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Cercozoa

Cercozoa (now synonymised with Filosa) is a phylum of diverse single-celled eukaryotes. They lack shared morphological characteristics at the microscopic level, and are instead united by molecular phylogenies of rRNA and actin or polyubiquitin. They were the first major eukaryotic group to be recognized mainly through molecular phylogenies. They are the natural predators of many species of bacteria. They are closely related to the phylum Retaria, comprising amoeboids that usually have complex shells, and together form a supergroup called Rhizaria.

Characteristics
The group includes most amoeboids and flagellates that feed by means of filose pseudopods. These may be restricted to part of the cell surface, but there is never a true cytostome or mouth as found in many other protozoa. They show a variety of forms and have proven difficult to define in terms of structural characteristics, although their unity is strongly supported by phylogenetic studies.

Diversity
Some cercozoans are grouped by whether they are "filose" or "reticulose" in the behavior of their cytoskeleton when moving: Other important ecological groups are:
 * Filose, meaning their pseudopods develop as filopodia. For example:
 * Euglyphids, filose amoebae with shells of siliceous scales or plates, which are commonly found in soils, nutrient-rich waters, and on aquatic plants.
 * Gromia, a shelled amoeba.
 * Tectofilosids, filose amoebae that produce organic shells.
 * Cercomonads, common soil-dwelling amoeboflagellates.
 * Reticulose, meaning they form a reticulating net of pseudopods. For example:
 * Chlorarachniophytes, set apart by the presence of chloroplasts bound by four membranes and still possess a vestigial nucleus, called a nucleomorph. As such, they have been of great interest to researchers studying the endosymbiotic origins of organelles.
 * Granofilosea, comprising several groups traditionally considered heliozoa such as Heliomonadida, Desmothoracida and Gymnosphaerida.
 * Phaeodaria, marine protozoa previously considered radiolarians.

Ecology
As well as being highly diverse in morphology and physiology, Cercozoa also shows high ecological diversity. The phylum Cercozoa includes many of the most abundant and ecologically significant protozoa in soil, marine and freshwater ecosystems.

Soil-dwelling cercozoans are one of the dominant groups of free-living eukaryotic microorganisms found in temperate soils, accounting for around 30% of identifiable protozoan DNA in arid or semi-arid soils and 15% in more humid soils. In transcriptomic analyses they account for 40-60% of all identifiable protozoan RNA found in forest and grassland soils. They also comprise 9-24% of all operational taxonomic units found in the ocean floor.

Some cercozoa are coprophilic or coprozoic, meaning they use feces as a source of nutrients or as transport through animal hosts. The faecal habitat is an understudied reservoir of microbial eukaryotic diversity, dominated by amoeboflagellates from the phylum Cercozoa. Strongly coprophilic examples of cercozoa are the flagellates Cercomonas, Proleptomonas and Helkesimastix, and the sorocarpic amoeba Guttulinopsis. Many new cercozoan lineages, especially among sarcomonads, have been discovered through phylogenetic sampling of feces because they appear preferentially in this medium.

Cercozoan bacterivores (i.e. predators of bacteria) are highly diverse and important in the plant phyllosphere, the leaf surfaces of plants. Particularly sarcomonads, with their ability to cyst, feed and multiply within hours, are perfectly adapted to the fluctuating environmental factors in the phyllosphere. Their predation causes shifts in the bacterial communities: they reduce populations of alphaproteobacteria and betaproteobacteria, which are less resistant to their grazing, in favour of other bacterial populations such as gammaproteobacteria.

External evolution
Originally, Cercozoa contained both Filosa and Endomyxa, according to phylogenetic analyses using ribosomal RNA and tubulin. These analyses also confirmed Cercozoa as the sister group of Retaria within the supergroup Rhizaria.

However, the monophyly of the group was still uncertain. Posterior multigene phylogenetic analyses consistently found Cercozoa to be paraphyletic, because Endomyxa clustered next to Retaria instead of Filosa. Because of this, Endomyxa was excluded from Cercozoa, which became a synonym of Filosa.

More recent phylogenomic analyses with better sampling recovered a sister relationship between Filosa (=Cercozoa) and Endomyxa once again, although the modern classification of eukaryotes retains Endomyxa, Cercozoa and Retaria as separate phyla within Rhizaria.

Internal evolution
The phylum Cercozoa previously contained both Filosa and Endomyxa, but in the latest classifications Endomyxa has been excluded, and Cercozoa is now synonymous with Filosa. It is composed of two subphyla: Monadofilosa and Reticulofilosa. According to multigene phylogenetic analyses, Monadofilosa is a robust clade, in which the deepest branching group is Metromonadea, followed by Helkesea as the second group (together forming the paraphyletic Eoglissa) before the divergence of the clade Ventrifilosa (Imbricatea, Sarcomonadea and Thecofilosea). On the other hand, Reticulofilosa is probably paraphyletic, with Granofilosea diverging earlier than Chlorarachnea, which makes Chlorarachnea the sister group of Monadofilosa.

A more recent phylogenomic analysis recovered both Monadofilosa and Reticulofilosa as monophyletic within the clade Filosa.

In addition to the known Granofilosea, Chlorarachnea and Monadofilosa, a variety of clades inside Cercozoa have been discovered in other analyses and have slowly been described and named, such as Tremulida (previously known as Novel Clade 11) and Aquavolonida (Novel Clade 10), although their specific positions among the two main cercozoan subphyla have yet to be refined. These two orders have been classified as the class Skiomonadea, within Reticulofilosa.

Classification
The classification of Cercozoa was revised in 2018:
 * Subphylum Reticulofilosa
 * Class Chlorarachnea
 * Class Granofilosea
 * Class Skiomonadea
 * Subphylum Monadofilosa
 * Superclass Eoglissa
 * Class Metromonadea
 * Class Helkesea
 * Superclass Ventrifilosa
 * Class Sarcomonadea
 * Class Imbricatea
 * Class Thecofilosea

title: Cercozoa


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Known-plaintext attack

The known-plaintext attack (KPA) is an attack model for cryptanalysis where the attacker has access to both the plaintext (called a crib) and its encrypted version (ciphertext). These can be used to reveal secret keys and code books. The term "crib" originated at Bletchley Park, the British World War II decryption operation, where it was defined as:"A plain language (or code) passage of any length, usually obtained by solving one or more cipher or code messages, and occurring or believed likely to occur in a different cipher or code message, which it may provide a means of solving."

History
The usage "crib" was adapted from a slang term referring to cheating (e.g., "I cribbed my answer from your test paper"). A "crib" originally was a literal or interlinear translation of a foreign-language text—usually a Latin or Greek text—that students might be assigned to translate from the original language.

The idea behind a crib is that cryptologists were looking at incomprehensible ciphertext, but if they had a clue about some word or phrase that might be expected to be in the ciphertext, they would have a "wedge," a test to break into it. If their otherwise random attacks on the cipher managed to sometimes produce those words or (preferably) phrases, they would know they might be on the right track. When those words or phrases appeared, they would feed the settings they had used to reveal them back into the whole encrypted message to good effect.

In the case of Enigma, the German High Command was very meticulous about the overall security of the Enigma system and understood the possible problem of cribs. The day-to-day operators, on the other hand, were less careful. The Bletchley Park team would guess some of the plaintext based upon when the message was sent, and by recognizing routine operational messages. For instance, a daily weather report was transmitted by the Germans at the same time every day. Due to the regimented style of military reports, it would contain the word Wetter (German for "weather") at the same location in every message. (Knowing the local weather conditions helped Bletchley Park guess other parts of the plaintext as well.) Other operators, too, would send standard salutations or introductions. An officer stationed in the Qattara Depression consistently reported that he had nothing to report. "Heil Hitler," occurring at the end of a message, is another well-known example.

At Bletchley Park in World War II, strenuous efforts were made to use (and even force the Germans to produce) messages with known plaintext. For example, when cribs were lacking, Bletchley Park would sometimes ask the Royal Air Force to "seed" a particular area in the North Sea with mines (a process that came to be known as gardening, by obvious reference). The Enigma messages that were soon sent out would most likely contain the name of the area or the harbour threatened by the mines.

The Germans themselves could be very accommodating in this regard. Whenever any of the turned German Double-Cross agents sent a message (written by the British) to their respective handlers, they frequently obligingly re-encrypted the message word for word on Enigma for onward transmission to Berlin.

When a captured German revealed under interrogation that Enigma operators had been instructed to encode numbers by spelling them out, Alan Turing reviewed decrypted messages and determined that the number "eins" ("one") was the most common string in the plaintext (Benford's law). He automated the crib process, creating the Eins Catalogue, which assumed that "eins" was encoded at all positions in the plaintext. The catalogue included every possible position of the various rotors, starting positions, and keysettings of the Enigma.

The Polish Cipher Bureau had likewise exploited "cribs" in the "ANX method" before World War II (the Germans' use of "AN", German for "to", followed by "X" as a spacer to form the text "ANX").

The United States and Britain used one-time tape systems, such as the 5-UCO, for their most sensitive traffic. These devices were immune to known-plaintext attack; however, they were point-to-point links and required massive supplies of one-time tapes. Networked cipher machines were considered vulnerable to cribs, and various techniques were used to disguise the beginning and ends of a message, including cutting messages in half and sending the second part first and adding nonsense padding at both ends. The latter practice resulted in an infamous incident during World War II when the nonsense padding added to a message sent to American admiral William Halsey Jr., "the world wonders", was not nonsensical enough and was interpreted as part of the actual message, leading Halsey to change his plans.

