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Alex Jones

Alexander Emerick Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American far-right radio show host and prominent conspiracy theorist. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which was previously broadcast by the Genesis Communications Network across the United States via syndicated and internet radio. Jones's website, InfoWars, promotes conspiracy theories and fake news, as do his other websites, NewsWars and PrisonPlanet. Jones has provided a platform and support for white nationalists, giving Nick Fuentes a platform on his website, Banned.Video, as well as providing an "entry point" to their ideology. In 2023, leaked texts from Jones's phone revealed that he created the website National File to evade social media bans on InfoWars content.

Among many other conspiracy theories, Jones has alleged that the United States government either concealed information about or outright falsified the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the 1969 Moon landing.Multiple sources:
 * He has also claimed that several governments and large businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".
 * He has also claimed that several governments and large businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".
 * He has also claimed that several governments and large businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".
 * He has also claimed that several governments and large businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".
 * He has also claimed that several governments and large businesses have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria".

A longtime critic of Republican and Democratic foreign and security policy, Jones supported Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid and continued to support him as a savior from an alleged criminal bipartisan cabal controlling the federal government, despite also falling out with Trump over several of his policies, including airstrikes against the Assad regime. A staunch supporter of Trump's re-election, Jones also supported the false claims of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election. On January 6, 2021, Jones was a speaker at the rally in Lafayette Square Park supporting Trump preceding the latter's supporters' attack on the US Capitol.

In October 2022, for Jones's defamatory falsehoods about the Sandy Hook shooting, juries in Connecticut and Texas awarded a total of $1.487 billion in damages from Jones to a first responder and families of victims; the plaintiffs alleged that Jones's lies led to them being threatened and harassed for years. On December 2, 2022, Jones filed for personal bankruptcy.

Early life and influences
Alexander Emerick Jones was born on February 11, 1974, in Dallas, Texas, and was raised in Rockwall, 25 miles east of Dallas. His father was a dentist from Austin and his mother was a homemaker. He says he has English, German, Scottish, and Irish descent. The family moved to Austin in Jones's sophomore year of high school. He attended Anderson High School, where he played football and graduated in 1993. After graduating, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College before dropping out.

As a teenager, he read None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a book by John Birch Society conspiracy theorist Gary Allen, which alleged global bankers controlled American politics rather than elected officials. It had a profound influence on him, and Jones has described Allen's work as "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order".

Waco siege and Oklahoma bombing
The Waco siege at the Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas, had an impact on Jones. It ended in April 1993, near the end of Jones's senior year of high school, with a substantial fire and a significant number of fatalities. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), these events "only confirmed his belief in the inexorable progress of unseen, malevolent forces". It was at this time he started to host a call-in show on public access television (PACT/ACTV) in Austin.

The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, was intended by perpetrator Timothy McVeigh as a response to the federal involvement in the botched resolution of the Waco siege on its second anniversary. Jones began accusing the federal government of having caused it: "I understood there's a kleptocracy working with psychopathic governments—clutches of evil that know the tricks of control". He did not believe the bombing had been the responsibility of McVeigh and his associate Terry Nichols. In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed by Design.

In 1998, Jones organized a successful campaign to build a new Branch Davidian church as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire. He often discussed the project on his public-access television program. He claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms during the siege.

Early broadcasting career
Jones began his career in Austin working on a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM). Influenced by radio host William Cooper, who phoned in to Jones's early shows, Jones began to broadcast about the New World Order conspiracy theory at this time.

While running for Congress, Ron Paul was a guest on his show several times. In 1999, Jones tied with Shannon Burke for that year's poll of "Best Austin Talk Radio Host", as voted by readers of The Austin Chronicle. Later that year, he was fired from KJFK-FM for refusing to broaden his topics. The station's operations manager said that Jones's views made it difficult for the station to sell advertising. Jones said:

"It was purely political, and it came down from on high... I was told 11 weeks ago to lay off Bill Clinton, to lay off all these politicians, to not talk about rebuilding the church, to stop bashing the Marines, A to Z."

InfoWars
Jones is the publisher and director of the InfoWars fake news website responsible for promoting conspiracy theories. InfoWars was originally founded by Alex and Kelly Jones (his then-wife) in about 1999, initially as a mail-order outlet for the sale of their conspiracy-oriented videos. In November 2016, the InfoWars website received approximately 10 million visits, making its reach more extensive than mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek. Another of Jones's websites is PrisonPlanet.com.

The Alex Jones Show
After his firing from KJFK-FM, Jones began to broadcast his own show by Internet connection from his home. In July 2000, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) radio hosts claimed that Jones had used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or try to get their broadcasts removed. In 2001, Jones's radio show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations.

On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Jones said on his radio show there was a "98 percent chance this was a government-orchestrated controlled bombing". He began promoting the conspiracy theory that the Bush administration was behind the attack. As a result, several stations dropped Jones's program, according to columnist Will Bunch. Jones became a leading figure of the "9/11 truther" cause. In 2010, the show attracted around two million listeners each week. According to Alexander Zaitchik of Rolling Stone magazine, in 2011 Jones had a larger on-line audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined. In 2020, The Alex Jones Show was syndicated nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 100 AM and FM radio stations in the United States.

According to journalist Will Bunch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the show has a demographic that leans more towards younger listeners than do other conservative pundits, due to Jones's "highly conspiratorial tone and Web-oriented approach". Bunch also stated that Jones "feed[s] on the deepest paranoia".

Jones told The Washington Post in November 2016 that his radio show, then syndicated to 129 stations, had a daily audience of five million listeners and his video streams had topped 80 million viewers in a single month.

Jones's syndicator, Genesis Communications Network, announced its shutdown effective May 5, 2024, citing financial losses. The owners plan to migrate Jones's show, and others, to other networks.

Website, own-brand and endorsed products
According to court testimony Jones delivered in 2014, InfoWars then had revenues of over $20 million a year.

A 2017 piece for German magazine Der Spiegel by Veit Medick indicated that two-thirds of Jones's funds derive from sales of his own products. These products are marketed through the InfoWars website and through advertising spots on Jones's show. They include dietary supplements, toothpaste, bulletproof vests and "brain pills", which hold "an appeal for anyone who believes Armageddon is near", according to Medick. From September 2015 to the end of 2018, the InfoWars store made $165 million in sales, according to court filings relating to the Sandy Hook lawsuits filed against Jones.

In August 2017, Californian medical company Labdoor, Inc reported on tests applied to six of Jones's dietary supplement products. These included a product named Survival Shield, which was found by Labdoor to contain only iodine, and a product named Oxy-Powder, which comprised a compound of magnesium oxide and citric acid—common ingredients in dietary supplements. Labdoor indicated no evidence of prohibited or harmful substances, but cast doubt on the marketing claims for these products, and asserted that the quantity of the ingredients in certain products would be "too low to be appropriately effective".

On a 2017 segment of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver stated that Jones spends "nearly a quarter" of his on-air time promoting products sold on his website, many of which are purported solutions to medical and economic problems claimed to be caused by the conspiracy theories described on his show.

Research commissioned in 2017 by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) determined that two products sold by Jones contained potentially dangerous levels of the heavy metal lead.

Jones continued his promotion of supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 12, 2020, Jones was issued a cease and desist from the Attorney General of New York, after he claimed, in the absence of any evidence, that products he sold, including colloidal silver toothpaste, were an effective treatment for COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also sent him a letter on April 9, 2020, warning that the federal government might proceed to seize the products he was marketing for COVID-19 or fine him if he continued to sell them. A disclaimer then appeared on Jones's website, stating his products were not intended for treating "the novel coronavirus". On a linked page, Jones was quoted: "They plan on, if they've fluoridated you and vaccinated you and stunned you and mesmerized you with the TV and put you in a trance, on killing you." Jones continued to sell the products.

According to leaked text messages from Jones's mobile phone, InfoWars sold VasoBeet, a product it described as a "powerful beet formula", at a 900% retail markup as of September 2019. On January 29, 2020, InfoWars pulled in $245,000 in food sales, a day after Jones stoked fear about food shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in a broadcast.

During the April 2022 InfoWars bankruptcy hearing, Jones's representative stated, "InfoWars is a prominent trademark in the conspiracy theory community and Alex Jones is equally as prominent". He added that Jones's name was the "Coca-Cola of the conspiracy theory community".

In 2023, Jones launched a new subscription-based podcast, Alex Jones Live. It was put on hold shortly after it began due to matters relating to his Sandy Hook case.

Social media restrictions and bans
In February 2018, YouTube issued a "strike" against the InfoWars channel after a video was posted in which Alex Jones accused David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting, of being a paid "crisis actor". YouTube removed the video for violating its policies against harassment and bullying.

