Brent Spar

Brent Spar, or Brent E, was a North Sea oil storage and tanker loading buoy in the Brent oilfield, operated by Shell UK. With the completion of a pipeline connection to the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, the storage facility had continued in use, but by 1991, was considered to be of no further value. Brent Spar became an issue of public concern in 1995, when the British government announced its support for Shell's application for its disposal in deep Atlantic waters at North Feni Ridge (approximately  from the west coast of Scotland, at a depth of around ).

Greenpeace organized a worldwide, high-profile media campaign against this plan  occupying Brent Spar for more than three weeks. In the face of public and political opposition in northern Europe (including a widespread boycott of Shell service stations, some physical attacks and an arson attack on a service station in Germany), Shell abandoned its plans to dispose of Brent Spar at sea  — whilst continuing to stand by its claim that this was the safest option, both from an environmental and an industrial health and safety perspective. Greenpeace's own reputation also suffered during the campaign, when it had to acknowledge that its assessment of the oil remaining in Brent Spar’s storage tanks had been grossly overestimated. Following Shell's decision to pursue only on-shore disposal options, as favoured by Greenpeace and its supporters, Brent Spar was given temporary moorings in a Norwegian fjord. In January 1998, Shell announced its decision to re-use much of the main structure in the construction of new harbour facilities near Stavanger, Norway.

Technical information
Brent "E" was a floating oil storage facility constructed in 1976 and moored approximately  from the Brent "A" oil rig. It was jointly owned by Shell and Esso, and operated wholly by Shell, which gave them responsibility for decommissioning the structure. Brent Spar was  high and  in diameter, and displaced 66,000 tonnes. The draft of the platform was such that manoeuvring in the North Sea south of Orkney was not possible. The storage tank section had a capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude oil. This section was built from  thick steel plate, reinforced by ribs and cross-braces. It was known that this section had been stressed and damaged on installation. This led to doubts on whether the facility would retain its structural integrity if it was re-floated into a horizontal position.

Shell based its decommissioning decisions on estimates of the quantities of various pollutants, including PCBs, crude oil, heavy metals, and scale, which it had calculated based on the operating activities of the platform, and metal that would remain in the structure after decommissioning. Scale is a by-product of oil production and, because of the radioactivity found in the rocks from which the oil is extracted, is considered to be low-level radioactive waste. It is regularly dealt with on-shore by workers wearing breathing masks to prevent inhalation of dust.

Disposal options
Shell examined a number of options for disposing of the Brent Spar, and took two of these forward for serious consideration.

On-shore dismantling
The first option involved towing the Brent Spar to a shallow water harbour to decontaminate it and reuse the materials used in its construction. Any unusable waste could be disposed of on land. Technically, this option was more complex and presented a greater hazard to the workforce. This option was estimated to cost £41M. There was some concern that the facility would disintegrate in shallow coastal water, having a much more economically and environmentally significant effect.

Deep sea disposal
The second option involved towing the decommissioned platform into deep water in the North Atlantic, positioning explosives around the waterline, then detonating them, in order to breach the hull and sink the platform. The facility would then fall to the seabed and release its contents over a restricted area. Due to the uncertainty associated with detonating explosives, a number of possible scenarios were envisaged. First, the structure would fall to the seabed in one piece, releasing its contaminants slowly, and affecting the seabed for around  "down-current". Second, the structure might disintegrate as it fell through the water column. This would release contaminants in a single burst, and have an effect for  "down current" of the final resting place, although this would last for a shorter time than in the first instance. Third, the structure could fail catastrophically when the explosives detonated, releasing its contaminants into the surface waters. This would affect sea birds and on the fishing industry in that area. The cost of this option was estimated at between £17M and £20M.

Shell proposed that deep sea disposal was the best option for Brent Spar, arguing that their decision had been made on sound scientific principles and data. Dismantling the platform on-shore was more complex from an engineering point of view than disposal at sea. Shell also cited the lower risk to the health and safety of the workforce with deep sea disposal. Environmentally, Shell considered that sinking would have only a localised effect in a remote deep sea region which had little resource value. It was considered that this option would be acceptable to the public, to Her Majesty's Government and to regional authorities. Shell acknowledged that sinking the Brent Spar at sea was also the cheaper option.

Having decided on a preferred method of disposal, Shell contracted Fisheries Research Services (FRS) to investigate possible sites for sinking the facility. There were two stipulations to this search: firstly, that the site was within the UK exclusive economic zone, and secondly, that the site be deep enough that the sunken buoy would present no hazard to shipping. FRS identified three sites as  squares, which were considered suitable; the Maury Channel, the North Feni Ridge and the Rockall Trough.

At these three sites, FRS carried out:
 seabed visualisation surveys using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to confirm the topography in each area
 sediment sample collection using a box core sampler to analyse for heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), oil-related hydrocarbons and radionuclides
 investigations into particle size distribution, and total organic carbon levels of the sediment
 box core sampling to count the numbers of animals living in the sediment of the seabed
 beam trawl sampling to determine the different animals living on the seabed

The North Feni Ridge was found to include a narrow channel. The Rockall Trough area was found to be a gently sloping basin between the Anton Dohrn Seamount and the Wyville-Thomsom Ridge. The Maury Channel area was found to be a flat, gently sloping area.

Infaunal communities were found to be high in diversity and low in abundance, characteristic of unimpacted sediments. These communities were thought to have a limited food supply, which is also normal in deep water communities.

The final conclusions of FRS were that abundance and diversity were greater than had been expected, especially in the North Feni Ridge area, however the limited extent of sampling precluded detailed analysis of data for the entire area. On the basis of the data which FRS gathered, there was little to choose between the three potential disposal areas. Analysis of the North Feni Ridge area may indicate that this area may have been accumulative, but that this would not preclude deep-sea disposal of the platform.

Having received these conclusions, Shell opted for the North Feni Ridge site, and applied to the British government for a licence to dispose of the rig at sea. This was approved in December 1994.

Greenpeace involvement
Greenpeace became aware of the plan to sink the Brent Spar at sea on 16 February 1995. The organization had been campaigning against ocean dumping in the North Sea since the early 1980s, monitoring the dumping of radioactive waste and waste from titanium dioxide production and on occasion using high-seas civil disobedience tactics to physically hinder the perpetrators, and lobbying for a comprehensive ban on ocean dumping through the OSPAR convention.

Greenpeace objected to the plan to dispose of the Brent Spar at sea on a number of issues:

 That there was a lack of understanding of the deep sea environment, and therefore no way to predict the effects of the proposed dumping on deep sea ecosystems.
 The documents which supported Shell's licence application were "highly conjectural in nature", containing unsubstantiated assumptions, minimal data and extrapolations from unnamed studies.
 That dumping the Brent Spar at sea would create a precedent for dumping other contaminated structures in the sea and would undermine current international agreements. The environmental effects of further dumping would be cumulative.
 Dismantling of the Brent Spar was technically feasible and offshore engineering firms believed they could do it safely and effectively. The necessary facilities were already routinely in use and decommissioning of many other oil installations had already been carried out elsewhere in the world.
 To protect the environment, the principle of minimizing the generation of wastes should be upheld and harmful materials always recycled, treated or contained.

Greenpeace claimed that the scientific arguments for ocean dumping were being used as a way of disguising Shell's primary aim, which was to cut costs.

The "battle" of Brent Spar
Four Greenpeace activists first occupied Brent Spar on 30 April 1995. In total, 25 activists, photographers and journalists were involved in this stage of occupation. They decided to cover up the Exxon logos on the platform. At this time, activists collected a sample of the contents of the  Spar and sent it for testing, to determine the nature of the pollutants which the platform contained. This sample was collected incorrectly, leading to a large overestimate in the contents of the facility. Although Greenpeace quoted Shell's own estimate of the amount of heavy metals and other chemicals on board, they also claimed there were more than 5,500 tonnes of oil on the Spar – while Shell's estimate was 50 tonnes. For context, the Exxon Valdez oil spill involved around 42,000 tonnes.

Greenpeace mounted an energetic media campaign that influenced public opinion against Shell's preferred option. It disputed Shell's estimates of the contaminants on the Brent Spar, saying that these were much more than initially estimated. On 9 May, the German government issued a formal objection to the British government, with respect to the dumping plan. On 23 May, after several attempts, Shell obtained legal permission to evict the Greenpeace protesters from the Brent Spar, and they were eventually taken by helicopter to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they held a press conference.

Towing of the platform to its final position began on 11 June. By this time, the call for a boycott of Shell products was being heeded across much of continental northern Europe, damaging Shell's profitability as well as brand image. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl protested to the British Prime Minister, John Major at a G7 conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Support from within the oil industry was not unanimous. Although oil production companies supported Shell's position, influential companies in the offshore construction sector stood to make money from onshore dismantling if a precedent could be set, and consequently supported the Greenpeace point of view.

On 20 June, Shell had decided that their position was no longer tenable, and withdrew their plan to sink the Brent Spar. They released the following statement:

"Shell's position as a major European enterprise has become untenable. The Spar had gained a symbolic significance out of all proportion to its environmental effect. In consequence, Shell companies were faced with increasingly intense public criticism, mostly in Continental northern Europe. Many politicians and ministers were openly hostile and several called for consumer boycotts. There was violence against Shell service stations, accompanied by threats to Shell staff."

In early July, the Norwegian government gave Shell permission to mothball the Brent Spar in Erfjord. It remained there for several years while other options for disposal were considered.

Aftermath

Having moored the Brent Spar in Erfjord, Shell commissioned the independent Norwegian consultancy Det Norske Veritas (DNV) to conduct an audit of Spar's contents and investigate Greenpeace's allegations. Greenpeace admitted that its claims that the Spar contained 5500 tonnes of oil were inaccurate and apologized to Shell on 5 September. This pre-empted the publication of DNV's report, which endorsed Shell's initial estimates for many pollutants. Greenpeace noted that its opposition to the dumping had never been solely based on the presence or absence of oil, however, and that opposition to the disposal plan was part of a larger campaign opposing the dumping of all waste into the North Sea.

