William Joseph Snelling (December 26, 1804 – December 24, 1848) was an American adventurer, writer, poet, and journalist. His short stories about American Indian life were the first to attempt to accurately portray the Plains Indians and among the first attempts at realism by an American writer. Snelling's short story collections were among the earliest in the United States.

Snelling was born and educated in Boston, Massachusetts. He moved to the American frontier in Minnesota and, from his late teens to his mid-20s, traded with the American Indians and explored the area. He lived with the Dakota Indians for a time and learned their language and customs. In 1828, Snelling returned to Boston and began a writing career. He wrote for New England periodicals and earned friends and enemies with his opinion pieces on American society. Over the next 20 years, he tackled subjects such as American writing, gambling, and prison conditions.

Early life and career
William Joseph Snelling was born on December 26, 1804, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Josiah Snelling, was an officer in the army, and his mother was Elizabeth Bell. His mother died when he was six years old, and Snelling moved outside Boston to live with relatives and attend school. At age 14, Snelling entered West Point.

Two years later, Snelling left school and gradually moved west. He lived with the Dakota tribe of American Indians for a winter. In 1821, Snelling reached his father's military post at Fort St. Anthony (later Fort Snelling) in Minnesota. William Joseph Snelling stayed there for five years, trading in furs and exploring the surroundings. During his time with the Dakota, he had learned their language and customs, and he worked as an interpreter between the Indian Agency and the Indians. For example, he helped negotiate the resolution of hostilities between the Dakota and the Chippewa and Winnebago tribes. In 1826, Snelling married Dionice Fournier, a Frenchwoman. She died a year later. Josiah Snelling died in 1828, and William Joseph Snelling moved on.

Writing career
Snelling returned to Boston and entered the writing field. Over the next 20 years, he wrote pieces for American Monthly, Boston Book, the Boston Herald, the New England Galaxy, New England Magazine, North American Review, and Token. Snelling expressed frank opinions on American society and proposed social reforms, earning him both praise and enmity. Truth: A New Year's Gift for Scribblers is an early example. The piece, written in 1831, satirizes American letters. As editor of the New England Galaxy, Snelling initiated an anti-gambling movement among Boston's newspapers. He was sued for libel and fought back by publishing his editorials in pamphlet form, called "Exposé of the Vice of Gaming", in 1833. He used the proceeds to pay his legal costs. He later served four months in jail for drunkenness. The experience led him in 1837 to take on prison reform with his The Rat-Trap; or Cogitations of a Convict in the House of Correction.

Snelling earned his greatest fame as a writer of short stories about his experiences on the American frontier. He realized that the lifestyle of the Plains Indians was under threat, and he deemed the popular characterization of Indians in American literature to be stereotyped and inaccurate. He thus tried for realism in his stories, making him one of the earliest American writers to do so. Modern ethnographers still recognize his works as the first accurate literary portrayal of the lifestyle of the Plains Indians. In "The Last of the Iron Hearts", Snelling wrote, "[We] beg leave to assure our readers, that the Indian is not the ferocious brute of Hubbard and Mather, or the brilliant, romantic, half-French, half-Celtic Mohegan and Yemassee created by Symmes and Cooper." He further claimed that one "must live, emphatically, live, with Indians; share with them their lodges, their food, and their blankets, for years, before he can comprehend their ideas, or enter into their feelings."

Snelling's tales met with critical acclaim, and modern critics praise them. In 1923, Fred Lewis Pattee wrote that "his Indian stories are undoubtedly the best written during the early period [of American literature]" Contemporary biographer Mary R. Reichardt credits Snelling with "creating . . . engaging and vigorous tales based on Native-American life and legend as well as stories of the cultural conflict resulting from the early white settlements on the frontier", although the stories "lapse at times into sentimentality and didacticism."

In 1830, Snelling published a compilation of ten of his frontier stories as Tales of the Northwest; or, Sketches of Indian Life and Character; this is one of the earliest short story collections published in the United States.

In 1831, Snelling published the comprehensive history The Polar Regions of the Western Continent Explored which took an imperialistic view of the North American Arctic. In the first paragraph he went so far as to lay a claim on Iceland as "a natural appendage of America".

Snelling also wrote poetry about his experiences. He wrote children's stories of adventure and travel under the pseudonym Solomon Bell. Snelling died on December 24, 1848.

Notes

References
 Reichardt, Mary R. (1999). "SNELLING, William Joseph", American National Biography, Vol. 10. New York: Oxford University Press. .

American explorers
American newspaper editors
19th-century American poets
American male poets
Writers from Minnesota
Journalists from Boston
1804 births
1848 deaths
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
19th-century American short story writers
19th-century American male writers

William Joseph Snelling


Samuel Spencer (March 2, 1847 – November 29, 1906) was an American civil engineer, businessman, and railroad executive. With an education interrupted by service in the Confederate cavalry late in the American Civil War, he completed his education at the University of Georgia and the University of Virginia.

Spencer spent his career with railroads, rising through the ranks during the busy growth years of American railroading in the late 19th century. He eventually became president of six railroads, and was a director of at least ten railroads and several banks and other companies.

Although his career was cut short when he was killed in a train wreck in Virginia in 1906, Samuel Spencer is best remembered as the Father of the Southern Railway System. Spencer, North Carolina, site of the North Carolina Transportation Museum, was named in his honor.

Railroads
In 1869, he began working with railroads as a surveyor, and rose through the ranks, learning many aspects of railroad management. He became superintendent of the Long Island Rail Road in 1878 and was president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) during 1887–1888.

In 1889, Spencer left the presidency of the B&O to become a railroad expert working for financier J.P. Morgan of Drexel, Morgan and Company. According to the New York Times, "It was said of him that there was no man in the country so thoroughly well posted on every detail of a railroad from the cost of a car brake to the estimate for a new terminal."

When the bankrupt Richmond and Danville Railroad (R&D) was acquired by Drexel, Morgan and Company in 1894, the new Southern Railway was formed by the financiers from a consolidation of the R&D and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad.

Tapped to lead the new railroad for Morgan, Spencer became its first president. Under his leadership, the mileage of the Southern Railway doubled, the number of passengers served annually increased to nearly 12 million, and annual earnings increased from $17 million to $54 million. After his death, the Southern grew to become one of the strongest and most profitable in the United States, merging with the also strong and profitable Norfolk and Western Railway in the 1980s to form Norfolk Southern, a Fortune 500 company.

Death in railroad collision
Samuel Spencer's career was cut short when he was killed at the age of 59 in a train collision in Virginia before dawn on Thanksgiving morning, November 29, 1906. The Spencer party were in his private car, at the rear of the train, en route to his hunting lodge near Friendship, NC. When the coupling failed on the lead car, the train was left stalled on the track. A following train ran into the stranded cars in the pre-dawn darkness, crushing the Spencer car, killing Spencer & all but one of its occupants.

Spencer was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery.

Legacy

Spencer is credited with leading the Southern Railway and the South during a period of unprecedented growth. After his untimely death, 30,000 Southern Railway employees contributed to pay for a statue of him by sculptor Daniel Chester French, which was dedicated in 1910 and stood for many years at Atlanta's Terminal Station. Following the station's demolition in 1970, the statue was moved multiple times, first to Peachtree station, then in 1996 to Hardy Ivy Park, and finally to its current resting place in front of the Norfolk Southern building at the intersection of Peachtree Street and 15th Street in Midtown Atlanta.

Spencer was also a member of the Jekyll Island Club, which operated as an exclusive millionaire's retreat from 1888 to 1942. Spencer's former apartment in the Clubhouse Annex is said to be haunted by his ghost.

The Southern Railway's Spencer Shops and the town of Spencer, North Carolina were named in his honor. In 1977, the closed Spencer Shops formed the basis of the new North Carolina Transportation Museum.

See also
List of railroad executives
Spencer Yard

References

Further reading

External links
Southern Railway Historical Society
Southern Railway Historical Association covers Southern Railway history
Virginia Museum of Transportation located in Roanoke, VA
Southern Railway Yahoo Group a Yahoo group for former employees, railfans and modelers of the Southern Railway
Norfolk Southern Yahoo Group a Yahoo group for current happenings of Norfolk Southern Railway

1847 births
1906 deaths
19th-century American railroad executives
20th-century American railroad executives
Railway accident deaths in the United States
University of Georgia people
Confederate States Army soldiers
People from Columbus, Georgia
Southern Railway (U.S.)
University of Virginia alumni
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad people
Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)

Samuel Spencer (railroad executive)


Blades of Vengeance is a platform game developed by Beam Software and published by Electronic Arts for the Mega Drive/Genesis. One or two players can select one of three fantasy warriors to fight through a large range of platform levels in order to defeat the forces of darkness.

Gameplay
At the beginning of the game, the player (or players) choose from one of three characters. From there, the player/s are thrown into the levels one at a time with a warning about the boss at the end of each one.

