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Eurabia conspiracy theory

"Eurabia" (portmanteau of Europe and Arabia) is a far-right, anti-Muslim conspiracy theory that posits that globalist entities, led by French and Arab powers, aim to Islamize and Arabize Europe, thereby weakening its existing culture and undermining its previous alliances with the United States and Israel.

The theory was developed by Bat Ye'or (the pen name of Gisèle Littman) in the early 2000s and it is described in her 2005 book titled Eurabia: The Euro‐Arab Axis. Benjamin Lee of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats at the University of Lancaster described her work as arguing that Europe  "has surrendered to Islam and is in a state of submission (described as dhimmitude) in which Europe is forced to deny its own culture, stand silently by in the face of Muslim atrocities, accept Muslim immigration, and pay tribute through various types of economic assistance." According to the theory, the blame rests with a range of groups including communists, fascists, the media, universities, mosques and Islamic cultural centres, European bureaucrats, and the Euro-Arab Dialogue.

The term has gained some public interest and it has also been used and discussed by activists across a wide range of the political spectrum, including right-wing activists, self-described "conservatives" and counter-jihad and other anti-Islamism activists. Bat Ye'or's "mother conspiracy theory" has been used as the basis for other subtheories. The narrative grew important among people who expressed anti-Islamist sentiments and it was also used by members and supporters of movements like Stop Islamisation of Europe. It gained renewed interest after the use of the term by 2011 Norway attacker, Anders Behring Breivik. Ye'or's thesis has come under criticism by scholars, which intensified after Breivik's crime. The conspiracy has been described as having a resemblance to the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Eurabia has also been discussed by believers in classical anti-Europeanism, a strong influence on the culture of the United States as well as by believers in the notion of American exceptionalism, which sometimes sees Europe on the decline or as a rising rival power, or, as is the case here, both.

Basic narrative
In Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or says that Eurabia is the result of the Euro-Arab Dialogue, based on an allegedly French-led European policy intended to increase European power against the United States by aligning its interests with those of the Arab countries. During the 1973 oil crisis, the European Economic Community (predecessor of the European Union), had entered into the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) with the Arab League. Ye'or says it was a primary cause of alleged European hostility to Israel, referring to joint Euro-Arab foreign policies that she characterises as anti-American and anti-Zionist. Ye'or purported a close connection of a Eurabia conspiracy and used the term "dhimmitude", denoting alleged "western subjection to Islam". The term itself is based on a newsletter published in the 1970s by the Comité européen de coordination des associations d'amitié avec le monde Arabe, a Euro-Arab friendship committee.

Bat Ye'or's Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis was the first print publication in the Eurabia genre, which has since grown to a number of titles, including Melanie Phillips's Londonistan, Oriana Fallaci's The Force of Reason, and Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept. The term is often used by the writers Oriana Fallaci, Mark Steyn   and several web sites, many of them affiliated with the counterjihad movement. Defeating Eurabia by Fjordman (the pen name of Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen) earned him a high standing among far-right extremists.

An important part of the narrative is the idea of a demographic threat, the fear that, at some time in the future, Islam will take over Europe. or as Bernard Lewis put it, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century." Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for An Old Continent is quoted often among the Eurabia literature.

Post-9/11 significance
Bat Ye'or first used the term "Eurabia" in 2002 and again in another 2005 book. The conservative historian Niall Ferguson referred to the concept, which he took as the potential future Islamisation of Europe based on demographic facts and ideational lack of the continent.

2010s Europe
The idea of a Eurabian conspiracy has become a basic theme in the European extremist and populist right and expresses as well a significant strategy change. José Pedro Zúquete writes that

"the threat that the Crescent will rise over the continent and the spectre of a Muslim Europe have become basic ideological features and themes of the European extreme right"

Muslim minority populations and Muslim immigration gained new political significance. This has led to the adoption of political positions that were previously considered fringe or third rail on either side. The main anti-Islamic theme has also penetrated into mainstream European politics, for instance in the case of Dutch populist Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders:

"This government is enthusiastically co-operating with the Islamisation of the Netherlands. In all of Europe the elite opens the floodgates wide. In only a little while, one in five people in the European Union will be Muslim. Good news for this multiculti-government that views bowing to the horrors of Allah as its most important task. Good news for the CDA: C-D-A, in the meanwhile stands for Christians Serve Allah (Christenen Dienen Allah)."

Issues
The Eurabia concept is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory. Eurabia shortcuts the complex interaction between the US, France, Israel, the Arabic and Muslim countries on an "us against them" basis. The Eurabia theories are dismissed as Islamophobic, extremist and conspiracy theories in the academic community.See: Janne Haaland Matláry went as far as to say that "it is poor use of time to analyse something so primitive".
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.
 * At first academics showed little interest in the Eurabia theories due to their lack of factual basis. The theme was treated in studies of rightist extremism and Middle East politics. This changed after the 2011 Norway attacks, which resulted in the publication of several works specifically treating the Eurabia conspiracy theories.

Demography
The Pew Research Center said in 2011 that "the data that we have isn't pointing in the direction of 'Eurabia' at all", and predicts that the percentage of Muslims is estimated to rise to 8% in 2030. In 2007 academics who analysed the demographics dismissed the predictions that the EU would have Muslim majorities. It is completely reasonable to assume that the overall Muslim population in Europe will increase, and Muslim citizens have and will have a significant imprint on European life.

Justin Vaïsse seeks to discredit what he calls, "four myths of the alarmist school", using Muslims in France as an example. Specifically he has written that the Muslim population growth rate was lower than that predicted by Eurabia, partly because the fertility rate of immigrants declines with integration. See also Randy McDonald, France, its Muslims, and the Future, 2004-04-13, Doug Saunders, "The 'Eurabia' myth deserves a debunking ", The Globe and Mail, 2008-09-20, Fewer differences between foreign born and Swedish born childbearing women, Statistics Sweden, 2008-11-03, Mary Mederios Kent, Do Muslims have more children than other women in western Europe? , Population Reference Bureau, prb.org, February 2008; for fertility of Muslims outside Europe, see the sentence "The dramatic decline in Iran's fertility provides a recent example of how strict Islamic practices can coexist with widespread use of family planning.", and (the articles) Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi and Mary Mederios Kent, Fertility Declining in the Middle East and North Africa , prb.org, April 2008, especially the figure 2, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, especially the figure 1; He further points out that Muslims are not a monolithic or cohesive group, and that many Muslims do seek to integrate politically and socially. Finally, he wrote that despite their numbers, Muslims have had little influence on French foreign policy.

Furthermore, leading European Muslims are rather outspoken against religious fundamentalism and are far from acknowledging Arab countries as a role model at all.

Spread of conspiracies and further influences
Examples of proponents use:

Germany
In 2010, German politician Thilo Sarrazin released Germany Abolishes Itself. The book contends that with continued Islamic immigration, Germany will become a majority Muslim nation. Journalist Simon Kuper has argued that, with over 1 million copies sold, Sarrazin had done more to publicize the concept of Eurabia than anybody else in Europe.

In political campaigning for the 2019 European Parliament election, Germany's far-right party AfD used Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1886 painting The Slave Market with the slogan "Europeans vote AfD!" and "So Europe doesn't become Eurabia!". Deutsche Welle reported that the reproduction of the painting suggestively depicted dark-skinned men with beards and foreign-dress "inspecting the teeth of a nude white woman".

Italy
In 2004, journalist Oriana Fallaci claimed that Muslim immigration and high fertility was part of the conspiracy theory. In 2005, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal that "Europe is no longer Europe", adding "it is 'Eurabia,' a colony of Islam".

In 2011, Francesco Speroni, a sitting MEP for Lega Nord, stated that he shared the same view as Anders Behring Breivik's idea "that we are going towards Eurabia". In the aftermath of the shooting, Speroni confirmed his agreement with Breivik on the conspiracy theory in an interview with Radio 24.

In 2018, Giulio Meotti used the theory in relation to the demographics of Europe, writing that "Europe is over. Its future will be a mix of Eurabia and a geriatric ward."

In May 2019, ahead of the European elections, Lega Nord leader for Sarzana claimed that both the European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists were attempting to bring about Eurabia. The day before the vote, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini endorsed the theory as a genuine threat. He insisted that a state of Eurabia had already occurred in Sweden, a claim which the Swedish embassy promptly denied with an official statement. Invoking the memory of Oriana Fallaci, he released an anti-migrant speech on Twitter, accompanied by the message "No to Eurabia".

Netherlands
In 2008, journalist Arthur van Amerongen described Molenbeek as "Brussels: Eurabia". Despite alleging that writer Wim van Rooy had already coined the phrase, Amerongen faced severe peer and media criticism for endorsing the conspiracy theory. After the November 2015 Paris attacks and discovery of a Brussels ISIL terror cell, photojournalist Teun Voeten agreed with Amerongen's description, calling the municipality an "ethnic and religious enclave".

Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders, who serves in the Dutch House of Representatives, has openly stated that "if we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time." A supporter of the conspiracy theory, Wilders believes Muslim immigration to Europe is being driven by an agreement between the European Union and Islamic countries. He has delivered speeches in the Dutch parliament about Eurabia.

Norway
In 2008, Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen, writing under his pseudonym Fjordman, published Defeating Eurabia. The book contends that one in three babies born in France are from a Muslim-background, and that there are hundreds of "Muslim ghettos" following Sharia law in the country, which Fjordman believes will either be overrun or face an impending civil war.

