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User talk:Doug Danner

Hi Doug. I hope you like the place and choose to stay.

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Please put source material such as UN security council resolutions at Wikisource, at. There is already a substantial number of the resolutions at the site. If you want to write about the resolutions, please do so, but link to thes ource material at Wikisource.

Thanks Dysprosia 04:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

1373 is an anti-terrorism resolution which bans material support for terrorist organizations. Hizbullah is already on the terrorist list of US, UK, Canada, and Australia, and if not for European Union internal politics would be there as well. I mention that 1373 has been argued as a framework for which to posit Lebanon's violation of other resolutions. Otherwise, Mustafaa is a blatant propagandist, and I therefore feel little need to discuss politics with him.

Further, Hizbullah is active in arming and training (material support) of Hamas terrorists. Hamas is on the terrorist list of not only US, UK, Canada and Australia, but also the EU and Russia. UNSCR 1373 prohibits material support for terrorist organizations, and as such Hizbullah is in further breach of 1373. Again, by not extending law and order to south Lebanon, and not disbanding Hizbullah, Lebanon is also in breach of 1373, and many other resolutions, including 425.

Specifically, the UN has adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for Syria to withdraw, cease interfering with Labanese politics and the dismatnling of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias in the country. That'll be hard to misread, huh Mustafaa?

Leon Pinsker
Hi, I've merged your text with an article I was drafting. There were a few details I didn't want to lose, like Judeophobia. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 10:11, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the addition. Now we need to add a Hibat Zion/Hovevi Zion entry. Doug

See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":
See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":

Categories_for_deletion and Categories_for_deletion and Categories_for_deletion and Categories_for_deletion and Categories_for_deletion and this one too: Categories_for_deletion

IZAK 10:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Opinion for IZAK
Please see Requests for arbitration/IZAK/Evidence. Thank you. IZAK 07:16, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

History of Lebanon article
You might be interested in the recent edits to the History of Lebanon article (see history), and the Talk: page. The current anonymous author seems to be relying almost exclusively on Chomsky. Jayjg (talk) 02:40, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey Doug - I've left some responses on the "discussion" page of History of Lebanon. For the moment I haven't made any changes, which I explain there. Hope to hear from you. sneaky 08:50, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * I just did. After setting yourself up with a user account, Josh, how about you get a user page so that I can actually discuss edits with you there?

Hi Doug. You've done great work on the article, thanks for taking care of it. It's kind of funny how these ideologues come in with their Chomsky-influenced POV and assume that their edits are all neutral, while everyone else is a pro-Zionist bigot. Anyway, thanks again. Jayjg (talk) 19:47, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Doug: Thanks for explaining your edits, which I generally agreed with. I can't respond to your comments today, but I plan to soon. It appears that I do have a talk page - i.e., when I click on "my talk", a page pops up that displays some welcoming comments from Jayjg and room for others - but I'm not very familiar with the Wikipedia software, so it's quite possible I don't know what I'm talking about. If in fact I don't have a talk page, could you tell me how to set one up? I was thinking of responding to the tangential Arab-Israeli conflict points here on your talk page, perhaps tomorrow. If you'd rather I use my page or some other location, just let me know. sneaky 09:23, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Arab-Israeli conflict
'''Woa. I just started contributing a little bit to the Lebanon related topics, when I peeked in my user page. I forgot about this long winded rant. I'm still flooded with work so I doubt I'll be doing much wikipedia work. For sure I have no mental energy to go through the tedium of answering all the pro chomsky babble on this page. Given some luck I'll be in a position to blab more and work less soon enough :) . Anyway, I'll keep the following rant around for later revision.  Right now this has been a good year.  Syria, Iran and Hezbollah under mountain domestic and international pressure.  Hezbollah making absurd  mistakes trying to reignite the border with Israel while Israel is making good use of diplomacy and good tactics to smack them around.  Chomskyites having to watch their little pet terrorists eat shit diplomatically and militarily.  Sweet.'''

Doug, here are some comments on your recent additions to the History of Lebanon discussion under the heading "Feb 26 2005 round of edits".

(1) You wrote: "Don't patronize me on [not] having a stated position on the conflict. You're clearly anti-Israeli, though similar to Mustafaa you use the deceipt of 'I don't see myself as anti-people'. Whatever. Using Chomsky who is a propaganda mill par exelance is a clear indication of your bias and is similarly highly problematic for a Wikipedia editor dedicated to ensuring NPOV in Mideast entries....Chomsky and Pat Buchanan can agree at least on a few things. Both are anti-Israeli, and both have a paranoid dellusion of Jewish/Zionist control of the US/World."

First, a few words about my "stated position", which I described in this way: "I just tend to view people as people, with motives that are understandable from their particular perspectives, and I think that's the essence of NPOV." That is, I actually do have a stated position: I approach historical questions by trying to understand the perspectives of the major actors. For example, I have read three books specifically about the Arab-Israeli conflict: the Smith book, which I read first, and then Dershowitz's A Case For Israel and Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, back-to-back, using Smith to check facts and data. You may quibble with my choices, but I think my strategy was sound: first read a standard survey of the topic, and then read one reputedly biased account from each side of the spectrum. I did not approach the readings, then as now, as a Zionist or Palestinian sympathizer: in fact, I knew next to nothing about the conflict until I started reading Smith, and that was in college a few years ago. My personal view is that the actions of each major player in the conflict have generally been rational or at least comprehensible from that player's perspective, and to be honest, I am not interested to go further than that and delve into normative questions (nor, to state the obvious, is Wikipedia an appropriate forum in which to do so).

I do, however, bristle at self-serving omissions or distortions of basic facts about the conflict, e.g., staunch Israeli rejectionism throughout the period in question, which is rarely mentioned but certainly no less important than PLO rejectionism if one wants to understand the issues (see section 11, below, for a detailed discussion of this matter); or, e.g., dismissive discussions of "Palestinian terrorists" that do not mention the striking parallels with Jewish terrorism in the pre-state period, led by future prime ministers Begin (Irgun) and Shamir (LEHI) among others. I bristle when someone mentions the PLO Charter but fails to mention, among numerous examples, the slogan of Begin's Herut party that "there are two banks to the Jordan" and both belong to Israel (which is substantiated in the Hebrew Bible and is perfectly understandable according to Begin's brand of Zionism). I am also entirely open to correcting omissions or distortions vis-a-vis the PLO, which I hope I have demonstrated through my receptiveness to certain of your edits to the article, because I honestly have no personal stake or interest in portraying one actor as being more noble than another. When I happened upon the History of Lebanon article, it seemed to me that the omissions and distortions were substantially more favorable to Israel and the Maronites than to the Druze, the Palestinians, and the Syrians. That's why I got involved. Really, Doug, there is no "deceit" intended here.

Second, I have to take issue with your statement that "Chomsky...[has] a paranoid delusion of Jewish/Zionist control of the US/World." In this case, he actually thinks the opposite of what you claim, and in fact he is at pains to distance himself from the "paranoid delusion" you mention. His argument, very roughly, is that the US controls Israel, essentially for geopolitical reasons, and he explicitly refutes the thesis that the Jewish-Zionist lobby controls US policy. He writes: "No pressure group will dominate access to public opinion or maintain consistent influence over policy-making unless its aims are close to those of elite elements with real power....[A] closer look will illustrate the correctness of the assessment that the evolution of America's relationship to Israel 'has been determined primarily by the changing role that Israel occupied in the context of America's changing conceptions of its political-strategic interests in the Middle East.'" (Fateful Triangle, p. 17; the quoted passage is from Nadav Safran, Israel: the Embattled Ally, p. 571.) Again, I suggest you read Chomsky's study of the conflict before you attribute particular views to him.

Third, Pat Buchanan does not speak for the right on Israel, but focusing on one side of the political spectrum misses the point, I think, which is that Israel is strongly supported by all mainstream political groupings, as well as the ideological right with the exception of Buchanan and other isolationists, who constitute a pretty small minority, if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure you noticed, in the 2004 election, how Kerry, and especially Edwards in the V.P. debate, went out of their way to praise Israel and even tried to criticize Bush/Cheney for not going far enough to ensure Israel's security. It's a consistent pattern in US politics going back at least to the early 70s. Most criticism of Israel emanates from the left, with some notable exceptions, e.g. oil industry personnel who have called for Israel's withdrawal from the territories to foster stability in the region.

Finally, a few words about the term "anti-Israel". Abba Eban once observed that "One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all" (Congress Bi-Weekly, March 30, 1973, quoted in Fateful Triangle, p. 15). In reading your and Jayjg's comments, both in the discussion page and in notes left on each other's talk pages, I get the impression that you are using "anti-Israel" in the same pejorative sense that Eban advocates for "anti-Zionism". I would note that the term "anti-American" has evolved to function in a similar fashion, replacing "communist" in the patriotic lexicon. But in practice, it seems to me, these terms are generally used to describe critical perspectives on Israeli and US state policies, not visceral prejudice against Jews or Americans, Israel or America. As such, I don't think "anti-Israel" is an accurate term for my contributions. I think "non-Zionist" would be accurate, or "unpatriotic". I'm interested in your take on Eban's comments and on this issue generally.

(2) You wrote: "My statement referred to the 1981-1982 period, not 1968-1982....I restate it - during the so called cease fire period Israel did violate Lebanese airspace in order to monitor the PLO. I wonder why you don't see the occupation of southern Lebanon by an non Lebanese militia (PLO, PLA, or whichever other front you wish to use) since 1968 as anything but a violation of Lebanon's integrity as a nation....What you refer to as 'one' attack after the Argov assassination attempt is actually multiple towns being attacked simultaneously. An odd way to count, except for of course your aim is to minimize the severity of the PLOs threat to Israel, and hence paint Israel as an over the top aggressor. Can't stray from Chomsky for too long or what?"