The player/s can collect items such as silver coins, potions and magic they could access in their inventory through the pause screen. While still in the pause screen, the players are able to get a better view of their surroundings by holding the C button and moving the screen around the player character with the directional pad. All of the levels are large enough to explore and many of them have secret areas that would award the player with additional pick-up items, such as potions of healing, invisibility, force fields, poison gas immunity, scrolls that increase player strength, keys, armor for additional attacks and strength per player, the Midas Ring which turns all enemies into bags of money and the Blast Wand which destroys all on-screen enemies.

The levels were divided into three portions with the third being the boss level, similar to Sonic the Hedgehog. After every boss battle, the players were taken to a shop where they could spend their silver coins on additional items for their inventory for the next levels. The players started with a certain number of lives, and continues were only available after scoring many points or defeating many enemies; extra lives could be purchased in the shop at the end of each world once they passed the second one. Once the lives and any obtained continues were gone, it was game over.

Plot
The evil Mannax the Dark Lady has conquered the Kingdom. To "restore order and goodness to the land", three adventurers serving the good wizard The Master's embark to seek out and kill her. Once Mannax, who takes the form of a dragon for the final battle, is slain, The Master uses his returned full powers to destroy all forces of darkness through the land.

Characters
 The Huntress: A voluptuous swords-woman with fastest movement, and even range and attacks.
 The Warrior: A muscular man with an axe and the best attack, but limited range and movement.
 The Sorcerer: A haggard old man armed with a staff that had the best ranged attacks, but was the weakest of the three in strength.

Reception
Betty Hallock of VideoGames awarded Blades of Vengeance the overall review score of 8/10 (the other editors gave it two scores of 7/10 and two of 8/10), especially praising it for "practically superb" graphics and "excellent" control system. Other scores included 86% from Electronic Games and a lower 64% from HobbyConsolas.

References

External links

 Blades of Vengeance at Sega-16

1993 video games
Beam Software games
Cooperative video games
Electronic Arts games
Fantasy video games
Platformers
Sega Genesis games
Sega Genesis-only games
Video games developed in Australia
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games about witchcraft

Blades of Vengeance


Irouléguy AOC wines (, ) come from Lower Navarre in the Northern Basque Country, France and are usually considered as part of the wine region of South West France (Sud-Ouest). They are named after the village of Irouléguy and are the only wines with AOC certification in the Northern Basque Country. Irouléguy wines are often referred to as coming from "the smallest vineyard in France, the biggest in the Northern Basque Country".

Currently about 550,000 litres are produced annually, with about 70% of production being red wines, 20% rosé and 10% white.

History
The history of wine-making in the area goes back to at least the 3rd century when the Romans commented on wine-making in the area. It was boosted by monks of the Abbey of Roncesvalles in the 11th century who planted the first large scale vineyards to provide wine for pilgrims travelling along the Way of St James. Following the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, the monks had to give up wine-making and the vineyards which were taken over by the local villagers.

During its peak in the 17th century, the Irouléguy vineyards comprised some 500 ha of cultivated land. The production of wine had been boosted considerably by the then Viscount of Urdos who encouraged the locals to grow grapes even on the steep slopes. The 18th century saw relatively high levels of employment in the area due to increased mining activity, further boosting the consumption and thus production of local wine. But the following period was marked by constant decline and the vineyards were hit hard by the Great French Wine Blight in 1912 and by the 1980s, only some 70ha were still in cultivation. A cooperative was formed in 1952 under the lead of Alexander Bergouignan to rescue the situation and to work towards certification. The wines of Baigorri, Anhauze and Irouléguy were awarded AOVDQS certification in 1953 and Irouléguy was granted AOC status in October 1970. Today, some 210ha of land are cultivated again in the area.

Prior to AOC certification, a much larger number of varieties were grown, including Kroxenta, Pikapota, Kamalua, Mantzinga, Bordalesa, Erre Mantxaua and Pino beltza.

Location
Of the 15 wine-growing municipalities in the Irouléguy region, only the following nine grow Irouléguy vines on a total of 210ha: Anhaux, Saint-Étienne-de-Baïgorry, Ascarat, Irouléguy, Bidarrai, Ispoure, Jaxu and Saint-Martin-d'Arrossa.

The other municipalities (Aincille, Bussunarits-Sarrasquette, Bustince-Iriberry, Lasse, Lecumberry, Ossès, Saint-Jean-le-Vieux) grow other vines.

The vineyards are often located on extremely steep slopes with inclines of up to 60°. This has led to the development of special growing and terracing techniques by Basque wine-growers to enable the cultivation of vines on these slopes.

Wine

Red grape varieties include Bordelesa Beltza (Tannat), Axeria (Cabernet Franc) and Axeria Handia (Cabernet Sauvignon), while white wines are made from Xuri Zerratia (Courbu), Izkiriota Ttipia (Petit Manseng) and Izkiriota (Gros Manseng).

They are cultivated on terraces between 100-400 m above sea-level and although the soils vary, one of the chief characteristics of the soils in the region is a deep red coloration. This fact is mirrored in the name of the nearby town of Baigorri which is a contraction of bailara gorri "red terrace".

See also
Basque breeds and cultivars
Basque cider
Txakoli

References

Further reading
Le Guide Hachette des Vins 2004 Hachette Livre (Paris) 2004

External links
Domaine Brana
Cave d'Irouléguy

South West France AOCs
Basque cuisine

sv:Irouléguy

Irouléguy AOC


The  (BAO, "Bank of West Africa") was a French bank established in 1901 to issue currency for the colonies of French West Africa.

Colonial history
BAO was originally created by the expansion of the Banque du Sénégal (itself created by the French on 21 December 1853). BAO later expanded to include French Equatorial Africa to administer the common currency of French West Africa. Although it was a private investment bank, the French government authorized it to print currency, and its board always included colonial officials. It received special concessions and financial stabilisation from the government, and in essence became an arm of the French colonial administration. Between 1941 and 1958, the Institut d'Émission de l'Afrique Occidentale Française et du Togo was spun off from BAO to administer the Franc des colonies françaises d'Afrique (FCFA) (25 December 1945).Global Financial Data

Economic role in colonial structure
Historians like Henri Brunschwig have pointed to the importance of the BOA in the assimilation of French West Africa into the French economic system.  Its founding in 1901 came after the extension of limited taxation of subjects, forced labor laws, and voting in the colonial possessions (notably the communes of Dakar and Saint-Louis, Senegal).  The creation of and government support for the BOA was part of an attempt to inject investment into the French colonies.  In 1880, almost all French economic interests in the area were in the form of family-run trading houses based in French port cities like Bordeaux and Marseilles. The creation of the BOA coincided with the consolidation of these trading houses into joint stock companies, the ending of formal government concessions to these houses, and the rise of a de facto monopoly of their successors. Émile Maurel (CEO of Maurel et Prom) and Henri Nouvion (managing director of Banque du Sénégal) were respectively the first president and managing director of the newly created BOA. By the 1920s, business in the AOF was dominated by just three private joint stock companies: the Compagnie Française de l'Afrique Occidentale, the Nouvelle Société Commerciale africaine, and the Société Commerciale de l'Ouest Africain (lagging slightly were the growing plantation and mining interests of the Unilever company). The BAO's board largely overlapped with the boards of these trading companies.  When the initial privileges granted to the BOA expired in 1929, the French government granted it a further forty-year concession, with the only stipulation being that the government reserved the right to nominate the BOA's chair, and four members of its board.

While the Banque de France in Paris remained essentially a bank for banks, the BAO was a bank of issue and a commercial, deposit, and broking bank. In 1904 it was given the right to acquire shares in commercial companies, as long as investment did not exceed a quarter of its reserves.

In consolidating banking institutions in semi-public hands, France hoped to foster greater inward capital investment into the AOF and created an opening for private banking interests to operate on the ground in the colonies.  Most notably, the interwar years saw the founding of the Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI), which would merge in 1966 with the Comptoir National d'Escompte de Paris (CNEP) to form Banque Nationale de Paris, and in 1924, the Banque Comerciale de 1'Afrique (BCA).

In 1924, BAO expended to French Equatorial Africa buy opening branch in Brazzaville.  It followed this by opening branches in Port Gentil (1928), Libreville (1930), Pointe Noire (1936), Bangui (1946), and Fort Lamy (1950).

The strategy of using BAO to foster inward investment was something of a failure though.  Capital extraction, not capital investment was the source of French wealth in West Africa. Taxes and import/export duties coming from the African colonies to the Metropole accounted for most of the capital movement in the AOF. Tremendous legal concessions were made to the BOA, and while it dominated the banking sector, its capital remained minuscule in comparison to companies engaged in capital extraction from the AOF.  The BOA held capital of 6 million francs before 1914, and that rose to 50 million in 1931, but declined thereafter.  In 1940 all banks in the AOF had a total investment of just over 1.5 million francs.  But forestry alone had an inward investment of almost 3.4 million francs that year.