On July 24, 2018, YouTube removed four InfoWars' videos citing "child endangerment and hate speech", issued another "strike" against the channel, and suspended the ability to live stream. On July 27, 2018, Facebook suspended Jones's profile for 30 days, and removed the same videos, saying they violated the website's standards against hate speech and bullying. On August 3, 2018, Stitcher Radio removed all of his podcasts, citing harassment.

Later that year, on August 6, 2018, Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify removed all content by Jones and InfoWars for policy violations. YouTube removed channels associated with InfoWars, including The Alex Jones Channel, stating that InfoWars had repeatedly attempted to post content similar to that which had already been removed, as well as attempting to circumvent the suspension of its live streaming privileges by having other users live stream on its behalf. On Facebook, four pages associated with InfoWars and Alex Jones were removed over repeated policy violations. Apple removed all podcasts associated with Jones from iTunes. Facebook cited instances of dehumanizing immigrants, Muslims and transgender people, as well as glorification of violence, as examples of hate speech. After InfoWars was banned from Facebook, Jones used another of his websites, NewsWars, to circumvent the ban.

On August 13, 2018, Vimeo removed all of Jones's videos because of "prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content".

Jones's accounts were also removed from Pinterest, Mailchimp and LinkedIn. , Jones retained active accounts on Instagram, Google+ and Twitter. Jones tweeted a Periscope video calling on others to get their "battle rifles" ready against antifa, the mainstream media, and Chicom operatives. In the video, he says: "Now is time to act on the enemy before they do a false flag." Twitter cited this as the reason to suspend his account for a week in August 2018.

In September, Jones was permanently banned from Twitter and Periscope after berating CNN reporter Oliver Darcy. On September 7, 2018, the InfoWars app was removed from the Apple App Store for "objectionable content". He was banned from using PayPal for business transactions, having violated the company's policies by expressing "hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions". After Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, several previously banned accounts were reinstated including Donald Trump, Andrew Tate and Ye, but Jones was not among them. In November 2022, Musk referred to Jones as a person who "would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame" and said Jones would not be unbanned. He changed his position on December 10, 2023 when he reinstated Jones's account citing that if Jones said something false, Community Notes would correct him.

InfoWars remained available on Roku devices, in January 2019, a year after the channel's removal from multiple streaming services. Roku indicated that they do not "curate or censor based on viewpoint", and that it had policies against content that is "unlawful, incited illegal activities, or violates third-party rights", but that InfoWars was not in violation of these policies. Following a social media backlash, Roku removed InfoWars and stated, "After the InfoWars channel became available, we heard from concerned parties and have determined that the channel should be removed from our platform."

In March 2019, YouTube terminated the Resistance News channel due to its reuploading of live streams from InfoWars. On May 1, 2019, Jones was barred from using both Facebook and Instagram. Jones briefly moved to Dlive, but was suspended in April 2019 for violating community guidelines.

In March 2020, the InfoWars app was removed from the Google Play store due to Jones disseminating COVID-19 misinformation. A Google spokesperson stated that "combating misinformation on the Play Store is a top priority for the team" and apps that violate Play policy by "distributing misleading or harmful information" are removed from the store.

Comedian Joe Rogan attracted controversy for hosting Jones on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, in October 2020. The episode was made available on YouTube and Spotify in spite of Jones's ban from both platforms. Though Rogan occasionally fact-checked Jones throughout the course of the interview, he nonetheless faced backlash from critics for giving Jones a platform to spread misinformation and validate his views. A YouTube spokesman responded that YouTube reviewed the episode and determined it did not violate the site's guidelines, noting that YouTube bans channels rather than individuals.

In March 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on Jones' leaked texts from his Sandy Hook defamation trial. The texts revealed that Jones and his collaborators had been trying to evade social media bans of InfoWars content by setting up alternate websites such as National File to disguise its origin.

In May 2023, Jones guest hosted Steven Crowder's podcast Louder with Crowder. Crowder's channel was subsequently suspended by YouTube for facilitating ban evasion by Jones.

Planned sale, shut down and liquidation
On June 23, 2024, Christopher Murray, Jones' bankruptcy trustee, filed an emergency motion in a Houston court where he indicated his intent to not only sell InfoWars, but also shut down the website and liquidate its assets. In the motion, Murray stated that he made plans to “conduct an orderly wind-down” of the operations of Infowars’ parent company and also “liquidate its inventory.”

Views and incidents
Jones has described himself as a conservative, paleoconservative, and libertarian, terms he uses interchangeably. Others describe him as right-wing, alt-right, far-right, and populist. Asked about such labels, Jones said he is "proud to be listed as a thought criminal against Big Brother".

Early political activities
In 1998, he was removed from a George W. Bush rally at Bayport Industrial District, Texas. Jones interrupted Governor Bush's speech, demanding that the Federal Reserve and Council on Foreign Relations be abolished. Journalist David Weigel, reporting on the incident, said Jones "seemed to launch into public events as if flung from another universe".

In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones said that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside" but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks.

On July 15, 2000, Jones infiltrated the Bohemian Grove Cremation of Care, a Jones-alleged planning event of the New World Order involving child sacrifice, which he called "a ritualistic shedding of conscience and empathy" and an "abuse of power".

On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Ottawa, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities. They confiscated his passport, camera equipment, and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada legally. Jones said about his immigration hold: "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."

On September 8, 2007, Jones was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City, when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. He was charged with operating a megaphone without a permit, and two other persons were also cited for disorderly conduct.

Gun rights
Jones is a vocal gun rights advocate. MTV labeled him a "staunch Second Amendment supporter", while The Daily Telegraph in London called him a "gun-nut".

In January 2013, Jones was invited to speak on Piers Morgan's CNN show after Jones promoted an online petition to deport Morgan for supporting gun control. In the ensuing debate with Morgan, Jones stated that "1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms". Jones was referring to the American Revolutionary War in relation to theoretical gun control measures taken by the government. Jones said he owned around 50 firearms. Morgan said on CNN's Newsroom the following evening he couldn't conceive of a "better advertisement for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night". On his own show, according to The Atlantic, Glenn Beck said Morgan "is trying to make everybody who has guns and who believes in the Second Amendment to be a deterrent to an out of control government look like a madman. So now he immediately books the madman and makes him look like a conservative."

In a New York magazine interview in November 2013, Jones said mass shootings in the United States "were very, very suspicious, but at minimum, the tragic events were used to try to create guilt on the part of the average gun owner. So via the guilt trip, they would accept their individual liberties curtailed."

During an episode of his show InfoWars on May 24, 2022, Jones said concerning the Robb Elementary School shooting: "I would predict a lot of mass shootings right before elections and like clockwork, it is happening. To me, it is just very opportunistic what is happening."

Other opinions
Jones is a proponent of the New World Order conspiracy theory. In 2009, Jones claimed that a convicted con man's scheme to take over a long-vacant, would-be for-profit prison in Hardin, Montana, was part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plot to detain US citizens in concentration camps, relating to said conspiracy theory. In 2010, Jones produced and directed Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA, a film he claimed "conclusively proves the existence of a secret network of FEMA camps" and that "The military-industrial complex is transforming our once free nation into a giant prison camp." In 2012, Jones linked to a story titled "List of All FEMA Concentration Camps in America Revealed" from the German UFO conspiracy website Disclose.tv.

On June 9, 2013, Jones appeared as a guest on the BBC's Sunday Politics, discussing conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg Group, with presenter Andrew Neil and journalist David Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch implied that, since Jones had not been killed for exposing conspiracies, they either do not exist or that Jones is a part of them himself. Jones began shouting and interrupting, and Neil ended the interview, describing Jones as "an idiot" and "the worst person I've ever interviewed". According to Neil on Twitter, Jones was still shouting until he knew that he was off-air.

Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change of which Jones had been an executive producer.

Media Matters covered his claim that NFL players protesting during the national anthem were "kneeling to white genocide" and violence against whites, which the SPLC featured in their headlines review. His reporting and public views on the topic have received support and coverage from white nationalist publications and groups, such as the AltRight Corporation and the New Zealand National Front.

The Jones film Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement features the Georgia Guidestones, a 19-foot-high megalithic granite monument installed in Elberton in 1982, an attraction that drew 20,000 annual visitors. On July 7, 2022, the day they were dynamited by unknown saboteurs, his guest U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said ecumenical texts inscribed on it represented a nefarious future of "population control" as envisioned by the "hard left". She added, "There is a war of good and evil going on, and people are done with globalism." Jones admitted to enjoying the destruction, "at an animal level", though he added he would also would have liked them to remain as an "evil edifice" exposing supposed depopulation plans.

Jones has repeatedly made hateful comments towards the LGBT community and has associated the community with pedophilia. In 2010, he claimed: "The reason there's so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children." In a 2013 interview on YouTube concerning same-sex marriage, he ultimately blamed the "globalists" who "want to encourage the breakdown of the family, because the family is where people owe their allegiance" as a means "to get rid of God" by "taking the rights of an ancient, unified program of marriage and... are breaking it". He has claimed that the government is putting chemicals in water supplies to make people gay. In 2018, Jones threatened to come after drag performers with torches "like the villagers in the night".

