cryptanalysis. It means trying to break a coded cyphertext by trying a lot of possibilities with fast computers. For example, a large number of the possible keys are tried in the key space. If successful , this decrypts the encrypted message.

Overview
The theoretical possibility of a brute force attack is recognized by the cryptographic system designers. They work to make the cryptographic system very difficult for computers to break using brute force attack. For that reason, one of the definitions of "breaking" a cryptographic scheme is to find a method faster than a brute force attack.

The selection of an appropriate key length depends on how difficult it will be to break it using a brute force attack. By obfuscating the data before encryption, brute force attacks are less effective and more difficult to determine.

The brute force attack can be used together with a dictionary attack.

For symmetric encryption, a key size of 128 bits is considered secure against brute force by traditional computers. 192 or 256 bits is considered secure against quantum computers. Many old ciphers, such as DES, used short keys which made them breakable by brute force.

Cryptography

Brute force attack


Guy Lowell (August 6, 1870 – February 4, 1927), was an American architect and landscape architect.

Biography

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Lowell was the son of Mary Walcott (Goodrich) and Edward Jackson Lowell, and a member of Boston's well-known Lowell family. He graduated from Noble's Classical School (later Noble and Greenough School) in 1888 and from Harvard College in 1892, and received his degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1894. He then studied landscape and horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and architectural history and landscape architecture in the atelier of Jean-Louis Pascal at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, with diplomé in 1899. In the middle of these studies he married Henrietta Sargent, the daughter of the director of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, Charles S. Sargent of Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 17, 1898.

Returning to the United States, Lowell opened his own practice in Boston in 1899 and was successful immediately. By 1906, he had opened a branch office in New York  and later split each week between New York and Boston. His commissions included large public, academic, and commercial buildings, as well as many distinctive residences, country estates, and formal gardens. He was the architect and landscape architect for the first Charles River dam, completed in 1910, which transformed the tidal river into the Charles River Basin. He designed five structures on the dam: the Upper and Lower Lock Gate Houses, the Stable, the Boat House, and an open pavilion. As part of the dam's construction, Frederick Law Olmsted's Charlesbank was extended from Charles Circle to the Harvard Bridge, and Lowell was responsible for the landscape design of the Boston Embankment, now universally known as the Esplanade. Lowell is perhaps most recognized for his design of two public buildings: the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1906–09 and later additions) and the New York State Supreme Court building in New York City (1912–1914 and 1919–1927). Some of his other commissions included Lowell Lecture Hall at Harvard and academic buildings at Phillips Academy Andover, Simmons College, and Brown University.

Guy's work on Harvard University's President's House was commissioned by his cousin, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, during his tenure as Harvard President (1909–1933). The house remained the residence of succeeding presidents until 1971, when Derek Bok (1971–1991) moved his young family to the bucolic grounds of the Elmwood colonial mansion. Elmwood was the lifelong home of another of Guy's ancestors, the celebrated American writer, poet, and foreign diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819–1891). As Percival Lowell's third cousin, Guy became the sole trustee of the Lowell Observatory after his cousin's death in 1916.

Lowell also made a name for himself as a landscape architect. His obituary in The New York Times notes that he designed or "fitted up" gardens for the elder J. Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and the Piping Rock Club. Additional garden-related projects included those of T. Jefferson Coolidge, Mrs. Oscar Lasigi in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Payne Whitney in Manhasett on Long Island. Lowell designed many of the gardens and grounds for his numerous residential commissions as an architect, but the most significant project appears to have been the grounds of Harbor Hill (1905); the estate may have been Lowell's largest landscape architecture commission.

It is in the area of education that Lowell left his lasting mark on the profession of landscape architecture. He founded the short-lived, but influential, landscape architecture program at MIT (1900–1910). Under his guidance, the program developed as a synthesis of French planning ideals and Italian garden design, with a significant emphasis on horticulture and engineering. The first students graduated from the program in 1902. It was an undergraduate option from 1900 until 1904, and it continued as a graduate course until 1909, with Lowell's offering instruction in landscape architecture until 1912. (He donated his services, asking that his salary be turned over to the Architecture Department.) He taught an important group of landscape architects their trade including Mabel Keyes Babcock (1862–1931), George Elberton Burnap (1885–1938), Marian Cruger Coffin (1876–1957), Martha Brookes Hutcheson (1871–1959), and Rose Standish Nichols. Lowell's program at MIT provided educational opportunities in landscape architecture for women that they could not find elsewhere; many of his female students went on to become outstanding practitioners.

