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List of bishops of Lleida

This is a list of bishops of Lleida.

 * Itxió 203
 * Sant Filó 227
 * Joan 230
 * Pere 258
 * Màrius Seli 259
 * Sant Lleir 268–311
 * Diperdió 313
 * Amili 380
 * Prudenci 400
 * Atanasi 413
 * Saguici 413
 * Jacobo 419
 * Seberí 460
 * Fortunat 517
 * Pere 519
 * Andreu 540
 * Februari 546
 * Polibi 589
 * Julià 592
 * Ameli 599
 * Gomarelo 614
 * Fructuós 633
 * Gandeleno 653
 * Eusendo 683
 * Esteve 714
 * Sant Medard 788
 * Jacobo 842
 * Adulfo 887–922
 * Atón 923–955
 * Odisendo 955–975
 * Aimerico 988–991
 * Jacobo 996
 * Aimerico II 1006–1015
 * Borrell 1017–1019
 * Arnulfo 1023–1067
 * Salomó, osb 1068–1075
 * Arnulfo II 1075–1076
 * Pere Raimund Dalmaci 1076–1094
 * Lupo 1094–1097
 * Ponç, osb 1097–1104
 * Sant Ramon II 1104–1126
 * Esteve 1126
 * Pere Guillem, osb 1126–1134
 * Ramir, osb 1134
 * Gaufrid, osb 1135–1143
 * Guillem Pérez de Ravitats 1776
 * Guillem Berenguer 1177–1190
 * Gombau de Camporrells 1191–1205
 * Berenguer de Eril 1205–1235
 * Pere de Albalate 1236–1238
 * Raimund de Siscar, oc 1238–1247
 * Guillem de Barberà, oc 1248–1255
 * Berenguer de Peralta, op 1256
 * Guillem de Moncad 1257–1278
 * G. Bernáldez de Fluviá 1282–1286
 * Gerald de Andria 1290–1298
 * Pere del Rei 1299–1308
 * Ponce de Aguinaliu 1308–1313
 * Guillem de Aranyó, op 1314–1321
 * Ponç de Villamur 1322–1324
 * Raimund de Avignó 1324–1327
 * Arnau de Cescomes 1327–1334
 * Ferrer de Colom 1334-1240
 * Jaume Sitjó 1341–1348
 * Esteve Mulceo 1348–1360
 * Romeo de Cescomes 1361–1380
 * Raimund 1380–1386
 * Gerard de Requesens 1387–1399
 * Pere de San Clemente 1399–1403
 * Joan Bauphes 1403
 * Pere Zagarriga 1404–1407
 * Pere de Cardona 1407–1411
 * Domingo Ram 1415–1434
 * García Aznárez de Añón 1435–1449
 * Antoni Cerdà 1449–1459
 * Lluís Joan de Milá 1461–1510
 * Joan de Enguera 1510–1516
 * Jaume Conchillos, om 1512–1542
 * Martí Valero 1542
 * Ferran Loaces 1543–1553
 * Joan Arias 1553–1554
 * Miquel Despuig 1556–1559
 * Antoni Agustín 1561–1576
 * M. Thomas de Taxaquet 1577–1578
 * Carles Doménech 1580–1581
 * Benito Toco, osb 1583–1585
 * Gaspar Joan de la Figuera 1585–1586
 * Joan Martínez de Villatoriel 1586–1591
 * Pere de Aragón 1592–1597
 * Francesc Virgili 1599–1620
 * Pere Antón Serra 1621–1633
 * Antoni Pérez, osb 1633
 * Pere de Magarola 1634
 * B.Caballero de Paredes 1635–1642
 * Pere de Santiago, osa. 1644–1650
 * Miquel de Escartín 1656–1664
 * Braulio Sunyer 1664–1667
 * Josep Ninot 1668–1673
 * Jaume Copons 1673–1680
 * Francesc Berardo 1680–1681
 * Miquel Jeroni de Molina 1682–1698
 * Joan de Santa M. Alonso 1699–1700
 * Fr. de Solís, om 1701–1714
 * Francesc Olasso Hipenza 1714–1735
 * Gregorio Galindo 1736–1756
 * Manel Macías Pedrejón 1757–1770
 * J.A.Sánchez Ferragudo 1771–1783
 * Jeroni M. de Torres 1783–1816
 * Manel de Villar 1816–1817
 * Remigi Lasanta Ortega 1818
 * Pau Colmenares, Bishop of Lleida, Catalonia [1824–1832]
 * Simó A.de Rentería Reyes 1819–1824
 * Pau Colmenares, osb 1824–1832
 * Julià Alonso i Vecino 1833–1844
 * Josep D.Costa i Borràs 1848–1850
 * Pere Cirilo Uriz i Labaury 1850–1861
 * Marià Puigllat i Amigó 1861–1870
 * Tomàs Costa i Fornaguera 1875–1889
 * Josep Meseguer i Costa 1889–1905
 * Joan A.Ruano i Martín 1905–1914
 * Josep Miralles Sbert 1914–1925
 * Manuel Irurita Almándoz 1926–1930
 * Salvi Huix Miralpeix 1935–1936
 * Manuel Moll i Salord aa 1938–1943
 * Joan Villar i Sanz 1943–1947
 * Aurelio del Pino Gómez 1947–1967
 * Ramon Malla Call 1968–1999
 * Francesc Xavier Ciuraneta Aymí 1999–2007
 * Juan Piris Frigola since 2008