Shell received over 200 individual suggestions for what could be done with the Brent Spar. One of these came from the Stavanger Port Authority. They were planning a quay extension at Mekjarvik, to provide new Roll-On/Roll-Off ferry facilities. It was hoped that using slices of the Spar's hull would save both money and energy that would otherwise have been spent in new steel construction. The Spar was raised vertically in the water by building a lifting cradle, placed underneath the Spar and connected by cables to jacks on board heavy barges. Jacking the cables upwards raised the Spar so that its hull could be cut into 'rings' and slid onto a barge.

After cleaning, the rings were placed in the sea beside the existing quay at Mekjarvik and filled with ballast. The construction of the quay extension was completed by placing a concrete slab across the rings. The Spar's living quarters and operations module were removed and scrapped onshore at a Norwegian landfill site.

While the Brent Spar was being dismantled, quantities of the endangered cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa were found growing on the legs of the platform . At the time, this was considered unusual, although recent studies have shown this to be a common occurrence, with 13 of 14 North Sea oil rigs examined having L. pertusa colonies. The authors of the original work suggested that it may be better to leave the lower parts of such structures in place — a suggestion opposed by Greenpeace campaigner Simon Reddy, who compared it to "[dumping] a car in a wood – moss would grow on it, and if I was lucky a bird may even nest in it. But this is not justification to fill our forests with disused cars".

Effect of Brent Spar
According to a poll of 1000 adults carried out by Opinion Leader Research on 26 January 1996 on behalf of Greenpeace, a majority of the British public were aware of the Brent Spar (57%). Of these, 57% were opposed to the dumping of Brent Spar in the Atlantic, and 32% were in favour of it.

Although Shell had carried out an environmental impact assessment in full accordance with existing legislation, they had severely underestimated strength of public opinion. Shell were particularly criticised for having thought of this as a "Scottish", or "UK" problem, and neglecting to think of the effect which it would have on their image in the wider world. The final cost of the Brent Spar operation to Shell was between £60M and £100M, when loss of sales were considered. Although Shell and the offshore industry consider that Brent Spar did not set a precedent for disposal of facilities in the future, signatory nations of the OSPAR conventions have since agreed that oil facilities should be disposed of onshore, so it is difficult to see how this does not set a precedent.
Shell claimed that spending such an amount to protect a small area of remote, low resource value, deep sea was pointless and this money could be much more constructively spent.

The overestimation of the contents of the Brent Spar damaged the credibility of Greenpeace in their wider campaigns. They were criticised in an editorial column in the scientific journal Nature for their lack of interest in facts. Greenpeace moved to distance itself from its "5500 tonnes" claim, after the Brent Spar argument was won.

Timeline
1976: Brent Spar built and enters service
1977: 3 men lose their lives to hydrogen sulfide poisoning
September 1991: Brent Spar ceases operations
1991–93: Shell examines options and carries out risk assessment and environmental impact assessment. Decides to sink Brent Spar at the North Feni Ridge.
February 1994: Independent environmental consultancy, Aberdeen University Research and Industrial Services, endorses choice of deep sea disposal. Shell begins formal consultations with conservation bodies and fishing interests. Draft Abandonment Plan submitted.
December 1994: UK government approves plans for sinking.
30 April 1995: Greenpeace activists board Brent Spar and start occupation of abandoned installation.
30 April - May 21, 1995: Brent Spar occupied by Greenpeace to draw attention to the issue of decommissioning of obsolete North Sea oil and gas installations. During the occupation activists take samples from the oil storage tanks and European Greenpeace offices organize a boycott of Shell products and services.
5 May 1995: British Government grants disposal license to Shell UK.
9 May 1995: German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety protests against disposal plan.
21 May 1995: Activists removed from Brent Spar by Grampian police and Shell.
10 June 1995: Shell UK begins to tow Spar to deep Atlantic disposal site.
15 June 1995: German chancellor Helmut Kohl protests to British Prime Minister John Major at G7 summit.
14–20 June 1995: Protesters in Germany threaten to damage 200 Shell service stations. 50 are subsequently damaged, two fire-bombed and one raked with bullets. Greenpeace officially distances itself from any violence related to the Brent Spar controversy.
16 June 1995:  Greenpeace wrongly asserts that the Brent Spar still contains 5,500 tonnes of scale and crude oil.
26–30 June 1995: Eleven states call for a moratorium on sea disposal of decommissioned offshore installations at meeting of Oslo and Paris Commissions. Opposed by Britain and Norway.
7 July 1995: Norway grants permission to moor Spar in Erfjord while Shell reconsiders options.
12 July 1995: Shell UK commissions independent Norwegian consultancy  Det Norske Veritas (DNV) to conduct an audit of Spar's contents and investigate Greenpeace allegations.
5 September 1995: Greenpeace admits inaccurate claims that Spar contains 5,550 tonnes of oil and apologizes to Shell.
18 October 1995 - DNV present results of their audit, endorsing the original Spar inventory. DNV state that the amount of oil claimed by Greenpeace to be in the Spar was "grossly overestimated".
29 January 1998: Shell announces Brent Spar will be disposed of on shore and used as foundations for a new ferry terminal.
23 July 1998: OSPAR member states announce agreement on onshore disposal of oil facilities in the future.
February 1999: BBC 9 O'Clock News screens interview with Conservative former environment minister John Selwyn-Gummer in which he accuses Greenpeace campaigners of telling lies and, as a result, causing damage to the whole environmental movement.
10 July 1999: Decommissioning is completed and the first stages of constructing the ferry terminal are started.
25 November 1999: BBC formally apologizes to Greenpeace over screening of Gummer allegations.

Helicopter crash
On 25 July 1990, a British International Helicopters Sikorsky S-61 registration 'G-BEWL' coming in from Sumburgh Airport crashed onto the platform as the pilots were attempting to land. The Sikorsky fell into the North Sea, where six of the 13 passengers and crew on board died.

References

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17830117

External links
Greenpeace History of the Brent Spar
Media relating to Brent Spar at BBC Online
Planetfilm Documentary film about Brent Spar
Image: The Greenpeace activists celebrating in Aberdeen

Category:Oil platforms off Scotland
Category:Royal Dutch Shell buildings and structures
Category:Royal Dutch Shell controversies
Category:Environmental issues in Scotland
Category:1995 in the environment
Category:1995 in Scotland


Jamie Carey

Jamie Leigh Carey (born March 12, 1981 in Hutchinson, Kansas) is a former professional basketball player, playing the point guard position for the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA until her retirement in 2009.  Carey currently serves as the Assistant Director of the USA National Team.

High School years
Carey attended Horizon High School in Thornton, Colorado. She graduated as class valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA. She was named Colorado's Gatorade Player of the Year and a WBCA All-American. She participated in the 1999 WBCA High School All-America Game, where she scored three points.

College years
In 1999, Carey attended Stanford University, where she earned the Pac-10 Conference "Freshman of the Year" honors and broke Stanford's single season record for three pointers made with 81. However, she suffered several serious ankle injuries and concussions and spent much of the season on the sidelines.
She had surgery on her left ankle following the season and missed the following six months with rehab.
She came back to practice in October 1999, but could not continue as continuing pain in her ankle left her sidelined shortly after the start of the season. She was forced to retire from the sport and sat out the next two seasons. She was seen on her crutches cheering on her team on the bench and became a fan favorite. She continued to attend classes at Stanford, and was seen on campus limping on her crutches with her left ankle wrapped in a soft cast. She reportedly said her crutches were her best friends because she could not go anywhere without her crutches. A picture of her leaning on her crutches with an ice pack on her left ankle became the cover page of the Stanford women's basketball media guide in 2000, under the title "Courage".

She transferred to The University of Texas at Austin in 2002 after the school's doctors determined they could clear her from her concussions and maintain any treatment she would need.  She played three seasons there after successfully petitioning for a fifth and sixth year of NCAA eligibility. During her time at Texas, the team became a national championship contender with a Final Four appearance in 2003. She was a sociology major.

USA Basketball
Carey was named to the team representing the USA at the 2003 Pan American Games. The team lost the opening game to Cuba, then rebounded to win their next five games, including an OT win against Brazil. Carey led the team with 18 points in the victory against Brazil. In their game against Canada, which they won by three points 56—53, Carey hit all six of her three-point attempts, setting a United States team record. They then faced Cuba for the gold medal, falling short 75–64 to take home the silver medal. Carey scored 9.6 points per game, representing the second highest point total on the team, and led the team in assist with 16.

WNBA career
Carey was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury in 2005 with the 31st overall pick and played for the Connecticut Sun until her retirement in April 2009.

Vital statistics
Position: Guard
Height: 5 ft. 6 in. / 1.68 m
College: University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University
Team(s): Connecticut Sun (WNBA)

Notes

External links
WNBA Player File
Stanford University Player File
University of Texas at Austin Player File
2005 WNBA Draft Prospect Profile

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Category:Living people
Category:American women's basketball players
Category:Basketball players at the 2003 Pan American Games
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Category:Basketball players from Kansas
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Category:Point guards
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Category:Texas Longhorns women's basketball players
Category:Pan American Games medalists in basketball


Hundred of Inkerman

The Hundred of Inkerman is a cadastral unit of hundred located on the northern Adelaide Plains in South Australia and bounded on the north by the Wakefield River. It is one of the eight hundreds of the County of Gawler. It was named in 1856 by Governor Richard MacDonnell after the Crimean War Battle of Inkerman.

The following localities and towns of the Wakefield Council area are situated inside (or largely inside) the bounds of the Hundred of Inkerman:
 Wild Horse Plains (northern half)
 Inkerman
 Kallora (western half)
 Proof Range
 Port Wakefield
 Bowmans (southern half)

Local government
On 28 November 1878 the District Council of Port Wakefield was established, incorporating the entire Hundred of Inkerman as well as the western two thirds of the Hundred of Goyder and a small coastal portion of the Hundred of Clinton near the Wakefield port.

In 1983 the Port Wakefield council amalgamated with the councils of Balaklava and Owen bringing the hundred under the local governance of the District Council of Wakefield Plains. Then in 1997 Wakefield Plains and Blyth-Snowtown councils merged bringing the hundred into the much larger Wakefield Regional Council as a part of its Central ward.