Lowell also published several books, including: American Gardens (1902), Smaller Italian Villas and Farmhouses (1916), and More Small Italian Villas and Farmhouses (1920).  He also contributed to American Gardens, a photographic magazine.

Lowell died suddenly in the Madeira Islands of Portugal on February 4, 1927.

Major buildings and gardens

 1902 Lowell Lecture Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 1906 Fox Clubhouse, 44 JFK Street (formerly 44 Boylston), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 1904 Emerson Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
 1909 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
 1910 Eegonos, Bar Harbor, Maine
 1910 Charles River Dam, including the Boston Embankment, the Upper and Lower Lock Gate Houses, the Stable, the Boat House, and an open pavilion
 1912 Natirar, Somerset Hills, New Jersey
 1913 New York State Supreme Courthouse, New York City
 1913 Planting Fields Arboretum, Oyster Bay, New York
 1929 Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan

Other selected buildings

1900 13 Follen Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, built for Alice Lowell Ropes
1901 Tupper Manor (now part of Endicott College), Beverly, Massachusetts
1902 Johnson Memorial Fountain, Boston, Massachusetts
1904 Spring Lawn, Kemble Street, Lenox, Massachusetts
1907 Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
1907 Unitarian Church of Barnstable, Cobb's Hill, Barnstable, Massachusetts
1909 New Hampshire Historical Society building, 30 Park Street, Concord, New Hampshire; the pediment contains sculpture by Daniel Chester French that includes the Society's crest flanked by figures representing Modern History and Ancient History
1910 Cumberland County Courthouse, Portland, Maine (with George Burnham)
1911 Piping Rock Clubhouse, Locust Valley, New York
1912 Harvard University President's House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1913 Boscawen Public Library, Boscawen, New Hampshire
1921 Community House, Hamilton, Massachusetts
1922 Fuller Memorial Bell Tower, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts

References

Further reading
 Benjamin F. W. Russell, "The Works of Guy Lowell." Architectural Review vol. 13 no. 6 (February 1906), pp. 13–40.
 Charles A. Birnbaum and Robin S. Karson, Pioneers of American Landscape Design, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), pp. 230–33.

External links

 Estate of Catherine Everit Macy and Walter Graeme Ladd, Somerset County, N.J.: Natirar Estate. Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.

1870 births
1927 deaths
Architects from Boston
American landscape architects
American garden writers
American male non-fiction writers
Harvard College alumni
MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts
Burials at Walnut Hills Cemetery (Brookline, Massachusetts)

Guy Lowell


A box-set is a package of compact discs, DVDs, or similar items that come in a special box.

Music
Music box-sets can be remix albums, compilation albums or greatest hits albums that represents an artist's best works during their career. Box-sets are usually priced more than what regular CDs cost.

Movies and television
Box-sets for movies and television can contain extra scenes, behind-the-scenes, and interviews with the cast. A box-set for a television series can contain all the episodes for one season. A movie box-set can contain all the movies in a series.

Media

ru:Музыкальный альбом#Классификация по объёму

Box-set


Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley (; 9 January 1897 – 18 July 1918) was a Russian nobleman and poet who was murdered by the Bolsheviks when he was 21 years old.

Life
He was born as Vladimir von Pistohlkors in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 9 January 1897. His father was Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, the youngest child of Emperor Alexander II. His mother was his father's mistress, Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, who was still married to Erich Gerhard von Pistohlkors at that time.

In 1902, Grand Duke Paul—-a widower after his short marriage to Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, with whom he had two children before her premature death in childbirth-—wed Olga morganatically. In 1904, she was created Countess von Hohenfelsen by Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria, thus providing Vladimir with the title of Count Vladimir von Hohenfelsen. In 1915, Olga was created Princess Paley by Nicholas II, which allowed Vladimir to use the title of Prince Paley.

Prince Vladimir had two elder half-siblings from his father's marriage to Alexandra Georgievna of Greece, née Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. He had two full sisters, both of whom eventually were styled as Her Serene Highness Princess Paley: Irina Pavlovna and Natalia Pavlovna. He also had three half-siblings from his mother's first marriage: Alexander Erikovich von Pistohlkors, Olga Erikovna von Pistohlkors, and Marianna Erikovna (or Marianne) von Pistohlkors.

He spent his childhood in Paris and later graduated from the Corps des Pages, an aristocratic military school in Saint Petersburg. In December 1914, he entered the regiment of the Emperor's Hussars and fought with the Russian army in the First World War. He was promoted to lieutenant and decorated as a war hero with the Order of Saint Anne.