2083: A European Declaration of Independence, the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, includes a lengthy discussion of and support for the "Eurabia" theory. It also contains several articles on the Eurabia theme by Bat Ye'or and Fjordman.See:
 * Full text
 * Full text
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."
 * As a result, the theory received widespread mainstream media attention following the attacks. In the verdict against Breivik, the court said that "many people share Breivik's conspiracy theory, including the Eurabia theory. The court finds that very few people, however, share Breivik's idea that the alleged "Islamization" should be fought with terror."

Breivik has later stated that he previously had exploited "counterjihad" rhetoric in order to protect "ethno-nationalists", thereby instead launching a media drive against what he deemed "anti-nationalist counterjihad"-supporters.

United Kingdom

 * The premises common to these theories are that a rapid demographic transition in Europe has been induced by "European politicians and civil servants", and will lead to a Muslim majority which will have an unchanging, hostile attitude toward their host nations. Other premises, such as acquiring the compliance of or control over bureaucracies, intelligentsias and European political leaders are frequent.
 * The premises common to these theories are that a rapid demographic transition in Europe has been induced by "European politicians and civil servants", and will lead to a Muslim majority which will have an unchanging, hostile attitude toward their host nations. Other premises, such as acquiring the compliance of or control over bureaucracies, intelligentsias and European political leaders are frequent.

Canada
Author Mark Steyn, described as a "champion of 'Eurabia' myth" by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, has predicted an emerging Eurabia region, captured by the religion of Islam and hostile to U.S. interests. Steyn's promotion of the conspiracy theory centres on European demographics, where he believes a culturally asserted Muslim mass will become the majority population and demand the assimilation of white Europeans.

United States
In the United States, the theories have found strong proponents in the Islamophobia movement, among them the president of Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer  and political commentator Daniel Pipes.

In May 2006, Fox News host John Gibson called for white Americans to have more babies, referencing a decline in the "native population" of Europe as an apparent demographic warning for the U.S. regarding Hispanic birthrates. In what Media Matters reported as fearmongering, he claimed that Eurabia was occurring in Europe.

In his 2011–2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination, senator Rick Santorum warned that Europe was "creating an opportunity for the creation of Eurabia", and that the continent was "losing, because they are not having children." Classicist Bruce Thornton is also a strong advocate for the theory.

A 2007 film outline by Steve Bannon, who would later become the chief strategist for President Donald Trump and a member of the U.S. National Security Council, proposed that Muslims were trying to turn the United States into the "Islamic States of America".

Criticism
The Economist rejected the concept of Eurabia as "scaremongering". Simon Kuper in the Financial Times described Ye'or's book as "little-read but influential", and akin to "Protocols of the Elders of Zion in reverse", adding that "though ludicrous, Eurabia became the spiritual mother of a genre".

David Aaronovitch acknowledges that the threat of "jihadist terror" may be real, but that there is no threat of Eurabia. Aaronovitch concludes that those who study conspiracy theories will recognize Eurabia to be a theory that adds the "Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea".

Conservative US military analyst Ralph Peters has criticized the Eurabia narrative on the grounds that it is unlikely to happen as posited, citing the historical precedent of genocides frequently occurring in Europe, such as in the Balkans during the 1990s, and the Holocaust during World War II. Peters stated that if Muslims "taking over" Europe were imminent, Europeans would either forcibly deport their Muslims at best or engage in a genocide of them at worst, possibly leading to a U.S. intervention on behalf of persecuted Muslims.

In his 2007 book Wars of Blood and Faith, Peters states that far from being about to take over Europe through demographic change, "Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time" and that in the event of a major terrorist attack in Europe, thanks to the "ineradicable viciousness" of Europeans and what he perceives as a historical tendency to over-react to real or perceived threats, European Muslims "will be lucky if they're only deported".

According to Marján and Sapir, the very idea of "Eurabia" is "based on an extremist conspiracy theory, according to which Europe and the Arab states would join forces to make life impossible for Israel and Islamize the old continent."

Writing in Race & Class in 2006, author and freelance journalist Matt Carr argued that Eurabia had moved from "an outlandish conspiracy theory" to a "dangerous Islamophobic fantasy". Carr states,

"In order to accept Ye'or's ridiculous thesis, it is necessary to believe not only in the existence of a concerted Islamic plot to subjugate Europe, involving all Arab governments, whether 'Islamic' or not, but also to credit a secret and unelected parliamentary body with the astounding ability to transform all Europe's major political, economic and cultural institutions into subservient instruments of 'jihad' without any of the continent's press or elected institutions being aware of it. Nowhere in this ideologically driven interpretation of European-Arab relations does Ye'or come close to proving the 'secret history' that she professes to reveal."

The Eurabia conspiracy theory has many similarities to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Arun Kundnani, writing for the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, notes that "Eurabia" fulfills the counter-jihad movement's "structural need" for a conspiracy theory, and compares "Eurabia" to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, while Carr compares it to the Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory.

Doug Saunders argues that pro-Al-Qaeda writers, and those who promote the Eurabia theory as truth, have a common extremism and world view, where "there is one creature called 'the Muslim' and another called 'the Westerner. He proposes that there is no such distinction and that Muslims can become secular in the Western world.

title: Eurabia conspiracy theory


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The Gateless Barrier

The Gateless Barrier (Mandarin: 無門關 Wúménguān; Japanese: 無門関 Mumonkan), sometimes translated as The Gateless Gate, is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Huikai (無門慧開; Japanese: Mumon Ekai; 1183–1260) during the Song dynasty. The title has a double meaning and can also be understood as Wumen's Barrier; the compiler's name, which literally means "No Gate", is the same as the title's first two characters. Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen. A classic edition includes a 49th case composed by Anwan (pen name for Zheng Qingzhi) in 1246. Wuliang Zongshou also supplemented the volume with a verse of four stanzas composed in 1230 about the three checkpoints of Zen master Huanglong. These three checkpoints of Huanglong should not be confused with Doushuai's Three Checkpoints found in Case 47.

Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin Ekaku, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai School practice. Five of the koans in the work concern the sayings and doings of Zhaozhou; four concern Ummon.

The common theme of the koans of the Wumen Guan and of Wumen's comments is the inquiry and introspection of dualistic conceptualization. Each koan epitomizes one or more of the polarities of consciousness that act like an obstacle or wall to the insight. The student is challenged to transcend the polarity that the koan represents and demonstrate or show that transcendence to the Zen teacher.

Structure and contents
The text was originally prepared by Wumen as a record of his teaching during a monastic training period held at Longxiang (Soaring Dragon) monastery in the summer of 1228. Wumen selected the 48 koans and commented on and added a verse for each koan. His teachings were transcribed and after the training period were compiled into the collection called the Wumen Guan.

As was customary in China at the time, an edition might have additions of text inserted by a subsequent owner or publisher. The most well known version of the text is from the Japanese wood block edition made from the 1246 manuscript edition that contains the following sections.

 * An untitled introduction by Xi Xiang (習巷), publisher of the 1228 edition, written in the self-deprecating style of Zen humor.
 * An untitled dedication by Wumen to the Emperor and Empress. Works without such dedications were subject to Imperial censorship as being seditious.
 * An untitled foreword by Wumen followed by a verse on the title.
 * A table of contents with the title of each koan. However, the koans are unnumbered in both the table of contents and the body of the text and there are no page numbers in the text, so the table of contents is the list of the koan's titles in order of appearance.
 * The 48 koans presented in four parts consisting of (1) a title composed of four characters, (2) the body of the koan beginning with the name of the protagonist of the case, (3) a comment beginning with the words "Wumen says" (無門曰), and a verse beginning with the words "The ode says" (頌曰).
 * An untitled afterword by Wumen that ends with the words "The end of the volume the Gateless Checkpoint."
 * An appendix believed to be written by Wumen titled "Zen Caveats" or "Zen Warnings" consisting of twelve one-line aphorisms about Zen practice written in the style of Zen contrariness that points to not falling for either side of dualistic thinking. For example, Zen is known as the school of Buddhism that does not stand on written words and one caveat says, "Neglecting the written records with unrestrained ideas is falling into a deep pit."
 * An appendix titled "Huanglong's Three Checkpoints" (黄龍三關) written by Wuliang Zongshou (無量宗壽) in the late spring of 1230 C.E. Huanglong Huinan (J. Oryo Enan), 1002–1069, was a Zen master who promulgated three questions as one-line koans: "Everyone exists by a particular cause of birth. What is your cause of birth?" "How is my hand like the hand of Buddha?" "How is my leg like the leg of a donkey?" Wulaing wrote four four-line stanzas (Sanskrit gathas). Each of the first three stanzas comments on one of Huanglong's three questions and the fourth stanza is a summation.  Wulaing writes that he penned the four verses to thank and commemorate Wumen's recent stay at Ruiyan (瑞巖)(Lucky Cliff) monastery where Wumen was the visiting head teacher for the training period.
 * A short untitled addendum by Wuan written on the republishing of the work in the summer of 1245 C.E. Wuan called his brief addition the 49th case. It referred to Bodhidharma's famous Zen motto: "Not maintaining written words, but pointing directly to the human heart-mind to see one's own nature to become Buddha".
 * An undated postscript by Menggong (孟拱) consisting of a very brief story of a military ambassador who used his army as farmers to reclaim a wasteland and thus pacify the region. This appears to be a metaphor for the practice of Zen.
 * An appendix by Anwan dated the beginning of summer 1246, presented in the same format as one of the 48 main koans and consisting of (1) an untitled introduction, (2) a title, "Younger Brother's 49th Standard Talk", (3) the body of the case, (4) a comment beginning with "Anwan says", and (5) a verse beginning with "The ode says", followed by Anwan's signature with the place and date of the writing.