See also
Lands administrative divisions of South Australia

References

Inkerman


Edward Brooke-Hitching

Edward Brooke-Hitching is an English writer and map-collector.

His Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports described 90 obsolete pastimes and  The Spectator'''s reviewer said "A book like this, the result of enormously diligent library ferreting, doesn't have any pressing reason to exist, but I am glad it does. Its pointlessness is its pleasure." It described sports including fox tossing, octopus wrestling and ski ballet. His The Phantom Atlas describes places which appear on maps but do not exist: the Times reviewer says that it "shows how places that aren’t there can endure, sometimes for centuries, once a map-maker has inked them in".  The Sky Atlas was shortlisted for the 2019 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in the "Illustrated travel book" category and picked as one of the 50 Christmas books of the year by The Herald.

In 2007 he directed a short documentary about the Edinburgh-based Really Terrible Orchestra.

He appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity'' in October 2019. His hypothetical donation to this imaginary museum was "A land grant for 60 acres of land in Poyais", being a document produced by 1820s fraudster Gregor MacGregor.

Selected publications

References

External links

Category:English book and manuscript collectors
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:English non-fiction writers
Category:Living people


Pietje Bell

The Pietje Bell series of novels (orig. Dutch: Pietje Bell boeken) is a series of children's books written by the Dutch writer Chris van Abkoude. It's about a little boy who gets himself into trouble.

The story has been adapted to film twice. Once in 1964, as De Avonturen van Pietje Bell, by Henk van der Linden and again in 2002 and 2003 by Maria Peters.

In 2003 Ruud Bos adapted the novel into a musical called Pietje Bell - De Musical.

Dick Matena also adapted the novel into a comic book album.

References

External links
 A website about the Pietje Bell novels (Dutch)

Category:Dutch novels
Category:Dutch children's novels
Category:Novel series
Category:Novels set in the 1910s
Category:Novels set in the Netherlands
Category:Rotterdam in fiction
Bell, Pietje
Bell, Pietje
Bell, Pietje
Bell, Pietje
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Bell, Pietje


Cavia, Province of Burgos

Cavia is a municipality located in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain.

References

External links
Asociación Río Cavia

Category:Municipalities in the Province of Burgos
Category:Populated places in the Province of Burgos


Krimson

Krimson is a Flemish comic book character and the main antagonist in the Belgian comic strip series Suske en Wiske. He is a doctor, billionaire and supervillain who wants to take over the world.

Debut

Krimson made his debut in the album "Het Rijmende Paard" ("The Rhyming Horse" (1962-1963), in which he appears as a cranky millionaire with his own private chauffeur who nearly runs Suske and Wiske over with his car while the children try to cross a forest path on horseback. Later he sends the owner of their manège a threatening letter, signing it too. It's here that the audience first learns his name. When Suske and Wiske tell Tante Sidonia and Lambik about Krimson Lambik happens to have heard from him. In fact, he panics and tells them "he is the biggest criminal in the world." Later in the story Krimson becomes the protagonists' major opponent when he tries to catch the Rhyming Horse to use it for smuggling, but is defeated when his plane crashes. In the same story Krimson's dependence on pills and butler Achiel are introduced.

Krimson's physical appearance was based on a man, Henri Vinoelst, who often visited the manège where Vandersteen's daughter was a regular customer. Initially he resembled Vinoelst so much that the man complained about being misrepresented. As a result Vandersteen was forced to make him less recognizable  by stylizing Vinoelst's features and giving Krimson a goatee.

Krimson returned in "De Sissende Sampan" ("The Hissing Sampan") (1963), where it turns out he exploits children in Hong Kong as child laborers on local papaver fields for drug trafficking. However, this is only revealed on the next to final page when he explains that he survived the plane crash in the previous story. He ends up in jail, but in the next story, "Het Zoemende Ei" ("The Buzzing Egg") (1964) he escapes and tries to gain the mysterious Buzzing Egg, an extra-terrestrial artefact which crash landed in the Brazilian jungle. The Egg eventually turns out to be a robot who will solve all of man's conflicts on Earth and bring world peace. Krimson is so humbled that he gives the robot a bouquet, but it turns out to be a bomb. To him war means money and therefore he doesn't want world peace. Jerom is able to dismantle the bomb in the nick of time, but the robot melts because it can't take the Earth's temperatures. From this album on he became the series' most recurring antagonist.

Biography and criminal record

Krimson was born in the fictional village Dievegem. He wanted to become a hero, but his father didn't support his dream, even when Krimson received his medical diploma. As a result he decided to become the biggest criminal of all time. We get an impression of what he may have looked like as a child in "De Zeven Schaken" (1995).

Krimson runs a powerful and global criminal network. He employs many henchmen and has occasionally worked together with other recurring villains in the series, such as Savantas, De Zwarte Madam  and professor Rosarius. He is mostly active in drug trafficking ("Het Rijmende Paard") ("The Rhyming Horse") (1963)), "De Sissende Sampan ("The Hissing Sampan") (1963)). He collaborated with Druon Antigoon in "De Zeven Schaken" (1995) and with weapon salesmen in "Kaapse Kaalkoppen" ("Baldheads from Kaapstad") (2004) to destroy a serum which can prevent people from xenophobia. Later stories often have him trying to steal certain magical objects, scientific inventions and/or treasures that he wants to use for his own personal gain.

Krimson favors world domination and has tried to gain it several times. In "De Kwaaie Kwieten" ("The Evil Weirdos") (1986) he attempts to gain all the communication satellites in the world. In "Het Enge Eiland" ("The Scary Island") (1999) he wants to force world governments to fulfill his demands or otherwise he'll use the Millennium Bug to dismantle the computer systems of all nuclear power plants in the world. In "De Kaduke Klonen" (2005) he tries to clone an army to invade other countries into submission. In "De Krimson-Crisis" ("The Krimson Crisis")(1988) Krimson succeeds in taking over the world and establishes a dictatorship. He is defeated in a large battle near the end of the story.

Krimson has resorted to enforcing child labor in "De Sissende Sampan" (1963) and is not above stealing objects or kidnapping people to fulfill his goals. He kidnapped Paul Geerts in "De Verdwenen Verteller" ("The Disappeared Narrator") (2002) and Tante Sidonia in "De Verwoede Verzamelaar" ("The Obsessive Collector") (2015). In "Krimsonia" (2012) he tried to give Tante Sidonia a potion to make her evil. In "De Spitse Bergen" ("The Steep Mountains") (2015) he wants to spread a gas that kills all plant life in the world.

In some stories Krimson merely wants to enlarge his fortune. In "Amoris van Amoras" ("Amoris of Amoras") (1984) by building apartment buildings in the medieval city of Amoras and trying to make the local cathedral collapse to make space. Krimson bought the second biggest mountain of the Alps in "De Begeerde Berg" ("The Desired Mountain") (1995) and wants to blow off the top of the Mont Blanc in order to own the highest mountain in Europe. In "De Ongelooflijke Thomas" ("The Unbelievable Thomas") (2000) he wants to use the micro-energetica of children to make older people younger again. He tries to steal the copyright of Suske en Wiske in "De Verdwenen Verteller" ("The Disappeared Narrator") (2002). He tries to sell an atomic aeroplane to international governments in "Het Machtige Monument" ("The Mighty Monument") (2008).

Krimson is often arrested near the end of the story, but always manages to escape from jail. Sometimes he is able to flee before anyone can stop him, usually taunting Suske, Wiske and their friends during his fleight by yelling: "Krimson always wins!"

In one story, "De Zwarte Tulp" ("The Black Tulip") (2014) he becomes temporarily cured of his evilness by drinking a serum extracted from a white tulip. However, since Krimson feels so much remorse for his past he is unable to eat, drink or sleep anymore. Fearing for his health Suske, Wiske and Lambik travel back in time to 1637 to find a black tulip as an antidote. At the end of the story Krimson's butler Achiel refuses to balance the white and black tulip serums out and only feeds his master the black serum, making Krimson evil again.

Wealth

Krimson is rich enough to live in a mansion and have his own personal butler, Achiel, under his employ. He has access to helicopters and many other hi tech machinery. He dresses himself as a dandy: high hat, black coat and a cane.

Nervous breakdowns

Krimson is easily agitated or unnerved and takes pills to calm him down. They are usually provided by his trusty butler Achiel who is ordered to quickly bring him his daily dose of pills. Krimson swallows a wide variety of pills, often for contradictive means such as calming down as well as make him feel happier again.

Appearances in spin-off series

In Jerom and Amoras, two spin-off series of Suske en Wiske, Krimson is also a major antagonist.

Appearances in other media

He was voiced by Wim Wama in the TV puppet series Suske en Wiske (1976). Contrary to his image in the comic books his puppet version acts more like a clumsy crook who constantly falls and trips over objects. He also operates alone, rather than with henchmen.

In the 1994 musical adaptation "De Stralende Sterren" Krimson's part was played by Guido Naessens in the Flemish version and Hans Wellens in the Dutch version.

In a card game based on Suske en Wiske, called "De Kaartendans", he fulfills the part of the joker.

Sources

Category:Spike and Suzy
Category:Comics characters introduced in 1962
Category:Comic strip supervillains
Category:Fictional businesspeople
Category:Fictional characters with neurological or psychological disorders
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Category:Fictional drug dealers
Category:Fictional kidnappers
Category:Fictional physicians
Category:Fictional prison escapees
Category:Fictional smugglers
Category:Fictional thieves
Category:Male characters in comics


La Razón (Buenos Aires)

La Razón is a local newspaper distributed in the public transportation system in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was founded in 1905 by Argentine journalist Emilio Morales as an afternoon (Quinta edición) and evening (Sexta edición) newspaper in broadsheet format. The daily was acquired by a prominent news editor, José A. Cortejarena, in 1911 and  became the first newspaper in Argentina owned by a journalist. Cortejarena died in 1921, and the paper was directed by Ángel L. Sojo, during whose tenure La Razón became known for scooping the city's numerous other papers. The daily also became the first to publish cartoonist Dante Quinterno's Patoruzú (an enduring Argentine comic strip) in 1928.