First, not quite clear on your point about the 1981-82 period. There were Israeli bombing attacks during the August-May period, two of which - April 21 and May 9 if I recall correctly - I have documented. So, as I said before, your statement "no attacks were done from the air" and your restatement "during the so called cease fire period Israel did violate Lebanese airspace in order to monitor the PLO" are both false. Do you think those two statements are not false? I won't argue with your statement that the PLO's presence was "a violation of Lebanon's integrity as a nation". I hope you do not mean to imply - I'll assume you don't - that Israel is a stranger to violating national integrity. It's safe to say that few parties to this conflict are strangers in that sense.

On your second point, I think it's customary to refer to a military offensive as an "attack", even if it includes more than one target or operation. For example, Israel's "attack" of Beirut took more than a month. Seems like a semantic question to me, but sure, say "attacks" if you like. The relevant point is, the "attacks" together constitute one violation of the cease-fire.

Third, according to B. Michael in Ha'aretz, sometime in 1981 or 1982 (don't have the cite with me today, but I can provide it if you like), 282 Israelis were killed in all acts of Palestinian terror from 1968-81. Israel's "retaliation" for the Argov assassination attempt killed roughly 100 on that single day. I don't mean to "minimize the severity of the PLO's threat to Israel", but I think it's fair to point out Israel's massive superiority militarily. Patently, Israel was a far more severe threat to the PLO than the PLO was to Israel - militarily, that is.

As an aside, I don't mean any disrespect here, but I must say I find your Chomsky comments tiresome. Smith is my primary source; Chomsky's an excellent source for quotes. As I have demonstrated here and elsewhere, your grasp of Chomsky's views is not particularly firm, cf. your unwitting inversion of his views on "Jewish/Zionist control of the US/world". Can we drop the Chomsky jibes and focus on substantive responses?

(3) You wrote: "Why is it that Palestine has an entire General Assembly committee assigned to it, but no other conflict in the world does??? has it anything to do with the fact that DR of Congo (Zaire) has no oil and therefore no powers are interested in it, though the casualties are in several orders of magnitude higher than the total Arab-Israeli conflict? So much for the partiality of the UN."

Yes, of course. The Arab-Israel conflict receives unique attention for a few reasons, foremost among them the abundance of oil in the region, "one of the greatest material prizes in world history" as a US diplomat put it during WW2. There are countless conflicts that have caused far more human suffering and received less attention. I think Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor is an excellent example. Another reason, a derivative of the first, is the colossal US support for Israel and Egypt, as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran before the revolution, Iraq during the '80s, and so on, as well as massive Soviet support for Egypt (till the mid-70s), Syria, PLO, etc. during the Cold War. Every country has a stake in the conflict, because much of the world's oil supply hangs in the balance (25% in Saudi Arabia alone). So much for the impartiality of anyone.

As far as UN bias against Israel goes, let me give you one example to consider. In 1987 the UN passed UNGA 42/159, which condemned international terrorism but stated that "nothing in the present resolution could in any way prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence, as derived from the Charter of the United Nations...particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation or other forms of colonial domination". The vote was 153-2. The two negative votes were the US and Israel. Doug: in this case, were those 153 countries simply biased against Israel? Isn't something more going on here?

(4) You wrote: "Technically - you're stating this based on the fact that you're Phillip Habib, or one of his staffers from the 80s? No, you're probably just basing this on Chomsky and/or Smith again....As far as I know the agreement was one between Israel and the PLO urging and end to attacks across the border. An attack in Israel that was organized out of lebanon is clearly a violation....An attack sourced to PLO in Lebanon is a violation regardless if it's a shell leaving a PLO cannon in Khiyam towards Nahariya, or a bus being bombed by a PLO terrorist."

I base this on the following statement in Smith: "On July 24 [Habib] gained a cease-fire, mediated separately with the PLO and Israel, who agreed to a cessation of hostilities in southern Lebanon and along Israel's Lebanese border" (p. 376). I did an internet search and couldn't find the text of the actual agreement. Based on Smith's description, I disagree that an attack "sourced to the PLO in Lebanon is a violation...if it's a...bus being bombed by a PLO terrorist." If you can find a source that says the cease-fire technically applied not only to the Lebanese border but to all other fronts of the Israeli-PLO conflict, I'd be interested to see it. In my search, I was not able to find such a claim.

(5) You wrote: " I don't see how we're going to agree on this so lets agree on dropping absurd attempts to make an intentional act of violence such as the rocket attack on Israel seem as if they missed on purpose."

Presumably you are referring to Chomsky's statement that the attack was "directed away from settled areas". Allow me to quote myself from the immediately preceding entry on the Lebanon talk page: "Yes, he says 'directed away from settled areas' in reference to the May rocket attack, which I find hard to believe and thus excluded from the article." I cannot see how my rejection of Chomsky's analysis constitutes, on my part, an "absurd attempt to make an intentional act of violence...seem as if they missed on purpose."

(6) "As for Chomsky, like any student at an American university I've had this dubious intellectual crammed down my throat in many politics and history classes by propaganda peddling professors."

I find this interesting, because when I was at Amherst, none of my professors ever assigned any of Chomsky's political writings. I hardly knew the first thing about him until last year when I randomly picked up his latest book, Hegemony or Survival, and realized that I had no idea about most of what he was talking about, and whether he's right or not, I'd better start learning about it. Anyway, I'm surprised to hear that he was crammed down your throat in your classes.

(7) You wrote: "Sneaky, I'd be laughed off if I wasn't an anti-Israeli zealot with marxist/Anarcho-Syndicalist-blah credentials".

Not to belabor the point, but Chomsky is not an anti-Israeli zealot; in fact, he is a Zionist of a certain stripe, and back when it seemed feasible to some, he advocated a secular, binational state as a home for both Jews and Palestinians. He is a critic of some policies of the state of Israel, notably its discriminatory practices against non-Jews, violations of international law, and support for repressive states (e.g., Argentina during the "Dirty War" era, El Salvador, Nicaragua under Somoza, Guatemala, apartheid South Africa, etc.). It's difficult for me to understand how that makes him an "anti-Israeli zealot". Is he also an "anti-American zealot" for criticizing the US on every count but the first one? Furthermore, he's certainly not a Marxist, and while he has made favorable comments about Anarcho-Syndicalism, that has little to do with his writings.

(8) You wrote: "A curious thing happens when anti-Israeli people such as yourself write on the conflict. It seems that you believe that by merely losing, the Palestinians become just and Israel the aggressors.....So, the fact that the PLO had been staging continuous attacks out of Lebanon for 14 years prior to the war are erased merely by losing....You keep erasing the 16000 number, which is another telling sign - is that intended to erase the fact that a very large number of PLA troops dug into West Beirut? does Israel having less casualties than the PLO have anything to do with the fact that (a) a portion of those civillian deaths is attributable to the PLO shooting at (Christian) civillians and (b) that by fortifying Beirut and intentionally fighting out of a civillian area the PLO forced the civillians of West Beirut to become their reluctant human shields?"

First: nowhere do I say that one party is "just" and another not. That is not my concern as a Wikipedia editor, nor presumably is it yours. Again, I think most actions and events are understandable through the lenses of the respective participants. I do however maintain that Israel was the aggressor in invading Lebanon. That is because I cannot perceive any other tenable reading of the events leading up to the invasion, which have been reviewed ad nauseum in our discussion, and which are clarified by my recent additions of actual text from the relevant UNSC resolutions. (Though I will briefly respond to your views on aggression below.) I erased the 16000 number because no number was given for the size and strength of the IDF forces. But that's a minor point and I left it alone in my edits.

Statement (a) above is no doubt true, but what portion? What about the Israeli officer who encouraged regular bombardment, because otherwise, people would get complacent and start doing their laundry and drinking their tea? (See my minor edits in the current revision, including an expanded quote from the globalsecurity article.) That's a wash; we can't know who was responsible for killing certain numbers of civilians. We can speculate, based on the IDF's massive firepower advantage and its policy (comparable to the PLO's) of targeting neighborhoods of Beirut to disrupt civilian life, but that's out of place in an NPOV article. Statement (b) reminds me that you have not responded to my repeated question: What else was the PLO supposed to do, go fight the IDF in the desert and get slaughtered? I need to know your answer to that before I can respond to your statement here.

(9) You wrote: "Before Lebanon's arm was twisted into relinquishing its sovereignty to the PLO in 1968 there was no conflict between Israel and Lebanon....So, who is the aggressor if not the PLO?"

Sure, you can certainly say that if the PLO had not regrouped in Lebanon, there would have been no Israeli-PLO violence having to do with Lebanon. You can also say, with equal validity, that if Israeli forces had not expelled most of the Palestinians from its eventual borders in 1948-9 (you may have read Benny Morris's comments that Israel's biggest mistake was not expelling all of them), and if Israel had declared itself not "the state of world Jewry" but rather "the state in which Palestinians, Jews, and all other nations are equally welcome as both citizens and officials", then there would be no PLO, and therefore Israel is the aggressor. The underlying question you are hinting at is this: Is the PLO's enterprise justified? I don't think that question is answerable in any meaningful way - but, I also think that by solely blaming the PLO for aggression in Lebanon, you are implicitly answering "No". Reducing your logic about PLO aggression to absurdity, I might observe that if Jewish nationalists hadn't decided to create the concept of a Biblical homeland, then there would be no Arab-Israeli conflict, and therefore Zionism itself is the original aggressor. But that's not the point, is it? The question of aggression is a very narrow one in our discussion: In the context of the Habib cease-fire, agreed to by both sides, whose actions were more aggressive, Israel's or the PLO's? I think the answer is clearly the former.

There is also the relevant question of proportionality. As I said, the PLO was responsible for 282 deaths in Israel from 1968-81. In the Sabra/Shatila incident, over the course of what, two or three days, roughly three times as many civilians were killed. Almost certainly, more people were killed in Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1978 than in all PLO violence from '68-81. Israel's bombing of West Beirut in July 1981 killed an estimated 200. The list obviously goes on. Even if you are not swayed in your belief that the PLO is the aggressor, what do you make of Israel's consistent Ben-Gurionist policy of meting out disproportional punishment to Arabs, sometimes retaliatory and sometimes just for shock or political value?

