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Wilbert Robinson

Wilbert Robinson (June 29, 1864 – August 8, 1934), nicknamed "Uncle Robbie", was an American catcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the Philadelphia Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, and St. Louis Cardinals. He managed the Orioles and Brooklyn Robins. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.

Life and playing career
Born in Bolton, Massachusetts, Robinson was a catcher in the minor New England League in 1885 and made it to the major leagues in 1886 with the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association, where he remained until 1890. He lasted in the majors until 1902, playing much of his career with two separate Baltimore Orioles franchises – from 1890 to 1899 with the Orioles team which folded after the 1899 National League season, and in 1901–02 with the American League team which moved to New York City in 1903 and became the Yankees. He also spent one season, 1900, with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Over the course of his career, Robinson played 1,316 games as a catcher, which prepared him for his second baseball career as a manager. The star catcher of the Orioles dynasty which won three straight titles from 1894 to 1896, he compiled a career batting average of .273, with a peak of .353 in the heavy-hitting season of 1894. Durable behind the plate, he caught a triple-header in 1896, followed by a double-header the following day. He also was the first catcher to play directly behind the batter at all times, as the previous practice had been to play farther back when there were fewer than two strikes. A highlight of his career was a seven-hit game June 10, 1892. He also batted in 11 runs in that game; on September 16, 1924, as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he saw that record eclipsed as Jim Bottomley of the St. Louis Cardinals batted in 12 runs. (Robinson, whose team was in contention for the pennant at the time, lamented, "Why did he have to save all those hits for us? Couldn't he have made some of them against [ Giants manager ] McGraw?")

Baltimore and New York
Robinson and McGraw joined as business partners in the Baltimore Orioles, a team that would debut in the new American League (AL) in 1901. McGraw served as player-manager of the AL Orioles in 1901 and the beginning of the 1902 season, at which point he departed to the New York Giants. There were rumblings of a move to New York City to counter the Giants to help the fledgling League before the season had started, but nothing came to pass yet. The 1902 season was the last for the Orioles in the American League. Robinson took over after McGraw had gone 26–31 to manage the last 83 games. He won 24 while losing 57 (with two ties). The team had been plagued by debt suffered by owner John Mahon. Andrew Freedman and John T. Brush, principal owners of the Giants and Cincinnati Reds, respectively, purchased the team and raided the roster by releasing certain players to be claimed by the two teams. A.L President Ban Johnson seized control of the Orioles not long after and loaned several players from other A.L teams, but the damage was done. After the season, McGraw enticed Robinson to be his pitching coach from 1903 to 1913 (although he would also do some coaching at third base), during which time the Giants won five NL pennants and a World Series title in 1905. As for the Orioles, they moved to New York for 1903. An argument between the two after the 1913 World Series over alleged bad coaching by either man in a saloon (meant to reunite old Oriole teammates) meant the beginning of a feud between the two that never formally healed, and Robinson left to manage Brooklyn in 1914.

Brooklyn Dodgers
In 1914, Robinson took over the National League Brooklyn franchise. The team was known by various nicknames, including Bridegrooms, Superbas, and Dodgers, but during Robinson's managerial tenure, which lasted until 1931, the club was as often referred to as the "Robins" in honor of their manager, who had acquired the nickname "Uncle Robbie." (The frequently error-prone Dodger teams of this era were also sometimes derisively known as "Uncle Robbie's Daffiness Boys.") The Dodgers had finished the previous year with a 65-84 record that was buoyed by stars such as Zack Wheat and Jake Daubert (with the latter having won the National League's MVP award). Robinson would lead them to a 75-79 record in 1914, $19 1/2$ games behind first while finishing 5th for the first time since 1907. He followed it up with an 80-72-2 second season that had them finish third in the League while acquiring future Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Marquard from New York.