The KL-7, introduced in the mid-1950s, was the first U.S. cipher machine that was considered safe against known-plaintext attack.

Classical ciphers are typically vulnerable to known-plaintext attack. For example, a Caesar cipher can be solved using a single letter of corresponding plaintext and ciphertext to decrypt entirely. A general monoalphabetic substitution cipher needs several character pairs and some guessing if there are fewer than 26 distinct pairs.

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

title: Known-plaintext attack


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Mary-Ellis Bunim

Mary-Ellis Bunim (July 9, 1946 – January 29, 2004) was an American television producer and co-creator of MTV's The Real World and Road Rules.

Biography
A native of Massachusetts, Bunim began her career in daytime dramas. She oversaw more than 2,500 hours of programming as executive producer of Search for Tomorrow (1974–1981), As the World Turns (1981–1984), Santa Barbara (1984–1987) and Loving (1989–1990). She subsequently developed numerous shows in her job as VP of tape programs for New World Entertainment.

Bunim founded Bunim-Murray with business partner Jonathan Murray. Agent Mark Itkin of the William Morris Agency put the two together to develop a scripted soap opera for MTV. When that was too expensive, they decided to try an unscripted soap and The Real World was born. "We knew within 20 minutes of shooting that we had a show," Bunim said.

Her company, Bunim/Murray Productions, spearheaded the reality show genre. Among the numerous other reality programs and reality game show programs that Bunim co-created over the years, include: Road Rules; Love Cruise; Making the Band; The Challenge (formerly known as Real World/Road Rules Challenge and spun off from The Real World and Road Rules); the reality feature film, The Real Cancun; the real-life daily syndication, Starting Over; as well as Fox's The Simple Life.

Death
Bunim died in Los Angeles at 57, after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.

She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

Bunim and Murray were inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2012.

title: Mary-Ellis Bunim


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Song of the Year

Song of the Year may refer to:

 * Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year
 * Dove Award for Song of the Year
 * Golden Melody Award for Song of the Year
 * Grammis Song of the Year
 * Grammy Award for Song of the Year
 * Latin Grammy Award for Song of the Year
 * Mnet Asian Music Award for Song of the Year
 * MTV Video Music Award for Song of the Year
 * Song of the Year (Russia), Soviet and Russian festival and award
 * Soul Train Music Award for Best Song of the Year
 * WAM Song of the Year

title: Song of the Year


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Michel Aflaq

Michel Aflaq (ميشيل عفلق, ; 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, such as "The Road to Renaissance" (1940), The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).

Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported colonial policies through the Popular Front under the French Mandate of Syria. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).

The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the mid-to-late 1950s the party began developing relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Nasser forced Aflaq to dissolve the party, which he did, but without consulting with party members. Shortly after the UAR's dissolution, Aflaq was reelected as Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party. Following the 8th of March Revolution, Aflaq's position within the party was weakened to such an extent that he was forced to resign as the party's leader in 1965. Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which led to a schism within the Ba'ath Party. He escaped to Lebanon, but later went to Iraq. In 1968 Aflaq was elected Secretary General of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party; during his tenure he held no de facto power. He held the post until his death on 23 June 1989.

Aflaq's theories about society, economics, and politics, which are collectively known as Ba'athism, hold that the Arab world needs to be unified into one Arab Nation in order to achieve an advanced state of development. He was critical of both capitalism and communism, and critical of Karl Marx's view of dialectical materialism as the only truth. Ba'athist thought placed much emphasis on liberty and Arab socialism – a socialism with Arab characteristics, which was not part of the international socialist movement as defined by the West. Aflaq believed in the separation of state and religion, and was a strong believer in secularisation, but was against atheism. Although a Christian, he believed Islam to be proof of "Arab genius". In the aftermath of the 1966 Ba'ath Party split, the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party accused Aflaq of stealing al-Arsuzi's ideas, calling him a "thief" and later sentenced him to "death via absentia" in 1971. The Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party rejects this, and does not believe that al-Arsuzi contributed to Ba'athist thought.

Early life
Born on 9 January 1910 in Damascus to a middle class Orthodox Christian family, his father, Joseph, worked as a grain merchant. Aflaq was first educated in the Westernized schools of the French Mandate of Syria. In 1929, he left Syria to study philosophy abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. During his stay, Aflaq was influenced by the works of Henri Bergson and met his longtime collaborator Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a fellow Syrian nationalist. Aflaq founded an Arab Student Union at the Sorbonne and discovered the writings of Karl Marx. He returned to Syria in 1932, and became active in communist politics, but left the movement when the government of Léon Blum, supported by the French Communist Party (FCP), continued France's old politics towards its colonies. Aflaq, and others, had believed that the FCP followed pro-independence policies towards the French colonies. It did not help that the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party (SLCP) supported the FCP's decision. From then on Aflaq saw the communist movement as a tool of the Soviet Union. He was impressed by the organisation and ideology of Antun Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Arab Ba'ath Movement: 1940–1947
Upon their return to Syria, Aflaq and al-Bitar became teachers at Tajhiz all'-Ula, "the most prestigious secondary school in Syria". Aflaq taught history, while al-Bitar taught math and physics. By 1940, Aflaq and al-Bitar had managed to set up a student circle, which usually met on Fridays. That year, the Arab Ihya Movement, a political party, was established by Aflaq and al-Bitar. They used most of their spare time in 1941 to agitate for the party. It was in 1942 that Aflaq showed his skills as "a compelling speaker" who was able to utilize the "theatrical pause" to great effect. The party changed its name to Arab Ba'ath Movement to signify the radical changes which were sweeping the Middle East; Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, had challenged Britain's domination over Iraq. The replacement of the word "Revival" with "Ba'ath" (بعث, literally means resurrection/rebirth) signified that Arab revival had been replaced ideologically by the need for an Arab rebirth. The change of name led Zaki al-Arsuzi, leader of the Arab Ba'ath Party, to accuse Aflaq and al-Bitar of stealing his party's name from him. Though both men were promoting a party platform based on an Arab nationalist stance, Aflaq and al-Arsuzi became bitter rivals.

On 24 October 1942, both Aflaq and al-Bitar resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote themselves fully to the political struggle. In 1941 the Syrian Committee to Help Iraq was established to support the Iraqi Government led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the British invasion during the Anglo–Iraqi War. Al-Arsuzi, the leader of the other Arab Ba'ath movement, was skeptical of the new committee, and opposed helping the Iraqis on the ground that they would lose anyway. In 1941 the movement began publishing documents under the name the "Arab Ihya Movement". Later, in 1945, Aflaq and al-Bitar asked the French Mandate authorities to grant the movement a party license. The Arab Ba'ath Movement did not become an official party until 1947, when it merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Movement to found the Arab Ba'ath Party. The Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, drew supporters from al-Arsuzi's Ba'ath Movement; during the 1940s, al-Arsuzi started to seclude himself from the public eye, he developed a deep distrust of others and became, according to some of his associates, paranoid. When the two Ba'ath movements merged and established the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947, the only subject discussed was how much socialism to include; Wahib al-Ghanim and Jalal al-Sayyid from the al-Arsuzi led Ba'ath movement wanted Aflaq and al-Bitar to adopt more radical socialist policies.

Founding and early years
The Arab Ba'ath Party's first congress was held in Damascus in 1947. Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of Amid, sometimes translated as 'doyen' or as 'leader'; and was elected to a four-member executive committee. Under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organisation; al-Bitar was elected Secretary General of the National Command. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the leader of the Arab Ba'ath, was not given any position, or membership in the party. Aflaq as Amid was responsible for ideological affairs and became the party's mentor, while al-Bitar controlled the party's day-to-day management. The merger would prove problematic, several members of the al-Arsuzi-led Ba'ath Party were more left-leaning, and would become, later in Aflaq's tenure as leader, highly critical of his leadership.

In the late 1940s, Aflaq and al-Bitar gave free lessons on Ba'athist thought, and in 1948 they established the newspaper al-Ba'ath (English: rebirth/resurrection). Aflaq tested the Ba'ath Party's strength during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after early Syrian defeats – he led several demonstrations against the government led by President Shukri al-Quwatli. He personally led demonstrations and claimed that al-Quwatli, a landowner, was a corrupt and capitalistic politician, who was to blame for the Syrian army's defeat. Aflaq called for al-Quwatli's resignation, and wrote several al-Ba'ath articles criticising his presidency and his prime minister, Jamil Mardam Bey. Aflaq was later arrested on the orders of al-Quwatli's prime minister Bey. Al-Quwali's government was brought down in a coup d'état led by military officer Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im banned all parties, claiming that Syria was not ready to establish a liberal democracy yet. Aflaq, who had been set free, was rearrested during al-Zai'm's presidency and sent to the notorious Mezzeh Prison. Al-Za'im's rule did not last for long, and in August 1949, he was toppled, and Hashim al-Atassi, who was democratically elected, took his place. Al-Atassi established a national unity government, and Aflaq was appointed to the post of Minister of Education, the only government post he would ever hold; he held it from August to December 1949. Al-Attasi's presidency did not last for very long either, and in 1951 Adib Shishakli took power in a military coup.