Even as a teenager, he showed remarkable talent as a poet. He published two volumes of poetry (1916 and 1918) and wrote several plays and essays, as well as a French translation of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovitch's play, The King of the Jews.

In the summer of 1917, he and his family were placed for a short time under house arrest by the Provisional Government, because of a poem he wrote about Aleksandr Kerensky. In March 1918, he was arrested by the Bolsheviks and sent to exile in Vyatka, and later in Ekaterinburg and Alapaevsk. He was brutally murdered in a mineshaft near Alapaevsk, together with his cousins Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia, and other relatives. Their bodies were recovered by the Imperial White Army and placed in coffins, then moved around during fighting with the Red Army. They were brought and buried months later at the Russian Mission Orthodox cemetery in Beijing, China, the site of which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and is now a parking area.

A biography of Prince Vladimir Paley by Andrey Baranovsky was published in 1997 in Russian, and another (A Poet Among The Romanovs) by Jorge F. Saenz was published in 2004, in both Russian and English. He is now venerated by the Russian Orthodox Church as a Saint and martyr.

Ancestry

See also
Romanov sainthood

References

1897 births
1918 deaths
Russian male poets
Murdered Russian royalty
Writers from Saint Petersburg
Victims of Red Terror in Soviet Russia
Executed people from Saint Petersburg
20th-century Russian poets
Princes Paley
Morganatic issue of Romanovs
Burials in Beijing

Vladimir Paley


Dorothy Comstock Riley (December 6, 1924 – October 23, 2004) was a lawyer and judge from the U.S. state of Michigan, serving on the Michigan Supreme Court and the first woman to serve on the Michigan Court of Appeals. She was the first Hispanic woman to be elected to the Supreme Court of any state.

Life and career
Riley was born in Detroit, where she attended public schools, graduating from Northwestern High School. She attended Wayne State University, where she earned a B.A. in 1946. She received an LL.B. degree from Wayne State University Law School in 1949. Female lawyers were not common at the time and reportedly, when she interviewed at several law firms after graduation, the qualification they were most interested in was her typing ability. Instead of working at such firms, she began her own practice in the Detroit area.

In 1972, Riley became a Wayne County Circuit Judge and in 1976, she became the first woman to serve on the Michigan Court of Appeals. She ran for the Supreme Court in 1982 and lost. On December 9, 1982, Republican Governor William Milliken nevertheless appointed Riley to the Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Blair Moody Jr. on November 26. This appointment became the subject of a bitter partisan controversy. Not only had Riley been rejected by the voters, but Milliken was also leaving office in less than a month, and newly elected Democratic Governor James Blanchard argued he should be allowed to make the appointment to replace Moody rather than Milliken.

In February 1983, the other Supreme Court Justices voted 4-2 to remove Riley from the court. Blanchard replaced her with U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Boyle. However, Riley won election to the Supreme Court in 1984 and was re-elected in 1992. She served as chief justice from 1987 to 1991. She retired from the Court on September 1, 1997 due to the onset of Parkinson's disease.

Riley had been a partner in the law firm of Riley and Roumell and was also the founder and Honorary Chair of the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society. In 1991 she was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, and the State Bar of Michigan presented Riley with its Distinguished Public Servant Award in 2000.

Riley married Wallace D. Riley, a former President of the American Bar Association in 1967. They had one son, Peter Comstock Riley.

She died in Grosse Pointe Farms, aged 79.

See also
List of Hispanic and Latino American jurists
List of first women lawyers and judges in Michigan

References

1924 births
2004 deaths
People with Parkinson's disease
Lawyers from Detroit
Wayne State University alumni
Wayne State University Law School alumni
Michigan state court judges
Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court
Michigan Court of Appeals judges
20th-century American judges
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American women judges
21st-century American women
Hispanic and Latino American judges

Dorothy Comstock Riley


Voting is when a group of people decide something by saying what they want. It can be for electing a leader or representative, passing a law, and other things. When people are done voting, the votes are counted (often by machines) and the winner is determined.

Voting can be done in small groups (friends deciding what to do over weekend), societies (building committee deciding on whether to paint a building), nations (voting for president or - in some cases - voting for independence) and global (United Nations deciding how to limit nuclear weapon development).

Usually the side that gets most votes will win. This is called majority rule. The right to vote is called suffrage.