By the halfway point of the 1916 season, the Robins were already 15 games above .500. By the time of October, the Robins were holding firm with 91 wins and a bare lead over the Philadelphia Phillies. Facing New York for the final four-game series, they won three to clinch the pennant. It was the first time Brooklyn had won the pennant since 1900, and they would compete in their first ever World Series. They would face the Boston Red Sox, managed by Bill Carrigan that had future Hall of Famers with Babe Ruth and Harry Hooper while making their fourth appearance in the World Series in thirteen years. The Red Sox would win the title, which was the third in four that they would win from 1912 to 1918. Marquard was outmatched in Game 1 by Ernie Shore, as Boston had a 6-1 lead before Brooklyn came close to rallying in the ninth inning, when Carl Mays was brought in to curtail a bases-loaded situation that led to Brooklyn scoring four runs but falling one run short. Boston then won Game 2 in fourteen innings, which featured no scoring for ten straight innings until Boston had a walk-off single. Brooklyn scored in the first inning of that game and promptly did not score again until the 3rd inning of the next game. Brooklyn held on to bounce back in Game 3 after nearly blowing a 4-0 lead, but Boston rallied in Game 4 with a three-run inside-the-park home run by Larry Gardner proving the difference in a 6-2 game. Game 5 featured Boston scoring four unanswered after Brooklyn had a brief lead in the second inning, as Boston won the series in five games (they batted .238 for the series, but Brooklyn batted .200). Brooklyn slumped in the next three seasons, finishing 70-81-5 for a seventh place finish in 1917 before finishing 5th in the next two years, although a trade for Burleigh Grimes (a fellow future Hall of Famer) in 1918 would be a helping hand soon enough. However, in 1920, he led them to a 24-game improvement with 93 wins in 155 games for a seven game cushion over New York for Brooklyn's second pennant in four years. However, the Cleveland Indians (led by player/manager Tris Speaker) would win the World Series five games to two in a series that saw no lead changes at any point, as the team that scored first won the game, with Cleveland scoring as early as the first inning (twice) and as late as the sixth (Game 6). Brooklyn was outscored 21-8.

Robinson continued to manage the Robins for eleven more seasons, with five winning seasons in the mix. His best finish was the 1924 team, which finished 2nd with a 92-62 record while being buoyed by NL MVP Dazzy Vance, who had completed the Triple Crown in leading the NL in wins (28), strikeouts (262) and ERA (2.16). The Robins had a slow run going into August, which included being down by as many as 13 games for first on the 9th. However, the Robins went on a 13-game winning streak from August 25 to September 6, and they were tied for the NL lead three times in the month. On September 23, with four games to play, the Robins were tied for the lead with the Giants before facing the Chicago Cubs (soon tabbed to finish 5th in the standings) and the Boston Braves (the league doormat) for two games each, with Vance tabbed to start two of them (the Giants, however, had five games left to play). However, they would win and lose twice, which included a 10th inning home run off Vance by Gabby Hartnett on the 23rd that doomed the Robins. The Giants finished at 93-60 to finish $1 1/2$ games in first.

The Robins also had their share of struggles, which included seven times of finishing in the second division (below 4th), including five in a row from 1925 to 1929, which coincided with Robinson serving as both manager and team president (having been named after owner Charles Ebbets had died). Robinson finished his career with two fourth place finishes in 1930 and 1931. He closed out his career on September 27, 1931 in Ebbets Field, fittingly against McGraw and his New York Giants. Robinson's Robins won 12-3. He was replaced by Max Carey as manager while hunting at his camp in Brunswick, Georgia.

In his 18 years at the helm of the Robins, Robinson compiled a record of 1,375–1,341–19, including National League championships in 1916 and 1920 – Brooklyn's only pennants between 1901 and 1940. His 1,375 NL victories were, at the time, the 3rd-highest total in National League history, trailing only the totals of John McGraw (then with 2,652) and Fred Clarke (1,602).

Robinson was highly regarded for his ability to draw outstanding performances from his pitching staffs, a result of his many years as a catcher. Among the pitchers he guided to success were Joe McGinnity with both Orioles teams and the Giants, Rube Marquard with the Giants, and Dazzy Vance and Burleigh Grimes with the Dodgers. Another pitcher who would later recall Robinson's excellent advice, although they never played together during a regular season, was John Tener, who in the 1910s served simultaneously as NL president and Governor of Pennsylvania.

Robinson was manager when Al López started out as a catcher in the majors, as Lopez made his debut in 1928 before becoming a regular in 1930 who spent the first six seasons of a 19-year career with Brooklyn. Robinson watched Lopez' style and finally hollered, "Tell that punk he got two hands to catch with! Never mind the stuff." Lopez went on to eventually surpass Robinson in the number of games played as catcher (1,316) and Lopez in the most games caught at 1,918 in 1945. That record was not broken for four decades; in 1951, Lopez became a manager and won two pennants and 1,410 games in seventeen seasons that led to his induction into the Hall of Fame.