The economic crisis of the early 1930s saw the collapse of the major private banks in the AOF, and the French authorised the BAO to save the BNCI by becoming its largest shareholder.  At this point, the BOA regained its status as the sole investment bank in French West Africa.

Social role in colonial structure
Banking institutions, public and private, enabled colonial businesses to pull more of the West African economy into a moneyed economy and expand the replacement of traditional agriculture with large scale cash crops for export.  This was most evident in the tremendous growth of groundnut plantations.

Offices of the BAO were built in major towns throughout French West Africa, and their imposing edifices became symbols of French colonial power.

Independence
Following independence, the BAO was rechartered as the central bank for the francophone countries of West Africa.  On 22 November 1962, the bank was renamed the Banque des Etats de l'Afrique Centrale (BEAC) and the CFA Franc was renamed the Franc de la Coopération Financière en Afrique Centrale (The CFA franc).

Its last French President and Director General, Georges Gautier and Claude Panouillot, stepped down in 1962.

See also
 Banque de l'Algérie
 State Bank of Morocco
 Banque de Madagascar
 Bank of British West Africa
 West African CFA franc
 West African Economic and Monetary Union
 Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest

References

 (French) centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest
 (French) History on the BEAC Werbsite
 (French) French Central Bank: Qu'est ce que la Zone franc?
 (French)  Modalités financières de la colonisation from fr.wikipedia.org
 Gary Wilder: The French Imperial Nation-state: Negritude and Colonial Humanism Between the Two World Wars. University of Chicago Press (2005).

French Africa
Banks of Senegal
Economy of Benin
Economy of Burkina Faso
Economy of Ivory Coast
Economy of Guinea-Bissau
Economy of Mali
Economy of Niger
Economy of Senegal
Economy of Togo
French West Africa
20th century in Senegal
20th century in Mauritania
20th century in Benin
20th century in Mali
20th century in Burkina Faso
20th century in Niger
20th century in Guinea
20th century in Ivory Coast
Banks established in 1901
Economic history of Africa
French colonial empire
1901 establishments in French West Africa

Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale


Herman of Hauteville (Ermanno in Italian) ( 1045 – 1097) was the younger son of Humphrey, count of Apulia and Calabria (1051–1057), and his Lombard wife, Gaitelgrima of Salerno, also known as Altrude. His older brother Abelard was supposed to inherit their father's lands, but Robert Guiscard, their uncle, who was elected count on Humphrey's death, confiscated them.

In 1064, Abelard was at the head of a revolt of the barons against the Guiscard. Robert put it down, but Herman was given as a hostage to the Greek catepan of Italy, Apochara, to ensure Abelard's continued loyalty. Upon his release, he went to Trani and held it during the revolt of 1071, when he lent his assistance to the rebels (including Abelard). In 1073, he was finally captured, by Guy, Duke of Sorrento, the constant ally of the Norman leadership in the Mezzogiorno. He was first imprisoned in Rapolla (at Melfi) and then taken to Mileto, then under Roger, Robert's brother.  Eventually released, he travelled far away, to Constantinople. During Guiscard's Byzantine expedition of 1081–1082, he returned to the peninsula and took Cannae, which he held as count for over a decade before joining the Army of Bohemond, Robert's disinherited eldest son, on the First Crusade, where he was present at and died during the Siege of Antioch.

References
Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016–1130. London: Longmans, 1967.

1040s births
1097 deaths
Italo-Normans
Norman warriors
Christians of the First Crusade
Herman

Herman of Hauteville


Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2008), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) did not apply to an interactive online operator whose questionnaire violated the Fair Housing Act. However, the court found that Roommates.com was immune under Section 230 of the CDA for the "additional comments" portion of the website. This case was the first to place a limit on the broad immunity that Section 230(c) gives to service providers that has been established under Zeran v. AOL (1997).

Background
Defendant, Roommates.com, is a website that operates to match individuals renting rooms with those who need rooms. At the time of the suit, Roommates.com had approximately 150,000 room listings. In order to use the site, users had to create a profile by answering a series of questions provided by Roommates.com. These questions included the user's name, whereabouts, and email address, and also included questions about gender, sexual orientation, number of children, and whether the children lived with the user. Users were also prompted to state the type of roommate they were looking for in terms of these last three questions. Finally, there was an "Additional Comments" section where users could further describe what they were looking for in a roommate.

Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley brought an action against the website Roommates.com, alleging that the website violated the Fair Housing Act, and the California Fair Housing Act Section 12955 by allowing users the ability to discriminate through the website's questionnaires.

Roommates.com argued that Section 230(c) of the CDA granted the website immunity, because it was simply an interactive website, and not an information content provider.

Section 230
Congress passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in response to the holding in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.. In Stratton, the court held the service provider Prodigy liable as a publisher, because it deleted material that it thought was offensive, but had not deleted other material that was potentially offensive.

To avoid crushing liability for service providers, Congress provided section 230(c) immunity. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (also known as the "good Samaritan provision"), grants immunity to an internet service provider, as long the content is created solely by third parties. Specifically, section 230(c)(1) states that "[n]o provider . . . of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

In contrast, information content providers who are "responsible in whole or in part, for the creation or development of" the infringing material. are not immune under section 230(c), and may be held liable for defamatory content.

Prior history

District Court
The United States District Court for the Central District of California granted Roommates.com's motion for summary judgment, holding that Section 230(c) of the CDA made the website immune from Fair Housing Act violations. The court reasoned that Section 230(c) immunity is quite expansive, and that in this case Roommates.com was an internet service provider, but was not an information content provider. Therefore, the court found that Roommates.com qualified for Section 230(c) immunity.

Ninth Circuit panel decision
The court reversed the district court's decision in part, and remanded for a determination whether the website violated the Fair Housing Act. It also vacated the dismissal of the state law claims. In a decision written by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a three-judge panel held that Roommates.com was not able to claim Section 230(c) immunity because it acted as an information content provider by requiring users to choose from potentially discriminatory options.

However, while Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote the opinion, Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote a separate opinion concurring in part, and dissenting in part, and Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote a concurrence in part. Some commentators believed that the original Ninth Circuit opinion included unnecessary dicta that potentially limited 230(c) immunity in a way that the court did not mean to do.
Due to the fractured nature of the Ninth Circuit opinion, and potential confusion over its scope, the court decided to rehear the case en banc.

Ninth Circuit en banc decision

Majority
The court affirmed the three judge panel's decision, but Judge Kozinski used the opinion as an opportunity to clarify his previous opinion.

The court reasoned that Roommates.com was not immune under 230(c) for the questions it asked in its dropdown menus, because the website qualified as an information content provider. By requiring users to answer questions relating to gender and sexual orientation, Roommates.com provided content. Just because the users of Roommates.com are information content providers does not mean that Roommates.com is not also an information service provider. The court explained:

"Roommate created the questions and choice of answers, and designed its website registration process around them. Therefore, Roommate is undoubtedly the 'information content provider' as to the questions and can claim no immunity for posting them on its website, or for forcing subscribers to answer them as a condition of using its services."

The court went on to say:

"By requiring subscribers to provide the information as a condition of accessing its service, and by providing a limited set of pre-populated answers, Roommate becomes much more than a passive transmitter of information provided by others; it becomes the developer, at least in part, of the information. And section 230 provides immunity only if the interactive computer series does not 'creat[e] or develop[]' the information 'in whole or in part.'"

The Ninth Circuit found that Roommates.com was distinguishable from Stratton Oakmont, the case that motivated Congress to pass Section 230(c). In Stratton, the court found Prodigy liable for removing some bad content but not all bad content. In Roommates.com, the court found that the website affirmatively solicited discriminatory content.

The court also mentioned that its opinion was consistent with the previous Ninth Circuit case, Batzel v. Smith. In that case, the court held that an interactive service provider is immune under 230(c) if the changes the editor makes to a third party post are minor spelling or grammar changes.

The court clarified its holding in Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, noting that its language in that case had been overly broad. In Carafano, the court held that the website was immune under 230(c) for a fake dating profile posted by a third party, but also noted that the website would never be liable for a profile created by a third party. The court clarified this previous statement in Roommates.com by stating, "even if the data are supplied by third parties, a website operator may still contribute to the content's illegality and thus be liable as a developer." In Carafano, the dating website did nothing to elicit discriminatory or defamatory information. In contrast, the court in Roommates.com found that the website did elicit discriminatory information through its questions.

The majority analogized Roommates.com's use of questions to the physical world to determine whether CDA 230(c) immunity applied.
"[A] real estate broker may not inquire as to the race of a prospective buyer, and an employer may not inquire as to the religion of a prospective employee. If such questions are unlawful when posed face-to-face or by telephone, they don't magically become lawful when asked electronically online. The Communications Decency Act was not meant to create a lawless no-man's-land on the Internet."