In some cases, a certain percentage may be needed to win a vote. This is often the case when voting to change the constitution of a country, or when electing a government official. When choosing a government official, there may be several rounds. In the first round, votes can be cast for all candidates. In the second round, only the two or three candidates with the most votes can be chosen.
Voting is done in democratic government.

There may also be different systens: In some cases, each person has one vote. Other systems may be like ranking, such as picking the three options the person sees most suitable, for example out of five.

Especially in bigger votes, it is often not be possible to track who cast a certain vote.

Images

Related pages
 Election

Voting


A magazine is a place for keeping ammunition. For artillery it can be a special warehouse or a special room in a warship.

In firearms, a magazine (often incorrectly called a "clip") is a container that holds ammunition for a firearm. An external magazine is pushed into the firearm, which is called loading. An Internal magazine(common in bolt action rifles) is built into the gun and cannot be easily taken out, these are usually reloaded individually or via a stripper clip. Taking an empty magazine out of a firearm and putting in a full one is known as reloading the gun, but putting more bullets inside the magazine is known as reloading the magazine.

The most common type of magazine is a box magazine, which holds the bullets in columns. There are also other types of magazines such as drum, pan and helix that hold more bullets that a normal box magazine.

The most common type of ammo used with magazines is bullets. Most modern guns that shoot bullets use magazines for loading ammo (with the notable exception of revolvers). Some kinds of shotguns use shotgun shell speed-loader magazines for faster reloading.

Most magazines use a spring and follower inside to push the ammunition into the gun.  Magazines may be made out of metal or plastic. Metal magazines are more common, but some plastic magazines can be partly see-through so that the user can see how much ammo is left inside.

Ammunition

Magazine (firearms)


Aristea ecklonii (common names: blue flies, blue stars, blue-eyed iris, blue corn-lily) is a plant species  in the Iridaceae, first described in 1866. It is native to central and southern Africa from South Africa north to Cameroon and Tanzania. The plant is an evergreen perennial with small, blue flowers, growing in clumps with upright, grass-like leaves  15–18 in (38–46 cm) in height.

It is an invasive species in high mountain forests of Sri Lanka near Nuwara Eliya and Horton Plains.
It is also an invasive in Australia. It is also invasive in New Zealand where it is a pest species on the NPPA banned list.

References

Iridaceae
Flora of Africa
Invasive plant species in Sri Lanka
Plants described in 1866

Aristea ecklonii


A VGA connector is a type of computer plug. It is used to send analog video signal to an output device like a television screen or a computer monitor. Most VGA connectors have 15 pins; 3 rows of 5 pins. Some of them are a bit different, and have 18 pins; 3 rows of 6 pins.

21st century equipment more often uses digital plugs, mainly by High-Definition Multimedia Interface.

Electrical connectors
Computer hardware

VGA connector


The molecular clock is the figurative term for a technique which estimates when two taxa diverged in evolution. It is based on comparing the detailed structure of key molecules. The method may be done for species, or any high data used for such calculations is often nucleotide sequences in genome analysis, or amino acid sequences for proteins such as haemoglobin. It is sometimes called a gene clock or evolutionary clock.

Issues
The key assumption behind the technique is that, in the long run, changes in molecular structure happen at a steady rate.
Researchers such as Ayala have challenged this assumption. According to Ayala, these factors combine to limit the application of molecular clock models:

Changing generation times: a mutation generally becomes fixed only from one generation to another. The shorter this timespan is, the more mutations can become fixed.
Population size: apart from effects of small population size, genetic diversity will "bottom out" as populations become larger, and the fitness advantage of any one mutation becomes smaller.
Species-specific differences due to differing metabolism, ecology, evolutionary history, etc.

Nevertheless, the method is now used widely in taxonomy and phylogeny.

References

Evolutionary biology
Paleontology

Molecular clock


Eber Dudley Howe (June 9, 1798 – November 10, 1885) was the founder and editor of the Painesville Telegraph, a newspaper that published in Painesville, Ohio, starting in 1822. Howe was the author of one of the first books that was critical of the spiritual claims of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. His 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed  was based largely on affidavits collected by Latter Day Saint dissenter Doctor Philastus Hurlbut and on the letters of dissenter Ezra Booth, which in 1831 had been published in the Ohio Star.

