text:
Talk:Commonwealth Coast Football

Comment
Would it be helpful to have a list of conference champions by year? --Daniel C. Boyer 20:46, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Commonwealth Coast Football


text:
Far sight

Far sight may refer to:

 * Hyperopia, farsightedness
 * Farsight, an audio/video conferencing framework
 * Farsight Institute, conducts scientific research into remote-viewing
 * FarSight Studios, an American video game developer
 * Commander Farsight, or O'Shovah, a Tau character from the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe. His full name is Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr.
 * Television, derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight"

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Far sight


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Gibraltar, Buckinghamshire

Gibraltar is a hamlet in the parish of Dinton-with-Ford and Upton in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the modern main road that links Aylesbury with Thame.

The hamlet is named after the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.

In 2003, the public house in Gibraltar, called the Bottle and Glass, was gutted when the thatch of the pub roof caught fire following an electrical fault in the upper storey of the building. Following extensive rebuilding the Bottle and Glass reopened on 27 April 2007.

title: Gibraltar, Buckinghamshire


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.edu

The domain name .edu is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The domain was implemented in 1985 to create a domain name hierarchy for organizations with a focus on education. At the time, it was open for registration for entities from any region. Since 2001, new registrants for second-level domain names have been required to be United States–affiliated institutions of higher education.

History
The domain edu was implemented in April 1985 as a generic top-level domain. Six universities were the initial registrants that month. UCLA was among this group of the first schools to have their URLs registered. And while the first ARPAnet message was sent from UCLA to Stanford, Stanford did not have their URL registered until half a year after these first schools, becoming the 18th .edu site.

Until 2001, Network Solutions served as registrar for edu under an arrangement with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Domain registration was done at no cost to educational institutions. In 2001, the Commerce Department entered into a five-year agreement with Educause making that organization the registrar for the .edu domain. The agreement with Educause was extended for an additional five-year period in 2006; at that time Educause was authorized to begin charging a yearly administrative fee to registrants.

The domain edu was originally intended for educational institutions anywhere in the world. However, most of the institutions that obtained edu registrations were in the United States, while non-U.S. educational institutions typically used country-level domains. In 1993, a decision attributed to Jon Postel limited new registrations in the edu domain to four-year postsecondary educational institutions. This prevented new edu registrations by community colleges and other institutions offering less than four years of postsecondary schooling.

Enforcement of the restrictions in the 1990s was not entirely effective. The webmaster for the Exploratorium, a San Francisco science museum, recalled in 2006 that the museum obtained its edu domain name at a time in the early 1990s "when there were about 600 websites and only one for a museum." The museum's Internet registrar allowed it to sidestep the then-extant domain-naming rules by using edu despite not being an academic institution and by using a name with more than 12 characters. Some community colleges were reported to have registered edu second-level names after 1993. In 1999 an article in Mother Earth News quoted an authority on distance education as saying, "Anyone who has the necessary $70 can register an edu domain name and use it to archive any type of enterprise on the Internet."

In 2001, the domain was restricted to U.S.-accredited postsecondary educational institutions. Subsequent changes expanded its use beyond four-year institutions, allowing registrations by accredited community colleges as well as by university systems, community college districts, and similar entities.

Between 2004 and 2019, the number of registered names in domain edu remained relatively persistent, with more than 7,000 but fewer than 8,000 names registered at any given time.

Eligibility
Since October 29, 2001, only postsecondary institutions and organizations that are institutionally accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education's list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies are eligible to apply for an edu domain. To be eligible, an institution must be located in the U.S., legally organized in the U.S., or recognized by a U.S. state, territorial, or federal agency. University system offices, community college district offices, and other entities within the United States that are organized to manage and govern multiple accredited postsecondary institutions may also register .edu domain names. Each eligible institution is limited to registering one .edu domain name, but institutions may also use names in other top-level domains.

Grandfathered uses
Domains that were already registered in edu as of October 29, 2001, were grandfathered into the system. Holders of such domain names can retain their edu domain names without regard to the current eligibility criteria.

In 2003, Educause undertook an initiative to clear the edu registry of domain names that were not accurately registered by removing names whose registrants did not respond to requests that they log into the registry and review their whois entries. Through this effort, Educause expected to eliminate a number of domains that did not appear to qualify for registration in the edu domain, such as oracle.edu, geraldine.edu, and jedi.edu. Since 2006, Educause has been authorized to implement measures to prevent edu domain name owners from transferring their domain names to other entities. These measures, together with the imposition of registration fees, were intended to reduce the number of inactive or ineligible edu domain names.

The U.S. Department of Education notes that some "suspect" or "illegitimate" educational institutions continue to use edu addresses that were registered before the stringent eligibility criteria were adopted in 2001.

Related domains
Many countries operate edu or .ac namespaces within their country code top-level domains that serve the same purpose as the edu top-level domain. In the United States, community colleges and technical and vocational schools also have the option of registering fourth-level domains under the .cc.state.us and .tec.state.us affinity namespaces, while elementary and secondary schools and school districts may register under the .k12.state.us namespace.

In September 2015, the .college top-level domain emerged as an option for organizations that do not meet edu's more stringent criteria, such as non-accredited institutions and institutions based outside the United States.

title: .edu


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People's Party (Spain)

The People's Party (Partido Popular ; known mostly by its acronym, PP ) is a conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Spain.

The People's Party was a 1989 re-foundation of People's Alliance (AP), a party led by former minister Manuel Fraga. It was founded in 1976 as alliance of post-Francoist proto-parties. The new party combined the conservative AP with several small Christian democratic and liberal parties (the party calling this fusion of views "the Reformist Centre"). In 2002, Manuel Fraga received the honorary title of "Founding Chairman". The party's youth organization is New Generations of the People's Party of Spain (NNGG).

The PP is a member of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), and in the European Parliament its 16 MEPs sit in the EPP Group. The PP is also a member of the Centrist Democrat International and the International Democracy Union. The PP was also one of the founding organizations of the Budapest-based Robert Schuman Institute for Developing Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe.

On 24 May 2018, the National Court found that the PP profited from the illegal kickbacks-for-contracts scheme of the Gürtel case, confirming the existence of an illegal accounting and financing structure that ran in parallel with the party's official one since the party's foundation in 1989; the court ruled that the PP helped establish "a genuine and effective system of institutional corruption through the manipulation of central, autonomous and local public procurement". This prompted a no confidence vote on Mariano Rajoy's government, which was brought down on 1 June 2018 in the first successful motion since the Spanish transition to democracy. On 5 June 2018, Rajoy announced his resignation as PP leader.

On 21 July 2018, Pablo Casado was elected as the new leader of the PP. Under his leadership, the party was claimed to take a right-wing turn, including forging local alliances with the far-right Vox party. However, Casado later bet on breaking ties with Vox, and caused an unprecedented leadership crisis inside PP. After this there were rumors that Casado had ordered to spy on the popular president of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, for alleged irregularities, which collapsed popular support for PP according to opinion polls for future national elections, being resolved with the resignation of Casado and the appointment of the veteran Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the new leader, which improved the electoral expectations of the party. The party was the most voted one in the 2023 general election, but it failed to secure a parliamentary majority.

Political genealogy
The party has its roots in the People's Alliance founded on 9 October 1976 by former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga. Although Fraga was a member of the reformist faction of the Franco regime, he supported an extremely gradual transition to democracy. However, he badly underestimated the public's distaste for Francoism. Additionally, while he attempted to convey a reformist image, the large number of former Francoists in the party led the public to perceive it as both reactionary and authoritarian. In the June 1977 general election, the AP garnered only 8.3 percent of the vote, putting it in fourth place.

In the months following the 1977 elections, dissent erupted within the AP over constitutional issues that arose as the draft document was being formulated. Fraga had wanted from the beginning to brand the party as a traditional European conservative party, and wanted to move the AP toward the political centre in order to form a larger centre-right party. Fraga's wing won the struggle, prompting most of the disenchanted reactionaries to leave the party. The AP then joined with other moderate conservatives to form the Democratic Coalition (Coalición Democrática, CD).