title: List of bishops of Lleida


text: Category:World War II British sloops

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

title: Category:World War II British sloops


text:
Al Snow

Allen Ray Sarven (born July 18, 1963) is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Al Snow. He is best known for his tenures in Extreme Championship Wrestling and WWF/E. Snow has also held various backstage positions for professional wrestling promotions. Snow worked as a road agent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA, later Impact Wrestling) from 2010 to 2017 and has owned Ohio Valley Wrestling since 2018 (first as majority owner, and a minority owner since 2021).

Early career (1982–1995)
Sarven attended a professional wrestling tryout camp held by Ole and Gene Anderson. There he met Jim Lancaster, promoter of Ohio's Midwest Championship Wrestling, who agreed to train him. Lancaster later described Sarven as "a leader in the ring" who "had drive and natural ability". He made his debut on May 22, 1982. Sarven defeated Lancaster on May 5, 1985, for the Midwest Championship Wrestling title.

Sarven wrestled in various independent promotions throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, capturing both tag team and singles titles, but failed to make any big breaks. In 1993 he competed in the WWF as a jobber losing to Marty Jannetty and The Undertaker under the name Steve Moore. He gained a reputation as "the best-kept secret in wrestling". Sarven helped train future Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Fame member and NWA World Heavyweight Champion Dan Severn. During this time he would sometimes wrestle as Shinobi, a ninja-style masked gimmick. He wrestled in the November 19, 1994, tournament for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but he lost to Chris Candido, the eventual winner of the tournament.

From 1995 to 1997, Snow operated a professional wrestling school called "Body Slammers" in Lima, Ohio, hiring D'Lo Brown as an assistant trainer. It has since branched out with one of his trainers running "Bodyslammers" in Ottawa.

Extreme Championship Wrestling (1995)
After a tour of Japan, Sarven wrestled a match in Michigan against Sabu, an Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) regular, who suggested he try ECW. After making his debut against The Tazmaniac and losing via pinfall on February 4, 1995, Sarven faced Chris Benoit as Al Snow, in a 15-minute match that was hailed as one of the best of the year.

Smoky Mountain Wrestling (1995)
Sarven was also being courted by Jim Cornette for his Smoky Mountain Wrestling federation. ECW booker Paul Heyman agreed to let him work for both companies. Sarven soon found that he was not being utilized by ECW and went to Smoky Mountain full-time. In Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Snow teamed with Unibomb (Glenn Jacobs, later to be known as Kane) as The Dynamic Duo and defeated the Rock 'n' Roll Express for the SMW Tag Team Championship. Both wrestlers caught the attention of the World Wrestling Federation and were signed by the end of 1995.