Leaked texts reported on by the SPLC in 2023 indicated that Jones privately held different views about sexuality than what he promoted on InfoWars, with Jones and his second wife expressing positive views on bisexuality in their messages.

Jones believes that global warming is a hoax made up by the World Bank to control the world economy through a carbon tax.

Salon paraphrased Jones as having claimed President Obama had "access to weather weapons capable of not only creating tornadoes but also moving them around, on demand". His belief in weather warfare has been reported by mainstream media. He has claimed that Hurricane Irma may have been geo-engineered.

Jones is a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is transgender, with much of his apparent proof being pictures of Obama where it appears she has a bulge in her pants, and a video clip where Barack Obama refers to somebody as "Michael". Jones has claimed that the election of Joe Biden is part of a plot by the deep state and the globalists to bring about "the takedown of America".

In April 2017, Jones was criticized for claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a hoax and false flag. Jones stated that the attack was potentially carried out by civil defense group White Helmets, which he claimed are an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist front financed by George Soros.

While Jones initially supported QAnon, Right Wing Watch reported that he had ceased to support QAnon by May 2018, declaring the source "completely compromised". In 2021, after the Capitol attack, Jones denounced believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory on InfoWars.

Jones is known for both his opposition to vaccines, and his views on vaccine controversies. On June 16, 2017, Vox covered his claim that the introduction of the Sesame Street character Julia, an autistic Muppet, was "designed to normalize autism, a disorder caused by vaccines". On November 20, 2017, The New Yorker quoted Jones as claiming InfoWars was "defending people's right to not be forcibly infected with vaccines". Critics argue that he endangers children "by convincing their parents that vaccines are dangerous". Jones has specifically disputed the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccines.

In April 2022, Jones denied Russian war crimes by accusing the Ukrainians of staging the Bucha massacre.

Book project
On January 23, 2018, Jones announced he would be working with author Neil Strauss on his upcoming book, titled The Secret History of the Modern World & the War for the Future.

2016 presidential campaign
On December 2, 2015, Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, appeared on The Alex Jones Show, with Trump stating to Jones at the end: "your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down. You'll be very, very impressed, I hope." During the broadcast, Jones compared Trump to George Washington and said 90% of his listeners supported his candidacy. Jones and Trump both said the appearance was arranged by Roger Stone, who made multiple appearances on Jones' program during the 2016 presidential campaign. Ron and Rand Paul were the only other significant politicians to appear on Jones' show in the preceding few years. Jones indicated his support for Trump during the presidential campaign.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, via his Twitter account, Trump linked to InfoWars articles as sources for his claim "thousands and thousands" of Muslims celebrated 9/11 and the false assertion California was not suffering from a drought. A few days before one of Trump's August 2016 rallies, InfoWars published a video claiming Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had mental health issues, which Trump recycled in his campaign speech at the rally, according to Mother Jones. Trump's claim the 2016 vote would be rigged, The Independent reported, followed a Jones video making the same claim two days earlier. In one of her own speeches and video ads, Clinton criticized Trump for his ties to Jones.

Jones ran a campaign attacking former president Bill Clinton as a rapist. He designed a T-shirt, ran another "get on MSM" competition and gate-crashed The Young Turks set at the RNC, while displaying the T-shirt, resulting in a physical altercation with Cenk Uygur. Jones said Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were demons because they both smelt of sulfur, a claim supposedly based on assertions from people in contact with them. In late 2015, InfoWars began selling T-shirts with the slogan "Hillary for Prison".

According to Jones, Trump called him on the day after the election to thank him for his help in the campaign.

Trump as president
In April 2018, Jones publicly criticized President Trump during a livestream, after Trump announced a military strike against Syria. During the stream, Jones also stated that Trump had not called him during the prior six months. A leaked interview of Jones in January 2019 expressing displeasure over his relationship with Trump was released by the Southern Poverty Law Center in March 2021, with Jones stating "I wish I never would have fucking met Trump... I'm so sick of fucking Donald Trump, man. God, I'm fucking sick of him."

Jones supported Trump during his re-election campaign in 2020 and called on demonstrations to be held on the premise the election had been "rigged" against Trump.

After Trump recommended at an August 2021 rally that people choose to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Jones said that Trump was either lying or "not that bright" and "a dumbass".

Numerous current and former Trump advisers have appeared on Jones's show, including Counselor to the President Steve Bannon, Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and senior Trump campaign advisers Jason Miller and Roger Stone.

Events related to the January 6 Capitol attack
Jones partially funded and raised other funds to finance the January 6 Trump rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the 2021 United States Capitol attack. The New York Times reported he assisted in raising at least $650,000 from Julie Fancelli, a Publix grocery chain heiress who is a follower of InfoWars, to finance Trump's rally on the Ellipse, including $200,000 of the total amount deposited in one of Jones' bank accounts.

Jones attended the January 5 and 6 rallies at the capitol. On January 5, he was a scheduled speaker at the March to Save America and said, "We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone." Jones also stated that "I don't know how this is all going to end, but if they want to fight, they better believe they've got one", according to the same video. Jones called Joe Biden a "slave of Satan" and said, "Whatever happens to President Trump in 15 days, he is still the elected president of this republic. And we do not recognize the Communist Chinese agent Joe Biden, or his controllers."

The next day, Wednesday, January 6, at a gathering in Lafayette Park north of the Capitol, he addressed the crowd with a bullhorn, and stated that he had seen "over a hundred" members of antifa in the crowd, a baseless assertion other Trump supporters had also made, although the FBI said there was no evidence of antifa involvement. The same day, a video of Jones was posted on InfoWars, in which he is recorded saying "We declare 1776 against the new world order... We need to understand we're under attack, and we need to understand this is 21st-century warfare and get on a war-footing". In the same video, before setting off toward the Capitol building, Jones told the crowd: "We're here to take our rightful country back peacefully, because we're not globalist, antifa criminals. So let's start marching, and I salute you all." When rioters attacked the Capitol, Jones called on them to stop. "Let's not fight the police and give the system what they want", he said.

In February 2021, The Washington Post reported that the FBI was investigating any role Jones might have played in influencing the participation of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in the incursion. Jones had previously hosted leaders of the two groups on his programs. Some members of the groups had been indicted for conspiracy in the incident.

On November 22, 2021, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Jones for testimony and documents by December 18 and 6, respectively. He had a virtual meeting with the committee by video link on January 24, 2022. By the estimate of his legal team, Jones said, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 100 times and had been instructed to do so by his counsel.

On August 5, 2022, during a defamation trial in Texas brought by Sandy Hook school shooting parents against Jones, a lawyer for the plaintiffs revealed that Jones' lawyer had inadvertently sent him two years of texts from Jones' phone. On August 8, the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack received those text messages; they had requested the information since Jones had helped organize a rally before the Capitol attack. Jones's lawyer, Norm Pattis, had also released confidential discovery items including Sandy Hook plaintiffs' medical records, and consequently, in January 2023, a judge suspended his law license. At the time of his license suspension, Pattis was part of the legal team defending Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs against charges of seditious conspiracy.

On September 12, 2023, Owen Shroyer, an InfoWars co-host who accompanied Jones to the capital on January 6, 2021, was sentenced to thirty days in prison for violating an active order to stay away from the Capitol grounds. He had received the order after previously being arrested for causing a disturbance in another governmental building.

Pizzagate conspiracy theory
In February 2017, James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction of his advocacy for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Jones was given one month to comply or be subject to a libel suit. In March 2017, Jones apologized to Alefantis and retracted his allegations.

Chobani yogurt company
In April 2017, the Chobani yogurt company sued Jones over his allegations that their Idaho plant was involved in several tuberculosis cases, and a sexual assault taking place the year prior. As a result, Jones issued an apology and retraction of his allegations in May 2017. However, while being deposed in the Texas defamation lawsuit filed by Sandy Hook parents, Jones reiterated many of his previous allegations against Chobani and its founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, indicating that he continues to espouse the false claims.

Charlottesville car attack
In March 2018, Brennan Gilmore, who shared a video he captured of a car hitting counter-protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, filed a lawsuit against Jones and six others. According to the lawsuit, Jones said that Gilmore was acting as part of a false flag operation conducted by disgruntled government "deep state" employees promoting a coup against Trump. Gilmore alleged he received death threats from Jones's audience. In March 2022, Gilmore secured an admission of liability from Jones.

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
Jones has repeatedly spread disproven conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, including claiming that it was a "false flag" operation perpetrated by gun control advocates, that "no one died" in Sandy Hook, and that the incident was "staged", "synthetic", "manufactured", "a giant hoax" and "completely fake with actors". Jones faced numerous lawsuits due to these lies.