It was hoped that this new coalition would capture the support of those who had voted for the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) in 1977, but who had become disenchanted with the Adolfo Suárez government. In the March 1979 general election, however, the CD received 6.1 percent of the vote, again finishing a distant fourth.

At the AP's Second Party Congress in December 1979, party leaders re-assessed their involvement in the CD. Many felt that the creation of the coalition had merely confused the voters, and they sought to emphasise the AP's independent identity. Fraga resumed control of the party, and the political resolutions adopted by the party congress reaffirmed the conservative orientation of the AP.

In the early 1980s, Fraga succeeded in rallying the various components of the right around his leadership. He was aided in his efforts to revive the AP by the increasing disintegration of the UCD. In the general elections held in October 1982, the AP gained votes both from previous UCD supporters and from the far right. It became the major opposition party to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, securing 25.4 percent of the popular vote. Whereas the AP's parliamentary representation had dropped to nine seats in 1979, the party allied itself with the small Christian democratic People's Democratic Party (PDP) and won 106 seats in 1982.

The increased strength of the AP was further evidenced in the municipal and regional elections held in May 1983, when the party drew 26 percent of the vote. A significant portion of the electorate appeared to support the AP's emphasis on law and order as well as its pro-business policies.

Subsequent political developments belied the party's aspirations to continue increasing its base of support. Prior to the June 1986 elections, the AP joined forces with the PDP and the Liberal Party (PL) to form the People's Coalition (CP), in another attempt to expand its constituency to include the centre of the political spectrum. The coalition called for stronger measures against terrorism, for more privatisation, and for a reduction in public spending and in taxes. The CP failed to increase its share of the vote in the 1986 elections, however, and it soon began to disintegrate.

When regional elections in late 1986 resulted in further losses for the coalition, Fraga resigned as AP chairman, although he retained his parliamentary seat. At the party congress in February 1987, Antonio Hernández Mancha was chosen to head the AP, declaring that under his leadership the AP would become a "modern right-wing European party". But Hernández Mancha lacked political experience at the national level, and the party continued to decline. When support for the AP plummeted in the municipal and regional elections held in June 1987, it was clear that it would be overtaken as major opposition party by Suárez's Democratic and Social Centre (CDS).

After the resignation of Manuel Fraga and the successive victories of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the general election of 1982 and 1986 general election, the Popular Alliance entered a period of deep crisis. Fraga then took the reins and, at the Congress of January 1989, the constituent parties of the CP were folded into a new party, the People's Party. While the AP was the nucleus of the merged party, the PP tried to bill itself as a more moderate party than the AP. Fraga was the first chairman of the party, with Francisco Álvarez Cascos as the secretary general.

Aznar years (1989–2004)
On 4 September 1989, and at the suggestion of Fraga himself, José María Aznar (then premier of the Autonomous Region of Castile and León) was named the party's candidate for Prime Minister of Spain at the general elections. In April 1990, Aznar became chairman of the party. Fraga would later be named Founding Chairman of the People's Party.

The PP joined the European People's Party in 1991.

The PP became the largest party for the first time in 1996, and Aznar became Prime Minister with the support of the Basque Nationalist Party, the Catalan Convergence and Union and the Canarian Coalition. In the 2000 elections, the PP gained an absolute majority.

Foreign policy
Known to have a strong Atlanticist ideology, the People's Party fostered stronger ties to the US.

Rajoy years (2004–2018)
In August 2003, Mariano Rajoy was appointed Secretary General by Aznar. Thus, Rajoy became the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the 2004 general election, held three days after the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings, and which Rajoy lost by a big margin to Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The PP under Mariano Rajoy opposed the PSOE government after the PP lost the general election in 2004, arguing that this victory was influenced by the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004. At a national level, its political strategy has followed two main axes, both linked to Spain's delicate regional politics: Firstly, opposing further administrative devolution to Catalonia by means of the newly approved "Estatut" or Statute of Catalonia that lays out the powers of the Catalan regional government. Secondly, opposition to political negotiations with the Basque separatist organization ETA.

The People's Party has supported the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) with respect to the Government's actions concerning ETA's ceasefire, and was able to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people in demonstrations against Government policies that, in its opinion, would result in political concessions to ETA. Nevertheless, the end of the ceasefire in December 2006 ended prospects for government negotiations with ETA.

The prospect of increased demands for autonomy in the programs of Catalan and Basque parties, and Zapatero's alleged favouring of them, became a focus for the party's campaign for the March 2008 general election. Basque President Juan José Ibarretxe's proposal for a unilateral referendum for the solution of the Basque Conflict was another important issue.

The People's Party under Rajoy has an increasingly patriotic, or nationalist, element to it, appealing to the sense of "Spanishness" and making strong use of national symbols such as the Spanish flag. Prior to the national celebrations of Spanish Heritage Day, Rajoy made a speech asking Spaniards to "privately or publicly" display their pride in their nation and to honor their flag, an action which received some criticism from many political groups of the Congress.

2008 elections and convention
On 9 March 2008, Spain held a general election, with both main parties led by the same candidates who competed in 2004: 154 People's Party MPs were elected, up six on the previous election. However, the failure to close the gap with the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (which increased its number of MPs by five) provoked a party crisis, in which some internal groups and supportive media questioned the leadership of Rajoy, who was said to be close to resigning.

After an impasse of three days, he decided to stay, and summoned a Party Convention to be held in June 2008 in Valencia. Speculation about alternative candidates erupted in the media, with discussion of the possible candidacies of Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruíz Gallardón and Madrid autonomous community Premier Esperanza Aguirre creating a national debate, calls for support and opposition from the media, etc.

In the end neither one stood, with Gallardón explicitly backing Rajoy and Aguirre refusing to comment on the issue. The only politician who explicitly expressed his intention to stand was Juan Costa, who had been a minister under Aznar, but he was unable to garner the 20% support required to stand in the election because of the support Rajoy had received prior to his nomination. At the convention, Mariano Rajoy was re-elected chairman with 79% of the vote, and in order to "refresh the negative public image of the party", which had been a major factor in the electoral defeat, its leadership was controversially renewed with young people, replacing a significant number of politicians from the Aznar era.

Among the latter, most resigned of their own accord to make room for the next generation, like the PP Spokesman in the Congress of Deputies Eduardo Zaplana, replaced by Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría; and the party Secretary-General Ángel Acebes, whose office was taken by María Dolores de Cospedal.

The convention also saw significant reforms to the Party Statutes, including the reform of election to the office of Party Chairperson, which was to be open to more competition; and linking that office to the party candidacy in the general elections, etc. María San Gil, Chairwoman of the Basque PP, left the party (even resigning from her Basque Parliament seat) over disagreements on the party policies towards regional nationalisms in Spain, and particularly over the deletion of a direct reference to the Basque Nationalist Party accusing them of being too passive and "contemptuous" regarding the armed Basque group ETA. Most PP members rallied behind San Gil at first, but when it became clear that her decision was final the national leadership called a regional party election, in which Antonio Basagoiti was chosen as the new Basque PP leader.

The PP won a clear victory in the 2011 general elections, ousting the PSOE from government. With 44.62% of the votes, the conservatives won 186 seats in the Congreso de los Diputados, the biggest victory they have ever had. On the other hand, the centre-left PSOE suffered a huge defeat, losing 59 MPs. The PP, under Mariano Rajoy's leadership, returned to power after 7 years of opposition.

In May 2018, the Audiencia Nacional declared the PP as guilty part "on a lucrative basis" in the Gürtel corruption scheme, understanding the organization profited from the corruption scheme "to the detriment of the State's interests". This led to a motion of no confidence to the prime minister Mariano Rajoy, led by socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, which eventually succeeded, thus forcing Rajoy to quit his position, and ultimately resign as the party's leader. His substitute would be determined in July 2018.