Zen Caveats
The Wumen Guan has an appendix titled "Zen Caveats" (禪箴) with one-line aphorisms dealing with Zen practice The word zhēn (箴) means "caveat", "warning", or "admonition", but it also has the meaning of "needle" or "probe" (as in acupuncture needles) and is sometimes translated as "Zen Needles". As with the main koans, each caveat challenges the Zen student's attachment to dualistic concepts, here those especially related to Zen practice.

 * Following the rules and protecting the regulations is binding oneself without rope.
 * Moving freely vertically and horizontally without obstruction is the way of outsiders and the nightmare army.
 * To preserve the heart mind and to purify it by letting impurities settle to the bottom in quiescence is the perverted Zen of silent illumination.
 * Neglecting the written records with unrestrained ideas is falling into a deep pit.
 * To be awake and not ignorant is to wear chains and shoulder a cangue.
 * Thinking good and thinking evil are the halls of heaven and hell.
 * A view of Buddha and a view of Dharma are the two enclosing mountains of iron.
 * A person who perceives thoughts as they immediately arise is fiddling with spectral consciousness.
 * However, being on a high plateau practicing samadhi is the stratagem of living in the house of ghosts.
 * To advance results in ignoring truth; to retreat results in contradicting the lineage.
 * Neither to advance nor to retreat is being a breathing corpse.
 * Just say, how will you walk?
 * You must work hard to live in the present and, to finish, all the more. I do not advise the unfortunate excess of continual suffering.

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

title: The Gateless Barrier


text:
Robert Hurt (astronomer)

Robert L. Hurt is a member of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at the California Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from University of California, Los Angeles.

Hurt produced the first published artist concepts of the Trans-Neptunian object 90377 Sedna, from data obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope. His work has been used by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Since 2006, Hurt has hosted a video podcast called The Hidden Universe and often speaks on the subject of using new media to communicate science and astronomy. He is a frequent guest on mainstream science programs as well.

Hurt is also a member of the American Astronomical Society and the Sigma Pi Sigma society.

title: Robert Hurt (astronomer)


text:
Robert Hurt

Robert Hurt may refer to:

 * Robert Hurt (politician) (born 1969), U.S. Representative for Virginia
 * Robert Hurt (astronomer), American astronomer

title: Robert Hurt


text:
Brad Wall

Bradley John Wall (born November 24, 1965) is a former Canadian politician who served as the 14th premier of Saskatchewan from November 21, 2007, until February 2, 2018. He is the fourth longest-tenured premier in the province's history.

Wall was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as the member (MLA) for Swift Current in 1999 and he was re-elected four times, in 2003, 2007, 2011, and 2016. He became leader of the Official Opposition Saskatchewan Party on July 15, 2004, replacing Elwin Hermanson, and he led the party to a majority government in the 2007 election. In the 2011 election, Wall's government won the largest vote share in Saskatchewan's history with 64% of the popular vote and 49 of the 58 seats in the legislature. The 2016 election delivered Wall another majority, marking the first time since 1925 that a party other than the New Democratic Party or its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, had won three consecutive majority mandates.

For much of his tenure, Wall polled as the most popular premier in Canada, and he is credited with raising Saskatchewan's profile on the national stage. Taking office during a period of growth catalyzed by rising global commodity prices, Wall's government focused on attracting investment and championing the province's resource-based industries. The government was persistently criticized for its privatization agenda, its disputes with organized labour, and its environmental stances. Commodity price crashes beginning in 2014 strained the province's finances, and Wall's popularity waned, particularly after introducing a severe austerity budget in 2017.

Wall announced his intention to retire as Saskatchewan Party Leader, Premier, and MLA for Swift Current on August 10, 2017. Wall was succeeded as Premier by Scott Moe on February 2, 2018.

Early life and career
Wall was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, the son of Alice (née Schmidt) and John Wall, Mennonites with Eastern European roots. John owned a local trucking company. Wall demonstrated an early interest in politics, citing time spent playing a Fraser Institute-funded economics board game called Poleconomy as an early influence. He also had a significant interest in music and hosted a rock show on a local radio station. Wall attended the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, running for student council and graduating with an honours degree in Public Administration and an advanced certificate in Political Studies.

During the 1980s, Wall began working as a political staffer, first in the office of Swift Current Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament Geoff Wilson in Ottawa. There he helped to found the "Alliance for the Future of Young Canadians," a pro-free trade group. Wall returned to Saskatchewan and worked as a ministerial assistant in the Progressive Conservative government of Grant Devine in Regina. Wall worked for Graham Taylor, Minister of Public Participation, Tourism, Small Business, Co-operatives and Health, and for John Gerich, Associate Minister of Economic Development. The Devine government was swept from power in 1991 under the specter of provincial bankruptcy; then, by the middle of the 1990s, more than a dozen members of the former PC government were charged in a massive expense fraud scandal. An RCMP investigation led to the conviction of 14 MLAs who served in the Devine government, 6 of whom received jail time, including Gerich, who was sentenced to two years.

Wall described the downfall of the Progressive Conservatives as "disheartening" and the fallout, including the prison sentences, as "powerful lessons." For most of the 1990s Wall's attention shifted away from politics to working in business in Swift Current. In 1991, Wall became the director of business development for the City of Swift Current, a role for which he eventually won an "Economic Developer of the Year" award. At the time Wall also ran a consulting business, through which he attempted to move the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame from Kitchener, Ontario, to Swift Current; this effort failed and the museum ultimately moved to Calgary. Wall also launched a short-lived tourism business called the Last Stand Adventure Company that centred upon a "Western ranch experience." Wall sat on a number of boards including being a founding member of the Southwest Centre for Entrepreneurial Development.

Political career
Wall's first personal foray into provincial politics was in 1991 when he unsuccessfully sought the Progressive Conservative nomination for Swift Current. Despite missing out on the nomination, he still worked on the party's unsuccessful re-election campaign.

MLA and Saskatchewan Party Leader (1999–2006)
Working in the private sector at the time, Wall has been credited with playing a backroom role in the creation of the Saskatchewan Party in 1997. The party formed as a coalition of sitting Progressive Conservative and Liberal Party MLAs and members, and was intended to unify opposition to the NDP. The Progressive Conservatives have not won a seat in any election since the formation of the Saskatchewan Party, and neither have the Liberals since winning 4 seats in 2003; as such, the emergence of the Saskatchewan Party has effectively created a two-party system in Saskatchewan politics.

After nearly a decade outside of electoral politics, Wall won the Saskatchewan Party nomination for Swift Current ahead of the 1999 election, the first since the Saskatchewan Party was formed, and he was elected MLA. He defeated NDP incumbent John Wall (no relation) with more than 50% of the vote as part of a wave of rural victories that saw the Saskatchewan Party win 25 seats and the NDP reduced to a minority government. Wall was appointed to the Saskatchewan Party's front bench as Justice Critic, and later as Critic for Crown Corporations as well. After the election Wall also chaired a committee examining how to increase urban support for the party.

Inaugural Saskatchewan Party leader Elwin Hermanson resigned after the NDP regained a narrow majority in the 2003 provincial election. Wall announced his candidacy for the leadership and was ultimately acclaimed the party's new leader on March 15, 2004. Wall committed to a review of Saskatchewan Party policies, aiming to present a more moderate platform that could expand the party's support beyond rural areas. This process resulted in several socially conservative policies being jettisoned, such as work-for-welfare policies, so-called "boot camps" for young offenders, and a referendum on publicly funded abortions. New policy resolutions included calling for treatment for drug addicts, a patient-first review of the health care system, the development of a plan to recruit and retain health care professionals, the development of an integrated addictions strategy for young offenders, a comprehensive review of the justice system, the establishment of a provincial youth justice board to address youth crime, rehabilitation and restitution measures, support for victims of crime, the establishment of a university research chair in occupational health and safety, and a review of the Workers' Compensation Board. Wall made economic issues the party's focal point and while in Opposition he released policy papers including "The Promise of Saskatchewan: A New Vision for Saskatchewan's Economy," in 2004, and "Getting Saskatchewan Back on Track: Addressing Saskatchewan's Labour Shortage," in 2006. Wall also introduced a Code of Ethics for party members and made a public commitment not to privatize or wind down the province's crown corporations.