(10) You wrote: "Not a single Western country would have accepted a neighboring country being used as a base for continuous cross border guerilla attacks, and local and international terrorism against it without moving to eradicate that threat."

Yes, that's true. Some examples from history include the South African government vis-a-vis the ANC, and the US government vis-a-vis American Indians. In each case, the governments were acting in their rational self-interest by "eradicating the threat". In order to understand the dynamics, though, it is not sufficient to call one side "terrorist" and leave it at that. In each of these three cases, terrorist tactics were used by elements of the government in its rise to power, quite explicitly. For example, Shamir wrote an essay in the '40s defending terrorism as a legitimate strategy against the British occupation, which was substantially more benign than the ongoing Israeli occupation. I think terrorism - both the sub-state variety and the state-sponsored variety - is usually pretty understandable from the perspectives of its practitioners.

(11) You wrote: "Israeli parties have discussed handing over the West bank and Gaza since 1967, and have met (illegally until 1991) with the PLO since the six-day war. So the PLO wasn't any more diplomatic than Israel had been. And as I've mentioned over and over in previous comments, diplomacy was Arafat's ploy. He did nothing to actually show Israel he didn't intend to continuously threaten its existance - not until 1993 and by then Rabin after all signed a peace deal with him. Show me the full interview with Rabin claiming Israel should never give land to the Palestinians, otherwise it's another out of context propaganda hack job - Chomsky and his followers are good with those."

First: Palestinian elements were discussing a two-state settlement along the lines of the international consensus from the mid-70s, epitomized in the early stages by PLO support for the 1976 UNSC resolution that I've mentioned. The resolution received 9 positive votes and 3 abstentions in addition to the US veto, with a couple non-participants (China and Libya). The resolution

"Affirms:

(a) That the Palestinian people should be enabled to exercise its inalienable national right of self-determination, including the right to establish an independent state in Palestine in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

(b) The right of Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours to do so and the right of those choosing not to return to receive compensation for their property;

(c) That Israel should withdraw from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967;

(d) The appropriate arrangements should be established to guarantee, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of all states in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries".

This was supported by the PLO, as well as Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The US vetoed, and Israel boycotted the session. Note that there are three important differences from UNSC 242: the insertion of the word "the", the provision for a Palestinian state, and the specific language regarding the refugee question (rather than 242's vague "just settlement"). If Israel was interested in a settlement along the lines of the international consensus, then why did it boycott the session? Why wouldn't it attend the session and say, "Okay, we like this, but you gotta take the 'the' out, and you gotta change the refugee part; how about 'minor and mutual adjustments' and 'a just settlement of the refugee problem' instead?"

The primary reason for the Israeli boycott was likely the matter of a Palestinian state. The Labor journal Davar, July 4, 1976, recorded Rabin's response to the proposed resolution, which was his own version of the "Three No's", i.e., "total opposition to negotiation with the PLO even if the latter recognizes the State of Israel and its right to exist and stops terror acts altogether" (Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War, 286). The Rabin quote I cited before, regarding "a third state between Israel and Jordan", is: "I repeat firmly, clearly, categorically: it will not be created." I can't find the original source - an issue of Ma'ariv from 1975 - online. But do these sound like "out-of-context hack-jobs" to you? I've got one more. This is a "Decision of the Government of Israel," July 21, 1974: "The government will work toward negotiations for a peace agreement with Jordan. The peace will be founded on the existence of two independent states only - Israel, with united Jerusalem as its capital, and a Jordanian-Palestinian Arab State, east of Israel, with borders to be determined in negotiations between Israel and Jordan." (Chomsky, TNCW, 247-8.) Do you think Chomsky made that up?

Maybe you do. So let me prove to you that he didn't. Here's a quote from the online summary of an Israeli army radio interview with Rabin on December 9, 1975, which was right before the UNSC met to discuss the proposed resolution - the session Israel boycotted. This is Rabin talking (note that he refers to the July 21, 1974 policy statement):

"The Palestinian question [section heading]

There has been no change in the government's policy on this question as decided on 21 July 1974. Furthermore, in my opinion, severance of the solution to the Palestinian question from negotiations with Jordan would be a grave error of Israel policy. Any severance of the Palestinian question from negotiations with Jordan will inevitably lead - whether the person proposing it so intends or not - to a third state between Israel and Jordan. In my conviction, whatever nuances of approach there may be among the parties composing the coalition, there is no argument on this question of resolute opposition to the establishment of a third state." Again, this is right before the UN session got underway.  Doug, at this juncture - December 1975 - it is clear that Israeli rejectionism was pervasive, from Labor to Herut, while the PLO was willing to compromise with a two-state settlement in accordance with the international consensus.  In light of this, your statement "the PLO wasn't any more diplomatic than Israel had been" appears to be false.  In fact, Israel appears to have explicitly rejected PLO-supported international diplomacy.  I'm interested to hear what you think about this.

(12) You wrote: Chomsky "loops around [the fact that Israel did not massacre civilians at Sabra/Shatila] by repeating himself endlessly throughout other propaganda tomes, and talks, and videos, ad nauseum. Standing guard [from NYT quote] - sort of what you do when you're in a battle zone. Have you read the full article, or can it be once again that two words are out of context, hammered into Chomsky's thought control?....Must I be held accountable for not keeping that one Chomsky textbook - other books of his are crowding precious bookshelf space already. In fact I think I'll pass - I had to read it once, and I'll be damned if I spend another cent to support him."

First, yes, I will hold you accountable when I notice that you have made false accusations against an author. I expect you will do the same for me.

Second, the "standing guard" quote. Let me quote from the report of the Kahan Commission: "We heard testimony from Lieutenant Grabowsky, a deputy commander of a tank company, who was in charge of a few tanks which stood on an earth embankment - a ramp - and on the adjacent road, some 200 meters from the first buildings of the camps. In the early morning hours he saw Phalangist soldiers taking men, women and children out of the area of the camps and leading them to the area of the stadium....  At a later hour he went up the embankment with the tank and then saw that Phalangist soldiers had killed a group of five women and children. Lieutenant Grabowsky wanted to report the event by communications set to his superiors, but the tank crew told him that they had already heard a communications report to the battalion commander that civilians were being killed, [and] the battalion commander had replied, 'We know, it's not to our liking, and don't interfere.'"

I think the interpretation that the tanks were "standing guard" while the massacre was perpetrated is not entirely outlandish. At the very best, the tank personnel were ordered to do nothing while a massacre of civilians proceeded before their eyes.

(13) You wrote: "As for 445/446 and 1559 - have you not noticed that Israel is in full compliance since 2000? read the entries I started on UNSCR 1559, Taif Agreement, the Blue Line and my attempt to fix the awful Sheba'a Farms entry. And yes, 1559 is a bit more important since Israel was in violation of 445 for 18 years, while Syria has occupied Lebanon 1976-2005 and going strong."

Are you referring to 425? I said 446 (and not 445), i.e., the 1979 resolution on Israeli settlements, which Israel has violated from 1979-2005 "and going strong."

(14) You wrote: "notice that 242 isn't appropriate since 1993, considering Israel and the PLO have been negotiating for this entire period."

I quote from "The Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles, Washington, D.C.", i.e. the Oslo agreement, September 13, 1993: "The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations...is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian interim Self-Government Authority...for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. It is understood that...the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338" (Article I). (Smith, p. 506.)

So, I actually notice the opposite of what you stated: 242 was intended to be the foundation of the Oslo agreement and subsequent negotiations.

Look forward to your responses. sneaky 07:42, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Lebanese Civil War and History of Lebanon
Hi Doug, see my reply to your concerns at the talk page. Kaisershatner 17:33, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hey Doug, I put a few comments on Kaisershatner's talk page and the Lebanon talk page. sneaky 02:12, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

In response to your message about the civil war being from 1975-1990 or thereabouts...well, I see what you mean. I did a search and the consensus from the first few pages of the results seems to be 1975-ca.1990. Predictably, my original source for the 1975-6 duration is Smith, whom you are probably pretty tired of hearing about (me too - wish I had other sources but I am in Japan, so libraries are out), but anyway, he writes: "Scholars date the period of the Lebanese Civil War from April 1975 to October 1976, when an Arab summit led to the formation of a peacekeeping force to maintain order in central Lebanon. These dates are technically correct, but tensions between the Maronites and the Palestinians on the one hand, and between the Maronites and the Lebanese Muslim and leftist forces on the other, long predated the war" (p. 352). Now, in my search, I came across the site www.onwar.com, "A comprehensive guide to armed conflicts in the last two hundred years: over 1500 events recorded". Dunno anything about the site. It could be complete bunk. But, it echoes Smith on the duration of the civil war. But then, the next search result is a stub from Encyclopedia Britannica, and it gives the duration of 1975-91 (not a Britannica member so I can't read the article to determine if it's accurate). So I'm not sure how to proceed. If your sources shed any light on this, especially that Lebanese history book you said you had ordered, let me know. sneaky 04:21, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Israel
Hello Doug: Please contact User:Humus sapiens who wishes to start a Wikiportal/Israel See his request below. Thanks IZAK 07:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi IZAK (and everyone else here :), Do you think it's time to create Wikiportal/Israel similar to Wikiportal/India, Wikiportal/New Zealand and other Category:Wikiportals? I'm writing this here because it was you who made those wonderful templates and we don't have a portal yet where we could communicate. What do you think? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 05:26, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Hi Humus, it's only me here, but I will pass your message on to "everyone". Yes, your suggestion is excellent, it is certainly time for what you describe, but I have no experience with Wikipedia portals, and if you know how, go ahead and start an Israel portal and I am sure editors of Israel-related articles will support you and join in the effort/s. Behatzlachah. IZAK 05:33, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Your contact info
Hi Doug: Hope all is well. You have not enabled your Wikipedia Email feature in your "tool box" on the left hand side of your user page. Sometimes editors overlook that when it's a useful way of staying in touch with other editors. Best wishes. IZAK 14:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi
Hi Doug: Could you please Email me via my user page at Email User:IZAK. Thank you so much. IZAK 11:15, 25 April 2007 (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)

title: User talk:Doug Danner


text: User talk:199.67.140.20

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

title: User talk:199.67.140.20


text:
Tweezers

Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history. In a scientific or medical context, they are normally referred to as just "forceps", a name that is used together with other grasping surgical instruments that resemble pliers, pincers and scissors-like clamps.