Leadership of Casado (2018–2022)
Pablo Casado's victory in the July 2018 PP leadership election was considered a party swing towards the right.

Polls indicated a continual decline in support for the PP in the lead-up to the April 2019 general election. Ultimately, the party achieved the worst result in its history, winning just 16.7% of the national vote – a decline of almost 16% from the 2016 election – and losing over half its seats. Though becoming only the second largest party in the Congress of Deputies, it held almost half as many seats as first placed PSOE, and was less than a single percentage point and just nine seats ahead of third placed Ciudadanos. Casado refused to resign following the poor result, and proposed a sudden U-turn of the party back into the moderate centre-right under pressure from party regional leaders one month ahead of the regional and local elections.

The party enjoyed a partial revival in 2019 European elections, winning 20.15% of votes. The party increased its support in the November 2019 election, scoring 20.82% of votes and electing 89 deputies and 83 senators.

2022 Internal organizational crisis
After a few months of confrontation between the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the leadership of the national branch of the party, on 16 February 2022, information appeared about an alleged payment (in the form of a commission) of Díaz Ayuso's brother for health material and also about alleged spying on the president's family by the party leadership through the City Council of Madrid. The president herself accused in an appearance the following day the national leadership of the PP of wanting to destroy her politically. That afternoon, the secretary general, Teodoro García Egea, appeared to deny all the information related to the attempt to spy on the president's entourage; in this appearance, Egea informed of the opening of an informative file on the actions of the president of Madrid, which was closed the following day, considering the documentation provided valid. A few hours later, that same day, Ángel Carromero, a trusted person of the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, resigned after the release of some audios in which one of the detectives claimed to have been contacted from the Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda y Suelo (Municipal Housing and Land Company).

The following day, President Pablo Casado stated on the Cadena COPE radio channel that Díaz Ayuso should provide all the necessary documentation to clear doubts about his honorability, questioning at the same time his honesty by stating whether "it is logical to award a commission to your brother in April 2020, when 700 people were dying in Spain due to the pandemic".

This led to a schism in the leadership of the PP, in which regional leaders and popular leaders demanded political responsibilities and a change of leadership and responsibilities in the apparatus. On 22 February there was a cascade of resignations of senior party officials and the demand by the majority of territorial barons and the Popular Parliamentary Group for the holding of an Extraordinary Congress, in addition to the request for the resignation of the Secretary General, which took place that same day. Casado finally agreed to convene the National Board of Directors on 1 March to set in motion an Extraordinary Congress of the PP. Casado was subsequently replaced as leader by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the president of Galicia.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo's leadership (2022–present)
After becoming the party's leader, Feijóo designated Cuca Gamarra, the PP's spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, as the new Secretary General. After the PP took several regions—including Aragon, the Balearic Islands, and Valencia—from the PSOE in Spain's 2023 regional and local elections, Sánchez called for a snap general election. The conservative party gained forty-eight seats in Congress and an absolute majority in the Senate, winning the elections. The PP failed to secure a parliamentary majority with its allies, Canarian Coalition, Navarrese People's Union (UPN), and VOX; however, King of Spain Felipe VI requested that Feijóo tried to form a government.

Ideology
Once described as the main liberal-conservative party of Spain, political scientists Vít Hlousek and Lubomír Kopeček have observed that under the leadership of José María Aznar the party evolved into a conservative party with elements of Christian democracy and economic liberalism. It has also been described as Christian humanist and conservative liberal. On the other hand, sociologist Vicenç Navarro considered the PP a conservative-neoliberal coalition with a neoliberal economic policy.

The party supports the regional structure in autonomous communities enshrined in the Constitution of 1978, as well as the constitutional monarchy.

When Spain first legalised same-sex marriage in 2005, the party was opposed to the same-sex marriage law. It did, however, support marriage-like civil unions for same-sex couples. The party organised demonstrations against the same-sex marriage law. After the law was deemed constitutional in 2012, the PP government announced that it would no longer seek the repeal of same-sex marriage. While the party has a strong socially conservative faction, some politicians from the People's Party now support same-sex marriage. Some PP regional governments have introduced legislation against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Illegal financing
In early 2009, a scandal involving several senior members of the party came to the public's attention. The Gürtel case resulted in the resignation of the party's treasurer Luis Bárcenas in 2009. The case against him was dropped in July 2011 but reopened the following year.

The leader of the party in the Valencia region, Francisco Camps, stepped down in July 2011 because of a pending trial. He was accused of having received gifts in exchange for public contracts, but was found to be not guilty.

Bárcenas affair
In January 2013, the judges' investigation discovered an account in Switzerland controlled by Luis Bárcenas with €22 million euros and another €4.5 million in the United States. Allegations appeared in the media regarding the existence of supposed illegal funds of the PP, used for the undercover monthly payments to VIPs in the party from 1989 to 2009, including the former government presidents, Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar. The existence of such illicit funding has been denied by the PP.

Lezo Case
Judge Eloy Velasco instructing the Lezo Case in the Spanish National Court is investigating former President of the Community of Madrid, Ignacio González, former Work Minister, Eduardo Zaplana, Vice-councilor of the presidency of the Community of Madrid and implicated in Gürtel Case Alberto López Viejo, businessmen Juan Miguel Villar Mir (OHL) and PricewaterhouseCoopers among others for embezzlement of public funds to presumably finance People's Party (PP) campaigns in the Community of Madrid.

Presidents

 * 1989–1990: Manuel Fraga
 * 1990–2004: José María Aznar
 * 2004–2018: Mariano Rajoy
 * 2018–2022: Pablo Casado
 * 2022–present: Alberto Núñez Feijóo

Secretary-Generals

 * 1989–1999: Francisco Álvarez-Cascos
 * 1999–2003: Javier Arenas
 * 2003–2004: Mariano Rajoy
 * 2004–2008: Ángel Acebes
 * 2008–2018: María Dolores de Cospedal
 * 2018–2022: Teodoro García Egea
 * 2022–present: Cuca Gamarra

Prime Ministers of Spain

 * 1996–2004: José María Aznar
 * 2011–2018: Mariano Rajoy

Regional leaders

 * Andalusia: Juan Manuel Moreno (since 2014)
 * Aragon: Jorge Azcón (since 2022)
 * Asturias: Diego Canga (since 2022)
 * Balearic Islands: Marga Prohens (since 2021)
 * Basque Country: Carlos Iturgaiz (since 2020)
 * Canary Islands: Manuel Domínguez (since 2022)
 * Cantabria: María José Sáenz (since 2017)
 * Castile and León: Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (since 2017)
 * Castilla-La Mancha: Francisco Núñez (since 2018)
 * Catalonia: Alejandro Fernández (since 2018)
 * Ceuta: Juan Jesús Vivas (since 2009)
 * Community of Madrid: Isabel Díaz Ayuso (since 2022)
 * Extremadura: María Guardiola (since 2022)
 * Galicia: Alfonso Rueda (since 2022)
 * La Rioja: Gonzalo Capellán (since 2022)
 * Melilla: Juan José Imbroda (since 2000)
 * Murcia: Fernando López (since 2017)
 * Navarre: Javier García (since 2022)
 * Valencian Community: Carlos Mazón (since 2021)

title: People's Party (Spain)


text:
Partido Popular

Partido Popular may refer to:

 * People's Party (Panama)
 * People's Party (Spain, 1976), dissolved in 1977
 * People's Party (Spain), founded in 1989
 * The original name of the Popular Socialist Party (Mexico)
 * Partido Popular Democrata, original name of the Social Democratic Party (Portugal)

title: Partido Popular


text:
Socialist Alliance (Australia)

Socialist Alliance is a socialist political party and activist organisation in Australia, founded in 2001 as an alliance of various socialist organisations and activists, initiated by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the International Socialist Organisation.