However, the court distinguished Roommates.com's actions from those of search engines: "By contrast, ordinary search engines do not use unlawful criteria to limit the scope of searches conducted on them, nor are they designed to achieve illegal ends—as Roommate's search function is alleged to do here. Therefore, such search engines play no part in the 'development' of any unlawful searches."

Partial concurrence and dissent
In her partial concurrence and dissent, Judge Margaret McKeown stated that "[t]he majority's unprecedented expansion of liability for Internet service providers threatens to chill the robust development of the Internet that Congress envisioned."

She went on to say:
"[T]he majority's analysis is flawed for three reasons: (1) the opinion conflates the questions of liability under the FHA and immunity under the CDA; (2) the majority rewrites the statute with its definition of "information content provider," labels the search function "information development," and strips interactive service providers of immunity; and (3) the majority's approach undermines the purpose of § 230(c)(1) and has far-reaching practical consequences in the Internet world."

She believed that by denying Roommates.com Section 230(c) immunity, Internet service providers would be unable to determine whether or not they will be held liable for third party content.

Subsequent history
While Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. potentially further limited 230(c) immunity, most other cases since Roommates.com have left the section intact. In Barnes, the Ninth Circuit held that Section 230 may preempt state negligent undertaking claims. However, 230(c) may not preempt a promissory estoppel claim. If a service provider promises to remove content posted by   third party and fails to do so, the service provider could potentially lose 230(c) immunity.

On the other hand, other cases have upheld Section 230(c) immunity for interactive service providers that were not also information content providers. For example, in Nemet Chevrolet v. ConsumerAffairs.com, the Fourth Circuit dismissed the case under 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, finding that the defendant was immune under 230(c)(1).

Similarly, in Dart v. Craigslist, Inc., the Northern District of Illinois held that Craigslist was immune under 230(c)(1) for illicit advertisements that third parties placed on the website.

In November 2008, the district court ruled that Roommates.com violated the Fair Housing Act.  In February 2012, the Ninth Circuit reversed that ruling, holding that Roommates.com did not violate the law and dismissing the case.

References

External links
 Citizen Media Law Project
 EFF's FAQs on Section 230 to Bloggers
 Eric Goldman's blog post on the Ninth Circuit's 2007 panel decision
 Eric Goldman's blog post on the Ninth Circuit's 2008 en banc decision
 Eric Goldman's blog post on the Ninth Circuit's 2012 dismissal of the case
 Evan Brown, Internet Cases
 Harvard Law Information Blog
 Public Citizen
 Public Knowledge, Public Knowledge Policy Blog
 Wired

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cases
United States Internet case law
2008 in United States case law
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act


Borislav Arapović (born Bišina Nevesinje, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 11 April 1935) is a Bosnian-Croatian born poet, linguist, literary scholar and Bible translator. He adopted Swedish nationality and writes in Swedish and Croatian. In 1999 he was elected a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences primarily for his services to minority languages.

Studies
Arapović studied at the Economic Faculty, University of Zagreb 1960-65. He came to Sweden as a refugee in 1965. He first got work at the retail chain Kooperativa Förbundet and then at IBM in Stockholm. Meanwhile, he was studying for a doctorate at the School of Slavonic and Baltic Languages, Stockholm University, (Ph.D. in Slavic languages 1984).

Institute for Bible Translation, 1973
Arapović founded the Institute for Bible Translation in Stockholm in 1973 to publish Bibles for "non-Slavic peoples in Slavic countries," and provide not just Bible translations into the languages of Russia but also Central Asian languages.

Poetry
His collection of poems Prolomom (2005) was awarded the Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatian Writers' Association's "Antun Branko Šimić Prize" in 2006.

Publications

Non-Fiction
 Dječja  Biblija (Children's Bible) with Vera Mattelmäki, 1983
 Miroslav Krleža Den kroatiske guden Mars ("The Croatian god Mars"): tillkomsthistoria,  Dissertation in Swedish, 1984.
 Östgötasonen : Karl Einar Johansson. ("Son of Östgötland") Swedish biography  Stockholm 1988
 Till alla tungomål och folk : Institutet för bibelöversättning 20 år, 1973-1993
 ("Biblical Silk Road - Memories of IBT 1973-1998.") Swedish 1997
 Hrvatski mirospis 1778.  1999.
 Krigsdimmor : från Kroatien och Bosnien-Hercegovina 1991-1995. - Stockholm : Codices, 2002
 Between despair and lamentation  Translated from Croatian by Ivana Pozajić Jerić Elmhurst College, 2002.

Poetry (in Croatian)
 Zvončići ("Jingle Bells") 12 booklets of verses for children, 1977.
 Iz noćnog dnevnika 1989.
 Tamnionik 1992
 Kamenopis  1993
 Povratak hrvatskih pukovnija 1779.'' 2000
 Prolomom ("Fractures") Mostar Biblioteka Suvremenici

References

1935 births
Living people
People from Nevesinje
Croat writers from Bosnia and Herzegovina
20th-century Croatian poets
Swedish people of Bosnia and Herzegovina descent
Bible translators
Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
21st-century Croatian poets
Croatian-language poets
Swedish-language writers
Croatian male poets
20th-century Swedish male writers
21st-century male writers

Borislav Arapović


Philipp Jakob Straub (30 April 1706 (baptism) – 26 August 1774) was an Austrian sculptor from a well-known family of German Baroque sculptors. His father Johann George Straub and his brothers Johann Baptist, Joseph, and Johann Georg Straub were also sculptors, as was his nephew Franz Xaver Messerschmidt.

Straub was born in Wiesensteig in Germany and studied in Munich, but he spent most of his career in Austria, first in Vienna, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, and then in Graz, where in 1730 he joined the workshop of the sculptor Johann Jakob Schoy (1686–1733).

In 1733, upon the death of Schoy, Straub married the widow of his mentor and took over his workshop. He remained in Graz for the rest of his life.  He died there, aged 68.

Straub worked primarily in stone and wood in a Rococo style that was deeply influenced by local Styrian traditions.

His most notable works include the altars (1730) (now destroyed) in the Parish Church of the Holy Blood in Graz; the statue of St. John Nepomuk (1734) in front of the pilgrimage church in Weiz; the images of St. John Nepomuk and St. Aloysius (1744–1745) on the altars in the Cathedral of St. Ägydius in Graz; four statues (1764) in front of Schloss Eggenberg in Graz; the high altar and two side altars in the parish church at Ebersdorf (1766); and the figures of St. Michael and two other angels (1769) on the pediment of façade of the Maria-Hilf-Kirche in Graz.

References

1706 births
1774 deaths
Austrian Baroque sculptors
Austrian male sculptors
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni
Catholic sculptors

Philipp Jakob Straub


To compromise is to make a deal where one person gives up part of his or her demand. In arguments, compromise is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms, while often involving variations from an original goal or desire.
Extremism is often considered as antonym to compromise, which, depending on context, may be associated with concepts of balance or tolerance. In the negative connotation, compromise may be referred to as capitulation, referring to a "surrender" of objectives, principles, or material, in the process of negotiating an agreement. In human relationships, "compromise" is frequently said to be an agreement that no party is happy with, this is because the parties involved often feel that they either gave away too much or that they received too little.

From cultural background and influences, the meaning and perception of the word "compromise" may be different: In the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries, the word "compromise" has a positive meaning (as a consent, an agreement where both parties win something); in the U.S., it can have rather negative connotations, as in "compromising principles" as a sell-out of basic beliefs.

Studies in compromise
Defining and finding the best possible compromise is an important problem in fields like game theory and the voting system.

Research has indicated that less-than-optimal compromises are often the result of negotiators failing to realize when they have interests that are completely compatible with those of the other party, and hence, they settle for suboptimal agreements. Mutually-better outcomes can often be found by careful study of both parties' interests, especially if done early in negotiations.

Related pages
 Three-Fifths Compromise (USA)
 Missouri Compromise (USA)
 Compromise of 1850 (USA)
 Compromise of 1867 (Austria-Hungary)
 Constitution

References

Human communication

Compromise


Adriano Maria Correia Gomes de Oliveira, GCIH, ComL, or just Adriano (April 9, 1942 – October 16, 1982) was a Portuguese musician, born to a conservative Roman Catholic family in Porto. His family moved to Avintes after his birth. He went to Coimbra to study at the University of Coimbra, and eventually dropped out, albeit being involved in the student activism and Coimbra fado music.

Adriano was part of a generation of composers and singers of political songs that used music and lyrics to fight against the Estado Novo dictatorial regime. For that, he became famous among the pro-democratic resistance and was persecuted by the political police, PIDE, for his anti-dictatorial actions. Adriano was a personal friend of musicians Zeca Afonso, Padre Fanhais, Sérgio Godinho, and Luísa Basto, with whom he collaborated in the recording of many albums.