Retirement and death
After his retirement from managing, Robinson became the president of the Atlanta Crackers minor league team. He suffered a fall in his hotel room in August 1934, resulting in a broken arm and a head injury. On August 8, he suffered a brain hemorrhage and died in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 70. He was buried in the New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore. His resting place is located near the grave of John McGraw, who had died in February of that year.

Family
Robinson's brother, Fred Robinson, also played briefly in the majors, appearing in 3 games for the 1884 Cincinnati Outlaw Reds of the Union Association.

Legacy

Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945 by the Old-Timers Committee. One reporter had described him as a "Rule-of-thumb manager, a gentle Falstaff, who could get more out of less material than any manager before or since." Noted baseball analyst Bill James, looking at all elected managers in the Hall of Fame based on meeting expectations in regards to record, described his election as "capricious".

Robinson and Ruth Law
On March 13, 1915, at spring training in Daytona Beach, Florida, Robinson decided to try to set a record of sorts by catching a baseball dropped from an airplane being flown 525 ft overhead, being inspired by aviator Ruth Law's penchant for dropping golf balls from the plane onto the nearby golf course. This was not the first stunt involving catching a fly ball from a considerable distance, as Gabby Street had caught a ball dropped from the Washington Monument on August 21, 1908, after 14 misses. Law and team trainer Fred Kelly would be on the plane for the stunt. However, Law had somehow forgot to bring the baseball and instead dropped a grapefruit, which splattered all over the manager. The grapefruit made such a mess that Robinson thought he had lost his eye because of the acid and the bloodlike splatter that covered him, and he began screaming before his teammates began to laugh at the sight of a grapefruit-covered teammate and he realized that it was a joke. From this point on, Robinson referred to airplanes as fruit flies and according to legend it is the reason that the spring training Grapefruit League got its nickname.

Popular culture

 * R. M. Stults dedicated the song Our Orioles March to Capt. Robinson in 1894.

title: Wilbert Robinson


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The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon

The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon is the second expansion pack for the 2002 video game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, developed by Bethesda Game Studios and released for Windows in 2003. The expansion was later released as part of the Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition for the Xbox in 2004. The expansion adds a landmass to the game, Solstheim, a setting modelled on Norse mythology. The primary questline of Bloodmoon involves the investigation of the Bloodmoon Prophecy that foretells the return of the demigod Hircine. A secondary features a new faction, the East Empire Company, which tasks the player to establish a mining colony. Bloodmoon also provides the player with the ability to become a werewolf, a feature closely embedded in the main storyline and quests. The expansion features more detailed environments, including weather shaders such as snowfall and blizzards.

Bloodmoon was developed over six months with a stated objective of making a more open-ended expansion focused on action and exploration, in contrast to the closed design of the previous expansion, The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal. Design of the game's questlines reflected a more open-ended ethos, with the use of branching questlines reflecting player choices. Upon release, Bloodmoon received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to the expansion's highly distinctive visual design and landscape and the design of its branching questlines, particularly the East Empire Company questline, with criticism directed towards the limitations of gameplay when playing as a werewolf and various performance issues and bugs. Solstheim, the setting of Bloodmoon, would return as the primary setting for an Elder Scrolls game in Dragonborn, an expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim released in 2012.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Bloodmoon is largely identical to that in Morrowind, with the game functioning as an extension of quests and open-ended locations to explore. In contrast to the first expansion, Tribunal, which added a city separate from the world map consisting of interior cells, Bloodmoon adds an island to the original world map. Players access the Bloodmoon content and questline by asking non-player characters about the "latest rumors", directing them to a ship that transports them to Solstheim, or alternately locating the ship themselves. The expansion is directed towards higher-level characters at or above level 20, with more difficult enemies including wolves, bears, boars, snow goblins, and wood-spirit Spriggans that must be defeated three times before properly killed. The game features several weapon and armor types, including Stalhrim Ice, Nordic Silver and Snow Wolf, with players able to complete a quest that provides access to non-player characters that can exchange weapons and armor from ice and pelts.