Pozner and De La Rosa vs. Jones
On April 16, 2018 Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, parents of victim Noah Pozner, filed a defamation suit against Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems in Travis County, Texas. Pozner, who has been forced to move several times to avoid harassment and death threats, was accused by Jones of being a crisis actor.

Heslin vs. Jones
On April 16, 2018, Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of victim Jesse Lewis, filed a defamation suit against Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems in Travis County, Texas.

Jones was found to be in contempt of court even before the trial started as a result of his failure to produce witnesses and materials relevant to the procedures. Consequently, Jones and Infowars were fined a total of $126,000 in October and December 2019.

On January 22, 2021, the Texas Supreme Court threw out an appeal for dismissal by Jones of four defamation lawsuits from families of Sandy Hook victims. The court allowed the judgments of two lower courts to stand without comment, allowing the lawsuits to continue.

On September 27, 2021, a district judge in Texas issued three default judgments against Jones, requiring him to pay all damages in two lawsuits. These rulings came after Jones repeatedly failed to hand over documents and evidence as ordered by the court, which the judge characterized as "flagrant bad faith and callous disregard for the responsibilities of discovery under the rules".

The jury trial began in Texas on July 25, 2022, where the plaintiffs' attorney said they would seek $150 million from the jury. Heslin testified on August 2 that conspiracy theorists, fueled by Jones' statements, fired into his house and car and subjected him and his family to harassment. He said Jones' failure to attend court during his testimony was a "cowardly act". While Heslin was testifying, Jones was broadcasting his show, calling Heslin "slow" and "manipulated by some very bad people". Jones subsequently arrived at court to present his testimony, first sitting through that of Jesse's mother Scarlett Lewis. Lewis said, "Alex, I want you to hear this. We're more polarized than ever as a country. Some of that is because of you." She asked Jones: "Do you think I'm an actor?" Jones responded, "No, I don't think you're an actor." As the only person testifying in his defense, Jones admitted the Sandy Hook shooting was "100% real", and agreed with his own attorney that it was "absolutely irresponsible" to push falsehoods about the shooting and its victims.

Jones testified that he had complied with court orders in defamation suits and is bankrupt. On August 3, cross-examination revealed that Jones had not fully complied with court orders to provide text messages and emails for pretrial evidence gathering. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County District Court admonished him for lying under oath, as his failure to comply with court orders was the reason he lost the defamation suits, and that bankruptcy proceedings had yet to be adjudicated. Gamble said, "You're under oath. That means things must actually be true when you say them." After the judge left the courtroom, Jones said Lewis and Heslin were being "controlled". While the jury deliberated the amount of compensatory damages, Jones was claiming on his radio show that the proceedings were "an incredible spectacle" backed by globalists trying to shut him down. On August 4, 2022, the jury ordered Jones pay Heslin and Lewis $4.1 million in compensatory damages, and the following day, he was ordered to pay an additional $45.2 million in punitive damages. On November 22, 2022, a judge ruled that Jones must pay the full amount of the punitive damages, even though this amount exceeds a cap under Texas law. (Jones' attorneys had estimated the punitive damages award would be reduced to $1.5 million, while the plaintiffs' attorneys had expected it to be reduced to $4.5 million.)

On November 22, 2022, Judge Gamble ruled that the punitive damages cap did not apply in this case due to the rare and egregious nature of the harm. She also questioned the constitutionality of the damages cap in general.

On April 25, 2023, Judge Gamble ordered Jones's attorney, Andino Reynal, to pay $97,169 to Heslin and Lewis for his bad-faith attempts to delay the trial, with a contingency fee of $55,000 should Reynal appeal and lose, and $61,600 if he appeals to the Texas Supreme Court and loses.

Lafferty et al. vs. Jones
On June 26, 2018, seven families of victims and an FBI agent who responded to the attack filed a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems, Infowars Health and others for spreading false claims, resulting in the harassment, stalking and threatening of the plaintiffs.

By February 2019, the plaintiffs won a series of court rulings requiring Jones to testify under oath. Jones was later ordered to undergo a sworn deposition, along with three other defendants related to the operation of Infowars. He was also ordered to turn over internal business documents related to Infowars. In this deposition in the last week of March 2019, Jones acknowledged the deaths were real, stating he had "almost like a form of psychosis, where he "basically thought everything was staged".

On March 25, 2019, Jeremy Richman, one of the plaintiffs, whose daughter Avielle was killed, committed suicide. Jones, through his lawyer, offered condolences to Richman's family, but later that day on his show suggested that Richman had been murdered and that his death had something to do with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference.

On April 5, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear an appeal by Jones against a court sanction in the lawsuit.

On November 15, 2021, the judge found Jones liable by default for defamation, for "willful non-compliance" in failing to turn over documents to the families in line with court orders.

On March 29, 2022, Jones offered a settlement of $120,000 to each of the thirteen people involved in the lawsuits, which was quickly rejected.

On June 2, 2022, Jones's attorneys asked the judge to drop them from the case. The judge said she had heard this before, citing thirteen times in the past four years when Jones' attorneys asked to replace each other or be dropped from the case. She ordered them to continue to represent Jones until she ruled on the motion on June 15.

On October 12, 2022, the jury awarded $965 million to be shared by 15 plaintiffs (eight families and one first responder). The plaintiffs' individual awards ranged from $28.8 million to $120 million. During the trial, the families testified that they had been threatened and harassed over years due to Jones' falsehoods. Jones reacted live to the verdict on his show, mocking it: "Do these people actually think they're getting any money?" He implored his viewers to donate to him to "appeal", and also declared that the jury's verdict was an attempt to "scare us away from questioning" school shootings such as the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and the Robb Elementary School shooting, but "we're not going to stop".

On November 10, 2022, the judge awarded the plaintiffs a further $473 million in punitive damages in the form of lawyers' fees, bringing the total to over $1.4 billion. The judge also issued an order that Jones was "not to transfer, encumber, dispose or move his assets out of the United States until further order of the court".

Jones moved for a new trial, but on December 22, 2022, the judge denied his request.

By the end of the summer of 2023, Jones had paid nothing to the families.

Sherlach vs. Jones
On July 24, 2018, William Sherlach, husband of victim and school psychologist Mary Sherlach, filed a defamation lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against Jones, Infowars, Free Speech Systems and Infowars Health. Sherlach's lawsuit was consolidated into the Lafferty et al. vs. Jones lawsuit for the Connecticut trial.

Attempts to protect assets
Numerous media sources have raised questions on how much Jones really owns and hides in assets.

On April 6, 2022, according to the Associated Press and The Daily Beast, a lawsuit was filed in Austin, Texas, by some of the Sandy Hook families accusing Jones of hiding assets worth millions of dollars after he began being sued for defamation by the families of Sandy Hook victims. The suit claims Jones "conspired to divert his assets to shell companies owned by insiders like his parents, his children, and himself". The lawsuit alleges Jones drew $18 million from the Infowars company beginning in 2018 and accuses Jones of claiming a "dubious" $54 million debt at about the same time to another company alleged by the lawsuit to be also owned by Jones. Norm Pattis, an attorney for Jones, said the lawsuit was "ridiculous" and denied that there had been any attempt to conceal assets.

Bankruptcies
On April 17, 2022, three companies owned by Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, suspending further civil litigation claims, as the families had sued Jones as well as his companies. The three companies affected were InfoW, Prison Planet TV, and IWHealth (or Infowars Health). The court filings estimated InfoWars' assets at between $0–$50,000, but its liabilities (including from the damages awarded against Jones in defamation suits) were stated as being between $1 million and $10 million. Regarding why Jones did not personally file for bankruptcy, his representative stated, "It would ruin his name and harm his ability to sell merchandise." and "Putting him in bankruptcy would harm his trademark value in terms of cashflow." A lawyer for the families involved in a Connecticut lawsuit against Jones responded, "Alex Jones is just delaying the inevitable: a public trial in which he will be held accountable for his profit-driven campaign of lies against the Sandy Hook families who have brought this lawsuit."

On June 10, 2022, a federal judge in Texas dismissed the bankruptcy protection case after Jones and the families agreed that the three companies would be dropped from the defamation lawsuits against Jones, allowing them to continue in Texas and Connecticut. On July 29, 2022, the parent company of InfoWars, Free Speech Systems, LLC, filed for bankruptcy. In response to the Connecticut legal settlement made against him, Jones had previously claimed assets of $6.2 million in January 2022.

On December 2, 2022, Jones filed for Chapter 11 personal bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas, claiming that his assets were between $1 million and $10 million, while his debts were between $1 billion and $10 billion. He also claimed that he had 50 to 99 creditors, and in February 2023, that the Department of Justice intended to seize his pet cat, valued at $2,000, to pay debts owed to the Sandy Hook families. On October 19, 2023, a Texas bankruptcy judge ruled that Jones cannot rely on bankruptcy protection to avoid paying the $1.5 billion he owes to the Sandy Hook families as a result of the Connecticut lawsuit. It remained unclear whether he would be able to reduce the amount of punitive damages in the Texas case.