Various gimmicks (1995–1996)
Sarven began working for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) when he signed a contract in August 1995. During his tenure in the company, Sarven wrestled under numerous gimmicks, such as Avatar, which saw him come to the ring unmasked, putting on a mask to wrestle, then removing it afterwards. The gimmick was based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers whose popularity the company wanted to capitalize on at that time. During his particularly short run under this gimmick, Sarven's WWF debut as Avatar took place on the October 23, 1995, episode of Monday Night RAW, defeating Bryan Walsh. About a month after his debut, he was scheduled to be the third man for The Underdogs at Survivor Series but for reasons unknown, was replaced by Bob Holly. After this, he started teaming with Aldo Montoya. His two final matches as Avatar were against Sycho Sid & 1-2-3 Kid. He was also to partake in the 1996 Royal Rumble match but once again, due to unknown reasons, never appeared. His final match in February was against Isaac Yankem. On February 20, 1996, Sarven wrestled as Shinobi, a "ninja assassin" hired by Jim Cornette to dispose of Shawn Michaels, who defeated Shinobi in quick fashion. Avatar returned for one last appearance against Justin Bradshaw at a house show on March 17, 1996, at MSG in a losing effort.

New Rockers (1996–1997)
Sarven received his first mainstream exposure with the WWF as Leif Cassidy, the tag team partner of Marty Jannetty in February 1996. The duo were promoted as The New Rockers, a throwback to the original Rockers team of Jannetty and Shawn Michaels. Eventually, Jannetty left, and Sarven was reduced to jobbing for mid-carders in January 1997. In the late 1990s, WWF and ECW began to cross-promote their organizations to counteract the success of World Championship Wrestling (WCW); Sarven was one of the wrestlers sent to Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). His last appearance in WWF in September 1997 was a loss to Tiger Ali Singh at WWF One Night Only.

Return to ECW (1997–1998)
Sarven found success back in ECW, billed once again as Al Snow. Sarven developed a new character gimmick after reading about abnormal psychology and finding a mannequin head on the street near the ECW Arena during a Mummers Day parade. He got the idea to portray an individual with a schizophrenic disorder using the head as a prop for projection. In this role, Sarven received a lot of fan and management support for his J.O.B. Squad storyline, which promoted him as being driven insane by his years as a jobber for the WWF.

In the storyline, Snow, upset at his lot in life, asked Cactus Jack what he had to do to get anywhere in wrestling. Jack said to Snow that to become famous he had to "get a little head" (meaning he had to be willing to sleep with/have sex with the booker). Snow, however took this literally, and thus he started coming to the ring with the mannequin head (with the words "Help Me" written backwards on its forehead, an action Snow himself began to do) whom he talked to as if it were a real person, which prompted ECW crowds to chant "We want Head", an intentional double entendre. ECW promoters handed out styrofoam mannequin heads at wrestling shows, and audience members started waving them and shouting, "Head! Head! Head!" in time to "Breathe" by The Prodigy, his entrance music. The entire audience would then throw the heads into the ring before the match started. The biggest match of his ECW career came when he wrestled for the promotion's World Heavyweight Championship, losing to Shane Douglas at Wrestlepalooza in 1998.

Hardcore Championship pursuits (1998–1999)
Sarven was then recalled to the company, where he continued his gimmick of talking to "Head", creating some of the more memorable humorous skits of "The Attitude Era" including fighting himself in a hardcore match (which he won by putting himself through a table) and his short lived comedy tag team with Steve Blackman.

Snow received some mainstream publicity in 1999 when Wal-Mart pulled his action figure from their shelves after Sabrena Parton, a professor at Kennesaw State University, complained that "Head" was a "decapitated woman's head" that sent an inappropriate message about violence towards women. Parton was quoted as saying "What kind of message would this toy send children about brutalization of women?" Sarven used the story as part of an angle in which the controversy caused Al Snow to develop depression.

At WrestleMania XV, Snow lost a WWF Hardcore Championship triple threat match involving Hardcore Holly and Billy Gunn. During the summer of 1999, at the conclusion of a storyline where Head was impaled with a spike by Prince Albert, Snow replaced Head with a chihuahua named Pepper, who he claimed talked to him. A variety of segments were broadcast showing Snow's interactions with the dog, including bringing Pepper to the ring to either "participate" in matches or be held by the broadcast team. This led to a storyline where Big Boss Man kidnapped Pepper. Boss Man agreed to return the dog if Snow defeated him in a match for the Hardcore title; however, after losing the match he reneged and kept the dog. Later, in a segment on SmackDown, Boss Man invited Snow to his hotel room to discuss the situation, before serving Snow dinner which was then revealed to be Pepper. (In a 2008 interview, Snow said that this angle had been based on a story of Mr. Fuji having done something similar with his partner Professor Tanaka's dog. ) The feud culminated at a "Kennel from Hell" match at Unforgiven, which consisted of a regular cage which was surrounded by a Hell in a Cell structure, with "a trained pack of wild dogs" in between the two, and the objective was to escape both cages without being attacked by the dogs. Al Snow won the match.