Engaging in a combination of grassroots activism and electoral politics, Socialist Alliance has three elected officeholders across Australia, all of whom serve on the local government level. They are councillors Sarah Hathway (City of Greater Geelong), Sue Bolton and Monica Harte (both serving in the City of Merri-bek).

The party is involved with the trade union, environmentalist and student movements in Australia. It takes strong left-wing stances on numerous issues, including refugee rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights, anti-racism, and public ownership. Socialist Alliance also proposes nationalising the banking, energy and mining sectors. On workers' rights, the party supports raising the minimum wage, implementing wage theft and industrial manslaughter laws, increasing trade union bargaining to industry-wide status and reducing the working week to 30 hours. It opposes the building of new coalmines and any attempts to privatise public services such as Medicare. The party supports expansion of the public healthcare system to cover dental services and the cessation of public funding to private schools. Policies of state branches include support for public housing, public transport, public education and publicly owned utilities, as well as advocating for less militarised and hard-line policing and justice systems.

The party participated within the Victorian Socialists electoral alliance in Victoria, until it withdrew from it in May 2020.

Formation and growth
Socialist Alliance was founded in 2001 as a loose alliance of socialist organisations and individuals. The project was initiated by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the International Socialist Organisation. Seven other organisations were included in the initial exploratory meeting: the Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Democracy, Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Workers League, Worker's Liberty, and Worker's Power. The aim of the merger was to create greater left unity in the aftermath of the S11 protests of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne on 11–13 September 2000.

Many non-aligned socialists were attracted by the idea of left unity, and soon after its formation Socialist Alliance grew to a point where a majority of its members were not members of any of the affiliate organisations.

Debate on form
In response to this growth, the Democratic Socialist Perspective and many non-aligned members won a majority at successive national conferences for measures that would move Socialist Alliance in the direction of becoming a united socialist party, rather than simply an alliance of groups and individuals.

Most of the affiliate organisations, however, in particular the International Socialist Organisation, preferred to keep Socialist Alliance as a broad left-wing electoral front for socialist organisations and individuals.

In late 2003, the Democratic Socialist Party resolved to become "a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance", renaming itself the "Democratic Socialist Perspective" as a step towards turning the Socialist Alliance into a "Multi-Tendency Socialist Party". This move was supported by some 75% of conference delegates at Socialist Alliance's national conference that year, although other affiliates remained opposed.

The 2005 National Conference saw the emergence of a number of particularly sharp political differences. These centred on: the extent to which Socialist Alliance should criticise the Australian Labor Party; whether the organisation should have a formal relationship with the newspaper associated with the Democratic Socialist perspective, Green Left Weekly, as a step towards Socialist Alliance itself having its own newspaper; and whether non-aligned members should have an automatic majority on the organisation's national executive.

Mergers and withdrawals
Following this conference three of the leading members of a "Non-Aligned Caucus" and most of the active affiliate organisations gradually withdrew from the Socialist Alliance. The "Non Aligned Caucus" was an ad hoc grouping of members who weren't aligned to any affiliated organisation which formed in the lead up to the 2003 national conference.

In 2006, Workers Power left the Alliance. In 2007, the International Socialist Organisation also left.

In January 2010, the Democratic Socialist Perspective voted to merge into the Socialist Alliance, in effect ceasing to exist as an affiliate organisation.

In September 2012 the Socialist Alliance initiated unity discussions with Socialist Alternative. At the time, Socialist Alternative were in unity discussions with the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Australia) which led to a merger in early 2013.

After approximately a year of leadership discussions, joint forums and participation by Socialist Alliance at Socialist Alternative's Marxism conference, the Socialist Alternative leadership publicly announced that they were pulling out unity discussions in November 2013, but remained open to ongoing collaboration. Socialist Alternative claimed the Socialist Alliance's approach to a transitional program and electoral politics was "not sufficiently similar to carry through a sustained and productive unity."

While the Socialist Alliance welcomed the opportunity for ongoing collaboration, it was critical of Socialist Alternative's reasons for withdrawal. Leading Socialist Alliance member Dave Holmes accused the Socialist Alternative of "sticking with its very narrow, propagandist view of socialist politics" rather than seeking to unite to appeal to socialists more broadly. The Socialist Alliance published the full correspondence on the unity discussions in its discussion bulletin, Alliance Voices.

At its national conference in 2014, the socialist youth organisation Resistance voted to merge with the Socialist Alliance and become its official youth organisation. The new organisation renamed itself Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance.

Resistance elects its own leadership body to coordinate the party's youth work and organise its youth conference, Radical Ideas.

Victorian Socialists
On 5 February 2018, it was announced that Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Alternative, community activists and trade unionists would work together to form an electoral alliance named the Victorian Socialists in order to contest the 2018 Victorian state election. The leading candidates for the Northern Metropolitan Region included Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly, and also featured Moreland councillor Sue Bolton (Socialist Alliance) and asbestos lawyer Colleen Bolger (Socialist Alternative). Socialist Alliance's Tim Gooden, former Geelong Trades Hall Secretary and CFMEU organiser, led the ticket for the Western Victoria Region. Although the party gained 4.6% of the vote, the highest of any minor party in the Northern Metropolitan Region, it failed to win a seat following preference deals.

The Victorian Socialists ran candidates in the electorates of Calwell, Wills, and Cooper during the 2019 federal election, gaining 4.6%, 4.5%, and 4.2% of the vote respectively.

In 2020 Socialist Alliance withdrew from Victorian Socialists.

Branches and membership numbers
In addition to having branches in major capital cities Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, and Hobart. The Socialist Alliance also maintains branches in and around a number of minor cities and regional areas, including in the Blue Mountains, Cairns, Geelong, Illawarra, New England and Newcastle. The Socialist Alliance also has individual members spread across rural and regional Australia.

A branch in Fremantle existed, it included a branch office and a library.

The Socialist Alliance is a registered political party at a federal level, and annually maintains electoral registration in New South Wales and in Victoria.

Federal registration requires 500 members, Victorian registration also requires 500 members in Victoria, and 750 members are needed for NSW registration.

These figures reflect electorally registered members, however, and may not be an accurate measure of active or financial membership. A Socialist Alliance Perspectives resolution published in Alliance Voices in February 2012, suggests a membership figure of approximately 600.

Socialist Alliance members are generally organised in branches of at least 7 voting members who "...must pay an annual membership fee.", however the party Constitution allows for "at large" members living in areas with no nearby branch structure to join.

Publications
Socialist Alliance's policy and constitution can be found on its website.

The newspaper Green Left Weekly – which is politically associated with the Socialist Alliance – runs a weekly Socialist Alliance column called "Our Common Cause". The Socialist Alliance also has a close working relationship with Links – International Journal of Socialist Renewal. The Brisbane local newspaper The Westender has also run a column written by the Socialist Alliance, and its members have been published on sites such as ABC's The Drum and Online Opinion.

For around one year the Socialist Alliance published a quarterly journal, Seeing Red, the final issue of which came out in March 2006.

The Socialist Alliance and its members have also published a large number of pamphlets and books, primarily through Resistance Books, on a range of historical, political and social justice issues.

Before Green Left's website became the dominant means by which Socialist Alliance published written material online, they maintained a variety of blogs. Their internal discussion bulletin and national newsletter 'Alliance Voices' was maintained until 2014. Their West Australian branch maintained a blog until 2016. Socialist Alliance local councillors Sam Wainwright and Sue Bolton maintained individual websites until 2009 and 2013 respectively.

Grassroots campaigning
While Socialist Alliance, its affiliates and non-aligned members continue to put forward and argue for socialist politics in the electoral arena, the organisation places a stronger emphasis on building successful grassroots campaigns as a way of promoting socialist politics. In the recent unity discussions with Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Alliance re-emphasised its support for this "transitional method" towards campaigns, arguing that campaign work is key to leading people to understanding the need to transform the whole capitalist system.