Aflaq at first extended his support to the new government, believing that he and the Ba'ath Party could collaborate with Shishakli because they shared the same Arab nationalist sentiments. His analysis of Shishakli proved to be wrong, and one of Shishakli's first decisions as ruler was to ban all political parties, including the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party leadership, and several leading members, escaped to Lebanon in the wake of increased government repression. In Lebanon Aflaq and al-Bitar agreed to a merger of the Arab Ba'ath Party and the Arab Socialist Party (ASP), led by Akram al-Hawrani, to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952. The newly formed party worked as a base of operation against Shishali's rule – Aflaq and the rest cooperated with non-Ba'athist opposition forces too. Shishakli was toppled in February 1954.

Power politics: 1954–1963
Following the overthrow of al-Shishakli, Syria held its first democratic elections in five years. The Ba'ath Party, led by Aflaq, al-Bitar and al-Hawrani, had 22 members elected to parliament. This increase in influence can largely be attributed to al-Hawrani – several old ASP strongholds voted for the Ba'ath Party because of al-Hawrani's presence. By this time Aflaq was losing much of his power to al-Hawrani and his supporters, who were in a majority in the party. proof of this was the decision of the Ba'ath Party to collaborate openly with the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), a move Aflaq opposed. Aflaq was elected the party's Secretary General of the newly established National Command, a title equivalent to 'party leader', by the party's Second National Congress.

When, under the United Arab Republic (UAR), Aflaq was forced by Nasser to dissolve the party, he disbanded the party by himself, instead of convening a congress on the matter. The UAR proved to be disastrous for the Ba'ath Party – the party was sidelined to a great extent by Nasser's government. The Ba'ath movement, which was on the verge in 1958 of becoming the dominant Arab nationalist movement, found itself in disarray after three years of Nasserist rule. Only a handful of Ba'athists were given public office in the UAR's government, al-Hawrani became vice president and al-Bitar became Minister of Culture and Guidance. Several members, mostly young, blamed Aflaq for this situation; it was he who dissolved the party in 1958 without consulting the National Congress. Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid amongst others, eventually established the Military Committee to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession. When the UAR broke up in 1961, some members applauded the dissolution, among them was al-Bitar. The Ba'ath Party captured 20 seats, down from 22, in the 1961 election. In 1962, after four years, Aflaq convened the Fifth Congress in Homs. Al-Hawrani was not invited; cells that had stayed active and defied Aflaq's orders, and Ba'athists who became Nasserists during the period of the UAR, were not invited to the congress. Aflaq was reelected as the National Command's secretary general, and ordered the reestablishment of the Syrian-regional Ba'ath organisation. During the congress, Aflaq and the Military Committee, through Muhammad Umran, made contact for the first time; the committee asked for permission to initiate a coup d'état; Aflaq supported the conspiracy. Following the success of the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi Regional Branch, the Military Committee hastily convened to hatch a coup against Nazim al-Kudsi's presidency. The 8th of March Revolution, a military coup launched in 1963, proved successful, and a Ba'athist government in Syria was established. The plotters' first order was to establish the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), consisting entirely of Ba'athists and Nasserists, and controlled by military personnel rather than civilians from the very beginning.

The beginning: 1963–1964
The relationship between the Ba'athists and the Nasserists was at best, uncomfortable. The Ba'ath Party's rise to power in Iraq and Syria put Nasser, as he put it, "between the hammer and the anvil". The establishment of a union between Iraq and Syria would weaken his credentials as a pan-Arab leader. Nasser started launching bitter propaganda attacks against the party; Aflaq was dismissed as an ineffectual theorist who was mocked as a puppet "Roman emperor" and accused of being a "Cypriot Christian". In several Ba'ath Party meetings, Aflaq responded with pure anger, and became an anti-Nasserist. Because of the position he took, Aflaq had a falling out with al-Bitar who still believed there was a chance to reestablish good ties with Nasser.

The break with Nasser weakened the original leaders of the Ba'ath Party, which in turn gave the Military Committee room to expand. After taking power, the Military Committee looked for theoretical guidance, but instead of going to Aflaq to solve problems (which was usual before), they contacted the party's Marxist faction led by Hammud al-Shufi. At the Syrian Ba'athist Regional Congress, the Military Committee "proved" that it was rebelling equally against Aflaq and the traditional leadership, as against their moderate social and economic policies. The Military Committee was bent on removing Aflaq from a position of power, believing that he had become old and frail. At the Sixth National Congress held in October 1963, Aflaq was barely able to hold on to his post as Secretary General – the Marxist factions led by al-Shufi and Ali Salih al-Sa'di, in Syria and Iraq respectively, were the majority group. Another problem facing Aflaq was that several of his colleagues were not elected to party office, for instance, al-Bitar was not reelected to a seat in the National Command. Instead of the traditional civilian leadership, a new leadership consisting of military officers was gradually growing; Jadid and Amin al-Hafiz from Syria and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Salih Mahdi Ammash from Iraq were elected to the National Command. While the Military Committee was in fact taking control over the Ba'ath Party from the civilian leadership, they were sensitive to such criticism, and stated, in an ideological pamphlet, that civilian-military symbiosis was of major importance, if socialist reconstruction was to be achieved. To the outside world, Aflaq seemed to be in charge. As the Tunisian newspaper  put it; "The philosopher who made two coups [Iraqi and Syrian coups] in a month".

The Ba'ath movement was not running as smoothly as the rest of the world believed; the Iraqi Regional Branch was already starting to lose membership. The Iraqi military and the party's militant arm, the National Guard, detested each other. Al-Sadi, the Regional Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Branch, was eventually exiled to Madrid, Spain on 11 November by several military officers and moderate Ba'athists. An anxious Aflaq hastily traveled from Syria and dissolved the Regional Command of the Iraqi Regional Branch, exclaiming that the National Command would rule Iraq in its place until a new Regional Command was elected. This was not greeted warmly by the majority of Iraqi military officers and Ba'athists – the idea that a Christian was to rule over a Muslim country was considered "insensitive".

The situation in Iraq did not improve, Abdul Salam Arif, the President of Iraq and a Nasserist, plotted a coup against the Ba'ath Party on 18 November, which succeeded. The dream of cornering Nasser's pan-Arab project was over; instead, it was Nasser and the Nasserists who were cornering the Ba'ath movement. On hearing the news, Aflaq and several Ba'athists fled Iraq for Syria.

The schism: 1964–1965
After a falling out with the Military Committee, of which he was a member, Muhammad Umran told Aflaq about the committee's secret plans to oust the civilian leadership, led by Aflaq, and take over the Ba'ath Party. Shortly after, Umran was sent into exile as Ambassador to Spain for supporting the Aflaq faction. Aflaq responded to the threat posed to his leadership by invoking his office as secretary general, and calling for the National Command to dissolve the Regional Command. He was forced to withdraw his request, when the majority of Ba'ath Party members proved to oppose such a move. A contest for power, between Aflaq and the Military Committee, ensued in the open; but it was a struggle Aflaq was losing. It was plain from the very beginning that the initiative lay with the anti-Aflaq forces. To counter the military threat, Aflaq invoked party rules and regulations against them. To counter this, the Military Committee befriended a staunchly anti-Aflaq civilian faction calling themselves the "Regionalists" – this group had not dissolved their party organisations as ordered by Aflaq in the 1950s.

The Regional Congress of the Syrian Regional Branch, in March 1965, devolved power from the center, the National Command, to the Regional Command. From then on, the Regional Secretary of the Regional Command was considered Syria's ex officio head of state. The Regional Secretary had the power to appoint the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the chief of staff and top military commanders. Aflaq was unsettled by the way things were moving, and in May he convened the Eighth National Congress to get a showdown between his followers and those of the Military Committee. However, this never came to fruition. Several civilian members of the National Command, such as the Lebanese Jibran Majdalani and the Saudi Ali Ghannam, advised caution, believing that if he pressed the Military Committee too hard the military would take over the Syrian Regional Branch, and then the Ba'ath Party—as had happened in Iraq following the ousting of the Iraqi Regional Branch. Because of their concerns, Aflaq kept quiet. But to his astonishment, keeping quiet caused him to lose his post as Secretary General – Aflaq was succeeded as Secretary General of the National Command by Munif al-Razzaz, a Jordanian of Syrian origin. However, the power between the two camps was unexpectedly reshuffled when Amin al-Hafiz defected to Aflaq's camp. In contrast to other military officers al-Hafiz had very little influence within or outside the party. Al-Hafiz's defection led to a resurgence of activity within Aflaq's faction, al-Bitar and Umran were brought back from Spain to form a new government.

Downfall: 1966–1968
Al-Razzaz, Aflaq's successor as secretary general, came from the pro-Aflaq faction. With the defection of al-Hafez, he ordered that the National Command was the de jure ruling body of the Ba'ath Party. He appointed al-Bitar Prime Minister, Umran defence minister, Mansur al-Atrash as Chairman of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command and al-Hafiz retained his post as President of Syria. Salah Jadid, the Military Committee's strongman, responded by arresting several Umran supporters. Umran responded by dismissing a handful of pro-Jadid officials. The most important of these dismissals was the removal of Ahmad Suwaydani from the post of head of the country's military intelligence to head of the Officer Administration. On 23 February a coup d'état led by Jadid and Hafez al-Assad overthrew the Syrian Government and the Ba'ath Party leadership. Aflaq was exiled from Syria, and ordered never to return to his homeland. Members of the party's other factions fled; Aflaq was captured and detained, along with other pro-Aflaq supporters, in a government guest house. When the new rulers launched a purge in August that year, Aflaq managed to make his escape, with the help of Nasim Al Safarjalani and Malek Bashour, both closely trusted friends and colleagues, and hence was able to flee to Beirut, Lebanon, and later to Brazil.