Bloodmoon introduces the ability for the player to become a werewolf. Encountering a werewolf in combat exposes the player to a disease, Sanies Lupis, for three days, during which the player can choose to seek a cure. If the player is not cured within this period, every night the player experiences a short dream cutscene and transform into a werewolf. This form grants the player the 'Eye of the Wolf' ability, which grants increased strength, agility and speed attributes. However, the player can only use their claws in this state, and is unable to use weapons, armor, magical items or cast spells, and is vulnerable to silver weapons. The player is required to kill at least one player character per night to avoid health loss. If non-player characters witness the player transitioning into a werewolf, all non-player characters in the game world permanently attack the player on sight, in and out of their werewolf state.

Setting
Bloodmoon is set in Solstheim, an island between the provinces of Morrowind and Skyrim. The island is recently colonized by the Empire, who administer it from Fort Frostmoth. However, most of Solstheim is uninhabited wilderness, occupied by outlying villages of indigenous Nord tribes, including the Skaal who occupy a major village and the mead hall of Thirsk. On the south end of the island is Raven Rock, the site of a prospective ebony mining colony being developed by the East Empire Company. Dragonborn, an expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim also takes place on the island of Solstheim, set after the events of Bloodmoon.

Story
Bloodmoon introduces two major questlines: a main quest and a factional quest for the East Empire Company. The player initiates the main quest by interacting with Falx Carius, the Captain of Fort Frostmoth, completing small tasks to improve the morale of the fort. Upon completion, the player returns to fort to discover it has been attacked and Carius is missing. The player travels north to the land of the Skaal and completes a series of rituals and tests to gain the trust of the leader, Tharsten Heart-Fang. The player investigates signs of what the Skaal describe as the Bloodmoon Prophecy, in which the appearance of disturbances and werewolves in Solstheim signal the return of the Daedric Prince Hircine in each Age. The player is infected with the werewolf disease, Sanies Lupinus, when the Skaal Village becomes attacked by werewolves, and Heart-Fang is discovered missing. At this point, the main quest diverges depending upon whether the player chooses to cure themselves of the disease to assist the Skaal, or to become a werewolf and fight the Skaal on behalf of Hircine. In the end, both threads converge as the Bloodmoon Prophecy becomes true and Hircine abducts the player for the Great Hunt. Reunited with Carius and Heart-Fang, who have also been abducted for the Great Hunt, the player navigates the maze within Mortrag Glacier to find and defeat the aspect of Hircine to put an end to the Great Hunt.

The East Empire Company questline is a secondary questline in which the player joins the faction and assists in the establishment of a mining colony on the site of Raven Rock. Players initiate the questline by talking to Carnius Magius, the Factor of the expedition, whose unscrupulous plans for the colony often come at odds with his deputy, Falco Galenus. For most of the questline, players can side with Carnius or Falco to undertake tasks to build the colony, including establishing the mine, choosing which type of shops to construct, and resolving problems in the colony including missing shipments, thieves, and disturbances from local natives and monsters. At the end of the questline, the player either aids Carnius to stage an attack on the colony, only to be attacked in turn as Carnius has deemed the player is a liability, or assist Falco in defending the colony against Carnius' fake attack. Both branches end with the player confronting Carinus and defeating him, being rewarded with a promotion as the new Factor of the colony and constructing a player-owned estate in Raven Rock.

Development
Bloodmoon was developed over a six month period from November 2002, and was intended as the last expansion for Morrowind. The concept of Bloodmoon was raised by executive producer Todd Howard, who presented the three core ideas of "werewolves, Nords and snow" to form the basis of the expansion. Bloodmoon was designed as an action-oriented expansion, with a focus on designing an environment filled with new dungeons, creatures and loot. This approach was pursued to contrast with the design of Tribunal, which was conceived as a political drama, with lead project manager Ashley Cheng remarking the developers found that expansion to lack an open-ended landscape to explore. The addition of the expansion's remote island setting of Solstheim was designed to minimise interference with the core game and user modifications. The inclusion of werewolves was the focus of the project team's programming efforts, cited by the developers as the most requested feature for inclusion in Morrowind from players. Designer Mark Nelson recounted that the implementation of werewolves in the game was the centre of the expansion's design, prompting the "large-scale" creation of a branching questline to differentiate players who did and did not choose to become a werewolf.

Bloodmoon was announced by Bethesda Softworks on February 14, 2003, with a gold master of the game finalised in May and released on June 3, 2003, in the United States and June 27 in Europe. Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, which included the original game and its expansions, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, was released for PC and Xbox in October 2003.