In November 2023, the Sandy Hook families offered a settlement in which Jones would pay $85 million over 10 years (about 6 percent of what he had been court-ordered to pay). The offer was filed within Jones's personal bankruptcy case. The following month, Jones countered with an offer of $55 million over 10 years. In February 2024, Jones's general unsecured creditors (mostly Sandy Hook families) voted in favor of a Chapter 11 plan that would liquidate and redistribute his assets.

Appearing emotional and defiant, on June 1, 2024, Jones said on his program, "At the end of the day, we're going to beat these people. I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but it's been a hard fight. These people hate our children." The next day, the families filed an emergency motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, asking the judge to liquidate Alex Jones's company rather than allow him to reorganize it. The court filing said Jones has "failed to demonstrate any hope of beginning to satisfy" their claims. On June 6, Jones's attorneys filed a motion to convert his bankruptcy to Chapter 7 status, which would lead to liquidation of his personal assets, including his stake in InfoWars, which was agreed to by the plaintiffs the following day. On June 14, the judge approved the Chapter 7 liquidation. On June 24, the court-appointed trustee public revealed that he planned to shut down InfoWars.

Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
Jones spread discredited conspiracy theories about the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. He stated survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor.

Marcel Fontaine sued Jones on April 2, 2018, after InfoWars falsely identified him as the gunman and posted photos of him in several versions of an article on the InfoWars website about the massacre. The lawsuit was filed in Texas court naming Jones, InfoWars, parent company Free Speech Systems, LLC and Infowars employee Kit Daniels as defendants. Fontaine's lawsuit was the first one against Jones that involved his defamatory statements about mass school shootings. One of his lawyers stated that "Marcel Fontaine is the only reason why we filed the first Sandy Hook case", because after Fontaine's suit was filed, the families of two boys slain in the Sandy Hook shooting contacted his law firm about also suing Jones. Fontaine died in an apartment building fire in Worcester, Massachusetts, on May 14, 2022.

Personal life
Jones has three children with his former wife Kelly Jones (née Nichols). The couple divorced in March 2015. In 2017, Kelly sought sole or joint custody of their children due to her ex-husband's lurid behavior. She claimed "he's not a stable person" and "I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress" (Adam Schiff). His attorney responded by claiming that "he's playing a character" and describing him as a "performance artist". On his show, Jones denied playing a character and he called his show "the most bona fide, hard-core, real McCoy thing there is, and everybody knows it"; whereas in court, Jones clarified that he generally agreed with his attorney's statement, but that he disagreed with the media's interpretation of the term "performance artist". Kelly was awarded the right to decide where their children live while he maintains visitation rights. In April 2020, a state district judge denied an emergency motion by Kelly to secure custody of their daughters for the next two weeks after Jones led a rally at the Capitol, where he was mobbed by supporters and called COVID-19 a hoax. In 2023, after a 2008 audioclip of Jones berating his then wife was obtained by the Daily Mail, Kelly claimed that Jones was "a total racist" regarding her Jewish heritage, claiming that her genes were "flawed."

His son, Rex Jones, has worked for InfoWars. His father, David Jones, is involved in InfoWars 's business and previously handled human resources tasks for his son, according to his testimony in a deposition.

Jones married Erika Wulff in 2017; they have one child. In February 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported on text messages that appeared to corroborate a September 2022 Rolling Stone story reporting that Jones may have spied on Wulff in 2019. In the texts reviewed by the SPLC, Jones told his security employee to monitor Wulff, expressing concern that she was cheating on him.

Video games

 * Alex Jones: NWO Wars

title: Alex Jones


text:
Talk:2003 Japanese general election

Untitled
Discussion for "Japan general election, 2003".

Huh? -- Taku

Sorry -- just filler since the page was blank. JCB 07:54, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Added few sentences criticizing DPJ. It's only fair that both side get criticized, isn't it? Revth 08:09, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Data Problems
I have noticed a number of data problems in tables. In particular, the numbers in parenthesis (indicating the results of the previous election) DON'T match the numbers on other wikipedia pages. For example, according to the wikipedia entry for 2000, LDP won 239 seats. The number quoted here is 247 in the first table and 239 in the 'raw' table at the bottom. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the correct number is 239 I don't want to ammend anything without fully understanding the reasons behind it. Which source was used here?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.219.136.58 (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

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

title: Talk:2003 Japanese general election


text:
Red-footed falcon

The red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus), formerly the western red-footed falcon, is a bird of prey. It belongs to the family Falconidae, the falcons. This bird is found in eastern Europe and Asia although its numbers are dwindling rapidly due to habitat loss and hunting. It is migratory, wintering in Africa. It is a regular wanderer to western Europe, and in August 2004 a red-footed falcon was found in North America for the first time on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Taxonomy
The Amur falcon was formerly included herein as a subspecies but it is nowadays considered distinct. Nonetheless, it is the present species' closest relative; their relationship to other falcons is more enigmatic. They appear morphologically somewhat intermediate between kestrels and hobbies and DNA sequence data has been unable to further resolve this question, mainly due to lack of comprehensive sampling. They might be closer to the merlin than to most other living falcons, or more generally related to this species and American falcons such as the American kestrel and the aplomado falcon.

The genus name Falco is from Late Latin falx, falcis, a sickle, referencing the claws of the bird. The species name vespertinus is Latin for "of evening" from vesper, "evening".

Description
It is a medium-small, long-winged species. The adult male is all blue-grey, except for his red undertail and legs; its underwings are uniformly grey. The female has a grey back and wings, orange head and underparts, and a white face with black eye stripe and moustaches.

Young birds are brown above and buff below with dark streaks, and a face pattern like the female. Red-footed falcons are 28 – in length with a wingspan of 65 –. The average mass is 155 g.

Distribution
The main areas of European distribution are in southern Russia and Ukraine. The species occurs in large numbers in Hungary, Romania and Serbia. Smaller populations exist in Italy, Bulgaria and Moldova, in Austria, Slovakia and in Belarus. The red-footed falcon also breeds irregularly in the Czech Republic and in the Baltic States, occasionally also in Germany. In Asia, the breeding occurrences run in a relatively narrow band somewhat south of the taiga eastwards to the upper Lena, where they touch the range of the sister species Falco amurensis east of the Baikal. The northern border lies between the 63° and 58° north latitude, the south border around 45° north latitude. It runs along the north slope of the Altai and then westward follows the transition of open pine forests into the treeless steppe areas of Central Asia. Further to the west, the breeding areas on the lower reaches of the Volga and on the north coast of the Caspian Sea reach Europe. The southernmost occurrences are in the steppe areas north of the Caucasus and in South Georgia. Some isolated breeding areas are located in northern Turkey. The red-footed falcon winters in southern and eastern Africa.

Breeding and behaviour
This falcon is a colonial breeder, reusing the old nests of corvids, such as rooks. It lays two to four eggs. Its maximum lifespan is 13.25 years in the wild and 18 years in captivity.

Azerbaijan
Red-footed falcons were witnessed copulating several times over a week-long period and "showed a strong preference for an old magpie nest" Frequent copulation was interspersed with joint inspections of the magpie nest. The morning after the aforementioned observations, the pair was again observed and they repeated their behaviour. Both then defended against an attack by a lesser kestrel. On this day neither bird spent much time in the nest, but always remained perched beside it. At the end of the week the researchers revisited the nest. The behaviour this time was that the female sat in the nest and the male perched outside but in the same tree. Further defensive responses to lesser kestrels were observed. The male red-footed falcon hunted for large insects and fed them to the female. Copulation then occurred. After copulation, the female returned to sit in the nest until the male fed her again. This behaviour continued for several days. This pair clearly showed territorial behaviour. The frequent copulations and lengthy stay of the female in the nest suggested incubation but the researchers did not check the nest.

Carpathian Basin
Researchers used a species distribution model for red-footed falcons. This model can play a crucial role in identifying key nesting sites for endangered species. According to the researchers, the red-footed falcon is officially listed as near-threatened, due to the drastic breeding population decline of the past decades. Red-footed falcons breed in colonies and in solitary pairs. They do not build a nest. In Hungary, the landscape scale distribution of rookeries remained stable, while the density and size of rookeries decreased and their location shifted to human settlements. Similar patterns were reported from other European countries. The reasons of rookery declines can be attributed to a large-scale persecution in the mid-80s resulting in a 90% population crash. Because of this, most potential breeding colonies for red-footed falcons disappeared, causing a decline in the number of breeding pairs. Conservation projects have established artificial nest box colonies to rectify this problem.