Aflaq's downfall caused a split within the Ba'ath Party; the party was de facto dissolved and two Ba'ath Parties were established, one Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party and one Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. The Syrian-led party was led by Jadid and his supporters and hailed Zaki al-Arsuzi, the founder of the Arab Ba'ath in 1940, as the father of Ba'athist thought, while the Iraqi-led party led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, still proclaimed Aflaq to be the founder of Ba'athist thought. In February 1966 at the Ninth National Congress, held after the coup which ousted the pro-Aflaq faction, the Iraqi delegation split with the Syrian Ba'athists. The Iraqis held the true Ninth National Congress in February 1968 in Beirut, and elected Aflaq as Secretary General of the National Command. Aflaq's election to the secretary generalship also proved to be his final break with al-Bitar; before the congress convened al-Bitar announced that he had left the Ba'ath Party and given up on the Ba'athist movement as a whole.

Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party: 1968–1989

Aflaq moved to Baghdad following his reelection to the secretary generalship in February 1968. He stayed there until 1970, when Black September happened, he criticized the Ba'ath leadership for doing too little to help the Palestine Liberation Organisation during the conflict. During the conflict, Aflaq lobbied extensively for Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Aflaq wanted Iraqi intervention; al-Bakr, however, refused to get Iraq involved in such a conflict. Because of this, Aflaq returned to Lebanon in self-imposed exile. The government of Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria, condemned Aflaq to death in absentia in 1971.

Later life and death
After four years of self-imposed exile Aflaq returned to Iraq in 1974, a year before the Lebanese Civil War broke out. He refrained from taking part in Iraqi politics. He published several works during this period, the most notable being The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution in 1975. Aflaq regained some of his influence when he befriended Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian leadership accused Hussein of being under the control of a Christian, and Aflaq himself was labelled "a Christian infidel". Effectively, throughout his tenure as secretary general in Iraq, Aflaq was given all due honour as the founder of the Ba'ath movement, but on policy-making, he was ignored.

Aflaq died on 23 June 1989 in Paris, after undergoing heart surgery there.

Alleged conversion to Islam
Saddam Hussein claimed that Aflaq converted to Islam before his death. According to anonymous Western diplomats, Aflaq's own family disagreed with that claim, however Aflaq's son, Iyad, confirmed that his father thought about conversion in 1980. Upon his disputed conversion, he supposedly adopted "Ahmad" as a first name. According to the German orientalists Martin Robbe and Gerhard Höpp, the conversion happened before 1988. Regardless of the disagreements about his religion, he was given an Islamic funeral. According to the Berkley Center, anonymous members of Aflaq's family claimed that Aflaq's conversion was a lie made up by Saddam Hussein which he used as a tool to distance Ba'athism from Christianity. The tomb constructed on the orders of Hussein was later used as a military barrack by American soldiers after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq for troops stationed within the Green Zone. Aflaq's family reported that the tomb was badly damaged during the invasion.

Funeral
Upon his death in 1989 he was given a state funeral. A large tomb and mausoleum were erected to form a shrine for him. The tomb, widely regarded as a work of great artistic merit, designed by Iraqi architect Chadagee, was located on the western grounds of the Ba'ath Party Pan-Arab Headquarters, at the intersection of Al-Kindi street and the Qādisiyyah Expressway overpass. Although there were rumors and accusations that his tomb was destroyed during the 2003 Iraq War, the burial chamber and building above it were left untouched. Its blue-tiled dome can be seen above the concrete T-walls surrounding the Camp's perimeter.

"Unity, liberty, socialism"
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party slogan "Unity, liberty, socialism" is the key tenet of Aflaq's and Ba'athist thought. Unity meant the unification of the Arab people into one nation, the Arab Nation. The creation of an Arab Nation would have direct implications on Arab development. The establishment of this new state would lead to an Arab Ba'ath (literally meaning "Renaissance"). The Arab nations of his time could only progressively "decline" if not unified; these nations had various ailments – "feudalism, sectarianism, regionalism, intellectual reactionism". The only way to "cure" the Arab nations was, according to Aflaq, through a revolutionary movement. Aflaq was influenced by Marxism in that he saw the need for a vanguard party to rule the Arab Nation for an indefinite period of time (the period would be a transition from the old to the new).

The need for liberty was one of the defining features of Ba'athism, however, liberty not in the sense used by liberal democracies. Aflaq was a strong believer in pluralism of thought, but against pluralism in the form of votes. In theory, the Ba'ath Party would rule, and guide the people, in a transitional period of time without consulting the people because the party knew what was right.

The last tenet, 'socialism', did not mean socialism as it is defined in the West, but rather a unique form of Arab socialism. Aflaq coined the word Arab socialism for his variant of socialism. Socialism, in its original form in the Arab world had, according to Aflaq, first come into being under the rule of Muhammad. The point of Arab socialism was not to answer questions such as: how much state control was necessary, or economic equality; but instead Arab socialism was a system that freed the Arab people from oppression and enslavement, which in turn created independent individuals.

Aflaq opposed Marx's view that dialectical materialism was the only truth, but believed that the "importance of material economic conditions in life" was one of the greatest discoveries in modern history. Even so, Aflaq was critical of both capitalism and communism, and did not want either of the two power blocs to collapse during the Cold War, believing that the Cold War was a sort of check and balance on their power. For more than 2 decades, Michel Aflaq's essay compilation titled "Fi Sabil al-Ba’ath" (trans: "The Road to Renaissance") was the primary ideological book of the Ba'ath party. The work was published by Aflaq in 1940.

Views on religion
Aflaq's advocacy of a national revival conflicted with the problem of reconciling goals of Arab nationalism with the universal Islamic values so engrained in Arab life. His answer was to assert that Islam was the most sublime expression of Arabism: one had out grown out of the other and there is no contradiction between them. Arguing that Islam, from its inception, revealed in Arabic Qur'an, meets Arab needs, embodies Arab values and launched Arabs on their conquest of the known world. The idea of Islam being a culture rather than a faith took special attention from Arab Christians such as Aflaq. These views, however, were highly unorthodox and controversial when aired in lectures at Damascus University. They garnered significant criticism from devout Muslims, who viewed the suggestion that the Arab genius was the flowering of Islam rather than the revelation of God as offensive. Additionally, Christians accused him of selling out and nicknamed him 'Muhammed 'Aflaq'.

Being influenced by a mixture of radical Hobbesian and Marxist ideas, Michel Aflaq viewed religion as the "opiate of the masses", which subverted efforts for the advancement of a socialist revolution. In 1956, Aflaq asserted that religion was a tool used by the elites of the traditional social order to maintain a corrupt system which facilitated the oppression and exploitation of the weaker classes of the society. He also claimed that religion was regularly exploited by oppressive elites to sedate the people and prevent the outbreak of mass revolutions against the prevailing socio-political order. Aflaq wrote in his collection of essays titled "Fi Sabil al-Ba’ath" (trans. "The Road to Renaissance"): "'... the oppressed who see religion in this era a weapon that the oppressors rely upon ... those who exploit the corrupt situation exploit this corruption because it drugs the people and because it prevents the people from a revolution against its oppressors and its enslavers.'"

What Aflaq saw in Islam was a revolutionary movement. In contrast to other nationalities, the Arab awakening and expansion was attributed to a religious message. Because of this, Aflaq believed that the Arabs' spirituality was directly linked to Islam, therefore, one could never take Islam out of the equation of what is essentially, and essentially is not, Arab. Arab nationalism, just as Islam had been during the lifetime of Muhammad, was a spiritual revolutionary movement, leading the Arabs towards a new renaissance: Arab nationalism was the second revolution to appear in the Arab world. All Arab religious communities should, according to Aflaq, respect and worship the spirituality of Islam, even if they did not worship Islam in a religious sense – Aflaq was a Christian who worshipped Islam.Aflaq did not believe it was necessary to worship Muhammad, but believed that all Arabs should strive to emulate Muhammad. In the words of Aflaq himself, Arabs "belong to the nation that gave birth to a Muhammad; or rather, because this Arab individual is a member of the community which Muhammad put all his efforts into creating […] Muhammad was all the Arabs; let us today make all the Arabs Muhammad." The Muslim of Muhammad's days were, according to Aflaq, synonymous with Arabs – the Arabs were the only ones to preach the message of Islam during Muhammad's lifetime. In contrast to Jesus, who was a religious leader, but not a political leader, Muhammad was both – the first leader of Islam and of the Arab world. Therefore, secularisation could not take the same shape in the Arab world as it did in the West.

Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating the Arab character. But his view on Islam was purely spiritual, and Aflaq emphasised that Islam "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again Aflaq emphasised that the Ba'ath party was against atheism, but also equally against fundamentalism. For him, any fundamentalism represented a "shallow, false faith." According to Ba'athist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter of secular government, and stated that a Ba'athist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation – Arab nationalism, and a moral – freedom."