Tweezers make use of two third-class levers connected at one fixed end (the fulcrum point of each lever), with the pincers at the others. When used, they are commonly held with one hand in a pen grip between the thumb and index finger (sometimes also the middle finger), with the top end resting on the first dorsal interosseous muscle at the webspace between the thumb and index finger. Spring tension holds the grasping ends apart until finger pressure is applied. This provides an extended pinch and allows the user to easily grasp, manipulate and quickly release small or delicate objects with readily variable pressure.

People commonly use tweezers for such tasks as plucking hair from the face or eyebrows, often using the term eyebrow tweezers. Other common uses for tweezers are as a tool to manipulate small objects, including for example small, particularly surface-mount, electronic parts, and small mechanical parts for models and precision mechanisms. Stamp collectors use tweezers (stamp tongs) to handle postage stamps which, while large enough to pick up by hand, could be damaged by handling; the jaws of stamp tongs are smooth. Another example of a specialized use is picking out the flakes of gold in gold panning. Tweezers are also used in kitchens for food presentation to remove bones from fillets of fish in a process known as pin boning, and are as tongs used to serve pieces of cake to restaurant patrons.

History

Tweezers are known to have been used in predynastic Egypt. There are drawings of Egyptian craftsmen holding hot pots over ovens with a double-bow shaped tool. Asiatic tweezers, consisting of two strips of metal brazed together, were commonly used in Mesopotamia and India from about 3000 BC, perhaps for purposes such as catching lice. During the Bronze Age, tweezers were manufactured in Kerma.

The word tweezer comes from etwee which describes a small case that people would use to carry small objects (such as toothpicks) with them. Etwee takes its origin from French étui "small case" from the Old French verb estuier, "to hold or keep safe." Over time, the object now known as "tweezers" took on this name because the tool was commonly found in these tiny carrying cases. Eventually, the word "tweeze" was accepted as a verb in the English language.

There is evidence of Roman shipbuilders pulling nails out of construction with plier-type pincers.

Types
Tweezers come in a variety of tip shapes and sizes. Blunt tip tweezers have a rounded end which can be used when a pointed object may get entangled, when manipulating cotton swabs, for example. Flat tip tweezers, pictured at right, have an angled tip which may be used for removing splinters. Some tweezers have a long needle-like tip which may be useful for reaching into small crevices. Triangular tip tweezers have larger, wider tips useful for gripping larger objects. Tweezers with curved tips also exist, sometimes called bent forceps. Microtweezers have an extremely small, pointed tip used for manipulating tiny electronic components and the like.

There are two common forms of construction for tweezers: two fused, angled pieces of metal, or one piece of metal bent in half. The bent tweezer is cheaper to manufacture, but gives weaker grip. The fused tweezer is more expensive, but allows for a stronger grip. The width between the tips of the tweezers when no force is applied also affects how powerful the grip is.

Cross-locking tweezers (aka reverse-action tweezers or self-closing tweezers) work in the opposite way to normal tweezers. Cross-locking tweezers open when squeezed and close when released, gripping the item without any exertion of the user's fingers.

Usage of traditional tweezers
Applications:
 * typesetting
 * dealing with stamps (see Philately)
 * dealing with smaller coins (see Numismatics), to protect the coins these are wrapped at the tips with plastic
 * electronics
 * soldering
 * cosmetics
 * hair removal (eyebrow tweezers)
 * nail art (application of gems, stickers etc to fingernails or toenails as part of a manicure)
 * semiconductor technology in the form of wafer tweezers
 * medicine (Forceps and Tissue Forceps)
 * household
 * jewelry making
 * textile industry as iron nubs
 * science, laboratory
 * aquascaping
 * watchmaking

Other kinds of tweezers
The original tweezers for mechanical gripping have given rise to a number of tools with similar action or purpose but not dependent upon mechanical pressure, including
 * Optical tweezers use light to manipulate microscopic objects as small as a single atom. The momentum transfer from a focused laser beam is able to trap small particles. In the biological sciences, these instruments have been used to apply forces in the pico Newton range and to measure displacements in the nm range of objects ranging in size from 10 nm to over 100 mm.
 * Magnetic tweezers use magnetic forces to manipulate single molecules (such as DNA) via paramagnetic interactions. In practice it is an array of magnetic traps designed for manipulating individual biomolecules and measuring the ultra-small forces that affect their behavior.

 * Electric tweezers deliver an electrical signal through the tip, intended for depilation by damaging hair roots to prevent new hair from growing from the same root.
 * Electrostatic tweezers use electrostatic voltage to induce the redistribution of charges in targeted objects, therefore generating Coulomb attraction force between tweezers and manipulated objects. Electrostatic tweezers work in a trapping mode or guiding mode.
 * Vacuum tweezers use differences in atmospheric pressure to grasp items from 100 micrometres in size up to parts weighing several pounds. Special vacuum tweezer tips are manufactured to handle a wide variety of items such as surface-mount electronics, optics, biological material, stamps and coins.  They may be used to handle parts that are so small that conventional mechanical tweezers may cause parts to be damaged or dropped and lost.
 * Acoustic tweezers use sound to manipulate particles or cells in the fluid. An elegant Gor'kov potential theory is used most for small sizes compared with the incident wavelength.
 * Molecular tweezers are noncyclic host molecules that have two arms capable of binding guests molecules through non-covalent bonding.
 * Hot, or soldering, tweezers combine the squeezing action of mechanical tweezers with heating, to grip small surface-mount electronic devices while simultaneously heating them, for soldering or desoldering.
 * Tweezer probes are a pair of electrical test probes fixed to a tweezer mechanism to measure voltages or other electronic circuit parameters between closely spaced pins.
 * Tweezers integrated with an electronic measuring device for evaluation of electrical parameters of small-size electronic components.
 * Carbon nano-tweezers have been fabricated by deposition of MWNT bundles on isolated electrodes deposited on tempered glass micropipettes. Those nanotube bundles can be mechanically manipulated by electricity and can be used to manipulate and transfer micro- and nano-structures. The nanotube bundles used for tweezers are about 50 nm in diameter and 2 μm in lengths. Under electric bias, two close sets of bundles are attracted and can be used as nanoscale tweezers.

Other uses of the same principle are named tweezers; although such terms are not necessarily widely used their meaning is clear to people in the relevant field. E.g., Raman tweezers, which combine Raman spectroscopy with optical tweezers.

title: Tweezers


text:
Talk:Weisshorn

more info please
can we have info on who named the weisshorn... 185.130.156.206 (talk) 10:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

 * Please refer to my answer to you over at Talk:Täschhorn, but bear in mind that there is probably no evidence avaiable to show how the mountain got its name, and by whom. It's not something that first ascensionists have a right to name - and the summit is so prominent and will almost certainly have been called that for hundreds of years prior to it being climbed. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Weisshorn


text:
Berryteuthis magister

Berryteuthis magister, also known as the magister armhook squid, commander squid or schoolmaster gonate squid, is a medium-sized squid in the family Gonatidae. It is found in cold, high latitude waters of the North Pacific where it is among the most numerous squid species recorded.

There are three recognised subspecies of B. magister. The type locality of all three is Japan, although specimens have been recorded as far east as the Aleutian Islands.

Description
The cylindrical bodies of magister armhook squid are muscular with very soft reddish brown skin. Like all gonatids, the suckers of their arms are arranged in four rows or series. But unlike other gonatids it is in females only that the suckers are modified into hooks; these hooks are on the mesial rows of the dorsal arms only. The clubs at the end of both tentacles are covered in 20 rows of suckers; these are smaller in B. magister nipponensis.

The wing-like fins at the rear of the body are rather large and may reach up to 50 percent of the mantle length. The fins are also smaller in B. magister nipponensis.

B. magister magister is known to reach a mantle length of 25 cm; total body length may exceed 61 cm. Both B. magister nipponensis and B. magister shevtsovi are somewhat smaller, with a maximum mantle length of 17 - 20 cm. Females are slightly larger than males.

Habitat and behaviour
These squid are pelagic, roaming as deep as 1,000 metres and are associated with the continental shelf. Like other species in their family, Magister Armhook Squids are thought to undertake diel migration; by day the squid remain in the blackness of the depths. By night, they ascend to the upper layers of the water column to feed by starlight. An internal balancing organ called a statocyst ensures graceful movement.

Magister armhook squid prey upon both benthic and pelagic species; sculpins, smaller fish such as Sablefish and juvenile pollock, crustaceans including euphausiids and amphipods, and other squid. Cannibalism is also known to occur among the Magisters.