His first recording, Fado de Coimbra, was released in 1963, accompanied by António Portugal and Rui Pato. In this record he performs the first rendition of Trova do Vento Que Passa, with poetry by Manuel Alegre, which would become a sort of anthem of resistance to the dictatorship. In 1967 he recorded the album Adriano Correia de Oliveira with, among other songs, "Canção com Lágrimas".

During his military service in 1969, O Canto e as Armas, with poetry by Manuel Alegre, was released followed in 1970 by Cantaremos and Gente de Aqui e de Agora in 1971. After the Carnation Revolution, the single "Que Nunca Mais" with poems by Manuel da Fonseca was released. The record, directed and produced by Fausto Bordalo Dias, includes a rare participation of guitarist Carlos Paredes. That year, he was nominated artist of the year by Musicweek.

Adriano was also a member of the Portuguese Communist Party and participated many times in the Avante! Festival annual fest. He was a close friend of the socialist Manuel Alegre, who wrote many of his lyrics. He died in Avintes at the age of 40 due to a vascular accident.

Albums

1967 – "Adriano Correia de Oliveira"
1969 – O canto e as armas
E de súbito um sino
Raiz
E a carne se fez verbo
E o bosque se fez barco
Peregrinação
A batalha de Alcácer-Quibir
Regresso
Canção da fronteira
Por aquele caminho
Canto da nossa tristeza
Trova do vento que passa N.2
As mãos
Post-scriptum
1970 – Cantaremos
Cantar de emigração
Saudade pedra e espada
Fala do homem nascido
O Sol p'rguntou à Lua
Canção para o meu amor não se perder no mercado da concorrência
Lágrima de preta
Canção com lágrimas
Cantar para um pastor
Como hei-de amar serenamente
Sapateia
A noite dos poetas
1971 – Gente de aqui e de agora
Emigração
E alegre se fez triste
O senhor morgado
Cana verde
A vila de Alvito
Canção tão simples
Cantiga de amigo
Para Rosalia
Roseira brava
História do quadrilheiro Manuel Domingos Louzeiro
1975 – Que nunca mais
Tejo que levas as águas
O senhor gerente
As balas
No vale escuro
Tu e eu meu amor
Recado a Helena
Dona Abastança
Cantiga de Montemaior
P'ra a frente
1980 – Cantigas Portuguesas

References

1942 births
1982 deaths
People from Vila Nova de Gaia
Portuguese Communist Party politicians
Portuguese anti-fascists
20th-century Portuguese male singers
University of Coimbra alumni

Adriano Correia de Oliveira


The Ethiopian calendar is the main calendar used in Ethiopia. It serves as the liturgical calendar for Christians in Eritrea and Ethiopia belonging to the Orthodox Tewahedo churches, Eastern Catholic Church and Coptic Orthodox Church. It is a solar calendar which comes from the Egyptian calendar. But like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years. It begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar.  A seven to eight-year gap between the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars results from an alternate calculation in determining the date of the annunciation of Jesus.

Makeup
Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopic calendar has twelve months of 30 days plus five or six epagomenal days, which make up a thirteenth month. The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar. The names of the days are in Ge'ez. The sixth epagomenal day is added every four years without exception on August 29 of the Julian calendar. This occurs six months before the Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1900 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually September 11 (Gregorian). It, however, falls on September 12 in years before the Gregorian leap year. The Ethiopian New Year falls on September 11 of the Gregorian calendar. On leap years it falls on September 12.

History
In 1582 the Christian world changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Ethiopia did not make the change. As a result, Ethiopia is seven years and eight months behind those countries that use the Gregorian calendar. Christmas and Easter fall on different dates than they would elsewhere.

Tourists
In Ethiopia banks, airlines and other institutions that tourists would use run on the western calendar. Everywhere else the Ethiopian calendar is used. That may cause some confusion.

Notes

References

Other websites
 Current local time and date in Ethiopia

Ethiopia
Calendars

Ethiopian calendar


The $100 Guitar Project was started on October 20, 2010, when Nick Didkovsky and Chuck O'Meara bought a $100 electric guitar from Elderly Instruments. In 2 years and 30,000 miles of travel throughout the US and Europe, the guitar passed through the hands of over 65 players, each of whom recorded a piece with it, signed it and then passed it on to the next player. The result was a 2-CD album released on Bridge Records, Inc. in January 2013 (BRIDGE 9381A/B). 50% (about  $14.75) of the album proceeds go to CARE, an organization fighting global poverty.

The guitar has been identified as a FujiGen Gakki EJ-2 (with a missing neck pickup). These guitars were made in Japan from 1962 to 1965. The time limit ranged from a few seconds to three minutes.

Guitarists
Alex Skolnick, David Starobin, Elliott Sharp, Mike Keneally, Barry Cleveland, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, Mark Hitt, Keith Rowe, Nels Cline, Andy Aledort, Hillary Fielding, John Shiurba, Karl Evangelista, Phil Burk, Ray Kallas, Janet Feder, Thomas Dimuzio, Julia Miller, Chris Murphy, Chuck O'Meara, Marty Carlson, Shawn Persinger, Kai Niggemann, Steve MacLean, Ken Field, Roger Miller, Michael Bierylo, Bill Brovold, Larry Polansky, Biota Bill Sharp, Ava Mendoza, Amy Denio, Bruce Eisenbeil, Caroline Feldmeier, Colin Marston, David Linaburg, Hans Tammen, James Moore, Jesse Krakow, Jesse Kranzler, Joe Bouchard, Jon Diaz, Josh Lopes, Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, Marco Cappelli, Marco Oppedisano, Joe Berger, Mark Solomon, Mark Stewart, Mike Lerner, Nick Didkovsky, Rhys Chatham, Ron Anderson, Taylor Levine, Tom Marsan, Greg Anderson, Han-earl Park, Del Rey, Teisco Del Rey, Matt Wilson, Bruce Zeines, Toon Callier/Zwerm, Juan Parra Cancino, and Wiek Hijmans.

References

External links
 $100 Guitar Project - Official Website
 $100 Guitar Project / Various
 The $100 Guitar Project | Facebook

Guitars

$100 Guitar Project


Conrad (died 27 February 906), called the Old or the Elder, was the Duke of Thuringia briefly in 892–93. He was the namesake of the Conradiner family and son of Udo of Neustria.  His mother (probably) was a daughter of Conrad I of Logenahe (832–860). He was the count of the Oberlahngau (886), Hessengau (897), Gotzfeldgau (903), Wetterau (905), and Wormsgau (906). He united all of Hesse under his political control and under his heirs this territory became the Duchy of Franconia.

Early in his career, Conrad feuded with the Babenbergs Henry of Franconia and Adalbert. Conrad's chief residence was Friedeslar in Hesse. He was a comes (count) and ministerialis of Arnulf of Germany in 891. In 892, Duke Poppo was deposed from his offices and replaced in Thuringia and the Sorbian March by Conrad. He only held the dukedom briefly before he was replaced by Burchard. The reason for his appointment probably represent a change in Arnulf's policy in favour of the Conradines over the Babenbergs; but Conrad's short tenure may reflect his lack of support in Thuringia or an unwillingness on his part to be confined there.

Around 880, Conrad married Glismod (also spelled Glismuot or Glismut). She may have been a daughter of Arnulf of Carinthia, or else a relative of the earlier Thuringian dukes (perhaps a daughter of Thachulf), thus giving her husband a hereditary claim to Thuringia. They had four children: Conrad the Younger, the future king of Germany; Eberhard, future duke of Franconia; Otto (also Udo or Odo), future count in the Ruhrgau and the middle Lahn, who died in 918; and a daughter, name unknown.

In 906, as a result of a feud with the Babenbergs, Conrad was killed in battle near Fritzlar and was buried in the church of Saint Martin at Weilburg. His eldest son was also old enough to participate in this war. His widow, Glismod, died in 26 April 924 and was buried next to him.

Sources
Reuter, Timothy. Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056. New York: Longman, 1991.
Reuter, Timothy (trans.) The Annals of Fulda. (Manchester Medieval series, Ninth-Century Histories, Volume II.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992.
Bernhardt, John W. Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c. 936–1075. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Notes

Dukes of Thuringia
Military personnel killed in action
Conradines
10th-century dukes in Europe
9th-century dukes in Europe
9th-century births
906 deaths
Year of birth unknown

Conrad, Duke of Thuringia


Rowan Cheshire (born 1 September 1995) is a British freestyle skier, specialising in the halfpipe. Cheshire competed in the 2013 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Voss, Norway, where she finished 17th. She won a bronze medal at the 2013 World Junior Championships in Valmalenco. In January 2014 she became the first British female skier to win a halfpipe competition on the FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup when she took the halfpipe event at a meeting in Calgary. This was the first Freestyle World Cup win for a British female skier since Jilly Curry won an aerials competition in 1992.