Socialist Alliance has been involved in a broad range of campaigns since its formation, reflecting both its own developing political orientation, as well as the activities and politics of its affiliates. These include in trade union movement, education, and environmentalist movements, as well as numerous other grass roots campaigns including refugee rights, same-sex marriage rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights, climate change, and international solidarity with movements such as the Palestinian struggle for national self-determination, the Rojava revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America, and social-justice and pro-democracy movements in South East Asia.

Industrial
Socialist Alliance places great importance on strengthening the union movement, with members active in a range of unions including, amongst others, the Australian Services Union, the Australian Education Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Australian Nursing Federation, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Finance Sector Union, the National Tertiary Education Union, the National Union of Workers, the New South Wales Teachers Federation, the Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union, the Transport Workers Union and United Voice.

In line with its criticism that the ALP is holding back and bureaucratising the union movement, Socialist Alliance encourages workers and unions to become independent of the ALP, to strengthen democracy in the unions and to set up a "new workers' party". However, it also works alongside rank-and-file union members on industrial campaigns, regardless of political affiliation.

In 2005 and 2006, the Socialist Alliance initiated and helped organise trade union "fight-back" conferences,  in response to the Federal Government's "WorkChoices" legislation, attracting hundreds of union militants and members of other socialist groups. The Socialist Alliance was involved in the Your Rights at Work campaign against WorkChoices that followed, as well as the campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Socialist Alliance has been highly critical of the Australian Labor Party's industrial policy for not returning enough rights to workers and for retaining the ABCC, describing the Rudd government's Fair Work Australia as little more than "WorkChoices-lite".

Notable Socialist Alliance trade union leaders have included Chris Cain, Western Australian State Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia; Tim Gooden, former secretary of the Geelong Trades and Labour Council; and Craig Johnston, former Victorian State Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, who was jailed for 9 months in 2004 after an industrial dispute at Johnson Tiles in 2001.

Anti-war and civil liberties
Socialist Alliance is opposed to US and Australian military interventions such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Socialist Alliance, its affiliates and members played a central role in the campaigns against these wars in 2001 and 2003. Socialist Alliance also played a leading role in founding the Stop the War Coalition in a number of cities, and organising protests in the years that followed.

Socialist Alliance members are also active in promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Socialist Alliance opposes the "war on terror", claiming that it leads to increased racism against Arab and Muslim communities, and to government policies that threaten civil liberties. Socialist Alliance members were central to organising the protests in Sydney against APEC in 2007, and the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, in the face of increased police powers that were heavily criticised for violating civil liberties.

The party conducts this work alongside other activist and community groups as well as individual activists in broader coalitions like the Stop the War Coalition, and the Gaza Defence Committee.

The environment
Socialist Alliance is involved in a variety of campaigns around environmental issues, most notably climate change, helping to organise the 2006 Walk Against Warming rallies in some cities, and producing detailed policies on combating climate change which have been created through an open wiki process with broad membership input. Since the 2007 Federal Election, the environmental website VoteClimate has rated Socialist Alliance environmental policy number 1 (ahead of the Greens).

Socialist Alliance members also helped to organise the Climate Action Summit in Canberra on 31 January – 1 February 2009, and is involved in building the new national Climate Action Network that grew out of that summit.

Socialist Alliance argues that no solution to the crisis caused by global warming is possible without overthrowing capitalism, and criticises market mechanisms such as carbon trading as being unworkable, profit-driven and reinforcing the capitalist relations that it alleges caused the pollution to begin with.

Indigenous rights
Socialist Alliance has played a role in recent campaigns for justice for indigenous Australians, particularly around the inquiries into the deaths-in-custody of TJ Hickey in Redfern and Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island. In the case of Mulrunji, leading indigenous activist, academic and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson played a key role in organising the protests that led to the re-opening of the inquiry.

Socialist Alliance also opposes the Federal Government's Northern Territory intervention, and helped to organise the 12 February 2008 protests outside Parliament House in Canberra.

Anti-racism and immigrants rights
Socialist Alliance has been able to build growing support among some ethnic community sectors in urban Australia such as among Somali youth, the Tamil community  and from within the Latin American community. In the latter case, the Socialist Alliance has been an active supporter of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and is affiliated to the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network.

Socialist Alliance members have also been involved in the struggle for refugee rights, opposing mandatory detention of illegal immigrants, and calling for Australia to pursue a more humane policy on refugees.

Public services
Socialist Alliance advocate the provision of quality public services by all levels of government, calling for increased funding in public education, healthcare, housing and transport. They also advocate expanding the public sector with the nationalisation of large multinational corporations. Furthermore, the party calls for capitalist enterprises that have received taxpayer-subsidies to either repay their subsidies back to the taxpayers in full or be nationalised without compensation.

Socialist Alliance is involved in campaigns against privatisation like those planned by the New South Wales Government (for example electricity and prisons ), alongside the Greens, unions, ALP members and community groups. They maintain that all privatisations must be reversed with nationalisation.

Social justice
Socialist Alliance is also active in a number of other social justice campaigns, including LGBTI rights,  women's liberation,   welfare rights,  and prison reform,  as well as around local issues. After an editorial by OUTinPerth accusing socialists of taking over the movement for equal marriage rights, prominent LGBTIQ campaigner and Socialist Alliance member Farida Iqbal issued a reply arguing that the Socialist Alliance and others had played a prominent role in the Australian movement for marriage equality since it began in 2004.

International solidarity
The party also places a large emphasis on international socialist solidarity. It is actively involved in supporting many left-wing movements around the world, such as those relating to Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America, Palestinian resistance, Kurdish self-determination in North Syria. Socialist Alliance also actively campaigns in solidarity with international pro-democracy movements as far ranging as Latin America, the Middle East, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, South East Asia,   and elsewhere.

Election results
While the Socialist Alliance participates in elections, standing candidates at a range of levels, it does not see electoral politics as the most important vehicle for building socialism. Rather, it sees its participation in elections not as a way "to "represent" people's movements, but as a way to strengthen them and help them win their demands". Socialist Alliance candidates also pledge to take only an average wage if elected, donating the remainder into the social movements.

Federal
The Socialist Alliance first campaigned in the 2001 federal election, however, candidates were listed as independents on the ballot as its application for electoral registration was suspended when the election was called early.

Victoria
The Socialist Alliance first ran in the 2002 Victorian state election, securing 3,274 votes or 0.11% of the vote. In 2006, the party's vote dropped to 1,102 or 0.04%. In 2010 the party won 1,787 votes, or 0.06%. The results were stable for the next election in 2014 at 1,728 votes, 0.05% of the vote. For the 2018 election, the Socialist Alliance ran as part of the Victorian Socialists, which won 15,442 votes (0.44%) in the Legislative Assembly and 32,603 votes (0.91%) in the Legislative Council.

Council
In the 2004 Victorian local government elections, Socialist Alliance did relatively well in two councils in Melbourne. In the Moreland City Council elections, two candidates exceeded 4%. In the election in the Boroondara City Council, a Socialist Alliance candidate won over 12% of the vote (in the absence of an Australian Labor Party-endorsed candidate) in Cotham ward.

The 2008 Victorian local government election results were also positive. The Socialist Alliance polled almost 19% in the Stoney Creek ward of the Melbourne municipality of Maribyrnong and polled over 10% in all wards bar one that it contested across the state.

In October 2009 the Socialist Alliance won its first election when Sam Wainwright was elected for the Hilton Ward of the Fremantle City Council. In October 2013, Sam Wainwright was re-elected to Fremantle's Hilton Ward with an outright majority of 58.33%.

In October 2012 the Socialist won its second election when Sue Bolton was elected to Moreland City Council in Melbourne's northern suburbs. Merri-bek Council (renamed from Moreland in 2022) gained a second Socialist Alliance councillor in March 2022 when Monica Harte was elected on a countback to replace disgraced Labor property developer Milad el-Halabi.