Reception
Bloodmoon was received positively by reviewers, with review aggregator Metacritic indicating the game received "Generally favorable reviews" with an average score of 85 out of 100 based on 21 reviews. Reviewers praised the open-ended approach of the expansion as an improvement compared to its predecessor, Tribunal. Steve Butts of IGN was "glad to return to the more-open ended adventuring available in Bloodmoon in contrast to the cramped setting of Tribunal. Daniel Wilks of PC PowerPlay similarly praised Bloodmoon for pursuing a "freeform style" reminiscent of Morrowind in contrast to the "scripted linearity" of Tribunal. Steven Bellotti of RPGamer commended the design of Solstheim as "well laid-out" and varied in its locations, finding it to be a good balance between the "cramped" design of Tribunal and the "widespread and empty" design of Morrowind.

The visual design and landscape of Solstheim, the setting in Bloodmoon, was also unanimously praised for its distinctiveness and visual appeal. Steve Butts of IGN praised Bloodmoon as a "graphical treat", stating "the snow-shrouded forests of Solstheim provide a welcome change of pace", and "the (snow) particles build up to a virtual blizzard (and) it makes a fantastic visual and convinces you that this is a real world." William Abner of GameSpy praised Solstheim as "an entirely new landscape" that "looks and feels like a foreign land compared to the rest of the settings in Morrowind, not just a tacked-on area." Chris Anderson of PC Zone similarly highlighted the "new landscapes" and "lush and expansive forests" helped made the expansion feel "like a completely different game". Several critics highlighted the expansion's use of more detailed environments and snow shaders, whilst noting they affected the game's performance.

Reviewers provided particular praise for the main quest and East Empire Company faction, which sees a game area, Raven Rock, change based on player decisions throughout the questline. Matthew Peckham for Computer Games praised the questline as "ingenious", stating "this sort of thoughtful scripting is what sets a Bethesda role-playing experience apart from its peers. Ron Dulin of GameSpot praised the "complex" East Empire Company questline, stating "the new quests are at least as engaging as those in the original game and emphasize the best role-playing aspects of the series." Steven Bellotti of RPGamer similarly stated that the questline "gives Morrowind what it's been lacking all this time - a way to actually affect the world around you".

Whilst the inclusion of werewolves and lycanthropy in Bloodmoon was featured by many reviewers as a highlight of the expansion, reviewers were divided on its implementation. Ron Dulin of Computer Gaming World critiqued the feature, stating "the implementation isn't very exciting...the need to feed every night can become fairly tiresome, and because werewolves have only their claws as weapons, combat can get repetitive." GameSpot reviewers agreed, finding that whilst play as a werewolf was "a more interesting and challenging alternative to regular adventuring", the permanent mechanic of being attacked on sight by all characters if being seen transitioning between man and werewolf states was "an artificial mechanic that compromises the otherwise immersive setting". Steven Bellotti of RPGamer found the "static and unchanging" attributes of werewolves to be poorly tailored to the expansion's difficult enemies.

Many reviewers observed the graphics of Bloodmoon pushed the performance of their system. Daniel Wilks of PC Powerplay noted "(the game's) facelift comes at the price of framerates - even on high-end machines, combat in the snow can cause the game to chug." GameSpot similarly commented that "since Bloodmoon features even more detailed and populated environments (than Morrowind), the practical system requirements have also correspondingly increased... the resulting reduction in frame rates worsens one of the main problems many players had with the original game."

title: The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon


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Adorno family

The Adorno family was a noble family of the Republic of Genoa, with the branches of Botta in Milan, several of whom were Doges of the republic.

The family is considered one of the most influential in the history of the republic.

The elder branch was extinct in 1634, and the titles, fiefdoms and surname were inherited by the Botta family of Milan, which has since been called Botta Adorno. The Botta family has been attested since 1298, with the progenitor Simone Botta, a citizen of Cremona. The Botta Adorno became extinct in 1882.

They were generally rivals of the Fregoso family. Both families rose to power in the late 14th century.

Notable members

 * Lanfranco Adorno, grandfather of Gabriele Adorno.
 * Daniele Adorno, father of Gabriele Adorno

Doges of the Republic of Genoa

 * Gabriele Adorno (1320-1398), the 4th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Antoniotto Adorno (1340-1398), the 6th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Giorgio Adorno (1350-1430), the 17th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Raffaele Adorno (1375-1458), the 29th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Barnaba Adorno (1385-1459), the 30th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Prospero Adorno (1428-1486), the 34th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.
 * Agostino Adorno (1488-1499)
 * Antoniotto II Adorno (c. 1479–1528), the 45th Doge of the Republic of Genoa.