She was competing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, during which she was knocked unconscious whilst in training. After the crash, she  withdrew from the Olympics. The accident left her with a broken nose and severe concussion, and was the first of three head injuries she sustained over a period of 18 months which resulted in her suffering severe physical and mental side effects. However, after two years away from the sport she returned to competition in December 2016, finishing fourth in a Revolution Tour event at Copper Mountain, Colorado, going on to take a top 30 finish in the first halfpipe competition of the 2016–17 FIS Freestyle Skiing World Cup which was also hosted by Copper Mountain, followed by a 14th place in a World Cup competition in Mammoth Mountain in January 2017.

She competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics qualifying for the halfpipe skiing final.

References

1995 births
Living people
Freestyle skiers at the 2018 Winter Olympics
English female freestyle skiers
Olympic freestyle skiers for Great Britain
Sportspeople from Stoke-on-Trent

Rowan Cheshire


In artificial intelligence and operations research, hierarchical constraint satisfaction (HCS) is a method of handling constraint satisfaction problems where the variables have large domains by exploiting their internal structure.

For many real-world problems the domain elements cluster together into sets with common properties and relations. This structure can be represented as a hierarchy and is partially ordered on the subset of a relation. The expectation is that the domains are structured so that the elements of a set frequently share consistency properties permitting them to be retained or eliminated as a unit. Thus, if some elements of a set satisfy a constraint, but not all, the subsets of the set are considered. In this way, if no elements of a set can satisfy the constraint the whole set can be discarded. Thus, structuring the domain helps in considering sets of elements all at a time and hence helps in pruning the search space more quickly.

References

Constraint programming

Hierarchical constraint satisfaction


The military use of railways derives from their ability to move troops or materiel rapidly and, less usually, on their use as a platform for military systems, like very large railroad guns and armoured trains, in their own right.  Railways have been employed for military purposes in wartime since the Revolutions of 1848.  Improvements in other forms of transport have rendered railways less important to the military since the end of World War II and the Cold War, although they are still employed for the transport of armoured vehicles to and from exercises or the mass transport of vehicles to a theatre of operations.  The US Air Force developed the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison mobile ICBM in the 1980s, but it never reached operational status.

Due to the expense and time required to build specifically military railway networks, military use of railways is usually based on a pre-existing civilian railway network rather than a military-owned one.  However, specialized military types of rolling stock have frequently been used.  Military railway is usually built and operated by railway troops. Sometimes so called strategic railways are built where civilian considerations would not justify a line or not one built to those standards.

Military railways
 Bicester Military Railway
 British military narrow gauge railways
Fort Eustis Military Railroad
 Melbourne Military Railway

Railways in war

Early Prussian use
The Kingdom of Prussia's VI Corps, some 12,000 men and their guns, horses, ammunition and other material, was transported on two railway lines to Kraków in 1846. The Prussian Army used railways to move its forces during the First Schleswig War in 1849–1851. Three Prussian battalions were deployed by rail to crush the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden. The first Prussian regulations for transport of troops on state railways were issued in 1856.

Hungarian Revolution of 1848
In 1849, an Imperial Russian corps with all of its equipment, was moved by rail from Poland to Göding in Moravia to link up with the Austrian army during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

Crimean War
Military railways were used to establish a reliable supply to British Army troops besieging the city of Sevastopol from Balaklava during the severe winter of 1855 in the Crimean War. The Grand Crimean Central Railway was just  long, and was purpose built.

Second Italian War of Independence
During the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859, the French Army moved 130,000 soldiers to northern Italy by rail. The Imperial Guard Corps from Paris and two corps from Lyon were sent to Toulon via rail, from where a total of 70,000 men were shipped to Genoa. The French I Corps was then ferried from Genoa to Novi by rail. Another two French corps were transported by rail to Savoy, where they crossed the Alps and boarded trains to Turin. To improve Piedmont's railway system, the French Navy shipped locomotives to Genoa. A French siege train was shipped from Marseille and Toulon to Genoa, from where it was moved by rail to Lombardy for use against Mantua in late June.

American Civil War
The American Civil War in 1861–1865 was the first large war in which railroads were both a major tool and a major target of military action. A few railroads were custom built:

 United States Military Railroad rebuilt the City Point Railroad, extending to Petersburg during the Siege of Petersburg
 Confederate railroads in the American Civil War
 Centreville Military Railroad

Paraguayan War
In 1867 during the Paraguayan War some ironclad vessels of the Brazilian navy became trapped on the River Paraguay between the enemy Paraguayan forts of Curupaty and Humaitá.  To keep them supplied with fuel, ammunition and provisions the Brazilian ministry of marine ordered an emergency military railway to be built through the almost impenetrable coastal region of the Chaco.  The sleepers of this line almost floated over the boggy ground.  This supply line was known as the Affonso Celso, and sustained the ironclads in their precarious position for six months, until they were able to dash past the Fortress of Humaitá in an incident known as the Passage of Humaitá.

Russian use in Asia
The Trans-Siberian Railway (Транссибирская железнодорожная магистраль - Транссиб), before 1917 was called the Great Siberian Route (Великий Сибирский Путь).  First construction begun on 19 May (31 May) 1891. It was used in the Russo-Japanese War and Russian Civil War.

Mahdist War
In 1896-98 during the Mahdist War, Kitchener built the Sudan Military Railroad
extending the Egyptian railways into the Sudan.

World War I
The early phase of World War I was influenced to a large degree by the speed of military mobilization via railways. The German Schlieffen Plan relied on an extensive network of strategic railways to allow crushing France before Russia could mobilize.  However, ultimately this failed as Russia mobilized more quickly than Germany had anticipated, and Germany's offensive on the Western front ground down to stalemate and trench warfare.  The resulting unprecedented heavy use of artillery required transport on an unprecedented scale, and narrow gauge military trench railways were quickly built to service the Western Front for both sides.

World War II

German military transport was mostly dependent on trains and horses in World War II. Railway sabotage during World War II was among the difficulties. Leaders also used military trains, for example Adolf Hitler's Amerika and Hermann Goering's Asien. Trains were protected by railcars armed with anti aircraft guns or flak waggon.

German bombing of Polish railways contributed greatly to the swift success of the 1939 invasion of Poland. In turn, losses due to air attacks on Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1944 severely handicapped German logistics.

Japan built several railways for military purposes, notably the Burma-Siam Railway, known as the Death Railway because of the number of Allied prisoners-of-war and Asian labourers who died to construct it.

The existing Northeast Indian Railways were expanded by the Americans to supply China via the Ledo Road. Railway lines were also constructed by the Allies in the Suez Canal area.

See also

 Central Asian Military railway
 Decauville railway
 Feldbahn
 Heeresfeldbahn - German and Austrian military railways
 Light railway
 Longmoor Military Railway - built by the Royal Engineers to train on railway operations on it. It closed in 1969.
 Railway troops
 Russian Railway Troops
 Strategic railway
 War Department Light Railways

External links
 "They're Highballing Now." Popular Science, February 1945, pp. 77–83, article on the landing of thousands of rolling stock across D-Day beaches During World War II and rebuilding of French railways.

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading
 Vecamer, Arvo L., Deutsche Reichsbahn: The German State Railway in WWII,
 Connor, W.D., Maj., Military Railways, Professional Papers No.32, Corps of Engineers US Army, Revised edition 1917, Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1917.

Military transport

Military railways


An indirect presidential election was held in Hungary on 13 March 2017. János Áder was elected President of Hungary for a second term.

Background
Following the outbreak of a controversy surrounding his 1992 doctoral dissertation, President Pál Schmitt announced his resignation to the National Assembly on 2 April 2012. Fidesz politician and incumbent MEP János Áder was elected on 2 May to a five-year term by a vote of 262–40, and assumed office on 10 May 2012.

Since 2012, several journalists and political scientists had assumed that Viktor Orbán intended to move from his position as Prime Minister to become head of state at the next presidential election. As Népszabadság author Ildikó Csuhaj quoted an anonymous source in her article dated 21 May 2014, the "role of head of state, representation of a united nation is not just a momentary desire, but a realistically thought out option", and "this is a dilemma for the Prime Minister for the time being". Csuhaj argued that the governing coalition were considering the adoption of a French-type semi-presidential system, as the government had a supermajority in the National Assembly, and in this event János Lázár would have succeeded Orbán as Prime Minister, according to reports from Figyelő. In an interview with Handelsblatt in October 2012, Orbán said that "a presidential system is probably more appropriate to implement difficult reforms than a parliamentary system". Following the resignation of Schmitt in April 2012, Orbán told a conference at the Supreme Court that "there were numerous arguments for a presidential system" during the constitutional process in 2011, but in the event they did not adopt that "for historical and law-abiding reasons".