Bolton, Harte, and Wainwright, along with Stephen Jolly in Yarra City Council and the Victorian Socialists' Jorge Jorquera in Maribyrnong City Council, are currently the only politicians in Australia elected on an explicitly socialist platform.

title: Socialist Alliance (Australia)


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List of sex-related court cases in the United States

The United States Supreme Court and various U.S. state courts have decided several cases regarding pornography, sexual activity, and reproductive rights. The trend has been one of courts striking down states' attempts to regulate sex.

The following is a list of noteworthy sex-related court cases in order by date. (Note that in the legal sense, the term "sodomy" often applies not only to anal sex but also to oral sex and other sex acts.)

See Case citation for an explanation of these numbers.
 * Buck v. Bell, *. A law which allowed the state to sterilize the mentally handicapped is constitutional.
 * United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, 86 F.2d 737 (2nd Cir. 1936). The Comstock act's prohibition against birth control products or information as obscene/lewd or lascivious was held to not apply to shipments from a physician. The federal government could not interfere with doctors providing contraception to their patients.
 * Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Ex Rel. Williamson, *. A law punishing certain classes of criminals with sterilization is unconstitutional.
 * Roth v. United States, *. Obscenity is defined as material that "to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest".
 * One, Inc. v. Olesen, *. Applying the Roth test, the Court rules that homosexual content is not by definition obscene.
 * Poe v. Ullman, *. In the absence of an actual threat of prosecution, plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge Connecticut law making use of contraceptives illegal.
 * McLaughlin v. Florida, *. The law prohibiting an unmarried interracial couple from habitually living in and occupying the same room in the nighttime that does not apply to couples of the same race violates equal protection clause.
 * Griswold v. Connecticut,, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 *. Laws prohibiting the distribution of condoms to married persons are unconstitutional.
 * Stanley v. Georgia, *. Mere possession of obscene material in one's home cannot be made a crime.
 * Franklin v. State, 257 So.2d 21 (Fla. 1971) *. Florida Supreme Court finds law against "crimes against nature" unconstitutionally vague in the case of consensual sodomy, thus the crime could now only be charged under a different, lesser statute, reducing the penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor.
 * Eisenstadt v. Baird, *. Overturned Massachusetts law that made giving contraceptives to unmarried persons a felony.
 * Miller v. California, *. For a publication to be considered obscene, taken as a whole, it must appear to "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", to appeal to the prurient interest, depict sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
 * Jenkins v. Georgia, *. Theatre manager's conviction of "the crime of distributing obscene material" for showing the film Carnal Knowledge overturned as the film is not obscene.
 * Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, A law that prohibits releasing the name of a rape victim is generally unconstitutional.
 * State of Iowa v. Robert Eugene Pilcher, 242 N.W.2d 348 (Iowa 1976)*. A law against consensual sodomy with someone not one's spouse is unconstitutional.
 * Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney of Richmond, (1976)*.  U.S. Supreme Court gave summary decision which sustained lower court's finding that Virginia's Sodomy statute is constitutional.
 * State of New Jersey v. Saunders, 381 A.2d 333 (N.J. 1977)*. A statute prohibiting fornication (sex between unmarried persons) is unconstitutional.
 * Carey v. Population Services International, *. Statute prohibiting sale or distribution of contraceptives to a minor under 16; for anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute contraceptives to persons 16 or over; and for anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives, is unconstitutional.
 * Stump v. Sparkman, *.  A judge who ordered the sterilization of an allegedly retarded young woman was immune from civil suit even though he did not hold a hearing to receive evidence or appoint an attorney to represent the woman's interests.
 * People v. Onofre, 415 N.E.2d 936 (N.Y. 1980) *. A New York State law against consensual sodomy is unconstitutional.
 * Commonwealth v. Sefranka, 414 N.E.2d 602, (Mass. 1980) *. The term "lewd, wanton and lascivious person" used in a Massachusetts sex crime statute was unconstitutionally vague as it applied to consenting adults.
 * Commonwealth v. Bonadio, 490 Pa.91, 415 A.2d 47 (Pa. 1980)*. A Pennsylvania law against consensual sodomy is unconstitutional.  (The state would repeal the law 15 years later.)
 * Baker v. Wade, 553 F.Supp. 1121 (N.D.Tex. 1982) *. Federal District Court finds Texas sodomy law unconstitutional; Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit  overturns  and holds law to be constitutional.
 * Dronenburg v. Zech, 741 F.2d 1388 (D.C.Cir.1984) *. Administrative discharge from U.S. Navy for homosexual conduct is valid because private, consensual, homosexual conduct is not constitutionally protected.
 * Bowers v. Hardwick, *. Sodomy between people of the same sex in the privacy of one's home may be made illegal.  (The statute was later struck down on State Constitutional grounds; see Powell v. Georgia below.  This case was later overturned; see Lawrence v. Texas below.)
 * State v. Henry, 302 Or. 510, 732 P2d 9 (1987) * The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the concept of obscenity violated the free speech clause of the state constitution and abolished the offense of obscenity in that state.
 * Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA. v. Casey, *.  Certain abortion restrictions are valid.
 * State v. Morales, 826 S.W.2d 201 (1992) *. Texas statute that criminalizes private sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex is unconstitutional.
 * Commonwealth v. Wasson, 842 S.W.2d 487 (1992)*. A Kentucky law against consensual sodomy is unconstitutional.
 * City of Dallas v. England, 846 S.W.2d 957; 1993 Tex. App. LEXIS 451 (1993) * Citing State v. Morales, Texas state appellate court affirms lower court decision finding prohibition on hiring gays and lesbians as police officers unconstitutional.
 * State of Idaho v. Holden, 890 P.2d 341 (Idaho Ct. App. 1995)*. A statute prohibiting private consensual oral sodomy between married persons is unconstitutional, because it infringes upon the constitutional right of privacy.
 * Campbell v. Sundquist, 926 S.W.2d 250 (Tn.App.1996)*. A Tennessee law against consensual sodomy is unconstitutional.
 * Gryczan v. Montana, 942 P.2d 112 (1997)*. The Montana State Supreme Court finds law against consensual sodomy unconstitutional.
 * Powell v. Georgia, 270 Ga. 327, 510 S.E. 2d 18 (1998)*. The Georgia State Supreme Court finds the law making consensual sodomy a crime which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bowers to be unconstitutional as violating the state Constitution's privacy protections.
 * Williams v. State, No. 980360311/CC-1059 1998 Lexis 260 (Baltimore City Cir. Ct. 1999). State of Maryland agrees to court order declaring its law forbidding consensual sodomy unconstitutional.
 * Doe v. Ventura, No. MC 01-489, 2001 WL 543734 (Minn. Dist. Ct 2001) Minnesota sodomy law found to violate state constitutional right to privacy, in cases where it is private, consensual, and non-commercial.
 * Jegley v. Picado, 349 Ark. 600, 80 S.W.3d 332 (2002) *. Supreme Court of Arkansas finds state's sodomy law unconstitutional.
 * GLAD v. Attorney General, 436 Mass. 132, 763 NE.2d 38 (2002) Massachusetts sodomy law declared unconstitutional.
 * Lawrence v. Texas,, 02-102 *. A Texas law making sodomy with same sex partner illegal, but not with opposite sex partner, is unconstitutional. This case expressly overturns Bowers v. Hardwick.
 * State v. Limon, 280 Kan. 275, 122 P.3d 22 *. The first case to rely on Lawrence v. Texas as precedent. Kansas law allowing for opposite-sex statutory rape to be punished less severely than same-sex statutory rape is unconstitutional.
 * Martin v. Ziherl, 607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005).  The Supreme Court of Virginia rules that the state criminal prohibition of sex between unmarried individuals (fornication) is unconstitutional in light of Lawrence v. Texas.
 * Nitke v. Gonzales, (a case involving Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom regarding internet obscenity)
 * Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. ___ (2017) A law prohibiting registered sex offenders from using social media is unconstitutional.