Various alliances and feuds (1999–2004)
Snow would later team with real life friend Mick Foley and became tag team champions with him for a short amount of time, but turned heel by betraying him due to Foley's jokes about him in his autobiography, Have A Nice Day, and his growing jealousy of Foley's tag team partner, The Rock. He would later turn face again due to fan reaction. Snow was often the butt of Foley's jokes during Foley's tenure as the Commissioner in 2000. However, they are close friends in real life. Foley continued to use Snow as the butt of many jokes in his second book, Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Wrestling.

In early 2000, he began to team with Steve Blackman as an "odd couple" tag team called Head Cheese (the "cheese" part being given various explanations, including Snow's claim that Blackman was a voracious eater of cheese and later his attempt to force him to wear a Green Bay Packers "Cheesehead" hat). At WrestleMania 2000 the two suffered a loss against Test and Albert. Also in the same year, Snow won the European Championship from Perry Saturn. He then began a tongue-in-cheek gimmick of entering the ring to various European countries' native music, with his theme song sung in the language of the country, and wearing attire which would suit the stereotype of that country. This continued until he lost the title to William Regal.

In 2001, Snow tried to rally support from the fans to vote for him as the new Commissioner of the company following Foley's on-screen firing by Vince McMahon in December 2000. By March 2001, a match was set up between Snow and Regal to determine the new Commissioner, which resulted in Regal winning. Snow then took some time off from the ring in order to commit more time for the reality show Tough Enough. He made his return to the ring in October 2001 during the InVasion era and challenged Christian for the European Championship at Survivor Series, which he lost.

Snow's last championship reign came on March 11, 2002, when he defeated Goldust to win his last Hardcore Championship. He lost the title to his former Tough Enough student, Maven, a few days later. He was drafted to SmackDown! as part of the 2002 Brand Extension, where he teamed up with Maven. After taking time off again for another season of Tough Enough, Snow returned as a member of the Raw roster and eventually became a commentator for Sunday Night Heat alongside Jonathan Coachman. When Coachman sided with Eric Bischoff, Snow followed suit, turning heel. The two feuded with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, and briefly replaced them at the Raw announce table after a victory at Unforgiven in 2003. When Tough Enough IV came to SmackDown!, Snow was on the scene and turned face once again.

On April 12, 2004, episode of Raw, Snow dressed up as the Five Star Ninja a portray of Shinobi which he lost to Tajiri.

Commentator and ECW (2004–2006)
In September 2004 Snow left Sunday Night Heat as a commentator and went to Velocity. He continued to coach for WWE Tough Enough season 4. He did not wrestle any matches for WWE in 2005. Instead, he continued working in the independents.

In June 2006, Snow returned to wrestling full-time as a member of the new ECW brand. His first appearance in the new brand was in the WWE vs ECW Battle Royal at the "WWE vs. ECW Head to Head" special, where he was accompanied by Head. He was eliminated from the match. On the June 13, 2006, debut of ECW on Sci-Fi, Snow participated in an Extreme Battle Royal, which was won by Sabu. Over the next four months, he was used sporadically, mostly as a jobber, losing to people such as Test and Kevin Thorn. Snow was taken off the ECW roster in October 2006.

Developmental and departure (2007–2008)
Snow then returned with the company as a trainer at Ohio Valley Wrestling in 2007. On the February 3, 2007 OVW TV tapings, Snow was named the new OVW Troubleshooter by Danny Davis in response to Danny Basham's WWE release. On Raw XV, the 15th-Anniversary special on December 10, 2007, Snow participated in the 15th Anniversary Battle Royal where he eliminted Doink the Clown and Gangrel. He was eliminated by Flash Funk. After WWE ceased affiliations with Ohio Valley Wrestling in February 2008, Sarven was released from his position as a trainer.

Independent circuit (2004–2006, 2007, 2008–present)
Snow was allowed to compete on the independent circuit while under contract with the WWE. Snow would feud with Chris Candido for Northeast Wrestling in Connecticut in the fall of 2004. On May 7, 2005, Snow teamed with D-Lo Brown lsoing to Mick Foley and Shane Douglas at Mark Curtis Memorial Reunion in Johnson City, Tennessee. In 2006, Snow was pinned by the Millennium Wrestling Federation (MWF) Heavyweight Champion "Sudden Impact" Dylan Kage of Paul Bearer's Trifecta stable at MWF Fireworks On The 4th. Snow would return to WWE's active roster full time in June 2006.