In early 2015, however, Fidesz lost its two-thirds majority following the 2014 Hungarian Internet tax protests and a subsequent decrease in support for the government. The governing party suffered defeats at two parliamentary by-elections in February and April 2015, both in Veszprém County; thus it was unable to amend the constitution unilaterally after that. Before the by-election in February 2015, János T. Juhász, editor of the left-wing newspaper Népszava, wrote that the main significance of the by-election was to prevent Orbán becoming President of Hungary "with absolute power for nine years". In May 2015, Orbán said to Hír TV, "the probability is less than zero" that he would become President after 2017. That position "requires a different political character, who represents the unity of the nation". On 13 December 2015, the 26th congress of the ruling Fidesz party re-elected Viktor Orbán as party leader. He said in his speech that he was ready to lead the party into the forthcoming parliamentary election and to continue to serve as prime minister if Fidesz wins re-election in 2018. With that statement, Orbán made it clear that he does not intend to become President, succeeding Áder during the 2017 indirect presidential election.

Electoral system
Under the current Constitution of Hungary adopted by the Fidesz–KDNP government coalition in 2011, the President must be elected in a secret ballot, no sooner than sixty but no later than thirty days before expiry of the mandate of the previous office-holder, or if his or her mandate terminated prematurely, within thirty days of the termination. The constitution authorizes the Speaker of the National Assembly to set the date for the election.

A presidential candidate needs the written nomination of at least one-fifth of the Members of Parliament (thus about 40 MPs), who may not nominate more than one candidate. In the first round of the election, a two-thirds majority of all incumbent MPs is required to elect the president. If this condition is not fulfilled, a second round is held between the two candidates who received the highest and second highest numbers of votes in the first round. (Since 1990, there have been no more than two candidates in any presidential election.) A simple majority of the voting MPs is then sufficient.

Candidates

Fidesz–KDNP

In contrast to Schmitt, who during his presidency of almost two years did not send any bill which had been voted on by the National Assembly back for consideration by the legislature, nor submit any to the Constitutional Court for judicial review, János Áder proved to be a counterweight to the Orbán government on a number of important issues. For instance, he sent the proposed voter-registration plan to the Constitutional Court for preliminary legal review in December 2012. A month later the court ruled that the law curtailed voting rights to an unjustifiable degree, because the requirement for voters to register before going to the polls applied to every voter. Following that, the cabinet withdrew the election procedures bill. In May 2015, Áder refused to sign the new land law which was intended to pass the right of management of national parks to the National Land Fund Managing Organization (NFA). Áder also used his veto power in March 2016 on the controversial bill which would have declared public funds allocated to the foundations of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) as "private funds".

By contrast, Áder signed the controversial fourth amendment of the constitution. "It is my unequivocal constitutional duty to sign and declare this constitutional amendment as law. This is regardless of whose tastes the changes meet and regardless of whether I like it or not", he defended his position. Left-wing liberal journalist Gábor Miklósi (Index.hu) summarized Áder's presidency with the argument that the president remained silent on the really important matters and "his rare criticism does not hinder but legitimizes Hungary's increasingly authoritarian political system".

Despite Miklósi's remarks, the above disagreements, primarily the rejection of electoral registration and the reclassification of MNB public funds, were serious political setbacks for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who, as a result, seriously considered the replacement of Ádár by a more obedient candidate in the 2017 presidential election. Pro-government portal Origo.hu, citing anonymous sources from the Fidesz leadership, wrote in April 2016 (a month after Áder refused to countersign the MNB law) that Áder's dismissal after the expiry of his mandate in May 2017 was "almost certain". The website noted that Orbán personally opposed Áder's nomination, and wanted a non-politician in his place, for instance academics József Pálinkás or Szilveszter E. Vizi. In May 2016, Hír TV's microphone recorded a short conversation between György Rubovszky (KDNP), Chairman of the Justice Committee, and Imre Vas (Fidesz), the committee's deputy chairman. Rubovszky told his colleague that there was no way to re-elect Áder in 2017 as "Viktor [Orbán] does not allow it".

On 8 December 2016, the opposition ATV claimed that Calvinist pastor and Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog had been selected by Orbán and the party leadership as successor to Áder as President of Hungary. The news portal added that the passive attitude of Áder during the October 2016 migrant quota referendum campaign was also harmful for the "relationship of trust" between him and Orbán. ATV also referred to the government's dilemma: was it appropriate to elect a Calvinist President (Balog), with the incumbent Prime Minister (Viktor Orbán) and House Speaker (László Kövér) also belonging to that ecclesiastical community, despite Hungary's Catholic majority? Balog refused to comment on press reports. In contrast to ATV, Fidesz-backed Origo.hu reported three days later that Áder would remain as President despite such "serious candidates" as Balog and Barnabás Lenkovics, a former President of the Constitutional Court. The news portal added that re-election was a decision only for Áder, who had asked for time to consider his candidature. After a long conservation with Kövér, Áder telephoned Orbán to say that for his part, he was willing to undertake a second presidential term, ATV wrote. On 21 December, ATV reported that Orbán had requested from the party leadership the official nomination of János Áder as president, during an external meeting in Dobogókő. The party presidency accepted the nomination, the source said. Pro-government daily Magyar Idők confirmed ATV's information the next day: it wrote that "there is a consensus within the Fidesz party presidency to nominate Áder as their candidate for the post of President of Hungary". Parliamentary group leader Lajos Kósa officially announced Áder's nomination on the same day. On 29 December, Áder announced that he would accept the nomination, calling his presidential role a "constitutional service".

Index.hu journalist Szabolcs Dull quoted views and opinions from the ruling party, which told, in addition to Balog's Calvinist religion, which indeed appeared to be a strong argument against his nomination in the eyes of the Prime Minister, who sought good relations with the Catholic Church in Hungary; removing Balog from his current position as Minister of Human Resources would have caused major problems in the super ministry and the entire government structure, in contrast to an expected political benefit if Fidesz elected Balog president. Dull argued that Áder had in the event not caused "big trouble" during his first term, and so his re-election "did not represent a significant political risk" to Orbán. On 5 January 2017, left-wing liberal portal 444.hu reported that several members of the Fidesz presidency, primarily László Kövér and Gergely Gulyás, had succeeded in convincing Orbán at the Dobogókő meeting to choose Áder rather than Balog.

Left-wing opposition

Among the parliamentary groups, only Fidesz had more than 40 MPs which was a requirement to nominate a presidential candidate. Since the autumn of 2016, Sándor Székely, the president of the Hungarian Solidarity Movement and also a member of the General Assembly of Budapest, had decided to look into the possibility of proposing an acceptable candidate whom all "democratic parliamentary parties" (i.e. excluding the far-right Jobbik party) could support. According to Székely, Balázs Gulyás (a leading figure of the 2014 Internet tax protests), literary historian Péter Krasztev and Székely himself started to look for a suitable nominee. Eventually they launched a petition to support the nomination of legal scholar and academic László Majtényi. Majtényi had served as Parliamentary Commissioner for Privacy (1995–2001) and President of the National Radio and Television Commission (ORTT) (2008–09), and held the position of Director of the Eötvös Károly Institute NGO during the candidature. Thirty-nine intellectuals and well-known public figures had signed the petition by 2 January 2017, including László Z. Bitó, János Bródy, Kinga Göncz, Ágnes Heller and Lajos Parti Nagy. They believed Áder was loyal to his party rather than to the constitutional system, and that Majtényi would effectively provide checks and balances to the Orbán cabinet. On 4 January, Majtényi announced that he accepted the intellectuals' nomination and published the four points of his presidential programme: a call for constitutional referendum; a free and fair electoral system; a fight against poverty; and a fight against corruption.

In the 2014 parliamentary election, the short-lived Unity political alliance had gained only 38 seats, less than the 40 required to nominate a presidential candidate, thus Majtényi needed the support of Politics Can Be Different (LMP) which was not a member party of the Unity alliance, unlike the other left-wing parties. As early as 3 January, the Dialogue for Hungary (PM) expressed its support for Majtényi, who "always fought for the people with the tool of the law". On the same day, party leader Gábor Fodor declared on Hír TV that the Hungarian Liberal Party (Liberals) would join Majtényi's initiative. Independent MP Péter Kónya, also chairman of the Solidarity for Republic extra-parliamentary party, added his signature on 5 January. LMP decided to support Majtényi's nomination "in the light of the present realities" on 3 February, but also argued in favour of introduction of a direct presidential election system. On 15 February, the parliamentary group of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) announced its support at a news conference. Party chairman Gyula Molnár said they had found a candidate who "is able to represent their democratic commitment". On 24 February, the presidency of the Democratic Coalition (DK) authorized the party's four MPs to support and vote for Majtényi. Leader Ferenc Gyurcsány said their candidate represents "solidarity and republican ideals". Finally, the Together (Együtt) party also declared its support on 27 February. In summary, 43 MPs (including two independents) supported Majtényi's nomination, and he thus became an official candidate for the position of President of Hungary, the first opposition candidate since András Balogh (2010) and the first non-partisan civil candidate since László Sólyom (2005).