Castles and palaces

 * Castello di Borgo Adorno
 * Castello della Pietra
 * Castello di Gabiano
 * Castello di Bolzaneto
 * Castello Adorno in Silvano d'Orba
 * Castelletto di Branduzzo
 * Castello di Savignone
 * Palazzo Adorno of Lecce
 * Palazzo Adorno of Genoa
 * Palazzo Cattaneo Adorno in Genoa
 * Palazzo baronale di Caprarica of Lecce
 * Palazzo Adorni Braccesi in Firenze

Cultural references
The first of the Adorno doges, Gabriele Adorno, is also the tenor role in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Simon Boccanegra.

title: Adorno family


text: User talk:68.127.4.193

title: User talk:68.127.4.193


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Mike Howlett

Michael John Gilmour Howlett (born 27 April 1950) is a bass guitar player, record producer and teacher based in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Career
In the late 1960s, Howlett was the bassist in Sydney pop band the Affair, which included vocalist Kerrie Biddell. The group travelled to England after winning a prize in the Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds band competition. Howlett settled in London and in 1973 joined renowned British progressive rock group Gong, which had been founded by an Australian expatriate, Daevid Allen. He remained with Gong until 1977, recording several albums with them and co-writing much of their material later in this period with drummer Pierre Moerlen.

After leaving Gong, Howlett formed the short-lived band Strontium 90, which consisted of himself, Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. In addition to being the band's lead bassist and chief songwriter, Howlett performed most of the lead vocals in live performances. The band recorded several demos and played at a Paris Gong reunion concert in May 1977, but disbanded when Summers left to join Copeland and Sting's other project, the Police. An archival collection of Strontium 90 material was released two decades later as Strontium 90: Police Academy.

A few months after the breakup of Strontium 90, Howlett served as bassist for the one-off studio band The Radio Actors, which also included Gong bandmate Steve Hillage on lead guitar and Strontium 90 bandmate Sting (who came to the group by way of Howlett's recommendation) on lead vocals. The band's single, "Nuclear Waste" b/w "Digital Love", was reissued on CD in 1995 with liner notes and three bonus tracks, though none of the bonus tracks involved Howlett.

In the 1980s, Howlett became an in-demand producer, with a string of notable credits. He produced many hit singles and albums for leading new wave music acts including A Flock of Seagulls, the Alarm, China Crisis, Martha and the Muffins, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Stephen Duffy, Gang of Four and Comsat Angels. He also produced the album Secret Secrets for Joan Armatrading in 1985.

Gong performs occasional reunion gigs around the world, and Howlett usually joins them. In 1993, he launched a record label, Mauve, which released albums by singer-songwriters Rafa Russo, Debbie Cassell and Jay Fisher. From 2005 to 2009, Howlett was chairman of the Music Producers Guild (MPG).

Howlett was awarded a PhD on the subject of record production in 2009 and has lectured in music technology at several universities, including the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales) in Pontypridd, Wales and Thames Valley University (Ealing, London). In 2009, he became Head of Music at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia and is an Adjunct Professor for QUT.

Personal life
Howlett is married with three children and two grandchildren. He lives in West London.

Production credits

 * Fischer-Z
 * Word Salad (1979); Going Deaf for a Living (1980)
 * Punishment of Luxury
 * Laughing Academy (1979)
 * Martha and the Muffins
 * "Insect Love" (1979); Metro Music (1979); "Echo Beach" (1980); Trance and Dance (1980)
 * The Revillos
 * Rev Up (Snatzo/Dindisc, 1980)
 * The Teardrop Explodes
 * "When I Dream" (1980)
 * Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
 * "Messages" (1980); "Enola Gay" (1980); "Souvenir" (1981)
 * Sniff 'n' the Tears
 * Love/Action (1981); Ride Blue Divide (1982)
 * Thompson Twins
 * "Perfect Game" and "Politics" from A Product of ... (1981)
 * Any Trouble
 * Wheels in Motion (Stiff, 1981)
 * Tears for Fears
 * "Pale Shelter" (1982)
 * Gang of Four
 * Songs of the Free (1982)