Premier of Saskatchewan (2007–2018)
Wall's efforts to appeal to a broader base paid off in the 2007 election as the Saskatchewan Party won 38 seats, including eight seats between the province's two largest urban areas in Regina and Saskatoon, securing a majority government. This made Wall the province's 14th premier, and its first conservative premier since Devine. The win ushered in a period of prolonged electoral success for Wall and his party. In the 2011 election, the party secured a historic landslide victory, winning 49 seats and the highest vote share in the province's history at 64%. This included making further inroads in urban centers as the party won 16 of 23 seats in Regina and Saskatoon. That year Wall also became the most popular premier in Canada, a distinction he would maintain through the 2016 election, which saw the Saskatchewan Party elected to a third consecutive majority with 62% of the vote and 51 seats in an expanded legislature. This marked the first time since 1925 that a non-CCF/NDP government had won three consecutive majorities in Saskatchewan. Wall's personal popularity has been attributed to his skills as an orator and his sense of humour, and he has been credited with changing perceptions of the province, particularly through raising its profile on the national stage. Wall's profile grew to the extent that he was considered synonymous with the party he led. However, Wall's popularity began to wane during this third term, particularly after introducing an austerity budget in 2017. With his party losing ground in polling and in two 2017 by-elections, Wall announced in August of that year that he would be retiring from politics. This triggered what would become only the second contested leadership race in the history of the Saskatchewan Party. Rosthern-Shellbrook MLA Scott Moe won that contest on January 27, 2018, and succeeded Wall on February 2 when he was sworn in as premier.

Wall and his Saskatchewan Party took office at a time when global commodity prices began to soar, particularly for oil, potash, and uranium, but also for coal and agricultural products, and the economy started to boom accordingly. With resource revenues high, Wall focused on overseeing a period of growth and the province saw numbers of jobs increase by an average of 6,500 per year, while the province's population grew every year under Wall's premiership and by over 150,000 people overall. Wall instituted widespread tax cuts and guided investments in health care, education, and infrastructure. In 2010 he signed Saskatchewan onto the New West Trade Partnership Agreement with Alberta and British Columbia, a free-trade pact that expanded to include Manitoba in 2017. In 2014 the province was awarded a AAA credit rating. However, after commodity prices crashed beginning in 2014 the province ran into significant economic turmoil. While Wall had been successful early on in paying down Saskatchewan's debt, which had nearly bankrupted the province in 1992 and reached a low of $7.9 billion in 2009, the debt rose rapidly after 2014 and would balloon to $14.8 billion in 2017. That year the province's credit rating was downgraded to AA. Wall's 2017 budget, the sixth deficit out of ten budgets under Wall, was deeply unpopular and criticized by many for its austerity and for disproportionately burdening poor and marginalized citizens in its efforts to address fiscal mismanagement. While the budget maintained a commitment to lowering corporate tax rates, the provincial sales tax was increased and deep cuts were made to social services and education. The budget also included cuts to grants to municipalities, which created budget crises for a number of municipalities.

Throughout his tenure as premier Wall was known as a staunch defender of Saskatchewan resource-based industries, especially potash and oil and gas. In 2010, Wall rose to national prominence through his opposition to an attempted hostile takeover of Saskatoon-based PotashCorp, which was the world's largest potash producer, by Australian mining giant BHP. The $38.6 billion deal would have been the largest takeover in Canadian history, but the premier—who sought the advice of former NDP premier Roy Romanow and former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed—argued that Saskatchewan stood to lose billions in resource revenues and that such a takeover would damage Canada's strategic interests. The federal government ultimately blocked the deal, and Wall was lauded for his lobbying efforts. Wall persistently championed the province's fossil fuel industries as well. In 2011, the Saskatchewan Party led an investment of $1.2 billion to build the world's first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage unit at SaskPower's Boundary Dam power station in order to extend the use of coal in the province. In 2014 Wall was vocal in lobbying the federal government to strengthen its regulation of the oil industry, arguing that stronger measures would aid pipeline development. However, Wall would later be a vocal critic of efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, considering federal efforts like the Pan-Canadian Framework on climate change and global efforts like the Paris Climate Accord to be threats to the province's energy industry. Wall was particularly vehement in his opposition to a federal carbon tax, an issue Wall helped to put at the center of conservative political agendas across the country and at the national level. Wall also took aim at civil society calls for climate action, for example lambasting the Leap Manifesto and calling it an "existential threat" to the oil industry. Such stances drew the ire of environmentalists, and the province was persistently criticized for its environmental measures and its lack of regulation of industries in particular. The 2016 spill of more than 200,000 liters of oil into the North Saskatchewan River from a Husky pipeline was blamed in part on a lack of proper regulation and monitoring. The province's 2017 climate change plan, meanwhile, was largely panned by environmental experts and organizations, including the Saskatchewan Environmental Society.

Despite consistent growth in jobs Wall persistently found his government at odds with organized labour, beginning with 2007 efforts at revising provincial labour legislation. The government introduced two bills that were maligned as anti-labour as they removed the right to strike for more than 65,000 workers and made it harder for workers to unionize; one of the bills was ultimately struck down after being deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. After that decision, Wall threatened to use the notwithstanding clause to maintain the legislation, but never did so. Organized labour was also central to protests against the 2017 austerity budget. Wall and his government were also critiqued for their privatization agenda, which included an estimated sale of $1.1 billion in public assets and the loss of more than 1,200 public sector jobs. One of the most controversial decisions of the 2017 budget was the shuttering of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, a provincially-owned bus company that serviced all areas of the province. The Wall government also faced criticism for its costly application of the Lean program to the healthcare system. It also introduced private-sector involvement in health care, although it claimed some success in reducing surgical wait times, a longstanding political issue in the province. A major investment in the building of the Global Transportation Hub outside Regina also became controversial for questionable and allegedly fraudulent land deals.

In 2013, Wall attended the Bilderberg Conference, an annual private conference of approximately 120 to 140 invited political guests from North America and Europe.

After 2015 Wall continued to keep a high profile on the national stage as a frequent critic of both Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta NDP Leader and Premier Rachel Notley. In 2015 Wall wrote a letter to Trudeau urging him to suspend the federal government's plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees before the end of that year. He would go on to consistently target Trudeau over the federal carbon tax, laying the groundwork for the province to launch a constitutional challenge against the measure in April 2018. Wall was also critical of Notley's efforts to strengthen national efforts to address climate change, and by 2017 Saskatchewan and Alberta were engaging in a series of trade disputes that began when Wall publicly attempted to lure energy companies to move their headquarters from Calgary to Saskatchewan. Relations between the provinces were so dire at times that their respective trade ministers were not speaking.

Post-retirement
On May 1, 2018, Wall announced he would begin working as an advisor for the Calgary law firm Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP.

Wall remained active in political circles even after retiring from electoral politics. He was considered a strong candidate for leadership of the federal Conservative Party, but he declined to run in the party's 2020 leadership contest. Wall did play a central role in the creation of the Buffalo Project, an American-style political action committee (PAC) aiming to influence federal politics, in Alberta. The Project claims to stand up for the interests of western industries, particularly the energy sector. Wall was influential in laying the groundwork for the project, including raising funds, and although he did not take on a formal role with the group he was a key advisor. Although the group claims to be federalist, it has been associated with western separatism, particularly after the Saskatchewan branch of the separatist Wexit party rebranded itself as the Buffalo Party. In 2022, court records revealed that Wall gave advice to Chris Barber as he helped to organize the convoy protest that went on to occupy downtown Ottawa that year.

Controversies
In January 2006, Saskatchewan Party MLA Brenda Bakken-Lackey resigned her seat, citing unspecified "frustrations" within the Saskatchewan Party caucus.

After Wall became the Saskatchewan Party leader, controversies from his days as a political staffer resurfaced. First, during the 2006 spring session, NDP MLAs revealed that Wall had worked in John Gerich's office at the time when $15,000 worth of alcohol was incorrectly allocated to the Minister's office. Wall admitted to the media of his partaking in the alcohol and knowing it was "wrong" and stated he considered it "an asset" to have learned from the government's activities. Then on April 3, 2008, the NDP released a video tape, filmed during the 1991 election campaign, that was found at a former Conservative MP's office. The video showed Conservative MP and former Saskatchewan Party staffer Tom Lukiwski making homophobic remarks and Wall using an exaggerated Ukrainian accent making derogatory statements about then-NDP leader Roy Romanow; Wall apologized for his remarks.

In 2015, Brad Wall was named in a lawsuit against himself, Rob Norris, the former Minister of Advanced Education, and the University of Saskatchewan and its Board of Governors for the controversial firing of the President, Ilene Busch-Vishniac. Wall and Norris are accused of unlawfully inserting themselves into the Board's decision to fire Busch-Vishniac. The lawsuit is ongoing.

In January 2016, inmates at the Regina Correctional Facility staged a hunger strike, alleging that they had been served unsafe and under-cooked food. Wall told the media that if prisoners did not like the food they should not "go to jail." Wall's comments were heavily criticized for ignoring the issue and lacking compassion.

In 2017, Wall raised the story of an NDP member and sexual assault victim in Question Period in response to a question about the Global Transportation Hub land deal. Wall was criticized for politicizing the issue of sexual assault. Interim NDP leader Nicole Sarauer described the remarks as "disgusting" and asked he withdraw the comments, while the victim took to Twitter to demand an apology. After initially stating in the legislature that he would make "no apology," Wall later publicly apologized to the victim, saying he "was not aware" that she "did not want the matter raised in this forum."

In 2017, Wall addressed a room of Saskatchewan Party members at a nomination meeting, where he recited a joke about the execution of Métis leader Louis Riel. British Columbia's Métis Federation labelled Wall's joke as "foolish" and "insensitive" and called for an apology. In 2018, Wall tweeted a derogatory message in opposition to the federal carbon tax, which read "Usually when someone tells you to send in money but you’ll get more back in return, it’s a Nigerian prince." Wall deleted the tweet and issued an apology to Saskatchewan's Nigerian community.