Reception and legacy
Fouad Ajami criticised Aflaq for a lack of real substance, stating, "Nearly three hundred pages of text yield no insight, on his part, into what went wrong and what needed to be done; there is only the visible infatuation with words", and "Aflaq summons the party to renounce power and go back to its 'pure essence'. There is some truth in this critique." Aflaq spent much time and energy writing optimistically about the future, and the past, of the Arab Nation, and how the Arab World could be unified. As Kanan Makiya, the author of Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, notes: for "Aflaq, reality is confined to the inner world of the party." In contrast to other philosophers, such as Karl Marx or John Locke, Aflaq's ideological view of the world makes no clear stand on the materialistic or socioeconomic behavior of humanity. While other philosophers make distinctions between what is real and what is not real, that is between prescriptive and descriptive analysis, Aflaq did not as a rule define what is and what ought to be. In his thought, both are molded into the same category: that which is attainable.

In contrast to his longtime friend and colleague Salah al-Din al-Bitar, who was more practical when it came to politics, Aflaq was a "visionary, the dreamer rather unfitted for political life". Aflaq was described by his associates as an "ascetic, shy and intense figure living a simple and unpretentious life." He has been accused of seeking help from other people instead of fulfilling his goal by himself or with others he led; Aflaq collaborated with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abdul Rahman Arif in 1958, to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Ali Salih al-Sadi in 1963 and finally in the 1970s to Saddam Hussein. There are several Ba'athists, mostly from the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, who believe Aflaq stole Ba'athist ideology from its original founder, Zaki al-Arsuzi. These individuals have denounced, and labelled, Aflaq as a "thief".

In his writings, Aflaq had been stridently in favor of free speech and other human rights and aid for the lower classes. During the Military Committee's gradual takeover of power in Syria, Aflaq rallied against what he saw as the establishment of a military dictatorship, instead of the democracy for which Aflaq had planned. These ideals were never realized by the governments that used his ideology. Most scholars see the Assad government in Syria and Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq to have only employed Aflaq's ideology as a pretense for dictatorship.

Selected works

 * في سبيل البعث  (English: On the Way of Resurrection, published 1947)
 * اتحاد سوريا و مصر (English: Unity Between Syria and Egypt, published 1958)
 * معركة المصير الوحيد (English: The Battle for One Destiny, published 1958)
 * نقطة البداية (English: The Starting Point, published 1971)
 * البعث و الوحدة (English: The Ba'ath and Arab Unity, published 1972)
 * البعث و الاشتراكية (English: The Ba'ath and Socialism, published 1973)
 * النضال ضد تشويه حركة الثورة العربية (English: The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution, published 1975)

title: Michel Aflaq


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User:Ddama

=Current Status=

Never enough time... only in anti-vandalism mode these days.

About Me
Short version: I have lived in New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. I have worked for NASA and the United States Air Force. I majored in Roman and Byzantine history, with a focus on religion and economics, went to work in the software industry, and then obtained a law degree. I am proud to be part of the American space industry.

Guillaume Postel
Although I've done some pretty heavy rewriting of Wikipedia articles, this one that I wrote on 4/4/04 was the first that I wrote from scratch!

title: User:Ddama


text:
Magna International

Magna International Inc. is a Canadian parts manufacturer for automakers. It is one of the largest companies in Canada and was recognized on the 2020 Forbes Global 2000. The company is the largest automobile parts manufacturer in North America by sales of original equipment parts; it has ranked consistently in the Fortune Global 500 list for 20 years in a row since 2001. It produces automotive systems, assemblies, modules, and components, which are supplied to General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, as well as BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, and Tata Motors, among others.

The company is headquartered in Aurora, Ontario, and its chief executive officer is Swamy Kotagiri. It has 158,000 employees in 342 manufacturing operations and 91 product development, engineering and sales centres in 27 countries. Magna is governed under a corporate constitution which calls for distribution of profits to employees and shareholders. The terms of this contract are a "fair enterprise system" according to company founder Frank Stronach.

History
In 1957, Frank Stronach founded Multimatic Investments Ltd in a tool-and-die rented garage out of Toronto. Its first automotive industry contract for metal sun visor brackets was with General Motors in 1959.

By the late 1960s, the company was operating in eight plants. Stronach took Multimatic Investments public in 1969 through a merger with Magna Electronics Corporation, an aerospace, defence and industrial components company, and became known as Magna International in 1973.

The company developed an employee equity participation and profit-sharing program in 1974. By 1981, Magna had sold its aerospace and defence operations to focus on the automotive industry. It began decentralizing major systems into independent, publicly traded companies during the 1990s, while expanding into Asia.

Magna began designing automotive rearview cameras for Hummers in 2005 on its production line in Michigan, US, which were not a federal requirement at the time. It was one of the first to develop rearview cameras for automakers, and had a 350,000 unit contract by 2007. The company has produced more than 46 million components and opened a $66.5 million plant to produce cameras and driver-assistance components.

In February 2015, Samsung SDI agreed to purchase the battery pack business from Magna Steyr, an Austrian operating unit of Magna International, for $120 million. Magna International partnered with Argus Cyber Security after joining in a 2015 Series B funding round to access the company's security technology. The company sold its interiors business, which includes door and instrument panels, overhead systems and cargo management parts, to Grupo Antolin in August 2015. The sale to Grupo Antolin included 36 plants and 12,000 employees in Europe, North America and Asia, about 10 percent of the Magna's global workforce at the time. The operations generated sales of $2.4 billion in 2014.

In March 2018, Magna announced they will work together with the ride-share company Lyft to supply high-tech kits that turn vehicles into self-driving cars. The company invested $200 million into the project and both parties will jointly own the intellectual property developed. It was also noted that Magna will be Lyft's exclusive supplier of self-driving kits. Magna announced a partnership with BAIC Group in June 2018 to develop "next-generation" smart electric vehicles for Chinese consumers. Walker retired as CEO at the end of 2020, with Swamy Kotagiri replacing him in January 2021.

In February 2021, the office of the governor of the state of Michigan announced that Magna plans to open a facility in the city of St. Clair to build battery enclosures for the 2022 GMC Hummer electric pickup. The battery enclosures will be produced at General Motors' facility in Detroit and Hamtramck. The new facility is expected to cost $70 million and to create over 300 jobs for the state. An electric version of the Ineos Grenadier off-road utility vehicle is to be developed by Ineos and Magna, scheduled to enter production in Graz, Austria in 2026.

Corporate affairs
Magna International Inc. (full name as certified under the Ontario Business Corporations Act) is headquartered in Aurora, Ontario, and has 342 manufacturing operations and 91 product development, engineering and sales centres in 27 countries. Its United States operations are headed out of Troy, Michigan with its European head office in Vienna, Austria. Donald J. Walker was its chief executive officer and was working with Magna since 1987 until 2021.

Magna is governed under a corporate constitution, and requires consensus from management, shareholders and employees to make any changes. The company shares 10 percent of pretax profits with its employees. As of 2019, the company has 158,000 employees.

Acquisitions
In 2002, Magna International announced that it had reached an agreement with DaimlerChrysler to acquire its Austrian-based Eurostar Automobilwerk operation.

Magna acquired 80% of New Venture Gear, once a joint venture between General Motors and Chrysler, in September 2004, and combined it into Magna Powertrain. It assumed full ownership in 2007, closing the operation in August 2012.

In October 2004, Magna announced its intention to unwind the legacy public offerings it had made of three divisions that it spun off as standalone companies in past years: Tesma International Inc. (initial public offering (IPO) in 1995), Decoma International Inc. (IPO in 1997) and Intier Automotive Inc. (IPO in 2001). Magna made offers to the boards of the three companies, with an expected total cost to Magna of CA$1.3billion (equivalent to $billion in ) in cash and Magna shares, to privatize the companies within Magna International. The three privatizations were completed in February (Tesma and Decoma) and April (Intier) of 2005.

Magna purchased CTS Fahrzeug-Dachsysteme, a supplier of convertible roofs, from Porsche in November 2005.

In July 2015, Magna bought the German company Getrag, which was one of the largest suppliers of automotive transmissions worldwide for $1.9 billion. The acquisition worked to increase growth potential in the Chinese market.

In 2018, the company acquired Haptronik GmbH, a German motion control software developer, OLSA S.p.A., an Italian automotive lighting manufacturer, and Viza Geca SL, a Spanish automotive seating company. It partnered with Innoviz Technologies to produce solid-state lidar for autonomous vehicles for BMW Group.

Magna acquired Boston startup Optimus Ride and its >120 employees in January 2022.

In December 2022, it was announced Magna has acquired the Stockholm-headquartered Veoneer Active Safety business from SSW Partners for US$1.52 billion.

Groups
, Magna International consists of seven groups, which hold further corporate subsidiaries and subdivisions:
 * Cosma
 * Magna Electronics
 * Magna Powertrain
 * Magna Exteriors
 * Magna Seating
 * Magna Steyr
 * Mechatronics, Mirrors & Lighting

Technology
During its history, Magna International has worked with automakers to advance vehicle safety and technology such as smart mobility seating systems including stow-into-floor minivan seats, exterior systems including reaction injection moulding (RIM) bumpers, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), blind-spot detection and lane departure warning systems. The company is the largest automobile parts supplier in North America and the third largest worldwide.

It uses mobility technology to develop customized computing for fully automated driving systems. In 2018, it introduced an Icon radar system to help automakers reach Level 5 autonomy as well as automatic emergency braking systems. Magna has partnered with BMW on electrification to produce electric cars on a contract basis. The company is also known for using new materials for "lightweighting" vehicles. In 2017 Goldman Sachs has reported that automated features developed by suppliers such as Magna will produce a 42 percent compound annual growth rate in global revenue over the next decade.

title: Magna International


text:
Arthur Sauvé

Arthur Sauvé, (October 1, 1874 – February 6, 1944) was born in Saint-Hermas (today part of Mirabel, Quebec).