La Razón was acquired by Ricardo Peralta Ramos, the scion of the founding family of seaside Mar del Plata, in 1939. Peralta Ramos named Félix Laiño director, and the paper's broadsheet layout was reformatted and more heavily illustrated. The paper grew steadily, and La Razón was expropriated in 1947 by order of President Juan Perón, whose populist leadership had become increasingly autocratic. Controlled by influential First Lady Eva Perón, the paper displaced longtime circulation leader La Nación by 1952, when its daily distribution reached 500,000 copies (Latin America's largest). The dictatorship that displaced Perón in 1955 initially resolved to retain the lucrative daily, but were challenged in court by the Peralta Ramos family; the legal case presented by their attorney, Marcos Satanowsky, made La Razón one of the few such publications returned to its rightful owners, as many were reportedly resold by the regime to pliant buyers.

The paper inaugurated new printing installations in the pampas town of General Hornos, in 1964, and remained among the leading Argentine newspapers (second only to Clarín). Editor-in-chief Félix Laiño retired in 1984, and was replaced by former La Opinión publisher Jacobo Timerman, who had returned from exile in Israel, to where he fled after his abduction and torture by the last dictatorship, in 1977-79. Timerman downsized the ailing daily, and converted it into a morning paper, but a 1987 staff strike resulted in its closure.

La Razón was then acquired by the Buenos Aires City Council. The insolvent publication was converted into a free-distribution evening daily in tabloid format, and can be found most commonly in train and subway stations, as well in as coffee shops in Buenos Aires. It was acquired from the city by the Clarín Group, the country's largest media conglomerate, on December 27, 2000, and the paper reintroduced its morning edition in 2008.

See also
 Clarín
 La Nación

References
 Grupo Clarín website

Category:Daily newspapers published in Argentina
Category:Spanish-language newspapers
Category:Free daily newspapers
Category:Publications established in 1905
Category:Clarín Group
Category:Media in Buenos Aires


Mutsumi Fukuma

is an actress and singer.

External links
JMDb profile (in Japanese)

Category:1961 births
Category:Living people
Category:Japanese actresses
Category:Japanese female singers
Category:Musicians from Hyōgo Prefecture


Saline Township, Jefferson County, Ohio

Saline Township is one of the fourteen townships of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States.  The 2010 census found 1,353 people in the township, 933 of whom lived in the unincorporated portions of the township.

Geography
Located in the northeastern corner of the county along the Ohio River, it borders the following townships:
Yellow Creek Township, Columbiana County - north
Knox Township - south
Ross Township - southwest
Brush Creek Township - northwest

Hancock County, West Virginia lies across the Ohio River to the east.

Two villages are located in Saline Township: Irondale in the northwest and part of Stratton in the southeast along the Ohio River.  In addition, the unincorporated community of Hammondsville lies in the center of the township.

Name and history
The name of Saline Township is derived from the salinity of its salt wells.

It is the only Saline Township statewide.

Government
The township is governed by a three-member board of trustees, who are elected in November of odd-numbered years to a four-year term beginning on the following January 1. Two are elected in the year after the presidential election and one is elected in the year before it. There is also an elected township fiscal officer, who serves a four-year term beginning on April 1 of the year after the election, which is held in November of the year before the presidential election. Vacancies in the fiscal officership or on the board of trustees are filled by the remaining trustees.

References

External links
County website

Category:Townships in Jefferson County, Ohio
Category:Townships in Ohio


Amo (Miguel Bosé album)

Amo (English: "I love") is the eighteenth studio album of Spanish singer Miguel Bosé. The album received a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album.

Track listing

Charts

References

Category: 2014 albums
Category: Miguel Bosé albums


Birdie (novel)

Birdie is the 2015 debut novel of Indigenous Canadian author Tracey Lindberg. It was first published in hardback on May 26, 2015 by HarperCollins Publishers. Upon its release it was named a CBC Canada Reads Finalist, OLA Evergreen Award and a KOBO Emerging Writer Prize.  The book is known for its inclusion of Cree Law and its commentary on Canadian Colonialism.

Plot summary
Birdie follows the journey of titular character Birdie, on her way to Gibsons, British Columbia from her home in northern Alberta. Birdie has ventured to Gibsons in order to find Pat John (Jesse from the Beachcombers) who she views as representative of a healthy Indigenous man. Birdie's journey to Gibsons served as the impetus for the spiritual journey that Birdie goes on, which exists outside of linear time.

Characters
 Bernice/Birdie: Bernice is the main character, a Cree woman, and the story centres around her journey healing from extensive trauma. She is also referred to as Birdie, an affectionate nickname. In the dreamscape, she sometimes appears as her birdself.
 Auntie Val: Bernice's aunt, also known as littlemother whom Bernice lives with her for period of time. Val participates in Bernice's healing by coming to her niece and caring for her in her presumed despondency.
 Skinny Freda: Freda is Bernice's cousin and childhood friend. Bernice attempted to protect Freda throughout their childhood. Freda comes to rescue Bernice from her despondency, and is a key component in Bernice's healing throughout the novel.
  Maggie: Bernice's mother, representative of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Maggie's character appears most often outside of linear time, showing up in dreamscapes and visions Bernice has about her past.
 Lola: Lola is Bernice's boss at Lola's Little Slice of Heaven where Bernice works as well as lives. Lola's character appears in the present timeline and facilitates the calls to Freda and Val to come and take care of Bernice when Bernice becomes despondent. Lola participants in Bernice's healing journey alongside Freda and Val.

Themes

Cree traditional knowledge

Pimatisewin
In the novel, Pimatisewin represents the tree of life whose health is inexplicably tied to Bernice's. Pimatisewin is regarded as a relative by both Bernice and Maggie, and is used by Lindberg to portray non-human bonds of kinship and the obligations implicit in those bonds. Lindberg, in the author interview, explains that Pimatisewin is a Cree word that roughly translates to "the good life" in English. Eenou Pimaatisiiwin, as it is sometimes spelled, is an essential aspect of Cree traditional knowledge and represents an element of Cree survival.

Acimowin
Acimowin means story in Cree. Throughout the novel, usually at the end of chapters, these stories, or acimowin, get told as an oral history of the lessons Bernice learns throughout her journey. Acimowin represent the way in which Cree people pass down certain life lessons.

Cree law
A central tenet of Cree law, called Wahkohtowin, is used in the novel Birdie. The principle of Wahkohtowin is that people treat one another with respect and care. Through the use of story, Lindberg explores situations in which these laws are broken. Lindberg has said that the obligations of this law have been broken by people in Bernice’s life, and her childhood home lacked reciprocal obligations.

Historical context

Indian Act
Auntie Val, when she tells a bit of her story, relates that her grandmother's people had not signed their rights away to the Treaty Commissioner. Val goes as far as to say that "her people. . .have not been colonized or 'Indian Acted' to death, but because they did not sign any treaties their family was not legally allowed to live on the reserve in Loon Lake. Lindberg expands on this point in the author interview when she states that Bernice's family had a home on the reserve but they could not inhabit that house because they were not status Indians. The Indian Act was one of the ways in which the Canadian government tried to control Indigenous identity while simultaneously dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their lands.

Missing and murdered indigenous women

Birdie deals with the ongoing Canadian political issue of Missing and murdered Indigenous women. 84%of Indigenous women experience violence, with 10% of all missing person cases in Canada being Indigenous women and girls.  In the context of Birdie, Maggie represents this fraught history between Canada and Indigenous women. Maggie disappears at the end of the novel, Lindberg writing "she chose this city and this neighbourhood because she knows someone like her can disappear here" which speaks to the significance of the problem. Lindberg's choice to include a commentary on MMIW stems from her advocacy work in the area.

Reception
Métis scholar and professor Aubrey Hanson wrote about Birdie in her article, "Reading for Reconciliation? Indigenous Literatures in a Post-TRC Canada." Hanson argues that Birdie demonstrates the possibilities of non-Indigenous people reading Indigenous texts for the resurgence of Indigenous communities.
At CBC Canada Reads in 2016, 10,000 copies of Birdie were donated to Canadian schools by Bruce Poon Tip, the defender of Lindberg’s novel. He believed that Birdie is important to the reconciliation process between Canada and Indigenous communities.

References

Category:2015 Canadian novels
Category:First Nations novels


Darklands Trilogy

The Darklands trilogy is a series of books by Australian author Anthony Eaton. University of Queensland Press published all three books. The series is set over 1000 years in a future in which the human race has polluted the world and now, in part, living in sealed environments and part in an exposed but walled wasteland known as the Darklands. The books centre on Saria, a darklander (Nightpeople), Larinan Mann of Port City (Skyfall), and Dara, Saria's granddaughter (Daywards).

Books
Nightpeople (2005)
Skyfall (2007)
Daywards (2010)

Reception

Nightpeople
Sally Murphy at Aussie Reviews.com commended the book as "a well-woven, absorbing tale". It was shortlisted in "Best Adult Fantasy" and "Best Young Adult Fantasy" category of the 2006 Aurealis Awards

Skyfall
Sally Murphy of Aussie Reviews.com commends the book as "challenging and absorbing". She also comments that "The world is alien enough to intrigue, but familiar enough for readers to connect with. The action is fast paced and the characters both diverse and believable". Skyfall was the winner of the 2007 Aurealis Award for "Best Young Adult Fantasy" category. It was also shortlisted for the 2007 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards for "Literature - Young Adult" Category.

Daywards
The highly anticipated conclusion to the trilogy was received well overall with paper reviews dubbing it "a great read". However this book is yet to either receive, or even be shortlisted for, any awards. Readers found Daywards "the least convincing" of the trilogy but "a fantastic end to a well-received and talked about trilogy".

The World of the Darklands Trilogy

Geography

In the world of the Darklands Trilogy, the surface of the earth is split into two areas.
 Darklands - Huge walled expanses of land designed to contain environmental and genetic defects
 Literally everything else - This land has virtually no population, with the vast, vast majority of humanity living in the dome cities.