Personal life
Wall resides in Swift Current. He is married to Tami, whom he met in 1984 when they were both students at the University of Saskatchewan—they married in 1991. Together they have three children. Their son Colter Wall is a country musician.

Wall is an avid football fan, supporting both the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League and the National Football League's Oakland Raiders. He is also a classic car enthusiast and owns a Cadillac that was once owned by Waylon Jennings. As of 2021, Wall was a partner in his son Colter's Cattle Company, which operates a ranch in the Cypress Hills.

Wall was made a member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2024.

Electoral record

 * NDP
 * Dean Smith
 * align="right"|2,707
 * align="right"|36.64

title: Brad Wall


text:
Control of ventilation

The control of ventilation is the physiological mechanisms involved in the control of breathing, which is the movement of air into and out of the lungs. Ventilation facilitates respiration. Respiration refers to the utilization of oxygen and balancing of carbon dioxide by the body as a whole, or by individual cells in cellular respiration.

The most important function of breathing is the supplying of oxygen to the body and balancing of the carbon dioxide levels. Under most conditions, the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO2), or concentration of carbon dioxide, controls the respiratory rate.

The peripheral chemoreceptors that detect changes in the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide are located in the arterial aortic bodies and the carotid bodies. Central chemoreceptors are primarily sensitive to changes in the pH of the blood, (resulting from changes in the levels of carbon dioxide) and they are located on the medulla oblongata near to the medullar respiratory groups of the respiratory center. Information from the peripheral chemoreceptors is conveyed along nerves to the respiratory groups of the respiratory center. There are four respiratory groups, two in the medulla and two in the pons. The two groups in the pons are known as the pontine respiratory group.

 * 1) Dorsal respiratory group  – in the medulla
 * 2) Ventral respiratory group – in the medulla
 * 3) Pneumotaxic center – various nuclei of the pons
 * 4) Apneustic center – nucleus of the pons

From the respiratory center, the muscles of respiration, in particular the diaphragm, are activated to cause air to move in and out of the lungs.

Ventilatory pattern
Breathing is normally an unconscious, involuntary, automatic process. The pattern of motor stimuli during breathing can be divided into an inhalation stage and an exhalation stage. Inhalation shows a sudden, ramped increase in motor discharge to the respiratory muscles (and the pharyngeal constrictor muscles). Before the end of inhalation, there is a decline in, and end of motor discharge. Exhalation is usually silent, except at high respiratory rates.

The respiratory centre in the medulla and pons of the brainstem controls the rate and depth of respiration, (the respiratory rhythm), through various inputs. These include signals from the peripheral chemoreceptors and central chemoreceptors; from the vagus nerve and glossopharyngeal nerve carrying input from the pulmonary stretch receptors, and other mechanoreceptors in the lungs. as well as signals from the cerebral cortex and hypothalamus.

 * Medulla
 * ventral respiratory group (includes the pre-Bötzinger complex). The ventral respiratory group controls voluntary forced exhalation and acts to increase the force of inhalation. Regulates rhythm of inhalation and exhalation.
 * dorsal respiratory group (solitary nucleus). The dorsal respiratory group controls mostly movements of inhalation and their timing.
 * Pons
 * pneumotaxic center.
 * Coordinates speed of inhalation and exhalation
 * Sends inhibitory impulses to the inspiratory area
 * Involved in fine tuning of respiration rate.
 * apneustic center
 * Coordinates speed of inhalation and exhalation.
 * Sends stimulatory impulses to the inspiratory area – activates and prolongs inhalations
 * Overridden by pneumotaxic control from the apneustic area to end inhalation

Control of ventilatory pattern
Ventilation is normally unconscious and automatic, but can be overridden by conscious alternative patterns. Thus the emotions can cause yawning, laughing, sighing (etc.), social communication causes speech, song and whistling, while entirely voluntary overrides are used to blow out candles, and breath holding (for instance, to swim underwater). Hyperventilation may be entirely voluntary or in response to emotional agitation or anxiety, when it can cause the distressing hyperventilation syndrome. The voluntary control can also influence other functions such as the heart rate as in yoga practices and meditation.

The ventilatory pattern is also temporarily modified by complex reflexes such as sneezing, straining, burping, coughing and vomiting.

Determinants of ventilatory rate
Ventilatory rate (respiratory minute volume) is tightly controlled and determined primarily by blood levels of carbon dioxide as determined by metabolic rate. Blood levels of oxygen become important in hypoxia. These levels are sensed by central chemoreceptors on the surface of the medulla oblongata for decreased pH (indirectly from the increase of carbon dioxide in cerebrospinal fluid), and the peripheral chemoreceptors in the arterial blood for oxygen and carbon dioxide. Afferent neurons from the peripheral chemoreceptors are via the glossopharyngeal nerve (CN IX) and the vagus nerve (CN X).

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) rises in the blood when the metabolic use of oxygen (O2), and the production of CO2 is increased during, for example, exercise. The CO2 in the blood is transported largely as bicarbonate (HCO3−) ions, by conversion first to carbonic acid (H2CO3), by the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, and then by disassociation of this acid to H+ and HCO3−. Build-up of CO2 therefore causes an equivalent build-up of the disassociated hydrogen ions, which, by definition, decreases the pH of the blood. The pH sensors on the brain stem immediately respond to this fall in pH, causing the respiratory center to increase the rate and depth of breathing. The consequence is that the partial pressure of CO$2$ (PCO 2 ) does not change from rest going into exercise. During very short-term bouts of intense exercise the release of lactic acid into the blood by the exercising muscles causes a fall in the blood plasma pH, independently of the rise in the PCO 2, and this will stimulate pulmonary ventilation sufficiently to keep the blood pH constant at the expense of a lowered PCO 2.

Mechanical stimulation of the lungs can trigger certain reflexes as discovered in animal studies. In humans, these seem to be more important in neonates and ventilated patients, but of little relevance in health. The tone of respiratory muscle is believed to be modulated by muscle spindles via a reflex arc involving the spinal cord.

Drugs can greatly influence the rate of respiration. Opioids and anesthetics tend to depress ventilation, by decreasing the normal response to raised carbon dioxide levels in the arterial blood. Stimulants such as amphetamines can cause hyperventilation.

Pregnancy tends to increase ventilation (lowering plasma carbon dioxide tension below normal values). This is due to increased progesterone levels and results in enhanced gas exchange in the placenta.

Feedback control
Receptors play important roles in the regulation of respiration and include the central and peripheral chemoreceptors, and pulmonary stretch receptors, a type of mechanoreceptor.

 * Central chemoreceptors of the central nervous system, located on the ventrolateral medullary surface, are sensitive to the pH of their environment.
 * Peripheral chemoreceptors act most importantly to detect variation of the PO2 in the arterial blood, in addition to detecting arterial PCO 2 and pH.
 * Mechanoreceptors are located in the airways and parenchyma, and are responsible for a variety of reflex responses. These include:
 * The Hering-Breuer reflex that terminates inhalation to prevent over inflation of the lungs, and the reflex responses of coughing, airway constriction, and hyperventilation.
 * The upper airway receptors are responsible for reflex responses such as, sneezing, coughing, closure of glottis, and hiccups.
 * The spinal cord reflex responses include the activation of additional respiratory muscles as compensation, gasping response, hypoventilation, and an increase in breathing frequency and volume.
 * The nasopulmonary and nasothoracic reflexes regulate the mechanism of breathing through deepening the inhale. Triggered by the flow of the air, the pressure of the air in the nose, and the quality of the air, impulses from the nasal mucosa are transmitted by the trigeminal nerve to the respiratory center in the brainstem, and the generated response is transmitted to the bronchi, the intercostal muscles and the diaphragm.
 * Head's paradoxical reflex where sudden inflation of the lung causes a transient respiratory effort or gasp.

title: Control of ventilation


text:
Weapon X

Weapon X is a fictional government genetic research facility project appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They were conducted by Department K, which turned willing and unwilling beings into living weapons to carry out covert missions like assassination or eliminating potential threats to the government. It was similar to human enhancement experiments in the real world, but it captured mutants and did experiments on them to enhance their abilities such as superpowers, turning them into human weapons. They also mutated baseline humans. The Weapon X Project produced Wolverine, Leech, Deadpool, Sabretooth, and Weapon H.

The fictional experiment X, or the brutal adamantium-skeletal bonding process, written by Barry Windsor-Smith in his classic story "Weapon X" (originally published in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 in 1991), was eventually revealed as part of the "Weapon X Project." Grant Morrison's New X-Men in 2002 further revealed that Weapon X was the tenth of a series of such projects, collectively known as the Weapon Plus Program, and the X in "Weapon X" referred not to the letter X but the Roman numeral for the number 10. The first project, Weapon I, pertained to the Super Soldier Project that created Captain America.

Publication history
The Weapon X organization first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #180 (October 1974) written by Len Wein and drawn by Herb Trimpe and remains a relevant character in today's comics.

Original installment

The code name Weapon X was originally mentioned in the first appearance of Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #180 in 1974 since which it has been implied that he was connected to a shady and malevolent government program. In the 1991 story arc "Weapon X" (originally published in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 in 1991), the project was designated Experiment X, and it was revealed that it was responsible for bonding the adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton, making him indestructible. It also subjected him to brainwashing in order to bring out his most basic murderous instincts and to transform him into the perfect assassin. The scientists christened their new killing machine "Weapon X".