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Granborough

Granborough (previously Grandborough) is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England. It is around 5 mi north of Waddesdon and 7 mi south-east of Buckingham. The nearest town is Winslow.

The village name is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and means 'green hill'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Grenesberga.

Anciently the manor of Granborough was owned by the abbey at St Albans, though in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1547 ownership passed automatically to the Crown.

The ancient parish church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was demolished during the English Civil War, though was rebuilt shortly after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1685.

The village is still one of the possessions of the Crown.

There is a public house, logically called the Crown. After the parish church the most interesting building is the neat half-timbered Arts and Crafts village hall. Granborough still has very many thatched cottages and houses, many of them in Green End, a hamlet attached to the village.

title: Granborough


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Democratic Party of Turkmenistan

The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (Türkmenistanyň Demokratik Partiýasy; ; TDP) is a political party in Turkmenistan founded in 1991. It has been the ruling party of the country since its foundation.

The party was led by former Soviet provincial party leader Saparmurat Niyazov from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s until his death in 2006. In 2013, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow suspended his party membership for the duration of his presidency. The current leader is Ata Serdarow. The party's rule is described as authoritarian or totalitarian.

History
The DPT was created following the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a successor party to the Communist Party of Turkmenistan. The internal structure of the old party was effectively unchanged in the transition, as was the old guard. The DPT has faced limited and sporadic challenges from alternative political parties in the past but have never faced a significant challenge during an election because of the often repressive nature of politics in the country. Opposition parties are usually crushed before they make any significant grounds in public opinion. This has been the case even after the formal legalisation of opposition parties in 2010.

Policies
Due to the lack of opposition parties to contest for government, the DPT controls most, if not all, industries of significant revenue directly. Central planning is a key element of party policy and serves as the basis of functionality for government services. The party's ideology of "Turkmen nationalism" was theorised by former party leader Saparmurat Niyazov for the purpose of an authoritarian state ideology in Turkmenistan.

Election results
Turkmenistan elects on the national level a head of state - the president - and a legislature. Elections in Turkmenistan have been widely criticised for being completely fraudulent and attempting to give an appearance of legitimacy to what is in reality a dictatorship.

Presidential elections
The last presidential election was held in 2022.

Legislative elections
The Assembly is a 125-member legislative body officially led by the president of Turkmenistan. The DPT, not unlike every other facet of political life in Turkmenistan, holds a majority of seats, with accusations that the multi-party system established in the early 2010s only consists of bloc parties, nominally independent but loyal to the DPT. The last election for the assembly was held in 2023.

title: Democratic Party of Turkmenistan


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Tissue culture

Tissue culture is the growth of tissues or cells in an artificial medium separate from the parent organism. This technique is also called micropropagation. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-solid, or solid growth medium, such as broth or agar. Tissue culture commonly refers to the culture of animal cells and tissues, with the more specific term plant tissue culture being used for plants. The term "tissue culture" was coined by American pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows. This is possible only in certain conditions. It also requires more attention. It can be done only in genetic labs with various chemicals.

Historical use
In 1885 Wilhelm Roux removed a section of the medullary plate of an embryonic chicken and maintained it in a warm saline solution for several days, establishing the basic principle of tissue culture. In 1907 the zoologist Ross Granville Harrison demonstrated the growth of frog embryonic cells that would give rise to nerve cells in a medium of clotted lymph. In 1913, E. Steinhardt, C. Israeli, and R. A. Lambert grew vaccinia virus in fragments of guinea pig corneal tissue. In 1996, the first use of regenerative tissue was used to replace a small length of urethra, which led to the understanding that the technique of obtaining samples of tissue, growing it outside the body without a scaffold, and reapplying it, can be used for only small distances of less than 1 cm.

Gottlieb Haberlandt first pointed out the possibilities of the culture of isolated tissues, plant tissue culture. He suggested that the potentialities of individual cells via tissue culture as well as that the reciprocal influences of tissues on one another could be determined by this method. Since Haberlandt's original assertions, methods for tissue and cell culture have been realized, leading to significant discoveries in biology and medicine. His original idea, presented in 1902, was called totipotentiality: "Theoretically all plant cells are able to give rise to a complete plant."

Modern usage
In modern usage, "Tissue culture" generally refers to the growth of cells from a multicellular organism in vitro. These cells may be cells isolated from a donor organism (primary cells) or an immortalised cell line. The cells are bathed in a culture medium, which contains essential nutrients and energy sources necessary for the cells' survival. Thus, in its broader sense, "tissue culture" is often used interchangeably with "cell culture". On the other hand, the strict meaning of "tissue culture" refers to the culturing of tissue pieces, i.e. explant culture.

Tissue culture is an important tool for the study of the biology of cells from multicellular organisms. It provides an in vitro model of the tissue in a well defined environment which can be easily manipulated and analysed. In animal tissue culture, cells may be grown as two-dimensional monolayers (conventional culture) or within fibrous scaffolds or gels to attain more naturalistic three-dimensional tissue-like structures (3D culture). Eric Simon, in a 1988 NIH SBIR grant report, showed that electrospinning could be used to produce nano- and submicron-scale polymeric fibrous scaffolds specifically intended for use as in vitro cell and tissue substrates. This early use of electrospun fibrous lattices for cell culture and tissue engineering showed that various cell types would adhere to and proliferate upon polycarbonate fibers. It was noted that as opposed to the flattened morphology typically seen in 2D culture, cells grown on the electrospun fibers exhibited a more rounded 3-dimensional morphology generally observed of tissues in vivo.

Plant tissue culture in particular is concerned with the growing of entire plants from small pieces of plant tissue, cultured in medium. The technique of plant tissue culture, i.e., culturing plant cells or tissues in artificial medium supplemented with required nutrients, has many applications in efficient clonal propagation (true to the type or similar) which may be difficult via conventional breeding methods. Tissue culture is used in creating genetically modified plants, as it allows scientists to introduce DNA changes to plant tissue via Agrobacterium tumefaciens or a gene gun and then generate a full plant from these modified cells.

Tissue cultures are commonly used in plant propagation. The advantage of such vegetative propagation is that it obtains a large amount of homogeneous material, which is of great importance in the propagation of valuable cultivars of ornamental plants, and rootstocks for fruit trees. In addition, fruit plants or flowers can be obtained free of viruses, phytoplasmas, viroids.

Because plant cells are totipotent, adding growth hormones to the media can trigger the callus cells to develop roots, shoots and entire plants.

Animal tissue culture
There are three common methods to establish cell culture from animals. The first is organ culture where whole organs from embryos or partial adult organs are used to initiate the organ culture in vitro. These cells retain their differentiated character and functional activity in organ culture. The second method is primary explant culture, in which fragments derived from animal tissue are attached to a surface using an extracellular matrix component (ECM), such as collagen or a plasma clot. This culture is known as a primary explant, and migrating cells are known as outgrowth. This has been used to analyze the growth characteristics of cancer cells in comparison to their normal counterparts. The third method is cell culture, of which there are three types: (1) precursor cell culture, i.e. undifferentiated cells that are to be differentiate, (2) differentiated cell culture, i.e. completely differentiated cells that have lost the capacity to further differentiate, and (3) stem cell culture, i.e. undifferentiated cells that can develop into any kind of cell."

Applications of animal cell culture
Animal cell culture is used for many research purposes and commercial business also as:

 * Vaccine production
 * Monoclonal antibody production
 * Enzymes and hormones production
 * In vitro skin and other tissues and organs by stem culturing
 * Viral cultivation

Establishing a cell line
A cell line can be defined as a permanently established cell culture which will propagate forever. Investigators mostly get cell lines from other investigators or from the cell bank as The (American Type Culture Collection), because its much easier than creating new one but in special cases investigators are obligated to establish a cell line to do this you must use one of the following cells:

Transformed cell lines, Tumor tissue or Transforming normal cell in vitro

Subculture
Subculture is the transfer of cells from one culture to start a new one. During this process the proliferating cells are subdivided, to form new cell lines.