Civilization within the Darklands

Towns
There were once many towns dotted across the huge expanse of the Darklands, but there are now only a few. This is because some towns got smaller, then some people wanting to escape their failing towns moved to the larger settlements, and then their  original towns really did die off. The remaining towns are nothing more than collections of ramshackle huts, made from rusted corrugated tin, and propped up with whatever was available.
List of Known Towns:
Woormra
This is probably the largest town and is home to the Council of Dreamers.
Olympic
This town is smaller than Woormra, although its people are more aggressive, dangerous, and paranoid, as they even built a defensive wall out of sharp branches around their town.
Mooka
This town is also smaller than Woormra, and is unremarkable, other than being significantly closer to the Darkedge than any other town.

The Valley
The valley, also known as Ma's Valley, was a secret valley far away from all other pockets of civilization, and was known only to a select few. Its only permanent occupant was Ma, an aging woman who took care of children sent to her. Over the years, a number of children were sent there for protection. None were ever found and the valley was never discovered.

Ruins of the Shifting House
The shifting house is a decaying structure left over from before the shifting. It is avoided by most Darklanders. It is renowned by most people within the Darklands, for its air of death, destruction and mystery, and because it sits in a circle of ruined, acrid ground. The Shifting House is implied to be a former nuclear power station.

Civilization outside of the Darklands

Dome Cities
These were the pinnacle achievement of generations before; eternal containers of society, made of near impervious permacrete and clearcrete, two materials that revolutionized construction, and along with the invention of the Governors (Massive Computers that controlled every aspect of life within the domes) enabled the building of the Dome Cities. One of the Dome Cities ('Port') is featured on the cover of 'Skyfall'.

The Underworld
The underworld is what's left over from a thousand years ago. Endless fields of decaying skyscrapers and apartment blocks, all abandoned for a thousand years or more. It is unknown how many people if any live down here.

Transport (In and out of the Darklands)

In the Darklands
 Walking
 Riding Camels

Fliers
Flyers are aerial vehicles that are used for travel between the dome cities, as well as research trips into the Darklands. A large variety of fliers exist, although the most famous ones belong to DGAP (Darklands Genetic Adaption Program) and resemble a squat bug. These fliers have three seats (Pilot, Co-Pilot and Commander/Observer) in the cockpit (The Front Dome) arranged in a triangle (Pilot Front-Left, Co-Pilot Front-Right and Commander/Observer Rear-Center), as well as space behind the front dome. This space includes an equipment rack for suits and helmets.

References

Category:Australian science fiction novels
Category:2005 novels
Category:Science fiction novel trilogies
Category:University of Queensland Press books


Varmeleh Kalagh Khvordeh

Varmeleh Kalagh Khvordeh (, also Romanized as Vārmeleh Kalāgh Khvordeh) is a village in Zilayi Rural District, Margown District, Boyer-Ahmad County, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its existence was noted, but its population was not reported.

References

Category:Populated places in Boyer-Ahmad County


Beta-alanyl-CoA ammonia-lyase

In enzymology, a beta-alanyl-CoA ammonia-lyase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction

beta-alanyl-CoA  acryloyl-CoA + NH3

Hence, this enzyme has one substrate, beta-alanyl-CoA, and two products, acryloyl-CoA and NH3.

This enzyme belongs to the family of lyases, specifically ammonia lyases, which cleave carbon-nitrogen bonds.  The systematic name of this enzyme class is beta-alanyl-CoA ammonia-lyase (acryloyl-CoA-forming). This enzyme is also called beta-alanyl coenzyme A ammonia-lyase.  This enzyme participates in beta-alanine metabolism and propanoate metabolism.

References

Category:EC 4.3.1
Category:Enzymes of unknown structure


Gries Pass

Gries Pass (2469 m.) (Italian: Passo del Gries, German: Griespass) is a mountain pass between 	Valais, Switzerland and Formazza, Italy. There is no road over the pass, from Nufenen Pass the paved road ends and a bridle path leads over to the Italian side. A high pressure gas pipeline runs over the pass, coming from the North Sea to Italy.

See also
 List of mountain passes
List of mountain passes in Switzerland

External links
Webshots.com: Gries Pass photos

Category:Mountain passes of Valais
Category:Mountain passes of Piedmont
Category:Mountain passes of the Alps
Category:Italy–Switzerland border crossings
Category:Lepontine Alps


James P. Crutchfield

James P. Crutchfield (born 1955) is an American mathematician and physicist. He received his B.A. summa cum laude in Physics and Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1979 and his Ph.D. in Physics there in 1983. He is currently a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Davis, where he is Director of the Complexity Sciences Center—a new research and graduate program in complex systems. Prior to this, he was Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute for many years, where he ran the Dynamics of Learning Group and SFI's Network Dynamics Program. From 1985 to 1997, he was a Research Physicist in the Physics Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been a Visiting Research Professor at the Sloan Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, University of California, San Francisco; a Post-doctoral Fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UCB; a UCB Physics Department IBM Post-Doctoral Fellow in Condensed Matter Physics; a Distinguished Visiting Research Professor of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and a Bernard Osher Fellow at the San Francisco Exploratorium.

Research

Over the last three decades Crutchfield has worked in the areas of nonlinear dynamics, solid-state physics, astrophysics, fluid mechanics, critical phenomena and phase transitions, chaos, and pattern formation. His current research interests center on computational mechanics, the physics of complexity, statistical inference for nonlinear processes, genetic algorithms, evolutionary theory, machine learning, quantum dynamics, and distributed intelligence. He has published over 100 papers in these areas.

Life

While a graduate student, Crutchfield and students from the University of California, Santa Cruz (including Doyne Farmer) built a series of computers that were capable of calculating the motion of a moving roulette ball, predicting which numbers could be excluded from the outcome. Equipped with hidden electronic equipment of the early days of "mobile" computing, trials in Las Vegas showed success. However, because of technical limitation and the infamous gambler's ruin, the success was only partial and it was not feasible to use to make large profits. A book written about this project (The Eudaemonic Pie / Newton's Casino: The Bizarre True Story of How a Band of Physicists and Computer Wizards Took on Las Vegas) describes Crutchfield in his early years as "hacker-in-residence": "Crutchfield surfs, snorkels, and backpacks. But what he really cares about in life are computers...".

See also
 Chaos: Making a New Science

References

N. H. Packard, J. P. Crutchfield, J. D. Farmer, and R. S. Shaw, "Geometry from a Time Series", Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, 712–716 (1980).
Melanie Mitchell, Peter Hraber (Santa Fe Institute), James P. Crutchfield (University of California, Berkeley), "Revisiting the Edge of Chaos: Evolving Cellular Automata to Perform Computations", SFI Working Paper, 93-03-014,
J. P. Crutchfield and M. Mitchell, "The evolution of emergent computation", PNAS, November 7, 1995, vol. 92, no. 23, 10742-10746.
Erik van Nimwegen, James P. Crutchfield, and Martijn Huynen, "Neutral evolution of mutational robustness", PNAS, August 17, 1999, vol. 96, no. 17, 9716-9720.

Category:Living people
Category:21st-century American physicists
Category:University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
Category:University of California, Davis faculty
Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty
Category:American science writers
Category:1955 births
Category:Santa Fe Institute people
Category:Researchers of artificial life


Spruce Lake

Spruce Lake is located northwest of Piseco, New York. Fish species present in the lake are brook trout, and black bullhead. There is trail access on the east shore from the Northville-Placid Trail. No motors are allowed on this lake.

In 1994, Spruce Lake used to be a popular honeymoon destination before the campus grounds were built. About 500 feet from the lake, newly married couples would frequently spend weekends in the cabins. One hot summer night in July, a couple got into an argument and it got out of hand. Nearby cabins heard screams coming from the cabin and called the police. By the time the police arrived, the wife had been slaughtered with a chainsaw and the husband committed suicide by shooting himself.

In July 2011, shortly after the construction of Homestead Cabins a camp counselor for an evangelical church was murdered by Jack the Ripper. Cause of death being chainsaw in the woods. In 2012 a similar incident occurred and the campus was closed for investigation. It is said that during the month of July a man has been seen standing outside of cabins. Police are unsure if this man poses a threat or   continues to haunt the camp grounds just to spread fear.

However, it’s been reported that screams have been heard deep in the woods. If any information regarding this type of behavior is found please report to spruce lake.

References

Category:Lakes of New York (state)
Category:Lakes of Hamilton County, New York


Emperor Ninkō

was the 120th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Ninkō's reign spanned the years from 1817 until his death in 1846, and saw further deterioration of the ruling Shōgun's power. Disasters which included famine, combined with corruption and increasing Western interference helped to erode public trust in the bakufu government. Emperor Ninkō attempted to revive certain court rituals and practices upon the wishes of his father. However, it is unknown what role, if any, the Emperor had in the turmoil which occurred during his reign. His family included fifteen children from various concubines, but only three of them lived to adulthood. His fourth son, Imperial Prince Osahito became the next Emperor upon his death in 1846. While political power at the time still resided with the Shōgun, the beginnings of the Bakumatsu (end of military government) were at hand.

Events of Ninkō's life

Early life
Before Ninkō's ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name (imina) was . He was born on 16 March 1800 and was the fourth son of Emperor Kōkaku, the only child of sixteen others to survive into adulthood. Ayahito was named as crown prince in 1809, having been adopted by his father's chief wife , also known as . His birth mother was one of his father's concubines named . Ayahito's Imperial Family lived with him in the Dairi of the Heian Palace.

Reign

Prince Ayahito was enthroned as Emperor on 31 October 1817, after his father retired from the throne. Following his father the Retired Emperor's wishes, he attempted to revive certain court rituals and practices. These included, among other things, restoring the title tennō, which identified the Emperor. Among Ninkō's innovations was the establishment of the Gakushūsho (the predecessor of the Gakushūin) for the Court Nobility just outside the Imperial Palace. One major event during his reign was the Tenpō famine which lasted from 1833 to 1837. The famine was most severe in northern Honshū and was caused by flooding and cold weather. Ninkō's reign also saw some deterioration of the Shōgun's power. The Tenpō famine and other concurring natural disasters hit hard, and shook the faith of the people in the ruling Shōgun. In 1837, Ōshio Heihachirō led a revolt in Osaka against corrupt officials who refused to help feed the impoverished residents of the city. That same year also had an incident take place where an American merchant vessel was driven away by coastal artillery. While order was eventually restored, long term resentment resonated with the commoners against the ruling government. It is unclear though what role, if any, the Emperor played during this period of unrest.