Wolverine's solo series issues #48-50 (1992) revealed that Project X also created fabricated memories in the minds of several of its subjects.

Weapon X operated through Canada's Department K and was directed by Professor Andre Thorton. At his side were Dr. Abraham Cornelius, Dr. Carol Hines, and Dr. Dale Rice. John Sublime, the director of Weapon Plus, was always behind the scenes. Some of the work of Weapon X was based on the experiments detailed on the journals of Nazi scientist Nathan Essex which were obtained by Weapon Plus after the end of World War II.

The project's original test subjects were the members of Team X, a covert ops CIA team (consisting of Wolverine/Logan, Sabretooth/Victor Creed, Maverick/Christoph Nord, Silver Fox, Mastodon, Major Arthur Barrington, Psi-Borg/Aldo Ferro, Wildcat/Noel Higgins and Kestrel/John Wraith). The telepath Psi-Borg was involved in the creation of the victims' memory implants, in exchange for being endowed with immortality. The test subjects were policed by an adaptive robot enforcer, called Shiva, should any of the agents go rogue.

What Wolverine and his fellow X-Men ignored for many years is that Weapon X was part of a larger program called Weapon Plus, a United States super-soldier program created in the 1940s with the purpose of creating super-soldiers and assassins not only to be employed in conventional wars, but also to be employed for the extermination of mutants. Weapon X was the first iteration in Weapon Plus that victimized mutants.

What the Weapon X scientists did not foresee is that the experimentation on Wolverine would cause him to go on a murderous rampage, which allowed the escape of the other test subjects, and caused the death of Dale Rice, among dozens of other members of Weapon X staff, both scientists and military.

The Deadpool
Weapon X was temporarily shut down, but eventually was reinstated. Subsequent attempts at recreating the success seen by Weapon X with Wolverine include Native, Kimura and X-23 (the 23rd attempt to clone Wolverine who was designed to also hunt down rogue agents). The Weapon X Re-Creation Project a.k.a. The Facility was headed by Director Martin Sutter, Dr. Dale Rice's son Dr. Zander Rice, and Dr. Sarah Kinney. Like Weapon X once did, the Facility has also branched off from the main Weapon X Program. Latter creations of The Facility, now under the direction of Dr. Adam Harkins, include Predator X.

Second installment
At some point, Weapon X branched off from Weapon Plus' control and was solely headed up by Canada's Department K. A new generation of agents were created: Deadpool, Garrison Kane (who took on the moniker "Weapon X"), Slayback, Sluggo, Wyre, Wildchild, and Ajax, among others. Weapon X used Logan's DNA in order to endow its agents with healing powers. The batch produced many additional failures, which were sent to a facility for dissection to determine the cause of their failures. These rejects were freed by Deadpool when he escaped from the facility.

A smaller experiment was later developed by Department K with a New Zealand terrorist (who would become the third individual to be known as Weapon X) merging him with Thetagen-24: the most dangerous lethal symbiotic bacterial colony ever created.

Typhoid Mary was also a subject, when she was captured by an Antarctic facility continuing research for the Weapon X Project, specifically the mental faculties of the mutant mind. Their experiments helped give birth to Mary's "Bloody Mary" persona, which exhibited increased psychokinetic powers.

Third installment
In Weapon X series number 6, director Malcolm Colcord forms the third version of the Weapon X Project, designed to monitor and eliminate mutants. Colcord, once a security guard at the first Weapon X project, suffered severe facial lacerations during an escape attempt by the mutant Wolverine. Unlike the previous two installments of Weapon X, the third Project was completely U.S.-based and focused not only on the creation of living weapons, but also on the ultimate goal of Colcord, the creation of death camps.

The Director initially uses Weapon X as his personal strike force to exact revenge against Wolverine. He soon begins using its resources for the capturing and imprisonment of mutants in the secret government death camp called Neverland. Mutants who are not suitable to be used as military weapons would be executed, while those that are suitable are given the choice to join Weapon X or die. A number of mutants, such as Cecilia Reyes, Maggott, Ape, Tarbaby, Leech and many others were arrested by Weapon X's agents and sent to Neverland. Those mutants deemed useless to the project were killed in gas chambers, while others were brainwashed to become Weapon X operatives. The organs of the executed prisoners were then sent to the U-Men.

The agents of the third Weapon X were Agent Brent Jackson, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent; Sabretooth, who was given new adamantium implants; the shapeshifter Copycat; Deadpool; and Mauvais. Later on, Deadpool went rogue and new operatives were recruited into Weapon X, many of whom had their powers enhanced or were brainwashed into servitude. Maverick was saved from certain death and his powers were enhanced with the purpose of assassinating Wolverine, thus Agent Zero was created. Former member of Alpha Flight Wildchild was brainwashed and further mutated into a Nosferatu-like feral humanoid.

Former mutant terrorist Marrow had her powers set to a controllable level, restoring the young woman's natural beauty. Sauron's personality was merged with that of his Karl Lykos self and his energy-draining powers enhanced so he could fire energy blasts. Garrison Kane was further transformed into a cybernetic being. Aurora was kidnapped and brainwashed, like Madison Jeffries, who was extracted from the terrorist group known as the Zodiac and used to create hundreds of Boxbots loyal to Weapon X to serve as guards at Neverland.

Washout had his powers enhanced, though at a heavy cost. Each usage of his powers endangered his life and eventually, he dies trying to kill Colcord. Mesmero joins willingly, while Reaper and Wildside (former members of the Mutant Liberation Front) became agents of the program in exchange for their lives. The psychic mutant Jack-in-the-Box joins after his legs and arms were amputated. He becomes a living polygraph.

Unbeknownst to all except Sabretooth, Mister Sinister was disguised as the head scientist at the Neverland facility, Doctor Robert Windsor. As Windsor, Mister Sinister supposedly helped some mutants escape from Neverland, but he was only taking them to his own secret labs.

After some time, Brent Jackson (the only human officially on the team) took over as Director, during a mutiny by the team in conjunction with an attack by mutants from the Underground. Cable led this group, in a mission to destroy Weapon X and expose its existence and its human rights violations. Washout and Garrison Kane died in the event, while Sabretooth was washed away into the sewers after a battle with Marrow. Marrow used the battle to escape from Weapon X, eventually taking over the Mutant Underground, now reformed as the third incarnation of Gene Nation.

Colcord fled Weapon X with the always loyal Jeffries and Aurora as well. Director Brent Jackson's team consisted of Wildchild, Sauron, Agent Zero, Mesmero, Jack-in-the-Box, and newly recruited Chamber, whose face was restored by the program's scientists. Chamber was originally a double agent working for the X-Men, but was subsequently brainwashed into Jackson's service. Mister Sinister, under the alias of Dr. Windsor, remains at Weapon X. At some point, Jackson's team fought with Colcord's Boxbots. Colcord regains control of Weapon X.

Following M-Day, both Chamber and Mesmero are rendered powerless. Neverland is shut down and the prisoners, either powered or depowered, are executed by hosts of Boxbots. Records of the massive executions are discovered by Beast in the Endangered Species storyline, which also hints that some of the bodies of the prisoners executed prior to M-Day were sent to Ord and used in the research to develop the cure for mutation.

In the aftermath of the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, Cyclops and his team of Uncanny X-Men have taken up residency in the Weapon X facility, which they have rebuilt into a school named the New Charles Xavier's School for the new mutants that began appearing.

Fourth installment
As part of the RessurXion event, a fourth installment of the Weapon X Project debuted. During the Weapons of Mutant Destruction storyline, the Weapon X Project is interested in Lady Deathstrike, Warpath, Domino, Wolverine, and Sabretooth for a new experiment. It is shown that the Weapon X Project is turning civilians into cyborgs made of Adamantium sent to hunt a specific group of mutants, forcing Old Man Logan to team up with Sabretooth to stop them. Old Man Logan and his allies alongside Amadeus Cho's Hulk form discover that Weapon X has been experimenting on humans by grafting the DNA of Wolverine and Hulk into them while also applying Adamantium to their bones. In addition, it is shown that the director of the latest incarnation of the Weapon X Project is a somehow-revived William Stryker.

The latest project H-Alpha emerges where it kills the lesser experiment H-Beta. Unfortunately, Dr. Aliana Alba lost control of it even when Amadeus Cho's Hulk form joins the battle while William Stryker and Dr. Alba get away. Following the fierce battle, H-Alpha flees causing Old Man Logan's group to go after it before the Weapon X Project plans to regain control of it.

When the Weapon X Project caught up to H-Alpha, Dr. Alba regained control of H-Alpha. She then stated to the controlled H-Alpha that he has a killer instinct where he is to kill anyone that the Weapon X Project wants him to kill. As Old Man Logan's group faces off against H-Alpha, X-23's Wolverine appearance was able to free Weapon H from Dr. Alba's control enabling Weapon H to leave the area so that he can remember who he was.

The "Hulkverines" miniseries showed Hulk and Wolverine's reactions to the Weapon X Project creating Weapon H and their search for them as well as dealing with the collaboration of Leader and Dr. Alba.

Implosion and Xeno emergence
Following Professor Charles Xavier founding a sovereign nation state for mutants on the living island Krakoa, he made sure all shadow agencies around the world were defunded and disbanded, Weapon X among them.