After being released in February 2008 by WWE, Snow has regularly competed in several independent promotions in the U.S. and Europe, especially in the U.K. and Germany. In March 2009, he made an appearance in Chikara's King of Trios tournament, teaming up with Glacier and D'Lo Brown.

On October 21, 2022, Snow and Kal Herro won the OFE Tag Team as the Newest Rockers. Snow wore attire that he wore as Leif Cassidy.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling / Impact Wrestling (2008–2017)
In the lead-up to the December 7, 2008, TNA show Final Resolution, Mick Foley assigned himself as the special guest enforcer for the match between Kurt Angle and Rhino. Angle said he had hired "another former World Champion" and someone who had co-held a world tag team title with Foley. This person would debut during Angle's match to "take care of Foley". And on the night in question, Al Snow revealed himself to be the mystery ally of Angle, who interrupted the match by slapping Foley. The distraction allowed Angle to beat Rhino.

In March 2010, Sarven received a tryout as an agent for TNA Wrestling. He made his return to television on the July 15, 2010, edition of Impact!, aligning himself with fellow ECW alumni Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Stevie Richards, Rhino, Brother Devon, Pat Kenney and Mick Foley in their invitation by Dixie Carter to TNA. The following week, TNA president Dixie Carter agreed to give the ECW alumni their own reunion pay–per–view event, Hardcore Justice: The Last Stand, as a celebration of hardcore wrestling and a final farewell to the company. At the event Snow was defeated by Rhino in a three-way match, which also included Brother Runt. After that, he appeared onscreen in his real-life role as company agent on multiple occasions, often alongside fellow agents Ace "D'Lo Brown" Conner and Pat Kenney. Sarven currently holds the title of producer for the company. In Spring 2011, Snow returned to OVW, dividing his time between his TNA duties and work as a show producer for OVW. In November of that year, OVW became TNA's official developmental territory.

In May 2012, Snow began appearing as a judge in the monthly Gut Check segment on Impact Wrestling. The following July, Snow started a storyline rivalry with Joey Ryan, who had been denied a spot on the TNA roster, following his appearance on TNA Gut Check. After Snow tricked Ryan into signing a contract for a match, the two met on October 14 at Bound for Glory, where Snow wrestled only his second match for TNA, losing to Ryan, following interference from Matt Morgan.

On January 12, 2013, Snow took part in Joker's Wild (which aired May 3, 2013), teaming with recent rival Joey Ryan, in a loss against Matt Morgan and Robbie T.

On the August 7, 2014, edition of Impact Wrestling, Snow returned to team with Team 3D (Bully Ray and Devon) and Tommy Dreamer against Ethan Carter III, Rhino, Big Rycklon and Gene Snitsky in an eight-man Hardcore War in a winning effort.

On the February 13, 2015, edition of Impact Wrestling (which was taped on January 29), Snow returned to TV as a heel, where he was seen in the SSE Hydro, calling out Scottish wrestler and British Boot Camp 2 contestant, Grado. Grado would come out to the ring where Snow would give him the opportunity to retire from wrestling, Grado would not take the offer. On the February 20 edition of Impact Wrestling (also taped January 29) Snow would face Grado in a losing effort, after which he would then go on to shake Grado's hand turning face in the process. Afterwards, the Beat Down Clan (BDC) would go on to attack both Snow and Grado, but were saved by the debuting Drew Galloway, would fend off the BDC and who would then stand tall in the ring alongside Al Snow and his friend, Grado. At Bound for Glory 2015 Snow competed in the Bound for Gold Gauntlet. On the March 29, 2016 Impact Wrestling Snow returned as a heel attacking Grado backstage.

On the April 5, 2016 Impact Wrestling TNA Management Director Billy Corgan suspended Al Snow for the week without pay and said next week he must apologise. When Al Snow returned from his suspension week, he entered the ring and said the ease new talents get today with earning respect and a name in the professional wrestling business, drove him crazy as he and others of his and generations before him needed to get some for quite a long time and fight hard to prove themselves worthy back then. He invited Mahabali Shera to the ring and apologized to him for attacking him and Grado, breaking Grado's arm in the process. Shera shook hands with him, only for Al Snow to betray and attack him once they went out of the ring. At a backstage segment, Al Snow said angrily he doesn't need to apologize and explain himself to rookies and if they want his apology and respect they need to defeat him in a match.