Baird's beaked whale, the short-finned pilot whale, false killer whale, Dall's porpoise and sperm whales are all known to feed upon magister armhook squid. Other predators include seabirds, northern fur seals, grenadiers, halibut and several species of salmon.

title: Berryteuthis magister


text:
Talk:Penny

Name use in Ireland
"...as well as the informal Irish designation of 1 cent euro coin (abbr. c)." - according to whom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.181.233.6 (talk) 17:44, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Scottish use of plural pennies
Although 'pennies' for pence survived longer in Scotland than England, I have never heard it used. I suspect it's firmly archaic — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hedvirt (talk • contribs) 17:58, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Belgia Tribe used the Pene; Hand Over Fist; Farthings, I don't give a fart.
Whatever 'pene' originally was or meant, the Belgia tribe who were also in southern England (presumably obtaining silver), would make slugs of silver coins 'hand over fist' (tap and dye method) from flanned sheets of silver (ie. beat into a sheet). Conveniently, there would be an 'X' in the middle of the coin, and as a type of hack silver, could be cut into farthings (ie. four parts), of which "I don't give a fart'. ItsACityOfApes (talk) 03:15, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Decimal day
Could someone explain why the following entry under In Popular Culture is relevant to this article?

 * Around Decimal Day in 1971, British Rail introduced the "Superloo", improved public toilets that charged 2p (equivalent to nearly 5d).

Seems to me like an unrelated obscure factoid. My opinion is to remove it as irrelevant. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Ok. Nobody is willing to step up to support this entry so I'm going to remove it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Penny


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CaribbeanBasicTradeandPartnershipAct

Poorly translated advert for company that seems to be in the startup process, with a unrelated title that's just one letter different than a real US Act. Also, reeks of copyvio, but I can't prove it because of the translation. Niteowlneils 05:11, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * If this was any more blatant spam, it would have to be served with eggs. Please pass the coffee...and delete. - Lucky 6.9 06:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Advert. Possibly a free hosting attempt, how do they expect anyone to find this unless they are posting the URL elsewhere? Andrewa 06:31, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Now useful redirect, good article. Well done. Andrewa 20:42, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Added verbatim public domain info from http://www.usleap.org/trade/CTPA10-03.html; renamed page to Caribbean Basin Trade and Partnership Act; and listed page on Cleanup.Alcarillo 18:55, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Keep. Niteowlneils 00:36, 11 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Wehrmacht

Mistake in picture
In this chart, the Western Allies include Yugoslavia. It seems to be a mistake, because Yugoslavia was situated in Southeast Europe. Also, the Yugoslav partisans fought at the Eastern front. --79.236.130.85 (talk) 20:35, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Contested edits
This edit by does not seem to me like an improvement:. It replaces informative, encyclopedic text with bland puffery (and also removed a reference). Edit warring to restore the same text, even if it includes the removed citation, as Xcommun has now done, is also counterproductive. I ask them to engage here rather than re-adding the disputed content, and to slow their roll because their subsequent edits do not appear to be helpful either. Generalrelative (talk) 06:17, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

 * Please see archive article for reference and please allow this official record for wiki
 * https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II/Forces-and-resources-of-the-European-combatants-1939 Xcommun (talk) 06:28, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * See my response below. Let's try to keep this conversation to one thread. Generalrelative (talk) 06:31, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Citing references
i am citing references from Britannica please refrain from eliminating data that has been approved by Britannica Xcommun (talk) 06:27, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

 * What you're adding is not data. You're removing encyclopedic text and replacing it with WP:PEACOCK prose. And Britannica.com is not an especially great source. Recent scholarship (from the past 30 or 40 years) would be much better, and the key is to actually summarize it. Generalrelative (talk) 06:30, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * After looking at your source it's also clearly a very flagrant copyright violation. This is a hassle. We'll need to ask an admin to revision-delete your edits. Generalrelative (talk) 06:33, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I am only adding information that was published by a reputable medium Xcommun (talk) 06:37, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * is there a reason why you're so quick to disengage and not communicate before your words? Xcommun (talk) 06:38, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * clearly this is not something I wish to engage in any further as I was only providing information from a source that is very reputable but if you believe otherwise that's fine, I do not wish to engage in any conflict so I will terminate my edits on this topic Xcommun (talk) 06:40, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Cool, but before you ever edit Wikipedia again, please familiarize yourself with our policy against copyright violation. Click the blue text to read. And please do not delete talk page comments after they've been replied to. Generalrelative (talk) 06:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 October 2023
Please remove the spurious "=" from the Mediterranean Theatre section header. Thank you 76.14.122.5 (talk) 01:55, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Hyphenation Expert (talk) 03:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Wehrmacht assignments in Asia
Your addition has been deemed out of Scope to the page, three times. As Wikipedia is built on Consensus, please do not add it again as it will be seen as Disruptive editing. Skjoldbro (talk) 11:20, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Wehrmacht


text:
Daan District, Taipei

Daan District   (or Da-an District, Da'an District) is an important political, educational, commercial, residential and cultural district of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan. The name of the district means "great safety" or "great peace". Located in Northern Taiwan, it is known for having one of the highest real estate prices in Taipei and Asia in general.

History
The district is named after Daiwan village that was once located near the intersection of present-day Xinyi Road and Fuxing S. Road. The name was changed in the 1800s (during the Qing era) to the more auspicious but similar-sounding "Daan" (大安; ).

In 1875, the setup of Taipeh Prefecture put the village together with 下內埔 and La̍k-tiuⁿ-lê (六張犁), all of which are within today's Daan District. During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, Daan village was merged with Nishikichō (錦町),, and.

In 1945, after World War II, after the island of Taiwan was ceded to the Republic of China and under the current rule by the Chinese Nationalists, the boundaries of Daan District were delineated around Daan village, from which it derived its name. Subsequent notable alterations occurred during the 1990s, shaping the district's configuration further.

Geography
Daan is bounded on the east by Guangfu South Road, Keelung Road and Heping East Road; on the south by Neipu, Fuzhou and Toad Hills, and the Xinhai and Zhuangjing Tunnels; in the west by Roosevelt Road, Hangzhou South Road, Xinyi Road and Xinsheng South Road; and in the north by Civic Boulevard. The district is bordered by Xinyi District to the east, Wenshan District to the south, Zhongzheng District to the west, Zhongshan District to the northwest, and Songshan District to the northeast.

Government institutions

 * Industrial Development Bureau
 * Maritime and Port Bureau
 * Ministry of Science and Technology
 * Securities and Futures Bureau
 * Small and Medium Enterprise Administration
 * Taiwan Intellectual Property Office
 * Transitional Justice Commission

Education
Daan hosts three major national universities, contributing significantly to the educational landscape of the area. These universities serve as important centers for academic excellence, research, and intellectual development within the community: National Taiwan University (NTU), National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). The former two universities have strong engineering programs, NTNU has excellent research in the humanities and social sciences, and NTU also has a highly regarded medical school located in the Zhongzheng District.

The National Taipei University of Technology, National Taipei University of Education and Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University are also in this district.

For learners of Chinese as a foreign language, Daan hosts a number of popular language centers including the Taiwan Mandarin Institute (TMI), NTU's International Chinese Language Program and NTNU's Mandarin Training Center.

Shopping
Daan has numerous shopping areas. The district boasts a selection of upscale boutiques, designer stores, and luxury retailers. On Zhongxiao East Road, Dunhua South Road and neighboring alleys, there are clothing shops, restaurants serving world cuisines, and major department stores including three branches of the Pacific Sogo Department Store, Breeze Center, and the Ming Yao Department Store, as well as the original 24-hour Dunnan branch of the Eslite Bookstore prior to its closure in 2020. The East Metro Market runs underneath Zhongxiao Road between metro stations. Specialty markets include the Jianguo Holiday Flower Market, the Jianguo Holiday Jade Market, and the Guanghua Computer and Electronics Market.

Daan's most famous night markets are the Tonghua Night Market, in the east of the district, and the Shida Night Market in the west, near NTNU. Because of its proximity to NTNU and NTU, the Shida Night Market area is known as a student hangout and is filled with foreign restaurants and student-oriented bars. Yongkang Street, another popular restaurant area and home to the original Din Tai Fung restaurant, lies to the north of NTNU. Located near NTU is also the Wistaria Tea House, a quiet historic teahouse serving tea in the Gongfu style.

Residential
Daan is renowned for hosting some of the most coveted residential real estate in Asia, featuring properties that command premium prices clustered around the tree-lined Dunhua South Road, Anhe Road and Ren'ai Road areas (known as the East District). As of 2009, Guangfu Road had the highest residential land value. In this area there are upscale fashion boutiques, elite retail shops and many of Taipei's renowned "lounge bars". A study conducted in 2020 by the Department of Land Administration found that among the 12 administrative districts in Taipei City, Daan District came out on top with an average price of NT$38.21 million per apartment, or approximately $1.2 million US dollars.

Other places of interest
Other notable places include the Daan Forest Park, which was built on land formerly occupied by military officers and their families, and the Taipei Municipal Library. The park occupies an area of 26 hectares and includes an amphitheater, concrete roller- and inline-skating rink, ponds, pavilions, paths, and two underground parking lots. The park also has a popular playground for children. Daan Forest Park was intended to play a similar role as other major city parks such as New York City's Central Park and London's Hyde Park, acting as the "lungs of Taipei city" and as respite for residents from the bustle of life in Taipei. Similar to the large parks of other cities, Daan Park is surrounded by high price luxury condominiums that fetch a premium due to their desirable views, some reaching the price of $400 million New Taiwan dollars (approximately $14 million US dollars) in 2012.

The Mongolian and Tibetan Cultural Center, Workshop of Advanced Academy of Agronomy and Forestry, Jut Art Museum, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, Taipei Hakka Culture Hall, Wistaria Tea House, Mind Set Art Center, Nanmen Market, Wang Yun-wu Memorial Hall, and Fanglan Mansion,and many other tourist attractions are also located in Daan District. Museums in Daan District are Museum of Archives, Museum of National Taipei University of Education and Museum of Zoology.

Transportation
Daan is served by the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit, otherwise known as the Taipei Metro. The Wenhu line, Bannan line, Songshan-Xindian line, Tamsui-Xinyi line, and Zhonghe-Xinlu line all have stations in the district.

A total of fourteen stations are located in the district: Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Zhongxiao Dunhua, Zhongxiao Fuxing, Zhongxiao Xinsheng, Daan Park, Daan, Xinyi Anhe, Technology Building, Liuzhangli, Linguang, Dongmen, Guting, Taipower Building and Gongguan.