Emperor Ninkō died on 21 February 1846 and was enshrined in the Imperial mausoleum, , which is at Sennyū-ji in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. Also enshrined in Tsuki no wa no misasagi, at Sennyū-ji are this Emperor's immediate Imperial predecessors since Emperor Go-Mizunoo – Meishō, Go-Kōmyō, Go-Sai, Reigen, Higashiyama, Nakamikado, Sakuramachi, Momozono, Go-Sakuramachi, Go-Momozono and Kōkaku. The shrine complex also encompasses the misasagi of Ninkō's immediate successor – Kōmei. Empress Dowager Yoshikō is also entombed at this Imperial mausoleum complex.

Eras and Kugyō
The years of Ninkō's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō. While  is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. Even during those years in which the court's actual influence outside the palace walls was minimal, the hierarchic organization persisted.

The following eras occurred during Ninkō's reign:

 Bunka (1804–1818)
 Bunsei (1818–1830)
 Tenpō (1830–1844)
 Kōka (1844–1848)

During Ninkō's reign, this apex of the Daijō-kan included:

 Kampaku, Ichijō Tadayoshi, 1814–1823
 Kampaku, Takatsukasa Masamichi, 1823–1856
 Sadaijin Udaijin Naidaijin DainagonGenealogy

Emperor Ninkō's family included 7 sons and 8 daughters from various concubines, but only the future Emperor Komei (Komei-tennō), Princess Sumiko (Sumiko-naishinnō) and Princess Chikako (Chikako-naishinnō) survived beyond childhood.

Spouse

Concubines

Issue

Ancestry

Notes

See also
 Emperor of Japan
 List of Emperors of Japan
 Imperial cult
 Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines

References
 Meyer, Eva-Maria. (1999).  Japans Kaiserhof in der Edo-Zeit: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Jahre 1846 bis 1867.  Münster: LIT Verlag. 	;   OCLC 42041594
 Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959).  The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 194887
 Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran''; ou,  Annales des empereurs du Japon.  Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.  OCLC 5850691
 Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns. New York: Columbia University Press. ;  OCLC 59145842

External links
Kazu-No-Miya Chikako

Category:Japanese emperors
Category:1800 births
Category:1846 deaths
Emperor Ninko
Emperor Ninko
Emperor Ninko
Emperor Ninko
Emperor Ninko
Category:18th-century Japanese people
Category:19th-century Japanese monarchs


Chirality (manga)

is a 4-volume yuri manga series written and illustrated by author Satoshi Urushihara. The manga was originally serialized in Comic NORA in 1995, and later published in three bound volumes, which was re-released into two bound volumes in 2003. In 1997 Chirality was licensed for released in North America by Central Park Media. It was originally published as 18 issues between March 1997 and August 1998, as well as being released into four bound volumes from 1997 to 2000. The art was also flipped so that it would read left to right which was not an uncommon practice for manga released in Western Hemisphere at the time.

Plot
The story is set in a not too distant future, in which Earth has been overrun by a horrifying technovirus. Mechanical parasites, mistakenly created in an attempt to advance technology, attach themselves to human spinal cords and turn their hosts into cyborgs, called GM. The Original GM were created by Gaia, a program designed by humans to regulate nature. Gaia malfunctioned and started creating their own GM. Currently, Gaia is repairing parts of it that were damaged, and once this is done, it will attempt to destroy the Earth.

Desperate to rid themselves of this technological terror, the remaining human survivors try to band together and learn to defend themselves against these android enemies.

Carol is an artificial being that was created specifically to save mankind. Unfortunately, in her youth she suffered greatly at the hands of the very humans she sought to save, and lost sight of her mission. Only through the kindness of one human girl named Shiori was Carol able to find her focus and a reason to save the world; for Shiori's sake.

The two reunite years later, as Carol saves Shiori from her friend Elena, who was tragically infected with the parasitic virus. Although Shiori doesn't remember Carol at first, Carol remembers Shiori and stops at nothing to protect her and express her love for her. Though Shiori is uncomfortable and embarrassed with Carol at first, she quickly grows to return her feelings. However, the two soon find out that their deep love isn't just a small matter between the two of them; it'll be a big factor in saving the entire world.

Characters
Carol
An artificial being that was created specifically to save mankind. Unfortunately, in her youth, she suffered greatly at the hands of the very humans she sought to save and lost sight of her mission. Due to the kindness of Shiori, a human girl, she now stops at nothing to protect her and express her love for her. Author notes say Carol chose to have a "male mentality" in order to fall in love with Shiori.

Her abilities include immunity to GM infestation, assuming a male form -which provides her with additional strength during battle-, and creating animals from her own body. She was implanted with many kinds of animal DNA, meant to restore the animal population. Since Carol is able to absorb DNA through physical contact, she has been able to donate organs to injured humans with no chance of rejection, since they are their organs.
Shiori
A human girl who showed kindness towards Carol, and becomes the one thing that Carol strives to protect. She is very brave and compassionate, very close to her family and friends, and wholeheartedly wishes to end the GM threat with Carol and her family. While not trained in combat, she doesn't usually panic in the middle of a battle, and has some skill with firearms.
Big (Vic in some versions)
Carol's robot companion and auxiliary weapon against the GM. Maintains a sort of telepathic contact with her, which proves decisive in their mission to take down Gaia. Big possesses superhuman strength and has a veritable arsenal of weapons hidden in his body.
Adam
An android like Carol, but with male genes. He was intended to protect Carol, but Mother, a program building him, was destroyed. Being left incomplete, he was eventually revived by Gaia, therefore making his mission from protecting Carol to having to kill her.
Patty
A medic who accompanies the Gaia expedition and knows of Shiori and Carol's relationship.
Shizuma
Shiori's older brother who's oblivious to Shiori and Carol's relationship.

References

External links

Category:CPM Press
Category:1995 manga
Category:Romance anime and manga
Category:Science fiction anime and manga
Category:Seinen manga
Category:Yuri (genre) anime and manga
Category:1990s LGBT literature


List of vice-admirals of Sussex

This is a list of people who have served as Vice-Admiral of Sussex.

Sir William More 1559–1600
vacant
Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Nottingham 1608–1642
Francis Lennard, 14th Baron Dacre bef. 1647–1650
Anthony Stapley 1651–1655 (Parliamentary)
vacant
Sir John Pelham, 3rd Baronet 1660–1703
Charles Goring 1703–1705
Thomas Pelham, 1st Baron Pelham 1705–1712
John Ashburnham, 3rd Baron Ashburnham 1712–1715
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle 1715–1768
vacant
John Ashburnham, 2nd Earl of Ashburnham 1770–1812
Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond 1812–1819
George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont 1820–1831
Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond 1831–1860

References
Institute of Historical Research

Somerset
Category:Military history of Sussex


Jan Zapletal (ice hockey)

Jan Zapletal (born August 21, 1986) is a Czech professional ice hockey  player who played in the Czech Extraliga with VHK Vsetín. He was selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 7th round (209th overall) of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.

External links

Category:Living people
Category:Regina Pats players
Category:Tampa Bay Lightning draft picks
Category:VHK Vsetín players
Category:1986 births
Category:Czech ice hockey defencemen


Teknisk Tidskrift

Teknisk Tidskrift (1871 – March 1872 Illustrerad Teknisk Tidning), was founded in 1871 by the Swedish marine engineer Wilhelm Hoffstedt (1841–1907). The forerunner to Ny Teknik, it has since its establishment been considered one of the leading journals in Sweden for the publication of findings in technology and engineering.

The journal was divided into a general part and various specialized sections on mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry and mining engineering (including metallurgy), shipbuilding, architecture and civil engineering. Specialist sections representing the various departments of the Swedish Teknologföreningen reflected the educational structure of the Royal Institute of Technology. A supplement on Arkitektur och dekorativ konst (architecture and decorative arts, 1901-1922) developed into an independent journal Arkitektur. Teknisk Tidskrift'''s general edition was published once a week and the specialized editions once a month. In the autumn of 1967, the name of the weekly edition was changed to Ny Teknik which had a more popular scientific format.

In 1967, the publishing house Teknisk Tidskrifts förlag changed its name to Ingenjörsförlaget and in 1990 to E + T Förlag (Ekonomi & Teknik Förlag AB), after a merger with Affärsvärlden. In October 2005, E + T Förlag was sold to the Finnish Talentum Oy, publisher of the business newspaper Talouselämä''.

References

External links
Teknisk Tidskrift, digitized volumes at Project Runeberg

Category:Swedish magazines
Category:1871 establishments in Sweden
Category:Magazines established in 1871
Category:Science and technology magazines
Category:Defunct magazines of Sweden
Category:Engineering magazines
Category:Swedish-language magazines


Socialist Party USA

The Socialist Party USA, officially the Socialist Party of the United States of America (SPUSA), is a democratic socialist multi-tendency socialist party in the United States. The SPUSA was founded in 1973 as a successor to the Socialist Party of America, which had been renamed Social Democrats, USA a year before.

The party is officially committed to multi-tendency democratic socialism. Along with its predecessor, the Socialist Party USA has received varying degrees of support when its candidates have competed against those from the Republican and Democratic parties. The SPUSA advocates for complete independence from the Democratic Party. Self-described as opposing all forms of oppression, specifically capitalism and authoritarian forms of communism, the party advocates for the creation of a "radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control", a "non-racist, classless, feminist, socialist society" in which "the people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies, cooperatives, or other collective groups"; "full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work"; "workers have the right to form unions freely, and to strike and engage in other forms of job actions"; and "production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few".

Headquartered at the A. J. Muste Institute, the SPUSA's National Office is located at 168 Canal Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York City. The party has chartered state organizations in California, Michigan, Maine and New Jersey as well as chartered locals throughout the country.

In October 2019, the Socialist Party nominated Howie Hawkins for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Hawkins is also seeking the Green Party presidential nomination, as well as that of various state-level parties such as the Peace and Freedom Party in California and Liberty Union Party in Vermont, in a bid to unite the "non-sectarian independent Left" behind a single campaign.