There is little evidence of this plan's effectiveness and also little evidence on recent population trends and distribution, from Northern Serbia, where 5-10% of the total European Union population is thought to breed. The researchers' main focus was on understanding the relationship between landscape scale habitat variables and red-footed falcon presence. The researchers found that the increase of natural grasslands had a positive effect on nest site presence while the increase of broad-leaved forests negatively influenced the probability of nest site presence. Their modelling approach proved successful in describing the landscape scale habitat composition of red-footed falcon breeding sites in the modelling area. Natural grasslands have a considerable impact on the probability of nest site presence. Therefore, locating their breeding sites or creating breeding sites by providing artificial colonies with the aid of our results has additional conservation and socio-economic benefits for wildlife and human population.

Serbia
Near the village of Melenci (Vojvodina, northern Serbia) there were 22 red-footed falcon nests in 1991 in which offspring had been successfully brought up. The contents of four nests were checked daily from the start of incubation until the fledglings left the nests. Breeding success did not differ between the group of four nests disturbed by inspections and the remaining 18. Despite the fact that the ratio of parent bird presence (both, only female, only male) and absence differed in the comparison of the four nests, red-footed falcon parents were usually found in the close surroundings, i.e. they attended their nest. The attendance of the birds to the nests differed between the sexes during incubation as well as hatching and the nestling period, which fact can be interpreted as a difference between the roles of females and males. In 59% of the cases it was the female, while in 41% it was the male bird that was sitting on the eggs. At the time of hatching it was mostly the female (female 86%, male 14%) that was present in the nest, while after hatching it was only the female. Later on the adult birds usually took off from the branch supporting the nest, from neighbouring trees, or from abandoned rook (Corvus frugilegus) nests, rather than from the nest itself. Females participated more times in the defence of the nest than males, yet the ratios of the studied types of behaviour (alarm, repellence, attack) did not differ between the sexes. However, significant difference appeared to be present between four nests when the distribution frequency of the three behaviour types was looked at. The distribution of the reaction types of the parent birds to disturbance was significantly different in the periods of incubation, hatching and nestling, respectively. As nesting proceeded and parental investment grew, the number of repellences and attacks increased proportionally.

The survey of population size and distribution of red-footed falcons proceeded in June–July 2000 and 2001 respectively, ten years after the first census (1990 and 1991). Data of only those nests were processed in which there was breeding. Breeding Success was calculated from the number of offspring per reproductive female. During the survey in Voivodina in 1990-1991 there were 308 and 124 pairs, respectively, whereas ten years later, in the year 2000 there were 116, and in 2001 only 61 pairs of red-footed falcons. Even if the marked fluctuations observed are not considered, the red-footed falcon population breeding in Voivodina shows a declining tendency. The south-western margin of the distribution area has moved towards the northeast by about 50-70 kilometres. More than 90% of the nesting sites, including the larger nesting colonies, are found in the Banat region, i.e. east of the Tisa River. More than 90% of the red-footed falcons continue to nest in rook colonies. No significant change has occurred in their breeding success.

Dietary habits
The red-footed falcon is a bird of prey with a diet consisting of a variety of insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds, such as great green bush-crickets, spadefoot toads, sand lizards, the common vole and bird nestlings, respectively. This bird's distinctive method of hunting is shared by the common kestrel. It regularly hovers, searching the ground below, then makes a short steep dive towards the target. When feeding their nestlings, the youngest nestlings receive the most food more frequently and more regularly. Chicks that are between 0 and 3 weeks old will get fed bigger prey like toads, lizards, bird nestlings, and great green bush-crickets, while nestlings over that age will get fed less frequently and with less variety. The diet of young nestlings consists mostly of Orthoptera and beetles with some vertebrates, while the diet of older nestlings mostly consists of Orthoptera and almost never of vertebrates.

Habitat
The red-footed falcon tends to reside in typical steppe type habitats ranging from Eastern Europe to Lake Baikal in Central Asia. This is a diurnal bird of open country with some trees, often near water. They tend to migrate far south for the winter, including in areas of Africa. The red-footed falcon tends not to make their own nests, but tend to use abandoned nests made by other birds such as the hooded crow, rook, and magpie. The nests that are chosen tend to be higher than the majority of the other nests; the nests tend to be 13 – above the ground and within 3 – of the tree top. Most of these nests tend to be near the edge of woods, avoiding nesting on solitary trees. Breeding takes place in these abandoned nests; usually breeding occurs colonially in rookeries because these birds tend to stay together in groups. This is also important because fledging success tends to be higher when these birds are in colonies and are not solitary. The red-footed falcon relies on the nests built by rooks, and with a decline in population of rooks, the number of suitable rookeries for colonial nesting has also decreased, leading humans to ideas of conservation.

Threats
A major impact on the red footed falcon's population is loss and degradation of natural nest sites. Rooks and rookeries are regularly attacked, by shooting into the nests, killing birds and cutting down the trees they were living in for the wood. Pesticides are also a huge threat as they are depleting their natural food sources, making food competitive. There is also an increased mortality caused by electrocution due to the bird's habit of sitting perched on power lines. From 1980 to 1999 intensive poisoning of rooks in Hungary forced the species to change its nest site selection habits, and large colonies have nearly disappeared there as a result, with only 38% of the population breeding colonially. As productivity is generally greater in larger colonies, further decreases may occur. The species appears to be hunted opportunistically during migration.

Conservation
The global population of red-footed falcon is estimated to be between 300,000-800,000 individuals, with 26,000 to 39,000 pairs in Europe. Most of the population breeds in the steppe grasslands of Russia and central Asia, although a significant amount also breeds in the Ukraine, Romania and Hungary. In 2005, the population in Hungary was estimated to be between 700 and 800, showing a steady decline. Red-footed falcons can be considered as a classic umbrella species because they affect other species living in the community. They play a popular role in the Natura 2000 designation process. Therefore, locating their breeding sites or creating breeding sites by providing artificial colonies has additional conservation and socio-economic benefits for both wildlife and the local human population.

Conservation in the Pannonian Region
A conservation program, which was funded by the EU's LIFE Nature financial instrument, was initiated on January 1, 2006 with the goal of increasing and maintaining the breeding population of the species in Hungary and western Romania. This conservation project developed a method to create more nesting sites by creating artificial nest box colonies. It's pretty common for the birds to be preyed upon by martens or other mammalian predators during incubation or during the nestling state, even in the artificial colonies. Some extreme cases show that the predators may threaten the existence of every clutch in the colony. They are using many methods to repel or trap potential predators in order to avoid predation. Some of those methods are listed in this section. There are many known threatening factors and the program takes active conservation measures against them. Some of these factors include being electrocuted by electric pylons so the program locates and insulates the exposed cables. Roadside trees are a common nesting site for falcons because they are also home to corvids. Previously, only safety aspects were considered in the management of these nesting facilities. Therefore, the project will submit a conservation based management plan to the correct authorities. One of the reasons of red-footed falcon decline is the collapse of the rook population due to drastic pest control measures. Based on previous experience and information from stakeholders, a draft "corvus management plan" will be prepared to handle the conflict situations caused by rooks.

Future conservation efforts proposed include continuing to conduct regular surveys throughout the area. Figuring out additional ways to help the species is crucial. Red-footed falcons are known to use artificial colonies, therefore, they can be a useful mid-term conservation tool to prevent their population from fragmenting. Also, there may be ways to help out the species by changing farming and land-use practices in Central Europe. Surveys in Bulgaria indicated that there is a decline in available breeding sites for the birds.

title: Red-footed falcon


text:
Talk:The Avengers United

I'm rather baffled by the purpose of this page. It mostly seems to simply duplicate the information in The Avengers (comics), which seems pointless. Is it intended to represent the cartoon series from a few years back? If so, it needs to be rewritten. —mhr 06:56, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:The Avengers United


text:
User:Syclop

Hi, my name is Mark, and I'm a Wikipediholic.

As was etched in stone on a marker on the campus of the esteemed Faber College, "Knowledge is Good."

title: User:Syclop


text:
Michael Cullen (politician)

Sir Michael John Cullen (5 February 1945 – 19 August 2021) was a New Zealand politician. He served as the 16th deputy prime minister of New Zealand, also as the minister of Finance, minister of Tertiary Education, and attorney-general. He was the deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1996 until November 2008, when he resigned following a defeat in the general election. He resigned from Parliament in April 2009, to become the deputy chairman of New Zealand Post from 1 November 2009 and chairman from 1 November 2010 until leaving the role in 2016. On 6 March 2020 he announced that he had resigned from the Lakes and Bay of Plenty district health boards, respectively. At the same time he also announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 small-cell lung cancer, which had also spread to his liver.

Early life and education
Cullen was born in Enfield in north London on 5 February 1945, the son of Ivy May Cullen (née Taylor) and John Joseph Thomas Cullen. His father was a spectacle frame maker and his mother was a secretary.