The Legislative Assembly of Quebec member for Deux-Montagnes from 1908 to 1930, he was leader of the Quebec Conservative Party but never premier. He was the father of future premier Paul Sauvé.

In 1930 he moved to federal politics and became Postmaster General in the Cabinet of Richard Bennett until 1935. In 1935 he was appointed to the Senate.

He was also the mayor of the municipality of Saint-Benoît from 1906 to 1923.

Elections as party leader
Quebec: He lost the 1919 election, 1923 election, and 1927 election.

title: Arthur Sauvé


text:
User:Cjensen

Colin Jensen (mailto:cjensen@acm.org).

title: User:Cjensen


text:
Stony Brook Southampton

Stony Brook Southampton is a campus location of Stony Brook University, located in Southampton, New York between the Shinnecock Indian Reservation and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on the eastern end of Long Island.

Southampton College, Long Island University
Southampton College was founded in 1963 by Long Island University (LIU). It had its own station on the Long Island Rail Road until 1998 when the station was dismantled because it was lightly used.

From 1993, Robert F.X. Sillerman served as the Chancellor, replacing Angier Biddle Duke, ambassador to Spain under Lyndon Johnson. Sillerman took the job on two conditions: that the college scrap ill-defined liberal-arts programs and focus on marine science and creative writing, and that he lead publicity. He named Kermit the Frog as the 1996 commencement speaker: 31 newspapers picked up the story, creating a free marketing bonanza that raised the college's profile and drew hundreds of new admissions.

Refocusing on the marine science curriculum garnered the campus several accolades, including being named in 1998 as the Cousteau Society's sole North American Affiliate. In the course of the campus' tenure under Long Island University, it produced 34 Fulbright scholars, most of which hailed from the marine science program.

After many years of fiscal mismanagement, the University announced a multimillion-dollar capital campaign, launched a new interdisciplinary CORE curriculum and the construction of a new library to re-vamp the campus. After one year of a 10-year plan however, Long Island University officials ceased all plans, and Long Island University decided to effectively close the campus. This forced most students to either move to the University's Nassau County location, C.W. Post Campus or transfer elsewhere.

Although protests and advocacy, including a rally by the non-profit Save The College at Southampton and the student-led organization The Orphans of L.I.U., made numerous headlines with their actions, Undergraduate Programs ceased, and all but a few campus buildings were shuttered by the end of Summer 2005.

When Long Island University announced its plans to close the campus, in 2005 the Shinnecock Indian Nation filed a suit seeking return of 3500 acre including both the campus and the golf club. There were local concerns that either the land would be taken over by the Shinnecocks for a casino, or that the land would be used for a housing development in the Hamptons.

The undergraduate Marine Biology Department was moved to the control of Stony Brook University in Summer 2005, and from Fall 2005, the State University of New York (SUNY) began offering an undergraduate marine sciences program, with teaching and research facilities at the campus leased from LIU.

Stony Brook Southampton

On March 24, 2006, SUNY announced a final agreement for the purchase of the 81 acre Southampton College property from LIU. SUNY paid US $35 million for the 84 acre campus and its waterfront facility for its famed Marine Biology Department, as well as the NPR-affiliated WLIU FM 88.3 radio station. In the agreement to take over WLIU, it states that the station is to continue its LIU affiliation and move from its broadcasting studios in Chancellors Hall by April 2010 to another location on Hill Street in Southampton. The station has an agreement to have its broadcast tower on the campus through 2024. The Mill Hill I windmill (1814) was moved here in 1890 from Mill Hill at Windmill Lane and Hill Street in Southampton. The Shinnecocks claim the land from Mill Hill to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club as land ceded them by treaty.

In 1957 the playwright Tennessee Williams rented the 3-story windmill cottage and while there wrote "The Day on Which a Man Dies", a fictional play loosely based on his friend Jackson Pollock. The play languished after completion in 1960 in the college archives and was sold by Williams in 1970 to the University of California, Los Angeles. A new version re-written by the playwright in 1972 was performed in 2001; the first performance of the original in 2009 was presented by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center at the Ross School in East Hampton.

Under Stony Brook University's new ownership and starting with a class of 200 in August 2007, the campus featured an innovative curriculum devoted to issues of sustainability and the environment. Southampton’s interdisciplinary academic programs focused on issues of ecological sustainability, with undergraduate majors in environmental studies; marine sciences; marine vertebrate biology; ecosystems and human impact; environmental design, policy and planning; and sustainability studies. A minor in business management with a focus on environmental sustainability was also offered through Stony Brook University's College of Business, and a five-year fast-track BA/BS-MBA program was also offered in partnership with the College of Business.

By the Fall 2010 semester, 800 students were registered. However, in April 2010, Stony Brook University President Samuel Stanley announced his decision to shut down the branch due to major state budget cuts and the need for better targeting of funds. The academic programs and students were relocated to the main campus. The undergraduate population staged letter campaigns to raise community awareness and protest the decision. Stanley came to the Southampton campus shortly after the decision to meet with the student body.

Six undergraduate students and a non-profit community group filed a lawsuit in NY State Supreme Court to block the closure of the college. The lawsuit was filed against Stony Brook and Stanley, claiming the decision to close the campus was procedurally illegal. On August 30, 2010, the court ruled that the university violated regulations and improperly closed the campus. The students won the lawsuit, but unable to contest financially due to the costs associated with instigating further litigation, agreed to a small settlement. They were permitted to complete their studies on campus, but not live there. Stanley visited each student's home to personally apologize.

As of 2015, the Stony Brook Southampton campus has grown and even prospered. Programs have been added back and the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York approved a long-awaited partnership agreement between Southampton and Stony Brook University hospitals that will ultimately result in a new Southampton Hospital on the Shinnecock Hills campus, a move that likely will bring the most activity those grounds have ever seen.

Arts program
The Stony Brook Southampton Campus is currently home to the Graduate Arts Program, which offers three graduate programs, undergraduate and graduate marine sciences, and health professions programs. All of the programs at Southampton Arts are defined broadly to foster exploration of artistic expression in fields outside traditional program borders and to promote collaboration between disciplines in the creation of original work.

Interdisciplinary study, small class size, and one-on-one advising form the foundation of the Southampton Arts experience, where close student-faculty relationships are a priority. Students are offered practice in teaching, publishing or arts administration to further their real-world knowledge in the industry and also to gain admission to the Southampton Summer Arts Conferences. There are approximately 310 students currently enrolled.

Faculty includes Julie Sheehan (Creative Writing MFA Director), Christine Vachon (Film MFA Director), Robert Reeves (author), Roger Rosenblatt, Lou Ann Walker (author), Melissa Bank, Star Black (poet), Annette Handley Chandler, Billy Collins, Jules Feiffer, Neal Gabler, Emma Walton Hamilton, Ursula Hegi, Matthew Klam, Daniel Menaker, Susan Merrell (author), and Marsha Norman.

Manhattan Track
Students accepted into the program may earn an MFA degree by combining coursework at the Manhattan facility during fall and spring terms, and at the Southampton campus during summer by participating in the prestigious Southampton Writers Conferences and International Theatre Workshops. The Manhattan track is for talented writers seeking advanced training in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essay, memoir, directing, playwriting, screenwriting, and acting.

Southampton Writing Conference
Stony Brook Southampton also hosts the prestigious Summer Writing Conferences, which attracts renowned authors from around the world to teach and participate in creative writing workshops, which take place in two sessions throughout July. Remaining hours are devoted to lectures, readings, performances workshops, and panel discussions featuring faculty members and distinguished visiting authors, editors, publishers, and agents. Participants also enjoy a myriad of formal and informal social gatherings—author receptions, an open-mic night, breakfasts, lunches and dinners under the tents, and an issue launch of The Southampton Review.

Semester by the Sea: Southampton Arts
Students at Stony Brook have the option to enroll in a 10-week intensive at the Southampton campus for 15 credits. The Semester by the Sea program is arranged around the objective to complete a creative project. The 15-credit load entails five courses, including two writing workshops, two literature courses, and a final project in filmmaking, theater, fiction or poetry. Workshops are limited to groups of 12. During final project, students get individualized attention, with a mentor/advisor to guide them.

Young Artists and Writers Project
The Young Artists and Writers Project (or YAWP, formerly the Young American Writers Project) created by Stony Brook Southampton's MFA in Creative Writing and Literature Program, is dedicated to mentoring middle and high school students in the development of creative expression and critical thinking through writing. The YAWP curriculum sends professional writers and writing teachers into Long Island schools with a variety of innovative, inter-disciplinary writing workshops, including playwriting, screenwriting, poetry, personal essay, fiction, and visual arts. YAWP programs are offered throughout the school year and can be custom designed to fit the needs of an individual school. They can be offered in "push-in" format, as enrichment to creative writing, English, theatre or other academic classes, as extra-curricular programs or in retreat format. YAWP programs can be particularly effective for at-risk students, or for those who find writing and communications skills challenging in the traditional academic environment.