Jobbik
In April 2016, the far-right Jobbik party initiated a constitutional amendment to adopt a direct presidential election system, arguing that this would increase the president's legitimacy. The parliament did not put the issue on the agenda. As Jobbik had only 24 MPs, the party was unable to propose its own candidate for the presidency. On 5 February, parliamentary group leader János Volner announced that their MPs would vote neither for Áder nor for Majtényi. Volner also said that Jobbik MPs would not register for the election and would not collect their ballots on election day. He added that, in the present system, people can only be nominated "whose candidacy is allowed by Viktor", recalling Rubovszky's infamous words.

Campaign
House Speaker László Kövér set 13 March as the election day, which was the earliest possible date. Opposition politicians claimed that the government wanted to avoid giving Majtényi the opportunity to contest the election on the national day of the 1848 Revolution. Fidesz agreed that the two candidates would be given the opportunity to deliver a 15-minute speech in parliament just before the election.

Fidesz launched a negative campaign against Majtényi through its wide media coverage. Parliamentary group leader Lajos Kósa sarcastically remarked that the Socialist Party were supporting a candidate "who had earlier talked about the party in a tone of greatest contempt". A few weeks later Kósa called Majtényi the "candidate of George Soros", referring to the Open Society Foundations-backed Eötvös Károly Institute. In response, Majtényi said that he had followed and represented his own convictions throughout his life. Arguing in favour of their candidate, Kósa said that "in important constitutional issues, János Áder is able to validate a position based on the principles of constitution and democracy, rather than on Fidesz's standpoint", implying, according to critics, that Fidesz's position does not usually comply with the Constitution and the principles of democracy.

Pro-government blog Pesti Srácok claimed that Soros had donated HUF 145 million to the Eötvös Institute since 2010. Following that, Christian Democrat MP István Hollik held a press conference in which he urged Majtényi to answer: what are Majtényi's exact tasks in exchange for foreign donations, and whether he represents the interests of Soros against Hungary, or not. Majtényi refused the allegations and said that his organisation had received only HUF 57 million from the Open Society since 2010.

While János Áder remained completely passive during the so-called campaign period (from December 2016, he gave no interviews), László Majtényi visited all county seats and held public forums. A day before the election, the Nézőpont poll showed that 54% of the adult population had supported the re-election of Áder, while Majtényi had 14% support, with 32% "don't knows".

Election
On the day of the election, the two candidates delivered a 15-minute speech to the National Assembly. János Áder, who avoided domestic policy issues in his speech, listed the achievements of his first presidential term, including the improvement in Hungarian-Serbian relations, when the two countries' legislatures mutually condemned World War 2 war crimes against each other, and the successful international representation of Hungary's climate and environment policy. László Majtényi come out in favor of independent institutions against "human capriciousness", emphasizing corruption, poverty and the Orbán government's numerous controversial measures. He added that Orbán followed the theory of Machiavelli, when defines a common enemy, for instance migrants, liberals or George Soros. Referring to Orbán, he said, "he who acquires all power, will lose everything".

Áder failed to obtain the required two-thirds of the votes in the first round of the secret ballot: he received 131 votes (which number was equal to the number of pro-government deputies). Majtényi obtained 44 votes, i.e. the total number of left-wing opposition MPs, plus the three independent MPs, who were also critics of the government. The 24 representatives of Jobbik boycotted the election, and did not collect their ballot papers. Before the second round, the four MPs of the Democratic Coalition announced that they would boycott the election too, as the government parties were now able to elect their own candidate unilaterally in the second round. Áder received 131 votes again, while Majtényi gained 39 votes. In addition to the Democratic Coalition's representatives, one additional MP (possibly from the opposition or independents) did not vote in the second round. Áder became the first head of state of Hungary to be re-elected for a second term since Árpád Göncz, who served as President from 1990 to 2000.

Result

References

2017 elections in Europe
2017 in Hungary
March 2017 events in Europe
2017

2017 Hungarian presidential election


LOMO () is a manufacturer of medical and motion-picture lenses and equipment based in St. Petersburg, Russia. The company was awarded three Order of Lenin decorations by the Soviet Union.

Its Lomo LC-A consumer camera was the inspiration for the lomography photographic movement.

History

The company was founded in 1914 in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg). It was established as a French – Russian limited company to produce lenses and cameras. It manufactured gun sights during World War I. In 1919, it was nationalised. In 1921, the factory was named the Factory of State Optics, G.O.Z. In 1925, camera production was resumed, and several lens designs tested between 1925 and 1929. Further reorganisations of the Soviet optical factories in several stages finally resulted in that the factory at Leningrad became GOMZ, the Russian Optical and Mechanical Factory.

In the transition period 1932 to 1935 a copy of the Leica camera was developed, the VOOMP I. Today LOMO makes military optics, scientific research instruments, criminological microscopes, medical equipment, and a range of consumer products.

Known as GOMZ (State Optical-Mechanical Plant), the company was transformed under the direction of Mikhail Panfilov, who united several industries and founded the LOMO Association in 1962. In 1990 - 1997 Ilya Klebanov was the Director General of LOMO Association.

The company went public in 1993, and was renamed LOMO PLC; it is traded on the RTS Classic Stock Market. The company is ISO 9001 certified and exports worldwide. Night-vision devices and telescopes account for 30% of the company's exports. Germany is the largest importer of LOMO products. Medical equipment, fiber optic cables and endoscopes, optical components and cameras are consumed mainly by the Russian market and other states of the former Soviet Union. Military equipment and science research instruments make a significant share of production for export to such countries as Israel, India, United States, Canada, Mexico, and other international markets.

References

External links

LOMO America, Inc.
USSRPhoto.com Wiki catalog of LOMO manufactured cameras. (See GOMZ/LOMO sections)

Manufacturing companies based in Saint Petersburg
Manufacturing companies of the Soviet Union
Electronics companies of Russia
Optics manufacturing companies
Photography companies of Russia
Medical technology companies of Russia
Photography in the Soviet Union
Manufacturing companies established in 1914
Russian brands
Soviet brands
Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union
1914 establishments in the Russian Empire
Ministry of the Defense Industry (Soviet Union)

LOMO


The Saint in Europe is a collection of short stories by Leslie Charteris, first published in 1953 by The Crime Club in the United States and in 1954 by Hodder and Stoughton in the United Kingdom. This was the 29th book to feature the adventures of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint", and it also marked a resumption of the book series after a five-year hiatus. The publication of this book also marked the 25th anniversary of the character.

The Saint in Europe marked the beginning of the "travelogue" era for The Saint. Continuing with the theme started by The Saint in New York, The Saint in Miami, and The Saint Goes West, the stories in this and the following two volumes take place in different exotic locales around the world. As such, it is the first Saint book since the 1938 short story collection The Happy Highwayman to not be primarily set in the United States. By this time, however, Templar's British origins have been obscured and he is referred to as an American at least once.

Stories
The book consisted of 7 stories:

Paris: The Covetous Headsman: After a man is found beheaded, Simon helps the victim's sister track down the culprit.
Amsterdam: The Angel's Eye: An American couple recruits Templar to recover a missing diamond the size of the Hope Diamond.
The Rhine: The Rhine Maiden: On board a train speeding across Germany, Simon takes matters into his own hands when he meets a Dutch father and daughter who have died savings to a swindler. Includes a metafictional reference to the Saint comic strip.
Tirol: The Golden Journey: Templar sets out to hoist a spoiled young woman on her own petard by taking her on a rugged backpacking trip. A change-of-pace story with no actual mystery or adventure elements.
Lucerne: The Loaded Tourist: After Simon witnesses a murder, he finds himself intrigued by the contents of the dead man's suitcase.
Juan-Les-Pins: The Spanish Cow: Simon plots a jewel heist.
Rome: The Latin Touch: When the visiting U.S. Secretary of State's daughter is kidnapped by a Mafia kingpin, Templar volunteers to rescue her.

Television adaptations
All seven stories from this collection formed the basis for episodes of the 1962-69 TV series, The Saint.

During the first season, "The Latin Touch" aired on 11 October 1962 as the second episode, followed by "The Covetous Headsman" on 25 October, "The Loaded Tourist" on 1 November and "The Golden Journey" on 6 December. During the third season, "The Rhine Maiden" aired on 21 January 1965. The fourth season saw an adaptation of "The Spanish Cow" air on 19 August 1965 and the fifth season saw "The Angel's Eye" appear on 11 November 1966.

References

1953 short story collections
Simon Templar books
Short story collections by Leslie Charteris
The Crime Club books
Hodder & Stoughton books

The Saint in Europe