He attended West Green and later North Harringay schools (both in Harringay) the latter of which was close to his maternal grandparents house. When his paternal grandmother died in 1953 his family received a modest inheritance and considered moving to a better house elsewhere in London before instead deciding to move to New Zealand.

The family emigrated from Tottenham to New Zealand in 1955, where friends gave him the nick-name "Pom", and Cullen attended secondary school on a scholarship at Christ's College in Christchurch. He went on to study history at the University of Canterbury, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965, and a Master of Arts in 1968. His masters thesis was titled Poverty in London, 1885-95.

Receiving a Commonwealth Scholarship he then gained a PhD in social and economic history from the University of Edinburgh. He was the first person in his family to attend university. From 1971 to 1981 he was a lecturer at the University of Otago, with a term as a visiting fellow at the Australian National University from 1975 to 1976. One of his students was future MP Michael Laws, whom he called a "very bright student, but you knew there was something not quite right, even then."

Whilst Cullen was researching his thesis on poverty in the late 19th century in London he discovered that the street in which his maternal grandparents grew up was famed for semi-criminal activities. They proceeded to become "working class respectables" and then his father became a semi-skilled tradesman.

Cullen became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1975.

Member of Parliament
Cullen joined the Labour Party in 1974, and served on the party's Executive and Council between 1976 and 1981. At the 1981 general election he was elected MP for the Dunedin electorate of St Kilda. In 1983 he was appointed Labour's spokesperson for the environment. In his first several years in parliament he had deliberately avoided his previous career focuses (of welfare and finance) to avoid being "pigeonholed" in those areas.

Fourth Labour Government
When Labour entered government in 1984, Cullen became Senior Whip. Due to his knowledge of economics, Cullen became increasingly involved in the disputes surrounding the Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas, who supported the liberalisation of trade and the sale of state assets plus deep tax cuts. These goals, which were against traditional Labour policies, angered both party members and the public. When the Prime Minister, David Lange, attempted to limit the influence Douglas had on the government's direction, Cullen became involved on Lange's side. After Labour's re-election in 1987, Cullen was made Associate Minister of Finance (an attempt by Lange to provide an anti-reform counterbalance to the radical Douglas) and Minister of Social Welfare. There were two other associate finance ministers (David Butcher and Peter Neilson) both of whom were on side with Douglas' reforms so Cullen's ability to temper financial policies were minimal. Of the three he was the more senior and deputised for Douglas when he was unable to attend parliamentary sessions.

He implemented the Puao-te-Ata-tu report which reorganised the administration of welfare provisions in relation to Māori and passed the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Soon after Cullen had been elevated to Cabinet, his father died following a long and painful illness, his marriage ended, and his dog died prompting him to ponder resigning; "I seriously considered quitting from Cabinet, but the least I could do was stay there for Helen [Clark] and David [Lange] and make sure we didn't lose social policy to the Rogernomes who were driving so much of the policy."

Eventually, Douglas was forced to resign, but a month later the political controversies around the dispute prompted the resignation of Lange himself. Douglas was succeeded as Finance Minister by David Caygill, one of his allies (albeit a considerably less radical one). Cullen was made Associate Minister of Health, in an attempt reduce the effect of reforms on that sector.

In 1989 he married fellow Labour MP Anne Collins.

Opposition
When Labour lost the 1990 election – attributed to public anger at Douglas' reforms, and disarray within the Labour Party – Cullen returned to being Labour's spokesperson on social welfare. The following year he replaced David Caygill as Shadow Minister of Finance, Cullen being seen as more fiscally moderate to help blunt the growth of the newly formed Alliance party (which was made up largely of Labour dissidents). After Labour's narrow defeat at the 1993 election, Helen Clark won the leadership of the party. At the same time Cullen ran to replace her as deputy leader, but was defeated by Caygill by the narrow margin of 23 votes to 21.

Before Labour's position in the polls improved, Cullen was also involved in an attempt to oust Clark as party leader, which was not successful. Soon after, when Caygill decided to retire from politics in 1996, Cullen took the deputy leader's post unopposed as well. Cullen has claimed to be happy with his position as second, saying that in terms of personality, he is "a number two sort of person". Many commentators agree, believing that Cullen's strength lies more in administration than leadership.

On 26 August 1999, Cullen was named by the Speaker Doug Kidd for saying that the National Member Max Bradford had lied, and that he was a "stooge" of the Employers Federation.

Fifth Labour Government
Prior to the 1999 New Zealand general election, Cullen and his family moved to Napier, prompting him to stand down as Labour's candidate in his Dunedin South electorate at the upcoming election as it would have been to difficult to have a family base in Napier, while also being in Dunedin for electorate business and Wellington for Parliamentary business. After Labour MP Geoff Braybrooke signaled his intention to retire in 1999, Cullen expressed interest in running for Braybrooke's Napier electorate seat, although after Braybrooke reversed his decision Cullen decided to contest the 1999 election as a list only candidate. As Deputy leader Cullen was guaranteed the number 2 placing on Labour's list and Labour's electoral victory in 1999 resulted in Cullen easily being returned to Parliament as a List MP and becoming Minister of Finance.

As Minister of Finance, Cullen delivered nine consecutive budget surpluses, the longest unbroken run by any finance minister since the 1940s. After the government's defeat in 2008, his successor Bill English praised the Labour government, telling reporters that New Zealand was starting from a “reasonable position” due to Cullen's budgets “saving up for” a rainy day fund in dealing with the global financial crisis.

After the 2002 election, the electoral support for Labour's junior coalition partner (the Progressive Party) was not sufficient to justify its leader holding the Deputy Prime Minister position, resulting in Michael Cullen replacing Jim Anderton as Deputy Prime Minister.

In 2005 Helen Clark appointed Cullen to the post of Attorney-General following the election of Margaret Wilson as Speaker of the House. His appointment became controversial because of his non-legal background (only one other non-lawyer had previously held the post) and because of his previous criticisms of the judiciary, including of the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias. His term in the position ended following the 2005 general election. However, with the resignation of David Parker in March 2006, Cullen took over the position again.

He had a reputation as one of the Labour Party's best parliamentary debaters, and is known for his sometimes "acerbic" sense of humour.

Budget 2006
Cullen presented his seventh budget in 2006. Cullen's guiding principle was, he stated, "The fool who spends on the upturn will find himself broke on the downturn".

Budget 2007
Labour's eighth budget in 2007 reduced company tax from 33% to 30% and introduced a 15% research and development tax credit. It also made a number of changes to the KiwiSaver scheme.

Budget 2008

The New Zealand economy entered recession in December 2007. Cullen's final budget was delivered in this context in May 2008; it reduced income tax on the first $9,500 earned from 15% to 12.5%, and the company tax rate from 30% to 29%.

Resignation and retirement from politics
The day after the defeat of Labour in the 2008 general elections and Helen Clark's resignation as party leader, Cullen announced his resignation as deputy leader of the Labour Party. Phil Goff was elected the new leader and Annette King succeeded him as deputy leader. Goff appointed Cullen as Shadow Leader of the House and Spokesperson for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations.

When he resigned from Parliament in 2009 he was replaced as an MP from the party list by Damien O'Connor.

Political views
Cullen identified as a social democrat.

In 2004 Cullen declared his support for the monarchy of New Zealand, describing himself as "a sort of token monarchist in the Cabinet these days". However, in 2010 he repudiated that stance, taking the view that New Zealand should move towards a republic once the Queen's reign ends.

Cullen voted in favour of the third reading of the Civil Union Bill 2004, which legalised civil unions in New Zealand. In 2020 he declared his support for the End of Life Choice Bill.

Despite his opposition to a capital gains tax during his term as finance minister on grounds that it was "political suicide", as the head of the Tax Working Group appointed by Jacinda Ardern, he recommended one in 2019. Cullen changed his views and saw the tax as necessary to reduce inequality in New Zealand. Cullen was being paid more than $1000 a day as chairman of the Tax Working Group.

Post politics
After leaving parliament, Cullen held a number of public roles, including serving on the Constitutional Advisory Panel, the Tax Working Group and chairing the boards of New Zealand Post and the Earthquake Commission. He was appointed to chair the Bay of Plenty District Health Board after the 2019 local elections. He also joined the board of retirement insurance business Lifetime Income.

In March 2020, Cullen stood down from most of his public roles after announcing that he had been diagnosed with stage IV small-cell lung cancer. His memoir, Labour Saving, was published in June 2021. He died of the illness in Whakatāne on 19 August 2021, aged 76.

Honours and awards
In 1990, Cullen was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. On 16 December 2009, Cullen received an honorary LLD from the University of Otago in recognition of "his contributions as an Otago academic and as a respected and highly influential politician".