A week after, Al Snow had a match with Shera in which before and a bit during the match he has blamed the wrestling changes on the fans and said they are cowards for sitting behind the barricades and not coming to the ring to face him. Shera gave a good fight, but Al Snow eventually won the match. In the May 10 episode of Impact!, Shera and Snow had a rematch where Al Snow played games and almost won with his cheating tactics, however, he eventually failed to win due to Grado involving himself in the match, making sure Shera wins. At backstage, a bit later, Al Snow was interviewed and talked angrily, cursing Grado and Shera in the process. On May 24 episode of Impact!, Al Snow went on to win a back and forth street fight against Grado with the help of the debuting Basille Baraka and Baron Dax, thus forming the tag team faction known as The Tribunal. On November 10, episode of Impact, The Tribunal attacked him until Shera made the save, turning face once again in the process. On December 8 episode of Impact Wrestling, Snow and Shera defeated The Tribunal in a Double Strap Match to end the feud. On June 19, 2017, Al Snow was released from Impact Wrestling.

Ohio Valley Wrestling (2018–present)
On April 7, 2018, it was reported Snow purchased Ohio Valley Wrestling.

In January 2021, Snow sold a majority interest in OVW to a group led by radio host Matt Jones, and former 21c Museum Hotels CEO and current mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, Craig Greenberg. Snow continues to run the promotion's day-to-day operations.

On August 27, 2022, Snow and Doug Basham defeated Adam Revolver and Joe Mack at OVW The Big One.

Snow was heavily featured in the docuseries Wrestlers, a Netflix released series focused on OVW that was released September 13, 2023. Following the series release, OVW had their first Thursday night sold-out show in eight years.

Acting career
He had a cameo as the Nome King in the feature film Dorothy and the Witches of Oz (2012) with Christopher Lloyd, as well as starring in the action film Overtime, and the comedy film Agua Caliente. He had an uncredited role in the drama film Rudy (1993). Snow also appeared in They're Just My Friends (2006) and co-stars alongside Tiger Chung Lee in Mountain Mafia (2009). In 2006, he played himself in the independent feature film The Still Life.

Snow can also be seen as the brutal serial killer Grim, also known as "The Reaper's", in Feathered Italian Films latest slasher films The Legacy and Hell House. Head also cameos in "The Legacy". He was one of the leads in the sci-fi/action/comedy film Overtime (2011) by director Matt Niehoff.

Snow had a quick line in the wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat. He also participated in the wrestling documentary, Bloodstained Memoirs.

Al Snow also appeared as a coach on WWE Tough Enough (then called WWF Tough Enough) during the show's first three seasons.

On November 10, 2012, Snow, along with several other TNA workers, was featured in an episode of MTV's Made.

Snow completed his work as the "Man in Black" for the independent horror film Lake Eerie on October 23, 2013. The film stars Lance Henriksen, Betsy Baker and was released in Summer 2015. Snow also played "Henchman" in Jessica Sonneborn's horror film Alice D.

Business endeavors
Al Snow is the co-founder of "Collar X Elbow", a clothing brand for independent wrestling fans.

Al Snow Wrestling Academy
Near the end of 2015, Al Snow and Simon Van Der Wolf started a training academy, originally based in the UK but since expanded to include branches in many other countries. They along with other professional wrestlers (including Joe E. Legend, Doug Williams, Phil Powers, Jonny Storm, John Klinger, and many more) held tryouts in February 2016. In April 2019, local media in Louisville reported that the academy had applied to the Kentucky Department of Education for formal accreditation as a vocational school. The academy has developed a two-year, 60-credit hour program (on the semester system) in all aspects of the wrestling business, ranging from in-ring performance to writing and TV production. Assuming state approval is received, the Louisville academy will start accepting applications for the vocational program in May 2019 and start accredited instruction that August.

Personal life
Snow has been married three times. He married Pam Sarven in 1986 and the couple had two children. They divorced in 2004. His second wife was fellow wrestler Cynthia Lynch who wrestled under the name of Bobcat. They married in 2009 and divorced in 2015. In 2017, he married his third wife, Jessica Gousha. In 2021, Snow saved the life of a child from an ocean riptide at Santa Rosa Beach.