History

Background

In 1958, the Independent Socialist League led by Max Shachtman dissolved to join the Socialist Party of America. Shachtman had written that Soviet communism was a new form of class society, bureaucratic collectivism, in which the ruling class exploited and oppressed the population and therefore he opposed the spread of communism. Shachtman also argued that democratic socialists should work with activists from labor unions and civil rights organizations to help build a social democratic "realignment" of the Democratic Party. Though he died on November 4, 1972 and had little involvement with the Socialist Party in the year proceeding his death, his followers, identitified as "Shachmanites", exercised a tremendous amount of influence on the party.

In its 1972 convention, the Socialist Party changed its name to Social Democrats, USA by a vote of 73 to 34. The change of name was supported by the two Co-Chairmen, Bayard Rustin and Charles S. Zimmerman of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU); and by the First National Vice Chairman James S. Glaser—these three were re-elected by acclamation.

Renaming the party as SDUSA was meant to be "realistic". The New York Times observed that the Socialist Party had last sponsored Darlington Hoopes as its candidate for President in the 1956 election, who received only 2,121 votes, which were cast in only six states. Because the party no longer sponsored candidates in presidential elections, the name "party" had been "misleading"—"party" had hindered the recruiting of activists who participated in the Democratic Party, according to the majority report. The name "Socialist" was replaced by "Social Democrats" because many American associated the word "socialism" with Soviet communism. The party also wished to distinguish itself from two small Marxist parties.

The convention elected a national committee of 33 members, with 22 seats for the majority caucus, 8 seats for Harrington's coalition caucus, 2 for the Debs caucus and one for the "independent" Samuel H. Friedman, who also had opposed the name change. The convention voted on and adopted proposals for its program by a two-one vote, with the majority caucus winning every vote. On foreign policy, the program called for "firmness toward Communist aggression". However, on the Vietnam War the program opposed "any efforts to bomb Hanoi into submission" and to work for a peace agreement that would protect Communist political cadres in South Vietnam from further military or police reprisals. Harrington's proposal for an immediate cease fire and an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces was defeated. Harrington complained that after its previous convention, the Socialist Party had endorsed George McGovern with a statement of "constructive criticism" and had not mobilized enough support for McGovern.

After their defeat at the convention, members of two minority caucuses helped to found new socialist organizations. At most 200 members of the Coalition Caucus joined Michael Harrington in forming the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), which later became the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). At its start, DSOC had 840 members, of which 2 percent served on its national board in 1973 when SDUSA stated its membership at 1,800, according to a 1973 profile of Harrington. Second, many members of the Debs Caucus joined David McReynolds in reconstituting the Socialist Party USA also in 1973.

Founding
The Debs Caucus formed the Union for Democratic Socialism and on May 30, 1973 incorporated the Socialist Party of the United States of America, usually simplified as the Socialist Party USA. Many activists from the local and state branches of the old Socialist Party, including the party's Wisconsin, California, Illinois, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. organizations, participated in the reconstitution of the Socialist Party USA.

After its founding, the party promoted itself as the legitimate heir of the Socialist Party of America. Former Mayor of Milwaukee, Frank Zeidler, was elected the first national chairperson of the party. Zeidler also helped re-organizing the party structure during its early years. He was later nominated as the party's candidacy for the presidential office, with Zeidler believing the party would be able to collaborate with other socialist parties nationwide to spread the message of socialism.

Subsequent history
Since 1976, a member of the party was elected to the city council of Iowa City and several members have won tens of thousands of votes in elections for statewide offices. In 1992, Socialist Iowa City Councilwoman Karen Kubby won her re-election with the highest vote in a contested election in the history of the Iowa City Council and was re-elected  until retiring from the Council in 2000. In 2000, Socialist Wendell Harris received 19% of the vote for Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the primary.<ref>"Norquist, Watts Win Mayoral Primary Election in Milwaukee" St. Paul Pioneer Press February 16, 2000; p. 2B.</ref> In 2008, Socialist Jon Osborne pulled in 22% of the vote for Rhode Island's 34th District State Senate seat while listed on the ballot under the Socialist Party USA label. During the 2010 United States Senate elections, Dan La Botz of the Socialist Party of Ohio received 25,368 (0.68%) votes in Ohio. In 2011, Socialist Matt Erard was elected to a three-year term on the city of Detroit's Downtown District Citizens' District Council. In 2012, Socialist Pat Noble unseated his incumbent opponent in winning election to the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education, Socialist John Strinka received 10% of the vote while running with the party's ballot label for Indiana's 39th district State House seat and Socialist Troy Thompson received 27% of the vote for Mayor of Floodwood, Minnesota. Also in 2012, candidate Mary Alice Herbert received 13.1% of the vote for Vermont Secretary of State while running with the dual nomination of both the Socialist and Vermont Liberty Union parties.

 2016 candidates
For the 2016 general election, the Socialist Party nominated Mimi Soltysik and Angela Nicole Walker to be its presidential ticket. Other party members ran for office as well, including Jarrod Williams for United States Senate in Nevada, Seth Baker for Maine Senate and Michael Anderson for the Michigan House of Representatives.

 Membership
According to the party's first chairman, Frank Zeidler, the party had around 500 members nationwide in 1975. The Socialist Party experienced substantial growth during the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s, expanding from only around 600 dues-paying members to around 1,700. In 2008, WMNF claimed that the party had around 3,000 paying members. However, a CommonDreams article suggested that the organization had only 1,000 members in 2010, with party members claiming it to be an increase in the number of members. In May 2011, an article from The New York Times stated that the party has "about 1,000 members nationally". In February 2012, an article from The Root stated that the party had a "membership around 1,500".

 Current elected officials
 Local Boards of Education
 Pat Noble, member of the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education

 Ideology
 Political positions

While some party members favor a more gradual approach to socialism, most others envision a more sweeping or revolutionary transformation of society from capitalist to socialist through the decisive victory of the working class in the class struggle. Some party members also advocate revolutionary nonviolence or pacifism while some consider armed struggle a possible necessity. The party's Statement of Principles rejects equating socialism with a "welfare state" and calls for democratic social revolution from below. The party is strongly committed to principles of socialist feminism and strives to further embody such commitment in its organizational structure. Its national constitution requires gender parity among its national Co-Chairs and Co-Vice Chairs, its National Committee members and alternates and seated members of its branch- and region-elected delegations to the party's biennial National Conventions. The Socialist Party also rejected the new healthcare reform law of 2010 approved by the Obama administration, with Socialist Party National Co-Chair Billy Wharton claiming it to be "a corporate restructuring of the health insurance industry created to protect the profit margins of private insurance companies".

During his campaign, 2008 Socialist Party candidate for President Brian Moore was very vocal against the idea that Barack Obama was a socialist of any kind. He further commented on the issue, saying it was "misleading of the Republicans" to spread that message. In a later statement about Obama's policies, Wharton called Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address a "public relations ploy" and concluded saying: "The time for slick public relations campaigns has ended—the time for building our grassroots movements is more urgent than ever. The Socialist Party USA stands ready to join in such a political revitalization".

 International affairs
The Party's National Action Committee condemned the Israeli actions during the Gaza War. The party demands that the Federal government of the United States cease providing military aid to Israel as a precondition for peace. The party also seeks to begin an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. During the 2008 presidential election, the Socialist Party continued to place a strong emphasis on its full-scale opposition to American wars abroad, with Brian Moore, the presidential candidate, claiming the war was destroying small communities throughout the country. He also criticized what he called "pressure on the local governments" by the Bush administration. The Socialist Party of Connecticut denounced Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan, claiming that the President wasted needed resources the country needed to get pulled out of the financial crisis. After denouncing him, the state affiliate organized a protest in front of the federal building in Hartford.

In April 2017, the party issued a statement opposing further United States intervention into the Syrian Civil War. Ten days later, the party issued a follow-up statement opposing both the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack and United States' subsequent missile strike. In May 2017, the party condemned the Manchester Arena bombing and stood "against any attempt to turn this tragedy into political capital to further right-wing agendas and target oppressed communities".

 Government

Socialist Party candidates, such as New Jersey gubernatorial and senate candidate Greg Pason, have also emphasized immediate public service demands—these reforms include socializing the United States health care system, a steeply graduated income tax, universal rent control and the elimination of all educational debts and tuition fees. In 1997, Pason called auto insurance "a regressive tax against working people". Moore was also vocal of his support for public healthcare and socialized medicine. Moore believes that capitalism is a system based on both exploitation and selfishness, which operates to serve the interests of corporations and the ruling class at the expense of workers and the poor. During his presidential campaign, he claimed that the lack of available remedy to collapsing economic conditions stems from the capitalist system's foundation upon "greed" and advocated its replacement with a new system founded upon economic democracy through social ownership and workers' control of our reigning industrial and financial institutions.

 State and local parties
, the Socialist Party had twenty four chartered locals and five chartered state parties.

 State parties
 Socialist Party of California
 Socialist Party of Maine
 Socialist Party of Michigan
 Socialist Party of New Jersey

 Locals
 Socialist Party of Central Alabama
 Los Angeles Socialist Party
 Socialist Party of Ventura County
 Bay Area Socialists (Oakland, California)
 Front Range Socialist Party (Denver, Colorado)
 Washington DC Socialist Party
 Chicago Socialist Party
 Socialist Party of Greater Springfield (Illinois)
 Greater Indianapolis Socialist Party
 Northern Indiana Socialist Party
 Socialist Party of Central Kentucky
 Socialist Party of Southern Maine
 Socialist Party of Eastern Maine
 Socialist Party of Boston
 Socialist Party of Twin Cities Metro (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
 Socialist Party of Northern New Jersey
 Central New Jersey Socialist Party
 Capital District Socialist Party of New York
 Socialist Party of Central New York
 Socialist Party of New York City
 Northern Piedmont of North Carolina Local
 Socialist Party of Philadelphia
 Socialist Party of Coastal South Carolina
 Puget Sound Socialist Party

 Presidential tickets

† In each line the first note refers to candidates and results, the second (if any) to ballot access(the number of state + D.C. ballots, out of 51, on which the Socialist Party candidates appeared)
‡  Endorsed the Citizens Party's candidates in 1984.