In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours, Cullen was appointed Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

title: Michael Cullen (politician)


text:
Wilfried Martens

Wilfried Achiel Emma Martens (19 April 1936 – 9 October 2013) was a Belgian politician who served as prime minister of Belgium from 1979 to 1981 and from 1981 to 1992. A member of the Flemish Christian People's Party, during his premiership he oversaw the transformation of Belgium into a federal state. He was one of the founders of the European People's Party.

Early life
Martens was born on 19 April 1936 in the village of Sleidinge, East Flanders, the son of small farmers. He studied law at the Catholic University of Leuven, graduating in 1960. Martens became active in the Flemish Movement as a student. He began to draw public attention in 1957 when, as president of the Flemish Youth Committee, he organized a march to protest the lack of Flemish presence in the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, and was subsequently arrested while protesting the opening of the exposition.

Political career

In 1965, Martens joined the Christian People's Party or CD&V, (since renamed to Christian Democratic and Flemish). He served as the party's chairman from 1972 to 1979, sitting as a deputy in the Chamber of Representatives from 1974 to 1991, and serving as a Senator from 1991 to 1994.

Wilfried Martens served as Prime Minister in nine coalition governments (Martens I-IX) from 3 April 1979 to 6 April 1981 and 17 December 1981 to 7 March 1992. His period in office was dominated by the economic crisis of the 1980s and the state reforms of 1980 and 1988 which set Belgium on a path to federalism.

He co-founded the European People's Party (EPP) in 1976 and was EPP President from 1992 until his death.

From 1993 he was President of the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD), until its merger with the EPP in 1996. Martens also negotiated with Finnish politician Sauli Niinistö the merger of the European Democrat Union (EDU) into the EPP (formally concluded in 2002). The successful fusion of all centre-right European organisations into the EPP – currently the largest transnational European political party with 75 member-parties from 40 countries – is widely recognised as an important achievement of his European political legacy.

From 1994 to 1998, he was a Member of the European Parliament, chairing the EPP Group.

From October 2000 to November 2001 he was also the President of the Christian Democrat International (CDI).

He re-appeared on the Belgian political stage on 22 December 2008 to help in the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis.

Martens held a doctorate in law, a degree in notarial studies, as well as a baccalaureate in Thomistic philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain. He also studied international political science at Harvard University. He practised law at the Ghent court of appeal.

Among numerous national and international distinctions, he was honoured in 1998 with the Charles V European Award for his contribution to European integration.

Private life
Martens had five children: two from his first marriage with Lieve Verschroeven (Kris and Anne) and three with Ilse Schouteden (Sarah, Sophie and Simon). After the birth of their twins in 1997 they married on 13 November 1998. Ilse Schouteden has a son from her previous marriage. In 2007 he divorced his second wife. On 27 September 2008 he married Miet Smet, a former Belgian minister. It was his third marriage and her first. After the death of his first wife, Martens was able to celebrate the marriage to Miet Smet in the Catholic Church, on 27 April 2013.

Death and tributes
Martens suffered from pancreatic cancer and ended his life via euthanasia on the 9th of October, 2013 at his home in Lokeren; he was 77. Elio Di Rupo, the Belgian prime minister, described him as a "true statesman and one of the fathers of federal Belgium". Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, paid tribute to him as a "statesman of Belgium, Europe and an outstanding leader of European Parliament". Jerzy Buzek, EPP MEP and former prime minister of Poland, described him as "irreplaceable". He received a state funeral he was buried in the cemetery of Campo Santo.

The EPP think tank Centre for European Studies has been renamed after him, now being the "Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies", a decision taken during the EPP Congress in Dublin held on 9 March 2014.

Honours

 * 🇧🇪 Belgium:
 * Minister of State, by Royal Decree.
 * Grand officer in the Order of Leopold
 * Grand Cross in the Order of Leopold II
 * Grand Cross in the Order of the Crown

Foreign honours

 * 🇦🇹 Austria:Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold, Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (30 May 1985)
 * 🇫🇷 France:
 * Knight Grand Cross in the National Order of Merit (28 February 1983)
 * Grand Officer in the Legion of Honour.
 * 🇩🇪 Germany: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (7 February 1984)
 * 🇬🇷 Greece: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Phoenix
 * 🇮🇸 Iceland : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Falcon (16 October 1979)
 * 🇮🇹 Italy: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (20 February 1986)
 * 🇲🇽 Mexico:"Banda" of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (14 June 1985)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal:
 * Grand Cross of the Order of Christ (10 December 1982)
 * Grand Cross in the Order of Prince Henry (31 October 1987)
 * 🇪🇸 Spain: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Isabella the Catholic (March 1980)
 * 🇳🇱 Netherlands:Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Orange-Nassau.
 * Luxemburg: Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Oak Crown (20 June 1984)
 * Grand Officer in the Ordre du Croissant vert, Commores (9 June 1982)

Publications

 * Een gegeven woord, Lannoo, Tielt, 1985.
 * Europa voorbij Oost en West, Lannoo, Tielt, 1995.
 * De Memoires, Luctor et Emergo, Lannoo, Tielt, 2006.
 * Europe: I Struggle, I Overcome, Springer Science+Business Media, 2009.

title: Wilfried Martens


text:
Brambling

The brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It has also been called the cock o' the north and the mountain finch. It is widespread and migratory, often seen in very large flocks.

Taxonomy
In 1758 Linnaeus included the species in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under its current binomial name, Fringilla montifringilla. Montifringilla is from Latin mons, montis mountain and fringilla finch. The English name "bramlyng" (Bram “loud” + lyng “lung”) was used in 1544 by the English naturalist William Turner but later in the 16th century the current spelling "brambling" was used. The etymology of the name is uncertain as the bird is not associated with the bramble or common blackberry Rubus fruticosus.

Description
The brambling is similar in size and shape to a common chaffinch. Breeding-plumaged male bramblings are very distinctive, with a black head, dark upperparts, orange breast and white belly. Females and younger birds are less distinct, and more similar in appearance to some chaffinches. In all plumages, however, bramblings differs from chaffinches in a number of features:
 * the brambling has a white rump, whereas that of the common chaffinch is grey-green;
 * the breast is orange, contrasting with a white belly, on the brambling, whereas on the common chaffinch, the underparts are more uniformly coloured (pink or buff);
 * the brambling's scapular feathers are orange, whereas the common chaffinch's are grey or grey-brown;
 * the flanks are dark-spotted on the brambling, plain on the common chaffinch;
 * bramblings lack the white outer tail feathers of common chaffinches.

An additional difference for all plumages except breeding-plumaged males is the bill colour - yellow in the brambling, dull pinkish in the common chaffinch (breeding-plumaged male bramblings have black bills, common chaffinches in the corresponding plumage have grey bills).

Measurements:

 * Length: 16 cm
 * Weight: 23-29 g
 * Wingspan: 25–26 cm

Distribution and habitat
This bird is widespread, in the breeding season, throughout the forests of northern Europe and east across the Palearctic. It is migratory, wintering in southern Europe, North Africa, northern India, northern Pakistan, China, and Japan. It frequently strays into Alaska during migration and there are scattered records across the northern United States and southern Canada. The global population of bramblings is about 100 to 200 million, with a decreasing trend.

Open coniferous or birch woodland is favoured for breeding.

Migration
This species is almost entirely migratory. In Europe, it forms large flocks in the winter, sometimes with thousands or even millions of birds in a single flock. Such large gatherings occur especially if beech mast is abundant. Bramblings do not require beech mast in the winter, but winter flocks of bramblings will move until they find it. This may be an adaptation to avoid competition with the common chaffinch.

Breeding
Bramblings first breed when they are one year old. The nest is usually placed high in a tree against the trunk. It is built by the female and consists of an outer layer which may contain lichen, grass, heather, cobwebs and strips of bark from birch or juniper trees. It is lined with feathers, soft grass and hair. The eggs are laid at daily intervals. The clutch usually contains 5-7 eggs. They range from light blue to dark olive-brown and have pink to rusty red spots and blotches. On average they measure 19.4 x and have a calculated weight of 2.14 g. Starting after the last egg has been laid, they are incubated by the female and hatch after 11-12 days. The young are fed and cared for by both parents and fledge after 13-14 days. Often only one brood is raised each year but two broods can be raised in northwest Russia.

The nests can be predated by the carrion crow (Corvus corone) and the Siberian jay (Perisoreus infaustus). The nest are often parasitized by the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus).

Food and feeding
Bramblings mostly eat seeds in winter, but insects in summer.

title: Brambling


text:
Fatigues

Fatigues may refer to:

Military

 * Combat uniform, also called military fatigues, a type of uniform especially in the military
 * The plain OG-107 uniform in the United States armed forces
 * workwear worn by soldiers to avoid getting their uniforms dirty in non-combat manual work
 * Camouflage pattern on military or fashion clothing

Other

 * Fatigue duty, labour assigned to military men that does not require the use of armament
 * The Fatigues, a Seinfeld episode

title: Fatigues