Notable people

 * Jolin Tsai (born 1980), Taiwanese singer-songwriter
 * Jay Chou (born 1979) Mandopop singer and musician
 * JJ Lin (born 1981) Singaporean singer-songwriter
 * Dee Hsu (born 1978), Taiwanese singer, actress, and television host

title: Daan District, Taipei


text:
Trail Ridge Road

Trail Ridge Road is the name for the 48 mi stretch of U.S. Highway 34 that traverses Rocky Mountain National Park from Estes Park, Colorado in the east to Grand Lake, Colorado in the west. Together with the connecting 6.9 mi Beaver Meadow Road (U.S. Highway 36), Trail Ridge Road forms the 55 mi Trail Ridge Road/Beaver Meadow National Scenic Byway, an All-American Road. With a high point at 12183 ft elevation, Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous paved road in North America. The higher portion of Trail Ridge Road is closed from October to May.

Route description

From Kawuneeche Visitor Center at the park's Grand Lake Entrance, Trail Ridge Road follows the North Fork of the Colorado River north through the Kawuneeche Valley. There are several trailheads along this section of the road, notably the Colorado River Trailhead, which is the western terminus of the road segment closed during the winter.

The road crosses the Continental Divide at Milner Pass (elev. 10758 ft) and reaches a maximum elevation of 12183 ft, near Fall River Pass (elev. 11796 ft). Near the highest point on the road is another pass, Iceberg Pass (elev. 11827 ft).

According to construction contracts and park maintenance files, the east end of the road is located at the Fall River entrance, however some guides list Deer Ridge Junction as the east end.

Trail Ridge is a high, flat spur range extending east from the main range of the Rockies between Fall River in the North and the Big Thompson River in the South. The road follows Trail Ridge from the Fall River Pass near Alpine Visitor Center to the Deer Ridge Junction.

History
Trail Ridge had been used by Native Americans to cross the mountains between their home lands in the west and hunting areas on the east side. Arapahoe Indians called the trail located on the ridge as "taienbaa" ("Where the Children Walked") because it was so steep that children could not be carried, but had to walk. The Ute tribe crossing the mountains at Forest Canyon Pass marked their route with stone cairns. The present park Ute Trail follows partially that ancient route.

On the west side, about 1880, a wagon road was constructed along the Kawuneeche Valley from the town of Grand Lake to the mining camps of Lulu City and Gaskill. The camps were abandoned after a few years when short-lived mining boom ended and later the road was used only occasionally by hunters and tourists.

Fall River Road was the first road into the park's high country. It opened in 1921 and quickly proved inadequate for motor travel as a single-track road with steep grades (up to 16%), tight curves and a short annual season due to snowpack. Construction began in 1929 and was complete to Fall River Pass by July 1932, with a maximum grade of 7%. The road was complete through the Kawuneeche Valley to Grand Lake in 1938. The route followed what was known to local Arapaho Indians as the Dog Trail. Internal opposition to the construction of a road through the park's alpine tundra was overruled by National Park Service director Horace Albright, who wished to encourage park visitation. The road was designed to intrude as little as possible into the landscape, in accordance with Park Service design principles.

Hidden Valley (or Ski Estes Park) was a local ski area attraction from 1955 - 1991, off of Trail Ridge Road, now defunct.

title: Trail Ridge Road


text:
Minimax theorem

In the mathematical area of game theory, a minimax theorem is a theorem providing conditions that guarantee that the max–min inequality is also an equality. The first theorem in this sense is von Neumann's minimax theorem about zero-sum games published in 1928, which was considered the starting point of game theory. Von Neumann is quoted as saying "As far as I can see, there could be no theory of games ... without that theorem ... I thought there was nothing worth publishing until the Minimax Theorem was proved". Since then, several generalizations and alternative versions of von Neumann's original theorem have appeared in the literature. Formally, von Neumann's minimax theorem states:

Let $$X \subset \mathbb{R}^n$$ and $$Y \subset \mathbb{R}^m$$ be compact convex sets. If $$f: X \times Y \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$$ is a continuous function that is concave-convex, i.e.

 * $$f(\cdot,y): X \to \mathbb{R}$$ is concave for fixed $$y$$, and
 * $$f(x,\cdot): Y \to \mathbb{R}$$ is convex for fixed $$x$$.

Then we have that

 * $$\max_{x\in X} \min_{y\in Y} f(x,y) = \min_{y\in Y} \max_{x\in X}f(x,y).$$

Special case: Bilinear function
The theorem holds in particular if $$f(x,y)$$ is a linear function in both of its arguments (and therefore is bilinear) since a linear function is both concave and convex. Thus, if $$f(x,y) = x^\mathsf{T} A y$$ for a finite matrix $$A \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times m}$$, we have:

 * $$\max_{x \in X} \min_{y \in Y} x^\mathsf{T} A y = \min_{y \in Y}\max_{x \in X} x^\mathsf{T} A y. $$

The bilinear special case is particularly important for zero-sum games, when the strategy set of each player consists of lotteries over actions (mixed strategies), and payoffs are induced by expected value. In the above formulation, $$A$$ is the payoff matrix.

title: Minimax theorem


text: Talk:Berryteuthis magister

title: Talk:Berryteuthis magister


text:
Clarice Vance

Clarice Vance née Clara Etta Black (March 14, 1870 – August 24, 1961), "The Southern Singer" was an American vaudeville personality from the late 19th century to about 1917.

Early life and marriage
Clarice Vance was born in Ohio in 1870. She began her career in farce comedy in the early 1890s and was such a hit singing the songs interpolated into plot that she quickly won fame, singing ragtime and dialect songs as a single. When she performed with the James and Bonnie Thornton troop, he coined her, "The Southern Singer".

She married "Mose" Gumble, head of Remick Music Publishing in New York, in 1904, but divorced him in 1914. Gumble was a well known songwriter along with his brother, Albert, but is remembered today as the man who gave George Gershwin his first job plugging songs at Remick. According to the 1900 census, this well known marriage was preceded by a marriage to William A. Sims who served briefly as her manager. According to the New York Clipper she was granted a divorce from John Blanchard in early 1904. This was followed by her marriage to Gumble.

Recent research into Pike County, Ohio census records indicate that Clarice's mother's name was Mary Vance, solving the riddle of her stage name. Her middle name was actually "Etta" not Ella. This was confirmed by Sterling Morris after obtaining a copy of the original notice in Variety of her marriage to Gumble in 1904. The New York Times' archives reveal that Vance later married Phelps Decker, a screen scenario writer and for a short time, manager in the New York offices of Universal Pictures. His services were terminated in early 1928 and discovered by his wife, "former vaudeville actress Clarice Vance" to have asphyxiated himself on February 5, 1928, in their apartment at 35 East 15th St. Manhattan, New York. He was 16 years her junior.

Career
Vance was known as a "coon singer", singing popular Negro dialect songs of the day. She was a handsome woman, slightly over 6' tall and could project over a 26-piece orchestra when she sang on the stage. She shared the bill with the leading headliners of the day and her impish face appears on dozens of sheet music covers from 1897 to 1914. Her picture appeared in Vanity Fair at one point. In 1910 she starred in a short-lived but lavish Broadway musical, A Skylark. She played at least three extended engagements in London, the most successful being a 26-week appearance at the London Palace in 1909.

Her records exhibit a rare, radiant and very droll wit. She recorded for Edison Records in 1905 (two selections) and from 1906 to 1909 for Victor. Her most popular song was "Mariar", co-written by her husband; she recorded three versions of it.

Later life
Vance's life after 1923 is shrouded in mystery. In the early 1920s, she appeared briefly in movies in character parts and slid into total oblivion, but according to the 1935 California voters registration, she was living in San Francisco, listing her profession as "dramatic coach" and residing at 1045 Bush Street.

From 1944 to 1951, she lived in a rooming house at 1535 Pine Street in San Francisco. From 1951 until her death in 1961, she was a patient at Napa State Mental Hospital in Napa, California. She died at this facility, aged 91, knowing only her name and that she was "an actress".

title: Clarice Vance


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Spark

Spark commonly refers to:

 * Spark (fire), a small glowing particle or ember
 * Electric spark, a form of electrical discharge

Spark may also refer to:

People

 * Spark (surname)
 * Jessica Morgan (born 1992; formerly known as Spark), female singer-songwriter from East London

Companies

 * Spark, the last-mile delivery service for Walmart
 * Spark (architects), an international architectural firm
 * Spark (U.S. organization), a Trotskyist group
 * Spark Energy, a UK electricity and gas supplier
 * Spark Infrastructure, an investor in Australian infrastructure assets
 * Spark Networks SE, an online dating company
 * Spark New Zealand, a telecommunications company
 * Spark Racing Technology, a French motorsport manufacturer specializing in electric racecars
 * Spark Unlimited, a computer game developer

Computer science

 * Adobe Spark, a suite of media applications developed by Adobe Systems
 * Apache Spark, a cluster computing framework
 * Cisco Spark (application), a collaboration application and platform now part of the Webex Teams application
 * Spark (application), a mobile email application by Readdle
 * Spark (cellular automaton), a type of pattern in Conway's Game of Life and related rules
 * SPARK (programming language), a variant of the Ada programming language that focuses on high-integrity software
 * Spark (XMPP client), an instant messaging client

Arts, entertainment and media

 * Spark (radio show), a culture and technology program hosted for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
 * Project Spark, a "game maker" video game

Books, comics and periodicals

 * The Spark (newspaper), the student newspaper of the University of Reading
 * Spark (comics) or Ayla Ranzz, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes
 * Spark (magazine), the student newspaper of the Victorian College of the Arts Student Union, Australia
 * Spark (Matayoshi novel), a 2015 novel by Naoki Matayoshi
 * Spark (Twelve Hawks novel), a 2014 novel by John Twelve Hawks
 * Spark, the student magazine of Lakota East High School, Ohio, U.S.
 * Spark Mag, an online publication founded by the punk band Downtown Boys
 * "Spark", in the comics series Girl Genius, a mad scientist with supernatural abilities
 * Iskra (Russian for "The Spark"), newspaper of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Films