 See also
 List of elected socialist mayors in the United States
 Brian Moore presidential campaign, 2008
 Stewart Alexander presidential campaign, 2012
 Mimi Soltysik presidential campaign, 2016
 Howie Hawkins 2020 presidential campaign

 Notes

 References

 (for Green Politics).

 Further reading
 David A. Epstein, Left, Right, Out: The History of Third Parties in America. Arts and Letters Imperium Publications. 2008.
 Alan Feuer, "Inside Socialist Party Headquarters". The New York Times''. October 20, 2008.
 R. W. Tucker, "The Debs Caucus: A Party Within a Party". Madison, WI. Socialist Party of Wisconsin. December 1970.

External links

 The Radical Pamphlet Collection at the Library of Congress contains materials from the Socialist Party of the United States of America.
 The Mapping American Social Movements project at the University of Washington has mapped votes, membership, newspapers, and elected officials, membership by state and more.

Category:Political parties established in 1973

Category:Socialist parties in the United States
Category:Democratic socialism in the United States
Category:Multi-tendency organizations in the United States


James Fisher (actor)

James Fisher (b. 20 April 1972 Walthamstow, London) is an actor and producer. He is the youngest of three brothers. He studied acting at the London Drama School (Trinity Licentiate Diploma in Performance Arts) and was also educated in screen acting at the Drill Hall.

Known for his roles in BBC's EastEnders, ITV's Tina & Bobby, and BBC2 Comedy White Gold, James also produced feature documentary Royd Tolkien's There's a Hole In My Bucket, featuring Peter Jackson, John Rhys Davies and Billy Boyd. James also starred in, and produced, Raindance Festival selection Black Smoke Rising and the 'best film' award winning Monk3ys. Both films marked his first steps into film producing.

Previous acting roles include Green Street, Oscar winning The Constant Gardener, Irwin Winkler's De-Lovely and a large selection of independent films including Vengeance, Aux, Invasion of the Not Quite Dead, and award winning UK horror film The Zombie Diaries playing the character Geoff.

Upcoming producer projects include 2 exciting feature length thrillers working in conjunction with his producing partners at Film In Business, as well as the riotous zombie-comedy Shed of the Dead, as part of 7DM Studios.

James is currently on the board of directors of 7DM Studios, Film In Business and Sky Limit Films, to help develop and produce their respective exciting feature film slates.

References

External links

 Official James FIsher Website

Category:English male film actors
Category:English male television actors
Category:Living people
Category:1972 births
Category:Male actors from London


Grand Prix of America

The Grand Prix of America was a Formula One World Championship race proposed in 2011. The plan was to hold the race on the proposed  Port Imperial Street Circuit through the New Jersey towns of West New York and Weehawken near Weehawken Port Imperial, with the New York City skyline as a panoramic backdrop.

The Grand Prix of America had planned to have its first event in June 2013, but was not run in 2013. In late 2013, Formula One President and CEO Bernie Ecclestone stated that the promoters were in breach of contract and that new proposals from other parties would be welcome.
The race was repeatedly added then removed from future Formula One provisional calendars, and dropped completely from even the provisional calendar by 2016.

History
A Grand Prix in the New York metropolitan area was announced for the 1983 season, to be held either at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey, Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows in Queens, or Mitchel Field in Hempstead, Long Island (on the same site as the 1936 and 1937 Vanderbilt Cups). However, the race was first postponed and then canceled. It was also scheduled for  and , but never managed to get off the ground. CART then started their own race at the Meadowlands.

In May 2010, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone announced plans to bring a Formula One race to New York City for the  season. Ecclestone was quoted as saying the race would take place across the Hudson River in New Jersey, with the Manhattan skyline overlooking the circuit. Later that month, plans emerged for a circuit to be built in Jersey City's Liberty State Park, but those plans were abandoned shortly thereafter. While searching for a venue for the race, Staten Island, Floyd Bennett Field and Meadowlands were all explored, but none were considered viable.

In August 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported on a proposal for a street circuit in Weehawken and West New York, New Jersey, putting forward 2013 as a potential start date. Two months later, in October, The Wall Street Journal further reported that the race would be going ahead in June 2013. Other sources were much more cautious, claiming that the race still needed approval from Hudson County officials before the race could go ahead. Later that month, a revised proposal was put forward, tracing a street circuit that ran through Port Imperial, climbing the Hudson Palisades to Boulevard East before descending the Palisades to rejoin Port Imperial Boulevard. On October 25, 2011, it was officially confirmed that New Jersey would host the Grand Prix of America from 2013 onwards on a 3.2-mile (5.2-km) street circuit.

The event was originally on a ten-year contract, starting in June 2013 so as not to clash with the November running of the United States Grand Prix in Austin. It was to be "paired" – held within one week in the interests of cutting down on the costs of logistics – with the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

Long-time NASCAR promoter Humpy Wheeler was a consultant to the race, which had been expected to provide over US$100 million annually to the economy of the New York/New Jersey area. Leo Hindery, Jr. was the race promoter and director, with Dennis Robinson as the COO.  Tom Cotter stepped down as president on August 20, 2012.

Christian Epp of Tilke America described the intended layout as a street circuit with elevation changes similar to the Monaco Street Circuit, but with a higher average lap speed unique among street circuits.

Postponement
In July 2012, Bernie Ecclestone confirmed that New Jersey had been included on the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) 2013 Grand Prix schedule on its 2013 calendar as the Grand Prix of Jersey (New York) and in September of the same year, the race was given a provisional date of June 16, 2013. The future of the race was however cast in doubt when a few days later Ecclestone announced that the contract for the race had been annulled.

In September 2012, Ecclestone announced that the circuit's contract had been annulled since the organizers had not complied with the terms and conditions of the contract. However, the race was provisionally included on the official 2013 Formula One calendar, with its status listed as 'to be confirmed'. That schedule was finalized in December 2012. On October 18, 2012, the mayor of Weehawken announced that the race would be postponed until 2014. When asked about the reasons behind the postponement, Ecclestone replied that the organizers could not have everything necessary to host the race arranged in time for 2013.

In March 2013, race promoter Hindery Jr. said that the Grand Prix of America was back on track and that critical pavement work would start around September when the weather was most conducive to do such work.

Hindery's organization was beset with financial difficulties and it remained unclear how the race would be funded, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie saying that there had been no discussion of the state subsidizing it, as is common for other such events. In May 2013, speculation in the media suggested that Bernie Ecclestone was attempting to return Formula One to the Long Beach circuit as an alternative to the race in New Jersey, though Ecclestone expressed hope the stalled talks with Hindery could be renewed, adding that the sport's administrators had invested in the race to pay off the organisers' debts and expedite the construction process. Chris Pook, who originally established the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach, but switched it to a CART race in 1984, was also enlisted as a consultant to the Grand Prix of America.

In June 2013, it was announced that race organizer Leo Hindery had signed a new, 15-year contract with F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone after all permits had been secured. Work on the permanent 24-car paddock area was near completion, while paving on the road course could begin "as early as next week," well ahead of the earlier planned September 2013 start date.

On August 23, 2013, Ecclestone announced that the 2014 Grand Prix of America was canceled because the promoters could not raise the $100 million required for the event planning. The race was not included on the provisional 2014 calendar, with race promoters claiming an administrative error.

During the telecast of the 2013 Singapore Grand Prix on September 22, 2013, it was announced on-air that Leo Hindery, Jr and promoters had submitted all necessary entry fees for inclusion on the 2014 calendar, with a provisional date of June 1, 2014 (between the Monaco and Canadian Grands Prix). The Grand Prix was later confirmed on the provisional calendar. The FIA released the official 2014 Formula One season calendar on December 4, 2013, and the Grand Prix did not appear on the schedule. At the same time, the FIA announced that the race had been postponed due to a number of long-term financial problems. Ecclestone apparently had not given up on the race itself; stating that he had "no doubt" that the race would take place in 2015. Organizers were working on financial restructuring and were also optimistic. In December 2013, Ecclestone said the organizers were in breach of contract and that he would entertain proposals from other parties.

There had not been much news regarding the race in 2014, until an article in Forbes written in July revealed that Hindery had found investors to fund the race, but they dropped out at the last minute, and Ecclestone revealed that he was not willing to put the race on a Formula One calendar until 2016.  There have been no further updates, and all mention of running the race has been dropped since the  racing season.

References

External links
Interview with Bob Varsha on the Grand Prix of America

America
Category:Motorsport in New Jersey

Category:Sports in Hudson County, New Jersey


The Last Yankee

The Last Yankee is a play by Arthur Miller, which premiered on January 5, 1993 at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City. The cast included Tom Aldredge as John Frick, Frances Conroy as Patricia Hamilton, Rose Gregorio as Karen Frick, John Heard as Leroy Hamilton, and Charlotte Maier as the Patient. The play had been performed previously in a much shorter version two years earlier.

Synopsis
The Last Yankee takes place in a present-day state mental hospital, located somewhere in New England. Patricia Hamilton is recovering from depression, and this may be the day she feels strong enough to go home. But a visit from her husband Leroy, a descendant of one of America's founding fathers (but referred to as a "Swamp Yankee"), coincides with that of a successful businessman, John Frick, who has come to see his newly admitted wife, Karen. A clash of values and emotions upsets them all.

It is a play in two parts which focuses on the relationships of two couples - Leroy and Patricia Hamilton, married many years with seven children, and John and Karen Frick, a childless couple. Both women are patients at a mental institution, and act one sees the two men meet for the first time in the waiting room on visitors' day. Karen has not long been institutionalised, and Frick is having a difficult time coping with her mental illness, while Patricia has been in and out of institutions for many years. The two men struggle to communicate under the circumstances, though even this breaks down in the face of their respective situations. Patricia and Karen have become friendly during their time together in the ward, and act two sees the four characters brought together inside, where a picture emerges of a society whose members feel obscurely cheated and where success is equated with failure.

See also
Arthur Miller
Yankee
Swamp Yankee

References

Category:1993 plays
Category:Plays by Arthur Miller
Category:Plays set in the United States


Vomp

Vomp is a municipality in the Schwaz district in the Austrian state of Tyrol.

Population

See also
 St. Georgenberg-Fiecht Abbey

References

Category:Cities and towns in Schwaz District