Stem cell technology
The most advanced tissue culture science is now focused on stem cells, stem cells can be used for tissue replacement or either organs. stem cell is a primitive type of cell which has the ability to differentiate to all the 220 cell types found in human body. Stem cells can be obtained from blood, brain, or muscle tissue but the most important one is from early embryos which has the capability to differentiate to any other cell.

title: Tissue culture


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Communist Party of Turkmenistan

The Communist Party of Turkmenistan (Коммунистическая партия Туркменистана; Түркменистаның Коммунистик Партиясы) was the ruling communist party of the Turkmen SSR which operated as a republican branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1985, it was led by Saparmurat Niyazov. On 16 December 1991, as the Soviet Union was in the process of dissolving, Niyazov reorganized the CPT as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan. The current Communist Party of Turkmenistan was made illegal during the presidency of Niyazov after independence and remains banned.

title: Communist Party of Turkmenistan


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Constance, Duchess of Brittany

Constance (Breton: Konstanza; c. 1161 – c. 5 September 1201) was Duchess of Brittany from 1166 to her death in 1201 and Countess of Richmond from 1171 to 1201. Constance was the daughter of Duke Conan IV by his wife, Margaret of Huntingdon, a sister of the Scottish kings Malcolm IV and William I.

Life and reign
Constance's father Conan IV had reunited the Duchy of Brittany in wars with Henry II of England. After the wars with Henry II, Conan IV faced rebellions from some Breton nobles. He appealed to Henry II for assistance in putting down those rebellions.

In 1166, Henry invaded Brittany in order to punish the local barons' revolt. In order to gain complete control over the duchy, he forced Conan IV into abdicating in Constance's favor and betrothing her to his fourth legitimate son Geoffrey. Five-year-old Constance succeeded him as Duchess of Brittany.

She spent her youth at the English court.

In February 1171, Conan IV died. Although his daughter Constance was the heiress of the Earldom of Richmond, she did not enter her inheritance until 1183/1184.

In 1181, twenty-year-old Constance was forced into marriage with Geoffrey. On 19 August 1186 Geoffrey was trampled to death in a riding accident during a tournament in Paris. Constance thereafter became the effective ruler of Brittany.

However, on 3 February 1188, Henry II of England arranged for Constance to marry Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, one of the most powerful earls in England. Though Ranulf called himself, not consistently, duke of Brittany, he never had the control of the duchy, and is not known to have played an important role there, and the Bretons, as well as Constance, never acknowledged him as duke, and excluded him from the government of the duchy.

After King Richard I ascended the English throne, he strengthened his intervention in Brittany. Maintaining custody of Geoffrey's and Constance's daughter, Eleanor, might have been a condition for him to allow Constance to continue ruling. In 1190, Constance appeared at Richard's court at Tours.

In 1191, Richard officially proclaimed his nephew, Constance's son, Arthur, as his heir in a treaty signed with Philip II of France.

To promote her son Arthur's position and inheritance, Constance included him in the government of the duchy in 1196. In response to this act that thwarted his projects, Richard summoned her to Bayeux and had her abducted by Ranulf in Pontorson and imprisoned in Saint-James de Beuvron. He spread the rumour that Constance had been imprisoned for matrimonial reasons. As a result, rebellions were sparked across Brittany on her behalf and Arthur was sent to Brest. Richard demanded that hostages were delivered to him in exchange for Constance's freedom. The Bretons agreed but Constance and the hostages remained imprisoned and rebellions went on. Richard eventually bowed to growing pressure and had the Duchess released in 1198. Back in Brittany, Constance had her marriage annulled.

On 1 June 1199, Pope Innocent III eventually decided that the Archbishopric of Dol should be subordinated to the Metropolitan of Tours and deprived the archbishop of his title and pallium. The archbishopric then became a bishopric again. Constance disagreed with this decision, which gave an advantage to Philip Augustus over Brittany, and was consequently excommunicated.

Constance took Guy of Thouars as her next husband in September or October 1199.

Between 1198 and the time of her death due to complications from delivering twin daughters, Constance ruled with her son Arthur as co-ruler. Throughout these years, Constance advised her son towards a French alliance, pursuing the policy of her late husband Geoffrey II.

At her request Eleanor was released from royal custody and united with her and Arthur in France.

Family
As a girl, Constance could not inherit the duchy at her father's death if she had a brother. A charter by Margaret, Constance's mother, seems to show that she and Conan had more than one child. However, two charters made by Constance and her son Arthur towards 1200 mention a brother of Constance, William "clericus". As a boy, William should logically have inherited the duchy after Conan, as the Duchy of Brittany followed male-preference primogeniture at the time. According to Everard, Henry II's forcing Constance's father into abdicating in 1166 was meant to prevent any son of the Duke from inheriting the duchy. Henry also probably used the precedent created by Conan III himself when he disinherited his son Hoël in favour of his daughter Bertha to impose Constance's succession.

Constance and Geoffrey had three children:
 * Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1182/1184-1241)
 * Matilda (c. 1185-bef 1189)
 * Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (1187–1203) - Geoffrey's posthumous son

Constance and Guy had two daughters:
 * Alix of Thouars (1200 – 1221); she married Peter Mauclerc, the first Breton ruler of the House of Dreux; and
 * Catherine of Thouars (1201 – c. 1240), Dame of Vitre; she married Andrew III, Baron of Vitré, son of Andrew II, Baron of Vitré and Eustacie of Rays; her husband was noteworthy for rebuilding the Château de Vitré

Several sources indicate that Constance might have had a third daughter by Guy:
 * Margaret of Thouars   (1201 – 1216/1220); she was the first wife of Geoffrey, Viscount of Rohan

Death and Burial
Constance died, age 40, on 5 September 1201 at Nantes. She was buried at Villeneuve Abbey near Nantes, which she had founded earlier that year.

Constance's cause of death is debated. The Chronique de Tours indicated that she died of leprosy but this statement is doubtful. It is also believed that she died from complications of childbirth, shortly after delivering twin daughters.

In literature
Constance of Brittany appears in several literary works, including:
 * The Troublesome Reign of King John (c.1589) anonymous tragedy
 * King John (1593–1596) tragedy by William Shakespeare
 * Jean sans Terre ou la mort d’Arthur (1791) by Jean-François Ducis
 * King John (1800) by Richard Valpy
 * La Mort d’Arthur de Bretagne (1826) poem by Alexis Fossé
 * Prince of Darkness (2005), Devil's Brood (2008), Lionheart (2011) and A King's Ransom (2014) novels by Sharon Kay Penman

Constance is also mentioned in the poem Le petit Arthur de Bretagne à la tour de Rouen (1822) by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the drama Arthur de Bretagne (1885) by Louis Tiercelin and the novels Le Loup blanc (1843) by Paul Féval, Le Poids d’une couronne (légende bretonne) (1867–1868) by Gabrielle d’Étampes, the second volume of the trilogy Le Château des Poulfenc (2009) by Brigitte Coppin and, along with her daughters Matilda, Alix and Catherine and her third husband Guy of Thouars in the novel Dans l’Ombre du Passé (2020) by Léa Chaillou.

In theatre and television
Constance is a character in the play King John by William Shakespeare, in which she has several very eloquent speeches on grief and death. On screen, she has been portrayed by Julia Neilson in the silent short King John (1899), which recreates John's death scene at the end of the play, Sonia Dresdel in the BBC Sunday Night Theatre version (1952), and Claire Bloom in the BBC Shakespeare version (1984). In the ITC series The Adventures of Robin Hood, she appeared in five episodes variously played by Dorothy Alison (series 1 and 2), Pamela Alan (series 3) and Patricia Marmont (series 4). She was also played by Paula Williams (as a girl) and Nina Francis (as an adult) in the BBC TV drama series The Devil's Crown (1978).

title: Constance, Duchess of Brittany