 * Blancmange
 * Happy Families (1982); "Living on the Ceiling" (1982)
 * A Flock of Seagulls
 * A Flock of Seagulls (1982); Listen (1983)
 * Hunters & Collectors
 * Hunters & Collectors (1982); Payload (EP, 1982)
 * The Comsat Angels
 * Land (1983); 7 Day Weekend (1985, not all songs)
 * China Crisis
 * Working with Fire and Steel – Possible Pop Songs Volume Two (1983)
 * John Foxx
 * "Twilight's Last Gleaming" from The Golden Section (1983)
 * Berlin
 * Love Life (1984, not all songs)
 * Joan Armatrading
 * Secret Secrets (1985)
 * The Alarm
 * Strength (1985)
 * The Ward Brothers
 * Madness of It All (1986, not all songs)
 * TV21
 * All Join Hands (1982)

title: Mike Howlett


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User:Christopherlin

Christopher Lin is a Wikipedian who first edited in March 2004 and increased editing in April 2004.

See User:Christopherlin/Copyrights for copyright information.

He founded WikiProject on Cycling on May 30, 2005. SCEhardt nominated him for adminship in February 2006. (RfA/Christopherlin)

3000; missed 4000 sometime today or yesterday; 5000 00:38, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, back after a while away. 19:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Todo
Encyclopedia stuff:
 * Station identification
 * Television ident
 * Category:Motion Picture Association of America
 * This Film Is Not Yet Rated
 * Cycles Peugeot
 * Follis (bicycles)
 * Category:Cycle designers (populate)
 * Category:A cappella musical groups (sort into subcats of collegiate and professional)
 * New Orleans Museum of Art
 * Sort Category:Telescopes into telescope types and notable telescopes
 * Image from http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/graphics/slides/sciseqtrace.shtml for DNA sequence if it's PD-USgov
 * Finish disambiguating ATP to adenosine triphosphate where appropriate

Wikipedia, non-encyclopedia stuff:
 * Better understand Wikipedia policies on deletion; community standards for adminship
 * (Offer to) Nominate some people off of WP:NA who I've run across in editing
 * Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace
 * Category:Wikipedia image help

Reading list:
 * Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day
 * Wikipedia:Help, my article got nominated for deletion!
 * Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes

fr:Image:Veronica caught vandalizing Wikipedia again.png

commons:User:Christopherlin de:Benutzer:Christopherlin fr:Utilisateur:Christopherlin

title: User:Christopherlin


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Champagne unit

A champagne unit is a US military unit staffed by celebrities or people from wealthy or politically powerful families. Such units had often been part of the National Guard, and assigned to lower-risk duty inside the United States. The term is pejorative, with the connotation that such units were havens for those with connections who wished to avoid conscription into more dangerous duty while still gaining the prestige afforded in the United States to military service. Over a century earlier, such a unit was called a silk-stocking regiment after the New York's 7th Regiment, whose well-off members built their own armory, the Seventh Regiment Armory in the upper East side of Manhattan.

Vietnam War
During the Vietnam War, serving in the Army and Air National Guard or the military Reserve components was generally regarded as a guaranteed way to avoid the dangers of combat. Although National Guard and Reserve units had been called to active duty in every war since they were founded, the risk was extremely low in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Only 8,700 of these servicemen were ordered to South Vietnam, a tiny 0.3% of the total American military personnel who actually served there. Furthermore, a greatly disproportionate number of famous, wealthy, or politically connected young men received hard to get places in the National Guard or Reserves during Vietnam, including 360 professional athletes such as Bill Bradley and Nolan Ryan.

Commenting on this disparity, General Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography, "I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wrangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."

147th Fighter Group
One well known champagne unit was the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, at Ellington Field in Houston. During the Vietnam War many well-connected sons served in this unit, sometimes with the help of politicians such as Ben Barnes.

 * Lloyd Bentsen Jr., son of Lloyd Bentsen
 * George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush
 * John Connally III, son of John Connally Jr.
 * the son of John Tower
 * James R. Bath
 * seven members of the Dallas Cowboys

Decline
The Total Force Policy, implemented by General Creighton Abrams in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, eliminated the National Guard and Reserve as safe havens from combat. In contrast to the Vietnam War, National Guard and Reserve units in 2004 comprised 40 percent of all US military forces serving in Iraq. As of 2006, 270,000 National Guard members (60% of the total force) had been deployed overseas for the maximum amount of time allowed by military regulations.

title: Champagne unit