School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
The SUNY School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) also operates on the Southampton campus. The primary focus of the SoMAS faculty and students is on fundamental research designed to increase understanding of the processes that characterize the coastal ocean and the atmosphere. The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences is also committed to researching solutions to problems that result from society's interactions with the environment. The Southampton location allows access to a variety of environments for research ranging from the open ocean to the waters of the largest metropolitan area in the United States, as well as the resources at the nearby National Weather Service, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Notable alumni

 * Kent Washington (born 1956), basketball player

title: Stony Brook Southampton


text:
User:Sunny256

da:Bruger:Sunny256 de:Benutzer:Sunny256 fr:Utilisateur:Sunny256 nl:Gebruiker:Sunny256 no:Bruker:Sunny256 ru:Участник:Sunny256 sv:Användare:Sunny256 zh:User:Sunny256

title: User:Sunny256


text:
Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 1b

Te Atairangikaahu
Can the wording be updated to reflect that her first son has been chosen as successor? It need not be bumped up in the list of new items. --Kunzite 23:25, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Second that. Tuheitia Paki is the new king. --Jfruh (talk) 15:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Slow, inconsistent updates
I'm unfamiliar with the process or the purpose behind the "In the news" section, but as a front-page viewer, I'd like to point out my consistent disappointment in the articles chosen for it. The news is often not only days late, but also seemingly inconsequential compared to some other stories that might come out. I wonder if someone can suggest a solution to this problem. Thanks, JHMM13 (T | C)  16:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Comair crash
What is the deal with the Comair crash? Not to be insensitive but it has been on the front page for several days - we are talking about an airline crash with 49 people dead. How is this still relevant in the context of global news?... The most newsworthy part of it seems to be the casualties but low compared to e.g. the recent disaster in Russia, or in more general terms issues such as genocide in Sudan, etc. Maybe the section should be changed to "In the news (In the U.S., where we do not need to know what happens in the rest of the world)". US citizens dead? Quick, call the news outlets everyone needs to know! Again and again!
 * No one ever complains about crashes elsewhere. Go away, troll. --Golbez 16:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Not really sure that qualifies as a troll. Surely you can't think the OP's intent was to bait dozens of people who are proud that the Kentucky story has been on the front page for just short of five days now. Yes, anyone can correct that, but in spite of the Be Bold doctrine many readers are reluctant to edit the front page. Perhaps a reminder re WP:BB ought to be placed at the top of the ITN section. --einexile 09:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sup e. And actually, no, only admins can touch the Main Page and its sections. News stories are not removed when they are stale, they are simply scrolled off by newer news. --Golbez 10:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

More updates and more often
Isn't really in the news anymore it was 11 days ago, One day in the news in a lifetime , 11 days is forever. The in the news section seems not to be updated as much as it used to be. It really should be completely updated every day or 2. (Gnevin 00:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC))
 * 1) Russian Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612, carrying 160 passengers and 10 crew members, crashes in Ukraine, leaving no survivors.

 * You are more than welcome to make suggestions. It's just been kind of a slow news week, from my perspective. What do you suggest we add? Please use the candidates page. --Golbez 03:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, we need more updates. Why no mention of Andre Agassi? --Jasonn 22:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

 * If you think something is missing, please mention it on the candidates page. --Golbez 22:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Tony Blair
Shouldn't there be a comma after his title "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom"? Jasonn 06:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This was fixed hours ago. BTW, we usually talk policy on this talkpage. For talk regarding ITN contents, try Template talk:In the news or In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. For minor tweaks like that comma, try WP:ERRORS next time. Service is usually quicker there. -- PFHLai 20:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Content
Can we have more relevant news? This is the english Wikipedia, consisting mostly of America and maybe Britain, yet our news consists of politicians in random countries being elected (or dying) as well as plane crashes and hurricanes.

 * I know, we should never have plane crashes and hurricanes on the news, these things never happen in America It should really only be about George Bush, Paris Hilton, and the latest thing on Big Brother. --Golbez 03:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Western bias?
I'm concious that we may be perpetuating the bias of the western media for stories in western countries. I wonder whether the school shootings in the U.S. warrants "in the news" status. There are mass killings of children in many countries on a regular basis that never make it to our "in the news" section. I'm not sure the shootings have genuine international significance.

What do other people think?

Ben Arnold 09:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm looking through your contributions and I don't see a single suggestion you've made on the candidates page. If you're concerned that there's a lack of certain stories, perhaps you could suggest some? The Wiki helps those that help themselves. Remember that they need articles. --Golbez 14:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm not worried about the volume of suggestions, just that we might be selecting stories for the Main Page that are insignificant in a global context. If you're saying my opinion isn't valid because I'm not contributing to the process, then take this as my contribution. Ben Arnold 11:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm saying we post a lot of things that don't have to do with the west. But generally, unless the story is all over the news, we usually need suggestions to be made, because the few admins that watch ITN and the candidates page cannot be omniscient. If you've noticed any specific stories being ignored, then please mention them - it may help me and others figure out what kind of story is being ignored, and perhaps fix things. In particular - you mentioned "mass killings of children in many countries on a regular basis". Do you know of any with articles? That is a necessary aspect. --Golbez 14:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Kiran Desai
Though after looking into it, I guess this is actually news of some sort, it took me looking beyond Wikipedia to learn this. Nowhere in the headline or articles (where I could find, at least) did I see any mention of the fact that she was the youngest woman to ever win the Man Booker prize. This information should be made more prominent so it's newsworthiness is more obvious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.28.240.229 (talk • contribs) on 10 October 2006
 * Please add encyclopedic information such as this to the article. This is a wiki, after all. - BanyanTree 15:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Cory Lidle crash
So a not-particularly-famous MBL player dies in a light aircraft crash, why is this considered major international news? Modest Genius talk 23:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See Template talk:In the news - BanyanTree 15:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

It's the Yankee's! Afterall, they do win a championship every single year .... on paper.

title: Wikipedia talk:In the news/Archive 1b


text:
Talk:Yao Wenyuan

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Yao Wenyuan. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110709104639/http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543163.htm to http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1543163.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 03:12, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Yaowenyuan2.jpg

title: Talk:Yao Wenyuan


text:
User talk:Sunny256

Welcome to en.Wikipedia
Hi Øyvind! Welcome to en:. - Hephaestos|§ 06:16, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Thank you, Hephaestos. Nice to be here. Wow, what an impressing number of articles in the English section. Amazing project, this wikipedia thing. Most people behave well, too. That is what impresses me the most... :-) -- Sunny256 07:24, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hey, another Norwegian, nice. I took the liberty of putting you on our list (trying hard to 'beat' the Swedes :-) Ten more 'norrbaggar' to go, and gaining...). --Wernher 02:29, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Vær hilset. That's a good thing, thank you. A good idea with a list of Norwegian wikipedians. I see there are some well-known names from the Norwegian wikipedia here. We'll try to keep up with the Swedish gang. -- Sunny256 06:29, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

New user log
Hi, thanks for signing the new user log. Hope you have a good experience here whenever you wander over from the Norwegian Wikipedia. Isomorphic 07:41, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh yes, seems as there's always a party going on here in the English section... :-) Great activity all the time. -- Sunny256 08:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

So, where do I place the answers?
Hmmm, one thing I'm wondering about... What is the correct behaviour — answering on this page, or the talk page of the other user? Answering here will without no doubt pass unnoticed, and answering on the other page will also be kinda misplaced. I'll keep it here to see what happens. -- Sunny256 08:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Some people put it both places. Of course there's an advantage to putting it on the other person's page, that way they get a notifier message. - Hephaestos|§ 18:10, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * A "formula" used by some people in such situations is something like "Hi, I like to keep talk in one place, so feel free to come along to my talk page. ". --Wernher 02:23, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

UTF-8 overlong sequences
Hi,

You put a note in the UTF-8 page back in March to the effect that reducing the UTF-8 range from 6 bytes to 4 bytes gets rid of the problem of overlong sequences. In fact I do not believe this is true, but I'm willing to be enlightened if there's something I'm missing!

For example, E0 8E B1 is an overlong encoding for α (alpha) (correct: CE B1) and it doesn't use any of the new invalid characters. Celada 03:24, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

 * Yes, it seems you are right. I got the impression that this was the case in a discussion on the linux-utf8 mailing list, I don't remember the actual thread.
 * I have removed the section you refer to, and I tried to find the reason why RFC3629 limits the sequence length from six to four bytes, but haven't been able to find anything. I'll add a note about this on the UTF-8 talk page
 * Thanks for finding this incorrect information. -- sunny256 2004-12-06

Inclusion not Deletion
(AIW) can you take a look at Wikipedia "apartheid"? There is a movement to delete a two-word inclusion that is fact and true. It's gotten to the point that everyone is focused on the disputing editors and not the edit itself.