Self-Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow
On August 29, 2017, Prowrestling.net broke the news that Snow had signed a deal with ECW Press to release an autobiography. Co-written by Ross Owen Williams, who also co-authored Bob Holly's autobiography The Hardcore Truth, the book was released in April 2019. In the press release, Snow said "we want the book to cover more than what I did in front of the cameras. There are so many stories from the road—things that only seem to happen to me—that have made me who I am today. I've always considered every new situation as a potential learning experience and this book will give me the opportunity to share that, for better or for worse."

Championships and accomplishments

 * Appalachian Mountain Wrestling
 * AMW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Border City Wrestling
 * BCW Can-Am Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Denny Kass
 * Cal-International Pro Wrestling
 * CIPW Americas Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Global Wrestling Alliance
 * GWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * GWA Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * GWA Tag Team Championship (5 times) – with Mike Kelly
 * Bodyslammers Gym Tournament (1994)
 * Great Lakes Championship Wrestling
 * GLCW Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
 * GLCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Mike Curkov
 * High Risk Pro Wrestling
 * HRPW World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * HRPW World Heavyweight Title Tournament (2010)
 * Jersey All Pro Wrestling
 * JAPW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Legends Pro Wrestling
 * Inducted into the LPW Hall of Fame (2011)
 * Masterz of Mayhem
 * MoM Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Mickey Doyle
 * Midwest Championship Wrestling
 * MCW-ICW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * MCW Midwest Tag Team Championship (2 times)
 * MCW Midwest Territorial Championship (1 time)
 * MCW-ICW United States Tag Team Championship (6 times)
 * Midwest Territorial Wrestling
 * MTW Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
 * MTW Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Ray Roberts
 * MTW Heavyweight Championship Tournament (1994)
 * Motor City Wrestling
 * MCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * MCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Denny Kass
 * One Fall Wrestling
 * OFW Tag Team Championship (1 time, current) - with Kal Herro
 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * Ranked No. 52 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1999
 * Ranked No. 329 of the top 500 singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003
 * Pro Wrestling Ulster
 * PWU Championship (1 time)
 * Qatar Pro Wrestling
 * QPW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Apolo
 * Smoky Mountain Wrestling
 * SMW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Unabomb
 * SMW United States Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Squared Circle Expo
 * SCX Tag Team Championship (1 time, current) - with Kal Herro
 * Top of the World Wrestling
 * TOW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Pierre Carl Ouellet
 * Ultimate Wrestling Experience
 * UWE United States Championship (1 time)
 * Universal Championship Wrestling
 * UCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * USA Pro Wrestling
 * USA Pro Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * USA Xtreme Wrestling
 * UXW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Zona de Combate – Federacion Nacional de Lucha Libre (Chile)
 * ZDC Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter
 * Most Underrated (1996)
 * Worst Worked Match of the Year (1999) vs. the Big Boss Man in a Kennel from Hell match at Unforgiven
 * World Wrestling Alliance
 * WWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
 * World Wrestling Association
 * WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Mickey Doyle
 * World Wrestling Federation
 * WWF European Championship (1 time)
 * WWF Hardcore Championship (6 times)
 * WWF Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Mankind

title: Al Snow


text:
User:Jengod/Benjamin H. Brewster

Benjamin Harris Brewster (October 13, 1816–April 4, 1888) was an American attorney and Cabinet secretary.

Born in Salem County, New Jersey, he graduated from Princeton College in 1834, then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1838.

In 1846 Brewster was appointed commissioner, by President James K. Polk, to adjudicate the claims of the Cherokee against the U.S. federal government. He was appointed Attorney General of Pennsylvania in 1867 by Governor John W. Geary.

He was chief prosecutor in the U.S. Postal Service's Star Route Frauds.

Chester Arthur appointed Brewster Attorney General of the United States in 1881, and he held that office for the duration of Arthur's term.

Brewster, a son-in-law of fellow Presidential Cabinet Secretary Robert John Walker, died in Philadelphia in 1888 and is buried in Woodlands Cemetery in that city.

title: User:Jengod/Benjamin H. Brewster


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Antonios Trakatellis

Antonios Trakatellis (Αντώνιος Τρακατέλλης) (born 4 September 1931 in Thessaloniki) is a Greek Member of the European Parliament (MEP), and an academic biochemist. He was elected on the New Democracy ticket and sits with the European People's Party group. He has been leader of the ND parliamentary group since 2000.