 * Spark (1998 film), starring Terrence Howard
 * Spark: A Burning Man Story, a 2013 documentary
 * Spark (2014 film), directed by V. K. Singh
 * Spark (2016 film), an animated film

Music

 * Spark Records, a US record label
 * Spark (UK record label)
 * Spark Sunderland, a radio station in Sunderland, England

Albums

 * Spark (Alain Johannes album), 2010
 * Spark (Drake White album), 2016
 * Spark (Hiromi album), 2016
 * Spark (Marit Larsen album), 2011
 * Spark (Thomas Leeb album), 2004
 * The Spark (album), by Enter Shikari, 2017
 * Spark (Whitney album), 2022
 * The Spark, by Plankeye, 1995

Songs

 * "Spark" (Amy Macdonald song), 2010
 * "Spark" (Tori Amos song), 1998
 * "Spark", by Assemblage 23 from Compass
 * "Spark", by Ed Sheeran from -
 * "Spark", by Fitz and the Tantrums from More Than Just a Dream
 * "Spark", by The Church from Starfish
 * "The Spark" (Afrojack song)
 * "The Spark" (Kabin Crew and Lisdoonvarna Crew song)

Other arts, entertainment and media

 * ABC Spark, a Canadian cable channel
 * Hibana: Spark, a 2016 Japanese web series

Naval vessels

 * HMS Spark, a British Royal Navy submarine
 * USS Spark (1813), a United States Navy brig
 * USS Spark (1831), a United States Navy schooner
 * USS Spark (IX-196), a United States Navy tank-landing ship

Other uses

 * Spark Point, a rocky point in the South Shetland Islands
 * Spark (horse)
 * Spark (mathematics), the smallest number of linearly dependent columns in a matrix
 * SPARK (anti-counterfeiting feature)
 * SPARK (rocket), an American expendable launch system
 * Spark-gap transmitter, a technology used to generate radio waves
 * Spark or Sinthusa, a genus of butterfly
 * Kicksled or spark, a small sled
 * Chevrolet Spark
 * TheSpark.com, website which originated SparkNotes
 * Hangzhou Spark, a Chinese esports team in the Overwatch League
 * Spark, a colloquial term referring to an electrician
 * Spark, the leader of Team Instinct in Pokémon Go

title: Spark


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Kiskiminetas River

The Kiskiminetas River (commonly referred to as the Kiski by locals) is a tributary of the Allegheny River, approximately 27 mi long, in Western Pennsylvania in the United States. The region stretching from the northern side of Harmar Township, Pennsylvania to the Kiskiminetas towns is often referred to by the locals as the Alle-Kiski Valley after the rivers.

Course
The Kiskiminetas River is formed at Saltsburg, on the border between Westmoreland and Indiana counties, by the confluence of the Conemaugh River and Loyalhanna Creek. It flows northwest in a meandering course past Avonmore, Apollo, Vandergrift, Hyde Park and Leechburg. It joins the Allegheny River near Freeport at Schenley, approximately 25 mi northeast of Pittsburgh.

The Kiski-Conemaugh watershed includes much of the historic coal-producing region of Western Pennsylvania. The water quality is considered degraded by numerous abandoned mine drainages in its upper reaches and tributaries, leading to on-going efforts by federal, state, and private agencies to improve the water quality of the river. The Kittanning Path, a major trail in the region used by Native Americans and early European settlers, crossed the river at a ford near present-day Leechburg.

Political subdivisions
The course of the Kiskiminetas River traverses the following political subdivisions, named in order of encounter traveling downstream.

 * Saltsburg
 * Loyalhanna Township, Westmoreland County
 * Conemaugh Township, Indiana County
 * Kiskiminetas Township, Armstrong County
 * Bell Township, Westmoreland County
 * Apollo
 * Allegheny Township, Westmoreland County
 * East Vandergrift
 * Vandergrift
 * Parks Township, Armstrong County
 * Leechburg
 * West Leechburg
 * Gilpin Township, Armstrong County

Tributaries
(Mouth at the Allegheny River)

 * Elder Run
 * Penn Run
 * Brady Run
 * Guffy Run
 * Carnahan Run
 * Pine Run
 * Beaver Run
 * Roaring Run
 * Rattling Run (also called Jackson's Run)
 * Flat Run
 * Wolford Run
 * Long Run
 * Sulphur Run
 * Blacklegs Creek
 * Big Run
 * Marshall Run
 * Harpers Run
 * Nesbit Run
 * Hooper Run
 * Whisky Run
 * Loyalhanna Creek
 * Conemaugh River

Etymology
There is no definite interpretation of the origin of the name. It may come from a Native American phrase Kithanne, meaning "Place of the largest stream." According to regional historians in the area, the name has historically had several other possible meanings, including: "river of the big fish" and "plenty of walnuts." Robert Walker Smith in his "History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania" (Chicago: Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1883) reported that John Heckewelder (a Moravian writer, explorer, and historian who wrote about the Lenape and other tribes in Western Pennsylvania in the 18th century) claimed that the name is "corrupted from Gieschgumanito, signifying, make daylight. In this case, the etymology is: Gisch-gu---day; gisch-que---today; gieschapen---it is daybreak; manitoon---to make. It was probably the word of command, given by a warrior to his comrades at night to break up camp and resume the journey, or war-path." Smith also described another possible meaning from another source: "It is said in McCullough's Narrative, that the Indians called this river Kee-ak-ksheman-nit-toos, signifying 'cut spirit'." Smith noted that he preferred Heckewelder's definition. It is also possible that "Kiskiminetas" means "clear, clean stream of many bends."

title: Kiskiminetas River


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Krasnaya Zvezda

Krasnaya Zvezda (Кра́сная звезда́, literally "Red Star") is the official newspaper of the Soviet and later Russian Ministry of Defence. Today its official designation is "Central Organ of the Russian Ministry of Defence."

Krasnaya Zvezda was created by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP on 29 November 1923 as the central printing body of the People's Commissariat of defense of the USSR for military Affairs (later the Ministry of Defense of the USSR). The first issue was published on 1 January 1924.

title: Krasnaya Zvezda


text:
Redirect

Redirect and its variants (e.g., redirection) may refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Redirect (album), 2012 Christian metal album and its title track by Your Memorial
 * Redirected (film), a 2014 action comedy film

Computing

 * ICMP Redirect Message, a mechanism for routers to convey routing information to hosts
 * URL redirection, a mechanism for making a web page available under more than one address

Law

 * Redirect examination, a trial process in law

title: Redirect


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Sphagnum

Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16 to 26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions.

As Sphagnum moss grows, it can slowly spread into drier conditions, forming larger mires, both raised bogs and blanket bogs. Thus, Sphagnum can influence the composition of such habitats, with some describing Sphagnum as 'habitat manipulators'. These peat accumulations then provide habitat for a wide array of peatland plants, including sedges and ericaceous shrubs, as well as orchids and carnivorous plants.

Sphagnum and the peat formed from it do not decay readily because of the phenolic compounds embedded in the moss's cell walls. In addition, bogs, like all wetlands, develop anaerobic soil conditions, which produces slower anaerobic decay rather than aerobic microbial action. Peat moss can also acidify its surroundings by taking up cations, such as calcium and magnesium, and releasing hydrogen ions.

Under the right conditions, peat can accumulate to a depth of many meters. Different species of Sphagnum have different tolerance limits for flooding and pH, and any one peatland may have a number of different Sphagnum species.

Physiology of plants in the genus Sphagnum
An individual Sphagnum plant consists of a main stem, with tightly arranged clusters of branch fascicles usually consisting of two or three spreading branches and two to four hanging branches. The top of the plant (capitulum) has compact clusters of young branches that give the plant its characteristic tuft-like appearance. Along the stem are scattered leaves of various shapes, named stem leaves; the shape varies according to species.

Cellular structure
Sphagnum has a distinctive cellular structure. The stem portion consists of two important sections. The pith which is the site of food production and storage, and the cortical layer which serves to absorb water and protect the pith. Mosses have no vascular system to move water and nutrients around the plant. Thus tissues are thin and usually one cell thick to allow them to diffuse easily. Sphagnum mosses have two distinct cell types. There are small, green, living cells with chlorophyll (chlorophyllose cells) that produce food for the plant. Additionally there are larger hyaline or retort cells that are barrel shaped and have a pore at one end to allow for water absorption and improved water-holding capacity. These unique cells help Sphagnum to retain water during prolonged UV exposure.

Lifecycle
Sphagnum, like all other land plants, has an alternation of generations; like other bryophytes, the haploid gametophyte generation is dominant and persistent. Unlike other mosses, the long-lived gametophytes do not rely upon rhizoids to assist in water uptake.

Sphagnum species can be unisexual (male or female, dioecious) or bisexual (male and female gametes produced from the same plant; monoecious); In North America, 80% of Sphagnum species are unisexual.

Gametophytes have substantial asexual reproduction by fragmentation, producing much of the living material in sphagnum peatlands.

Swimming sperm fertilize eggs contained in archegonia that remain attached to the female gametophyte. The sporophyte is relatively short-lived, and consists almost entirely of a shiny green, spherical spore capsule that becomes black with spores. Sporophytes are raised on stalks to facilitate spore dispersal, but unlike other mosses, Sphagnum stalks are produced by the maternal gametophyte. Tetrahedral haploid spores are produced in the sporophyte by meiosis, which are then dispersed when the capsule explosively discharges its cap, called an operculum, and shoots the spores some distance. The spores germinate to produce minute protonemae, which start as filaments, can become thalloid, and can produce a few rhizoids. Soon afterwards, the protonema develops buds and these differentiate into its characteristic, erect, leafy, branched gametophyte with chlorophyllose cells and hyaline cells.