However remnants of those agencies gathered together and establishe Xeno a global organization with ties to anti-mutant politicians and business leaders. Xeno are dedicated to bioengineering themselves into weapons. Upon discovering this, Professor X tasked Domino to infiltrate the organization to gather intel. Domino was discovered during her infiltration, and The Xeno's operatives used grafts of her skin on their genetically altered soldiers to allow them to evade Krakoa's security protocols. The Xeno strike team was able to attack Krakoa, and assassinate Xavier.

The Weapon X codename

 * In mainstream Marvel, Logan was the first individual known as Weapon X. After Wolverine, Garrison Kane went by the alias of Weapon X before leaving the Canadian Government to work as a mercenary again.
 * A short time later, a New Zealand terrorist was captured by the Canadian Government and subjected to an experiment which bonded him to a bacteria colony, called Thetagen-24. This symbiosis proved dangerous as the union created a deadly energy field which could only be contained by an armored suit that was powered by the energy field.
 * In the "Age of Apocalypse" alternate universe, Logan was known as Weapon X.

1991 storyline
The chronicle of Wolverine's days with the Weapon X project, from the bonding of adamantium to his bones to his escape from the project, were revealed in the Weapon X story arc, written and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith and published in installments in the anthology series Marvel Comics Presents in 1991. An expanded version of the story has been produced by writer Marc Cerasini and published by Pocket Star Books in 2004. The story intertwines with some of Wolverine's past, and eventually ends with Wolverine's rampage being described in full, only to be revealed as the work of a Virtual reality system which actually predicted the events of Wolverine's escape which then occur in real life moments later.

Age of Apocalypse series
In 1995, Weapon X became the name of the Age of Apocalypse variation of Wolverine's ongoing series (during the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline, each X-Men series was renamed and renumbered for four monthly issues and then reverted to the original name and numbering after the storyline ended).

2002 ongoing series
Weapon X is the name of a 28-issue ongoing series published by Marvel from 2002 to 2004, featuring the third installment of the Weapon X project. It was written by Frank Tieri, who previously wrote the ongoing Wolverine title and had created the group's most recent incarnation in the pages of said book. The series began in 2002 and quickly gained critical praise for its use of minor characters as well as reviving characters such as Cable, who at the time wasn't featured in a monthly title. However, sales sagged following the removal of Cable from the book after the first year, on orders of Rob Liefeld, who was working on a new X-Force project.

Frank Tieri was forced to drop nearly all of his subplots, including the introduction of a mutant concentration camp run by Mr. Sinister that featured many popular B-List mutant characters, and take the book into the controversial direction involving the introduction of X-23, and Wolverine and Sabretooth's quest to find the recently revived John Sublime. The new direction failed to catch on, mainly due to the books' over-exposure of Wolverine and the drastic change in tone of the book. It was cancelled with all of its storylines unresolved.

2005 limited series
A limited series Weapon X: Days of Future Now in 2005 was released that resolved all of the dangling storylines and revealed that Wolverine's disfigurement of Weapon X Director Malcolm Colcord was the catalyst for the creation of a future similar to the "Days of Future Past" scenario.

Wolverine: Weapon X
An ongoing series launched in 2009 titled Wolverine: Weapon X. The series was written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Ron Garney.

2017 ongoing series
As part of their RessurXion event, a new ongoing series for Weapon X written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Greg Land was launched along with other new ongoing X-Men titles. This series takes place after the events seen in X-Men Prime when Lady Deathstrike gets kidnapped by the new version of Weapon X.

Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline, Logan was never actually called Wolverine; he retained the "Weapon X" codename, through his entire career.

Dead Man Wade, the AoA counterpart of Deadpool, did not receive his healing factor from the Weapon X program but from Apocalypse, apparently after Apocalypse dismantled the program, and became part of Apocalypse's elite assassin trio dubbed the 'Pale Riders'.

Exiles
In the series Exiles, whose cast is a group of characters from alternate timelines who travel to other realities, Weapon X is a group of superbeings that have been torn from their respective realities to fulfill various missions for the Exiles' employer, the Timebroker. To return home, they have been forced to jump from reality to reality, repairing the broken links in the chain of time. Unlike their more heroic counterparts, the Exiles, this ruthless assemblage will resort to any means necessary to attain their goals. They act without mercy and without conscience.

The team's membership has changed through time. The first known mission given to Weapon X was to capture the Hulk. At the time, the membership of Weapon X consisted of Sabretooth (Victor Creed of the Age of Apocalypse, the father figure of the Exiles' leader Blink), Deadpool and Garrison Kane. Later it was revealed that the team also included Wolverine, Maverick and Mesmero. The six chose the name 'Weapon X' due to their common ties to the Project in their native timelines, although, save for Sabretooth, the background of all the other members are a mystery. The Exiles completed the mission without realizing the existence of Weapon X, but the Weapon X trio saw the Exiles and their leader, Blink.

When the two teams met face-to-face for the first time, Weapon X was already a sextet: Sabretooth, Deadpool, the Spider (Peter Parker, an alternate version of Spider-Man, here a psychotic murderer with the symbiotic alien costume of Carnage), Storm (Ororo Munroe, here only sixteen years old and already ruler of more than half of Africa), the Vision (a version that remained an emotionless robot), and the Hulk (Jennifer Walters, normally called the She-Hulk, here a former mob bookkeeper transformed into an eight-foot green-skinned powerhouse). It was mentioned that the Vision had replaced Kane and that the Spider had replaced Matt Murdock (Daredevil). Later, Iron Man replaced Deadpool.

The next time the team was seen, Angel (now a gun-toting assassin) replaced Iron Man and the team leader was now Gambit instead of Sabretooth. Later, the Hulk was replaced by Colossus, and eventually Angel was replaced by Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers).

When Storm died, she was replaced by Hyperion. Later, Colossus and the Vision were replaced by the Hulk (Bruce Banner) and Firestar. These two, along with Gambit, tried to stop Hyperion, the Spider and Ms. Marvel when they decided to abandon their mission and rule a world. They failed, and the next mission given to both the Exiles and Weapon X was to kill enough members of each team so that there would be only six survivors in total. Ultimately, all members of this Weapon X team were killed in the fight.

Ultimate Marvel
In Ultimate X-Men, which takes place in the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Weapon X project has a similar intention and similar methodology as its Marvel Universe counterpart, as it was also responsible for bonding adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton.

Ultimate Weapon X was headed by Colonel John Wraith, a mutant-hating commando, and Dr. Cornelius. The program was sanctioned by S.H.I.E.L.D. sometime before or during the Gulf War to capture mutants and force them to carry out covert missions for the US Government. Their main facility was located in Finland (as opposed to the mainstream that was originally located in Canada). The lineup included, at times, Wolverine/Logan aka "Lucky Jim", Sabretooth, Rogue, Juggernaut, Nightcrawler, and the rest of the original Ultimate X-Men, for a short time after the program invaded Xavier's mansion and took them captive.

What If?
In an issue of What If? entitled "What If Wolverine Battled Weapon X," an alternate reality was shown in which Logan was never apprehended by the Weapon X Project. Weapon X attempted to kidnap Logan, but he managed to subdue his attackers and escape. Weapon X then turned their attention to a former Mountie and Marine named Guy Desjardins, who was brainwashed and subjected to the adamantium bonding process. Instead of claws, Desjardins manifested adamantium spikes that permanently protruded from his forehands (as 616-Logan's claws were the result of his mutation) and elbows. The experiment broke Guy's mind causing him to become fierce and go on a killing spree in the Weapon X facility. This made Guy Desjardins seem to be prone to violent outbursts and highly uncontrollable. Due to this, he had cybernetic armor that pumped adrenaline and narcotics into him. Unfortunately, this was ineffective because when Weapon X was released from the drugs, he went on a killing spree until the Weapon X soldiers drugged him once more.

To pass their failure onto someone else, the head of Weapon X had his men drop his body off at Department H with instruction saying "His codename is Weapon X. Make use of him." He was taken in by James Hudson for the Canadian superhero team dubbed The Flight much to the objection of Dr. Walter Langkowski. Guy Desjardins broke loose and went on another killing spree starting with Walter Langkowski. Dr. James Hudson had to use The Flight due to the lack of training. Guy Desjardins made it to Kenora where he killed Thomas who was the husband of Logan's friend Rose. When The Flight arrived, Stitch tried to use her powers on Guy Desjardins' harness only to be impaled by Guy Desjardins's adamantium spikes. When Smart Alec suggests that they call in the Avengers for help, Dr. James Hudson tells them that Department H cut off their communication when The Flight left and that it would take the Avengers too long to get to Canada. James Hudson then notified his assistant Chantilly to prep the Groundhog armor for him. Smart Alec thought of a plan and got close enough to disrupt the harness. This was partially successful where his body managed to compensate for the loss of adrenaline where Smart Alec was killed in the process.

When the remaining members pursued Guy Desjardins to Calgary, Saint Elmo grabbed Guy Desjardins and carried him into the air only for Weapon X to knock him out and cause Saint Elmo to get impaled upon a church's cross. Logan set out to hunt down Weapon X and discovered their ties with Department H. When Snowbird and Dr. James Hudson (wearing the Groundhog armor) were killed, Logan confronted Desjardins. After removing Desjardin's helmet, Logan managed to kill Desjardins. Government soldiers arrived to arrest Logan for the theft of government records. After Logan dove into the river to escape the soldiers, they thought he was dead when they found some of his blood. Days later, a news report that was all over the news had exposed the existence of the Weapon X Project and their involvement in Desjardins' attack upon people as well as Department H's role in the creation of The Flight. Watching television, Logan recovered from his wounds and found inner peace after avenging Thomas.