Deletionists are disputing the following statement: "South Africa was settled initially by the Dutch, Germans and French from the 17th century onwards. English, other European settlers, and Diaspora Jews followed in the 19th century." This statement is true, and it therefore should not be deleted.69.217.125.53 15:10, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Apartheid

Thanks!69.217.123.174 19:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * I was also spammed with this, it is not an inclusionist/deletionist issue, it's an edit war.   — PhilHibbs | talk 08:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Self-references
I'm sure your recent edits at Criticism of Wikipedia were well-intentioned, but I think they are wrong. They are links out of the encyclopedia space. If the article is copied elsewhere, we want them to still work correctly. The way you've changed them, they won't. I'm going to use rollback to revert it, because I have a slow connection. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Yes, I thought they were wrong because it was only three links which were written as external URLs. If it’s meant to be placed elsewhere, maybe all the other links also should be written as external? -- Sunny256|✎ 13:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

New tag you might like
Check out ></

Xaosflux 05:40, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal on Notability
Because you're a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians, I'm notifying you that the inclusionist proposa Non-notabilityl is in progress to define the role of notability in articles. Please help us make this successful! Also note the proposal Importance is a deletionist proposla that seeks to officially introduce notabiltiy for the first time. --Ephilei 04:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Creation-evolution controversy
Hi, you recently added a section to this article and I've brought it up for discussion here. While I appreciate the link, and think we can find a way to use it, I've expressed opposition to the section in general. I wanted you to know so you can visit the page and express your thoughts on the subject. Thanks, and happy editing. Doc  Tropics  07:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Thank you for dropping a note about it, I'll check it out. I do agree with your POV, and I'll see if there is some other way we can use it. -- Sunny256|✎ 16:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania 2010 could be coming to Stockholm!
I'm leaving you a note as you may be interested in this opportunity.

People from all six Nordic Wiki-communities (sv, no, nn, fi, da and is) are coordinating a bid for Wikimania 2010 in Stockholm. I'm sending you a message to let you know that this is occurring, and over the next few months we're looking for community support to make sure this happens! See the bid page on meta and if you like such an idea, please sign the "supporters" list at the bottom. Tack (or takk), and have a wonderful day! Mike H. Fierce! 08:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Araby
Really? Not vandalism? Sure smells like it to me... his first edit clearly was vandalism, which was half undone by his second. Why wouldn't his entire first edit then be automatically considered vandalism? ScottJ (talk) 18:53, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * When seeing the words "ejaculate" and "porn stars", that was my first thought, too. But I haven't seen that movie, and reading a bit in the rest of the text, it seemed plausible that the changes were correct. I hate blaming someone for vandalism and it later turns out it wasn't, so I decided to revert my change and note it in the revision history. I suppose the best thing to do is to revert things to as they were prior to the edit. I'll do it now and leave a link in the revision description. -- Sunny256|✎ 20:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hehe, you reverted it a few minutes before I wrote that message. -- Sunny256|✎ 20:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to shut down WP Geographic Coordinates & ban coordinates on wikipedia articles
This means you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Hej Sunny, I noticed you like genealogy, did you see Wikimedia_genealogy_project? Ithink its good if as many as possible give support. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Genealogy project
Hej Sunny, I noticed you like genealogy, did you see Wikimedia_genealogy_project? Ithink its good if as many as possible give support. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:05, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up, Dan Koehl! Seems like an interesting project which could actually work. Have signed up for support. -- Sunny256|✎ 11:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Backtrace listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Backtrace. Since you had some involvement with the Backtrace redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Si Trew (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.6
{| style="position: relative; margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; padding: 0.5em 1em; background-color:Cornsilk; border: 2px solid #bddff2; border-color: rgba( 109, 193, 240, 0.75 ); border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 8px 8px 12px rgba( 0, 0, 0, 0.7 );"
 * Newsletter Nr 6, 2018-12-25, for  WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)

  Participation:

This is the sixth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise.

(To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below)

Now 100 supporters
At 3 December 2018, the list of users who support the potential Wikimedia genealogy project, reached 100!

A demo wiki is up and running!
You can already now try out the demo for a genealogy wiki at https://tools.wmflabs.org/genealogy/wiki/Main_Page and try out the functions. You will find parts of the 18th Pharao dynasty and other records submitted by the 7 first users, and it would be great if you would add some records.

And with those great news we want to wish you a creative New Year 2019!

'''Don't want newsletters? If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page.'''

Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator. To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery
 * }

title: User talk:Sunny256


text:
Shawn Colvin

Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter. While she has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1997 Grammy Award-winning song "Sunny Came Home".

Early life
Colvin was born Shawna Lee Colvin in Vermillion, South Dakota, and spent her youth in Carbondale, Illinois, and London, Ontario, Canada. She is the second of four children. She learned to play guitar at the age of 10 and grew up listening to her father's collection of music, which included artists such as Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio.

Career
Her first paid gig came just after she started college at Southern Illinois University. Colvin performed at local venues in Carbondale and later formed a band. For six months, they expanded their fanbase throughout Illinois. During this time, Colvin struggled with drug and alcohol use. She later formed Dixie Diesels, a country-swing group. Colvin relocated to Austin, Texas, with the group and then entered "the folk circuit in and around Berkeley, California", before straining her vocal cords and taking a sabbatical at the age of 24.

Colvin relocated to New York City, joining the Buddy Miller Band in 1980 and later became involved in the Fast Folk cooperative of Greenwich Village.

While participating in off-Broadway shows such as Pump Boys and Dinettes, she was featured in Fast Folk magazine, and in 1987, producer Steve Addabbo hired her to sing backup vocals on the song "Luka" by Suzanne Vega.

After touring with Vega, Colvin signed a recording contract with Columbia Records and released her debut album Steady On in 1989. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Colvin's second album Fat City was released in 1992 and received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. Her song "I Don't Know Why" was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Pop Vocal category. In 1993, she moved back to Austin and, in 1994, released the album Cover Girl. In 1995, Colvin released her album Live 88 a collection of live recordings from 1988.

In 1996, Colvin released her album A Few Small Repairs and, in 1997, her single "Sunny Came Home" spent four weeks at the number one spot on the Adult Contemporary chart. The song won the 1998 Grammy Awards for both Song and Record of the Year. Colvin released the album Holiday Songs and Lullabies in 1998 and in 2001 released another album called Whole New You. In 2004, she released a compilation of past songs called, Polaroids: A Greatest Hits Collection.

In 2006, Colvin left Columbia Records and released a 15-song album called These Four Walls on her new label, Nonesuch Records, which featured contributions by Patty Griffin and Teddy Thompson. In 2009 she released Live, which was recorded at the jazz club Yoshi's in Oakland, California. Colvin's eighth studio album, All Fall Down, was released in 2012 and was produced by Buddy Miller at his home studio in Nashville, Tennessee. The album featured guest appearances by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Jakob Dylan. Colvin published her memoir Diamond in the Rough in 2012. In 2016, she recorded an album with Steve Earle called Colvin and Earle. A Few Small Repairs was reissued in 2017, including its first pressing on vinyl, for its 20th anniversary.

Colvin has made vocal contributions to songs by James Taylor, Béla Fleck, Edwin McCain, Shawn Mullins, Elliott Murphy and Bruce Hornsby, and collaborated with Sting on the song "One Day She'll Love Me". She recorded as a duet the title track to Curtis Stigers' 1995 album "Time Was". Colvin voiced Rachel Jordan, Ned Flanders' love interest after Maude is killed, in the Simpsons episodes "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily" and "I'm Goin' to Praiseland", and lent her vocals to Mary Chapin Carpenter's 1992 recordings "The Hard Way" and "Come On Come On".

Acting
Colvin has appeared in several films and television shows, including the films Grace of My Heart, Heartbreakers and Crazy as well as television shows The Larry Sanders Show, Suddenly Susan, The Simpsons, Fame L.A., and Baywatch.

Personal life
Colvin has been married twice, first to Simon Tassano in 1993 whom she divorced in 1995, and to photographer Mario Erwin, whom she married in 1997 and divorced in 2002. She gave birth to a daughter in July 1998.

Colvin has taken part in several triathlons.

Colvin says she has struggled on and off with depression, alcoholism, and anxiety. She wrote about these struggles in her 2012 memoir Diamond in the Rough, published by HarperCollins.

Other awards
{| class=wikitable ! Year !! Awards !! Category !! Work !! Result
 * rowspan=2|1997
 * Billboard Music Video Awards
 * FAN.tastic Video
 * rowspan="5"|"Sunny Came Home"
 * Nominated
 * Billboard Music Awards
 * Top Adult Top 40 Track
 * Nominated
 * rowspan=2|1998
 * APRA Music Awards
 * Most Performed Foreign Work
 * Nominated
 * MVPA Awards
 * Best Adult Contemporary Video
 * Won
 * 1999
 * ASCAP Pop Music Awards
 * Most Performed Song
 * Won
 * 2001
 * Video Premiere Awards
 * Best Original Song
 * "Great Big World"
 * Nominated
 * 2016
 * Americana Music Honors & Awards
 * Americana Trailblazer Award
 * Herself
 * Won
 * Nominated
 * 2016
 * Americana Music Honors & Awards
 * Americana Trailblazer Award
 * Herself
 * Won
 * Won

Albums

 * Steady On (1989)
 * Fat City (1992)
 * Cover Girl (1994)
 * A Few Small Repairs (1996)
 * Holiday Songs and Lullabies (1998)
 * Whole New You (2001)
 * These Four Walls (2006)
 * All Fall Down (2012)
 * Uncovered (2015)
 * Colvin & Earle (2016, with Steve Earle)
 * The Starlighter (2018)
 * Steady On: 30th Anniversary Acoustic Edition (2019)

Compilation albums

 * Polaroids: A Greatest Hits Collection (2004)
 * The Best of Shawn Colvin (2010)
 * Playlist: The Very Best of Shawn Colvin (2012)

Live albums

 * Live '88 (1995)
 * Live (2009)
 * Live from These Four Walls: My Favorite Movie Songs (2021)
 * Lockdown: Live from Arlyn Studios (2021)

DVDs

 * Music in High Places – Live in Bora Bora (2002)
 * Polaroids: A Video Collection (2004)

title: Shawn Colvin