Carpets of living Sphagnum may be attacked by various fungi, and one fungus that is also a mushroom, Sphagnurus paluster, produces conspicuous dead patches. When this fungus and other agarics attack the protonema, Sphagnum is induced to produce nonphotosynthetic gemmae that can survive the fungal attack and months later germinate to produce new protonema and leafy gametophytes.

Taxonomy and phylogeny
Peat moss can be distinguished from other moss species by its unique branch clusters. The plant and stem color, the shape of the branch and stem leaves, and the shape of the green cells are all characteristics used to identify peat moss to species. Sphagnum taxonomy has been very contentious since the early 1900s; most species require microscopic dissection to be identified. In the field, most Sphagnum species can be identified to one of four major sections of the genus—classification and descriptions follow Andrus 2007 (Flora North America):

 * Sphagnum sect. Acutifolia plants generally form hummocks above the water line, usually colored orange or red. Examples: Sphagnum fuscum and Sphagnum warnstorfii.
 * Sphagnum sect. Cuspidata plants are usually found in hollows, lawns, or are aquatic, and are green. Examples: Sphagnum cuspidatum and Sphagnum flexuosum.
 * Sphagnum sect. Sphagnum plants have the largest gametophytes among the sections, forming large hummocks, their leaves form cuculate (hood-shaped) apices, and are green, except for Sphagnum magellanicum Example: Sphagnum austinii.
 * Sphagnum sect. Subsecunda plants vary in color from green to yellow and orange (but never red), and are found in hollows, lawns, or are aquatic. Species always with unisexual gametophytes. Examples: Sphagnum lescurii and Sphagnum pylaesii.

The reciprocal monophyly of these sections and two other minor ones (Rigida and Squarrosa) has been clarified using molecular phylogenetics. All but two species normally identified as Sphagnum reside in one clade; two other species have recently been separated into new families within the Sphagnales reflecting an ancestral relationship with the Tasmanian endemic Ambuchanania and long phylogenetic distance to the rest of Sphagnum. Within main clade of Sphagnum, phylogenetic distance is relatively short, and molecular dating methods suggest nearly all current Sphagnum species are descended from a radiation that occurred just 14 million years ago.

Geographic distribution

Sphagnum mosses occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere in peat bogs, conifer forests, and moist tundra areas. Their northernmost populations lie in the archipelago of Svalbard, Arctic Norway, at 81° N.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the largest peat areas are in southern Chile and Argentina, part of the vast Magellanic moorland (circa 44,000 square km; 17,000 sq. mi.). Peat areas are also found in New Zealand and Tasmania. In the Southern Hemisphere, however, peat landscapes may contain many moss species other than Sphagnum. Sphagnum species are also reported from "dripping rocks" in mountainous, subtropical Brazil.

Spore dispersal
As with many other mosses, Sphagnum species disperse spores through the wind. The tops of spore capsules are only about 1 cm ($1/2$") above ground, and where wind is weak. As the spherical spore capsule dries, the operculum is forced off, followed by a cloud of spores. The exact mechanism has traditionally attributed to a "pop gun" method using air compressed in the capsule, reaching a maximum velocity of 3.6 m per second, but alternative mechanisms have been recently proposed. High-speed photography has shown vortex rings are created during the discharge, which enable the spores to reach a height of 10 to 20 cm, further than would be expected by ballistics alone. The acceleration of the spores is about 36,000g. Spores are extremely important in establishment of new populations in disturbed habitats and on islands.

Human activities like slash-and-burn and cattle grazing are believed to promote the growth and expansion of Sphagnum moss. Oceanic islands such as the Faroe Islands, the Galápagos or the Azores have recorded a significant increase in their Sphagnum populations after human settlement.

Uses
Decayed, dried sphagnum moss has the name of peat or peat moss. This is used as a soil conditioner which increases the soil's capacity to hold water and nutrients by increasing capillary forces and cation exchange capacity – uses that are particularly useful in gardening. This is often desired when dealing with very sandy soil, or plants that need increased or steady moisture content to flourish. A distinction is sometimes made between sphagnum moss, the live moss growing on top of a peat bog, and 'sphagnum peat moss' (North American usage) or 'sphagnum peat' (British usage), the latter being the slowly decaying matter underneath.

Dried sphagnum moss is used in northern Arctic regions as an insulating material.

Anaerobic acidic sphagnum bogs have low rates of decay, and hence preserve plant fragments and pollen to allow reconstruction of past environments. They even preserve human bodies for millennia; examples of these preserved specimens are Tollund Man, Haraldskær Woman, Clonycavan Man and Lindow Man. Such bogs can also preserve human hair and clothing, one of the most noteworthy examples being Egtved Girl, Denmark. Because of the acidity of peat, however, bones are dissolved rather than preserved. These bogs have also been used to preserve food. Up to 2000-year-old containers of butter or lard have been found.

Sphagnum moss has been used for centuries as a dressing for wounds, including through World War I. Botanist John William Hotson's paper, Sphagnum as a surgical dressing, published in Science in 1918, was instrumental in the acceptance of Sphagnum moss use as a medical dressing in place of cotton. Preparations using Sphagnum such as Sphagnol soap have been used for various skin conditions including acne, ringworm, and eczema. The soap was used by the British Red Cross during both World Wars to treat facial wounds and trench sores.

Since it is absorptive and extremely acidic, it inhibits growth of bacteria and fungi, so it is used for shipping seeds and live plants.

Peat moss is used to dispose of the clarified liquid output (effluent) from septic tanks in areas that lack the proper conditions for ordinary disposal means. It is also used as an environmentally friendly alternative to chlorine in swimming pool sanitation. The moss inhibits the growth of microbes and reduces the need for chlorine in swimming pools.

In Finland, peat mosses have been used to make bread during famines.

In China, Japan and Korea, long strand dried sphagnum moss is traditionally used as a potting medium for cultivating Vanda falcata orchids.

Conservation

Several of the world's largest wetlands are sphagnum-dominated bogs, including the West Siberian Lowland, the Hudson Bay Lowland and the Mackenzie River Valley. These areas provide habitat for common and rare species. They also store large amounts of carbon, which helps reduce global warming.

According to an article written in 2013, the U.S. got up to 80% of sphagnum peat moss it uses from Canada. At that time, in Canada, the peat bog mass harvested each year was roughly 1/60th of the peat mass that annually accumulated. About 0.02% of the 1.1 e6km2 of Canadian peat bog are used for peat moss mining. Some efforts are being made to restore peat bogs after peat mining, and some debate exists as to whether the peat bogs can be restored to their premining condition and how long the process takes. "The North American Wetlands Conservation Council estimates that harvested peatlands can be restored to 'ecologically balanced systems' within five to 20 years after peat harvesting." Some wetlands scientists assert that "a managed bog bears little resemblance to a natural one. Like tree farms, these peatlands tend toward monoculture, lacking the biodiversity of an unharvested bog."

PittMoss, a peat moss alternative made from recycled newspaper, has emerged as a sustainable substitute in growing media. Coir has also been touted as a sustainable alternative to peat moss in growing media. Another peat moss alternative is manufactured in California from sustainably harvested redwood fiber. Semi-open cell polyurethane materials available in flaked and sheet stock are also finding application as sphagnum replacements with typical usage in green wall and roof garden substrates.

Chile
In the 2010s, Sphagnum peat in Chile has begun to be harvested at a large scale for export to countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Sphagnum’s ability to absorb excess water and release it during dry months means that overexploitation may threaten the water supply in the fjords and channels of Chile. Extraction of Sphagnum in Chile is regulated by law since 2 August 2018. Since 2018, Chilean law allows for the manual extraction of Sphagnum using only pitchforks or similar tools as an aid. In a given designated harvesting area (polygon) at least 30% of Sphagnum coverage has to be left unharvested. Harvested Sphagnum fibers may not exceed 15 cm in length and the remaining Sphagnum after harvest may never have a length less than 5 cm over the water table. In the regions of Los Ríos (40°S) and Los Lagos (41–43°S) the same plots may be harvested after 12 years, while further south in Aysén (44–48°S) and Magallanes (49–56°S) 85 years have to pass before the same area can be harvested again.

Harvesting aside, bogs where Sphagnum grows have also come under threat by the development of wind farms in cool humid areas such as the Cordillera del Piuchén where the San Pedro Wind Farm was constructed in the 2010s. The construction of each wind turbine usually implies the removal of vegetation and the alteration of the soil, changing by the way also of the local hydrology.

Europe
Europe has a long history of the exploitation of peatlands. The Netherlands, for example, once had large areas of peatland, both fen and bog. Between 100 AD and the present, they were drained and converted to agricultural land. The English broadlands have small lakes that originated as peat mines. More than 90% of the bogs in England have been damaged or destroyed. A handful of bogs has been preserved through government buyouts of peat-mining interests. Over longer time scales, however, some parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have seen expansion of bogs, particularly blanket bogs, in response to deforestation and abandonment of agricultural land.

New Zealand
New Zealand has, like other parts of the world, lost large areas of peatland. The latest estimates for wetland loss in New Zealand are 90% over 150 years. In some cases, better care is taken during the harvesting of Sphagnum to ensure enough moss is remaining to allow regrowth. An 8-year cycle is suggested, but some sites require a longer cycle of 11 to 32 years for full recovery of biomass, depending on factors including whether reseeding is done, the light intensity, and the water table. This "farming" is based on a sustainable management program approved by New Zealand's Department of Conservation; it ensures the regeneration of the moss, while protecting the wildlife and the environment. Most harvesting in New Zealand swamps is done only using pitchforks without the use of heavy machinery. During transportation, helicopters are commonly employed to transfer the newly harvested moss from the swamp to the nearest road.

title: Sphagnum