Wolverine: The End
In a possible future of Wolverine: The End, Wolverine attempts to hunt down the people involved in Weapon X, and discovers not only that they have been dead and gone for many decades, but also what may have been the very first subject of the project: his elder brother John Howlett, who he had been told died when he (Wolverine) was still just a baby. In addition to having bone claws, enhanced senses and a healing factor, the elder Howlett appeared to have some kind of ethereal form which allowed him to phase through things and somehow conduct energy blasts. John Howlett claimed that he was driven mad at first by his parents' seeming abandonment of him when his powers first manifested. Had he been in his insane state of mind when he first encountered Wolverine, he claims he would likely have attempted to kill him.

X-Men Noir
Set in Marvel Noir, this Weapon X is a 1940s German based government agency led by the "Red Rose"/Jiamine Szardos/Amanda Selfron, a former circus artist. She that employs agents like Andreas Strucker/Fenris and boyfriend "the Demon". However the spy Calvin Rankin revealed that Weapon X is named after him as Berlin seeks to replicate his skills in warfare.

Television

 * In the X-Men animated series, the Weapon X program was responsible for Wolverine's adamantium implants and memory alterations. The program (directed by Professor Oyama and Dr. Cornelius) captured Logan, Sabretooth, Silver Fox, and Maverick and used a combination of false memory implants and brainwashing techniques in order to turn them into an elite team of mind-controlled assassins. Most of the experiments and training were administered at a secret research compound in Canada. There, Thorton and Cornelius forcibly laced Logan's skeleton with adamantium. Enraged by what was done to him, Logan broke free of his restraints and rampaged his way out of the facility. During the ensuing chaos, Sabretooth, Silver Fox, and Maverick were also able to escape.
 * In X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and Sabretooth were both shown to be subjects of Weapon X with a scientist operating a lab in Canada. Omega Red later mentioned other members such as Wraith.
 * Weapon X is featured in the Wolverine and the X-Men episodes "Past Discretions" and "Stolen Lives". Like in the comics, Sabretooth, Maverick, and X-23 are agents of Weapon X while the program is led by Professor Andre Thorton and Dr. Abraham Cornelius. A proposed second season would have introduced Deadpool as part of Weapon X. A flashback also shows that Wolverine and Mystique were also part of Weapon X.
 * Weapon X is mentioned in the Iron Man: Armored Adventures episode "The X-Factor." Pepper Potts was talking to War Machine and Iron Man via com-link about the background of Magneto. Magneto also reveals to Annie Claremont that as a boy, the Weapon X scientists did experiments on him (which hinted a link with Magneto and Weapon X).
 * Weapon X briefly appears in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "Behold...The Vision". The Weapon X guards are briefly seen fighting Vision to no avail as Vision successfully steals Weapon X's adamantium supply.

Live action

 * In the X-Men film franchise, Wolverine is an amnesiac searching for clues to his past, which definitely includes participation in a paramilitary program that bonded adamantium to his skeleton, although the program was not named, nor was the program's country of affiliation mentioned. He also encounters Lady Deathstrike, who has been put through a similar procedure. X2: X-Men United introduced Colonel William Stryker, a military scientist who is directly involved in Wolverine's past, having invented the adamantium-bonding process and has performed other experiments on mutants such as developing a mind-controlling drug that he used on Lady Deathstrike, Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops. William Stryker is the film adaptation of the former military man turned-reverend in the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel upon which X2 is partially based.
 * In the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wolverine is thrust into the Weapon X Program by Colonel William Stryker as a promise to kill his brother Victor Creed, who had faked the murder of Logan's girlfriend Kayla Silverfox to manipulate him. In the Alkali Lake Weapon X facility, Wolverine's skeleton bonds with adamantium. He then escapes the facility when he overhears that his memory will be erased. Weapon XI was portrayed in the film as a genetically-altered Wade Wilson / Deadpool. Weapon XI is referred to by Stryker as a "deadpool" possessing powers extracted from several mutants.
 * Deadpool actor Ed Skrein revealed to MTV at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con that his character Ajax is part of Weapon X. While the program Wade enters isn't explicitly called "Weapon X" in the movie, it's still an underground facility that has scientists experiment on people to enhance their mutant powers similar to Weapon X in the comics. Ryan Reynolds, who portrays the titular character, confirmed in the Deadpool Honest Trailer that the facility was Weapon X.
 * The program under the younger Stryker appears in the film X-Men: Apocalypse. Hugh Jackman appears as Weapon X, wearing headgear and costume based on Barry Windsor-Smith's designs from the Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 story arc.
 * The Weapon X program is mentioned in Logan, where both Logan and Zander Rice acknowledge Rice's father as one of the men responsible for Logan's adamantium bonding in the new timeline.

Animation

 * The Weapon X organization appears in the Wolverine portion of Hulk Vs. Professor Andre Thorton sends Team X (consisting of Omega Red, Sabretooth, Deadpool and Lady Deathstrike) to capture both Hulk and Wolverine in Professor Andre Thorton's plan to wipe their memories and use them as weapons. Short scenes of Logan past with Weapon X are shown in the movie like how he was captured and later cloned (a ref. to X-23). The Weapon X headquarters was destroyed during Team X's fight with Wolverine and Hulk.

Video games

 * In Wolverine's Capcom fighting game appearances, such as Marvel Super Heroes, "Weapon-X" is also the name of a super move where Wolverine starts with a swift dash followed by an automatic combo then he finishes it off by leaping into the air head-first creating an energy X over his opponent.
 * Weapon X is featured in X2: Wolverine's Revenge. It is the first level when Wolverine recounts what he remembers to Beast. Wolverine later returns there to find a cure for the deadly Shiva Strain Virus that acts as a failsafe implanted in Weapon X test subjects. Weapon X is also shown to be associated with the Void (a maximum security mutant detention center that's similar to the Vault, but holds mutant criminals).
 * Weapon X is featured in X-Men Legends. A flashback level features Wolverine escaping from the Weapon X facility.
 * The Weapon X facility is a hub in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
 * X-Men: The Official Game expands upon Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike's involvement with Weapon X. Wolverine fights his way through the Weapon X Testing labs at Alkali Lake. Lady Deathstrike mentions that mutants were repeatedly burned to a crisp to test their healing factors, and that she and Wolverine are the only candidates to have survived the adamantium bonding process. Along the way through the labs, there are several names of victims of Weapon X above holding pens like Wolverine, Sabertooth, Maverick, and Deadpool.
 * Weapon X is featured in the video game adaption to X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Known members are William Stryker, Dr. Abraham Cornelius, Dr. Carol Hines-Frost, and Nathaniel Essex (who was mentioned in a work log as one of the earliest scientists of the Weapon X Program).

title: Weapon X


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Moscow Manege

The Moscow Manege (Мане́ж, ) is an oblong building along the west side of Manege Square, which was cleared in the 1930s and lies adjacent to Red Square. It is the site of Moscow Design Museum since 2012.

Designed by Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt with a roof without internal support for 45 m (the building's width), it was erected from 1817 to 1825 by the Russian architect Joseph Bové, who clothed it in its Neoclassical exterior, an order of Roman Doric columns enclosing bays of arch-headed windows in a blind arcade, painted white and cream yellow. The roof, with its internal rafters and beams exposed, rests on external columns of the Manege.

The structure was used first as a traditional manège, an indoor riding academy, to house parades of horsemen and a training school for officers. The 180 m long Manege was large enough to hold an entire infantry regiment—over two thousand soldiers— as well as an invited audience. Since 1831 it has been an exhibition place. In 1867, Hector Berlioz and Nikolai Rubinstein performed at the Manege before a crowd of 12,000. During the Soviet years, the building was used as an art gallery. It was there that Nikita Khrushchev chided avant-garde artists for promoting degenerate art, an episode known as the Manege Affair.

2004 fire
On 14 March 2004, the night of a Russian presidential election in which Vladimir Putin was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second four-year term, the building caught fire and burnt down, killing two firefighters. The wooden beams and rafters collapsed, leaving the walls remaining on site. The official investigation concluded that a short circuit caused the fire, though there was media speculation that a fire at such a historic building, only a stone's throw from the Kremlin, on the night of a presidential election, may not have been coincidental. On 18 February 2005 the restored Manege resumed its operation as an exhibition hall by mounting the same exposition that had been scheduled for the day of the fire.

Description and architectural features
The Rectangular in plan one-storey building of the Moscow Manege is an example of Classicism architecture. The building was 166 m long, 44 m wide and about 15 m high. The original floor area of the Manege was 7,424.67 m ². The facades of the building have an arcade of seven arched apertures with semi-columns and are crowned with plain gables without decorations. The side walls are flanked by semi-columns of the Tuscan order, between which vaulted windows are placed in the arched openings. Under the gables of the facades as well as in the middle part of the side walls there are three wooden gates. The main facade was supposed to be the Southern one facing the Kutafya Tower - one of the four entrances to the Kremlin. The internal space of the Manege was well illuminated by the daylight owing to the windows which formed about one third of the area of the walls. The Manege's enlarged proportions, columns, pylons and restrained colour scheme underscore the monumentality of the building.

title: Moscow Manege