Life
Howe was born to Samuel William Howe and Mabel Dudley in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, New York. In 1804 the family moved to Ovid, New York and 1811 relocated to Upper Canada, living a few miles west of Niagara Falls. During the War of 1812 Howe joined the U.S. Army in Batavia, New York. After the war, Howe became involved in the newspaper business, working at the Buffalo Gazette in Buffalo, New York, the Erie Gazette in Erie, Pennsylvania, and the Cleveland Herald in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1822, he moved to Painesville, Ohio and began publishing the Painesville Telegraph. Under Howe's editorship, the Telegraph had a strongly abolitionist editorial perspective. Howe's home was used as a station on the Underground Railroad, assisting fugitive slaves. The Eber Howe house and property, known as The House at Liberty Hollow, are maintained as a park. In June 1823 he married Sophia Hull of Clarence, Ohio.

While living in Painesville, Howe's wife, sister, and niece converted to Mormonism. On January 11, 1831, Howe wrote a letter to W. W. Phelps, a newspaper publisher in Canandaigua, New York, asking about the origins of the new religion. Phelps, who had read the Book of Mormon and met Joseph Smith, responded to Howe by writing that "we have nothing by which we can positively detect it as an imposition", but that "if it is false, it will fall, and if of God, God will sustain it." Phelps was baptized into the Latter Day Saint church a few months later. Howe continued to be interested in the Mormons, and in November 1834 he published Mormonism Unvailed, which he described as "a history of the Mormon imposition, from its rise to the present time, with many other peculiarities of the sect."

In January 1835, Howe sold the Painesville Telegraph to his younger brother for $600 (~$ in ). After leaving the newspaper, Howe remained a publisher and a manufacturer of woollen goods.

Howe considered himself to be a skeptic on religious matters. However, after his wife died of stomach cancer in 1866, he became an avid believer in spiritualism.

See also
Abner Cole

References

External links
Saints Without Halos: Eber D. Howe (1798–1885)
Selections From The Writings of Eber D. Howe

1798 births
1885 deaths
19th-century American newspaper editors
Activists from New York (state)
Activists from Ohio
American abolitionists
American newspaper founders
American spiritualists
People from Clifton Park, New York
Critics of Mormonism
History of the Latter Day Saint movement
Journalists from Ohio
Mormonism-related controversies
People from Ovid, New York
People from Painesville, Ohio

Eber D. Howe


Prince Chichibu (Chichibu-no-miya Yasuhito Shinnō) (25 June 1902 – 4 January 1953), also known as Prince Yasuhito, was the second son of Emperor Taishō and a younger brother of the Emperor Shōwa.

As a member of the Imperial House of Japan, he was the patron of various sporting, medical, and international exchange organizations. As an English-speaking prince he played a significant role in post-World War 2 Japan's reconstruction. However, he died tragically early due to Tuberculosis.

The Prince was married to the Princess Chichibu.

1902 births
1953 deaths
People from Tokyo
Japanese princes and princesses

Prince Chichibu


Aimé Paris (1798–1866) was a French scholar. He was the developer of a method of stenography, and co-developer and propagator of what became the Galin-Paris-Chevé system of music notation.

Paris studied mathematics and law, and became a lawyer. His techniques of memory were well known; at one point he was the "professeur de mnémonique" at the Athenée in Paris.

Stenography
In 1815, he learned the system of Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) adapted by Théodore-Pierre Bertin for French. In 1820, after inventing his own method of stenography, he abandoned his career as a lawyer and traveled across France, as well as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, giving conferences and teaching his system. He published the books History of Stenography and Inventions of Aimé Paris. His stenographic works were followed and completed by Louis Prosper Guénin.

Music system advocacy
He approached Pierre Galin when he moved to Paris, and asked to be his business-manager, so Galin could work on setting his music education ideas into print. However, once admitted as Galin's successor, he plagiarized Galin's ideas and denied having known him.

After Galin died in 1822 without publishing a full explanation of his ideas, several teachers led classes claiming to follow his methods. Paris decided to devote himself to propagating what he knew of Galin's methods, with a few minor modifications. He published numerous pamphlets on the technique, and toured schools widely, offering challenges to music teachers. According to Fétis, his challenges were designed so that he could be denounced in tract or speech regardless of whether they were accepted or not.

His sister, Nanine, married the surgeon Emile Chevé, who became an advocate for the system. Paris, along with his sister and Emile Chevé, continued touring and publishing pamphlets until his death.

Mnemonics
Aimé Paris was the first person to publish a version of the mnemonic major system in its modern form.

References

 Kenneth Simpson. Some Great Music Educators. Borough Green: Novello, 1976. Pages 21–23.

1798 births
1866 deaths
French music educators
Creators of writing systems

Aimé Paris