Trakatellis has been a lecturer at several Greek and American universities, and was Rector of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki 1988-1994. He has published a large number of papers and books concerning insulin, nucleic acids, proteins and vitamin B6 deficiency.

On 20 July 2004 he was elected one of the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, ending his mandate on 15 January 2007.

He is the brother of Demetrios, former Archbishop of America.

title: Antonios Trakatellis


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Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca

Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca (born 20 May 1945) is a Spanish former politician and radiation physicist. Born in Barcelona, he served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014 and served as First Vice President of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2007.

Career
Vidal-Quadras was elected on the People's Party ticket and sat with the European People's Party group. In 2014, he announced that he was leaving the People's Party for a new party, Vox. He was the frontrunner for Vox in the 2014 European election, but the party failed to win a seat. He is a member of the European Friends of Israel, a lobby group aiming to defend Israel's interests within the European Union.

Relationship with Iran
In 2013 EL Pais reported that 35 Iranian dissidents said to be affiliated to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) gave VOX about one million euros. According to Vidal-Quadras, the donations were not made to VOX but to himself.

After 2014, Vidal-Quadras operated pro bono the International Committee in Search of Justice, a Brussels-based lobby supporting the NCRI against the Iranian government.

Vidal-Quadras has aligned with People's Mojahedin of Iran, which led the Iranian Foreign Ministry to impose sanctions on him in 2023. The Iran Foreign Ministry accused Vidal-Quadras of "supporting terrorism and terrorist groups" while Maryam Rajavi said that "Prof. Vidal-Quadras has dedicated an important part of his life to fight against [Iran's ruling religious fascism]".

Attempted assassination
On 9 November 2023, Vidal-Quadras was shot in the face in Madrid by a person on a motorbike in Calle de Núñez de Balboa at 1:30 p.m. local time. He was taken to hospital and was described as recovering after suffering a fracture on his jawbone that required surgery. The assassination attempt is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack. On November 21, Spanish police arrested three people in connection to the shooting.

Vidal-Quadras has claimed that Iran was behind the attempted assassination. According to Vidal-Quadras, his connection to the Iranian opposition the National Council of Resistance of Iran could be linked the assassination attempt. Vidal-Quadras is one of the first politicians that Tehran has added to their terrorist list. The Iranian opposition attributes the authorship to Religious Fascism that governs the country.

In 2019 Vidal-Quadras stated that he considers the Iranian regime a cruel dictatorship which foments terrorism. He is the first European politician to be targeted within Europe.

Aftermath
In January 2024, a suspect in the assassination attempt was arrested in Colombia. Currently four individuals have been arrested in connection with the shooting, while the alleged shooter, a French citizen of Tunisian descent with multiple prior convictions in France, is still at large.

Also Vidal-Quadras called for a change in the EU policy towards the Islamic Republic to avoid trying to "appease, to negotiate, to dialogue and to make concessions".

Political positions
Alejo Vidal-Quadras defines himself as liberal-conservative. He is opposed to abortion rights and gay marriage.

Personal life
He currently lives off his pensions as a former university professor and a former member of the European Parliament. In addition to serving in the European Parliament, he has occupied several elected positions in Spain: he was a member of the Barcelona City Council (1987–1991), member of the Parliament of Catalonia (1988–1996) and Senator in the Spanish Senate (1996–1999).

Books about politics

 * "Cuestión de fondo" (Editorial Montesinos, 1993)

 * "Amarás a tu tribu" (Editorial Planeta, 1998)

 * "Ahora, cambio de rumbo" (Editorial Planeta, 2012)

title: Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca


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Grupo Especial de Operaciones

The Grupo Especial de Operaciones (GEO, ; Special Group of Operations, GEO), is the police tactical unit of Spain's National Police Corps. The GEO has response capabilities and is responsible for VIP protection duties, as well as countering and responding to terrorism. Organized along the lines of many other police tactical units throughout Europe, the GEOs is focused on dealing with terrorist attacks, including aircraft hijackings as well as maritime threats and hostage taking. The GEO can also be used in a support role for Spanish Police operations outside the realm of terrorism, and is active in protecting visiting heads of state and providing security for high-profile events such as the 1992 Summer Olympics held in Barcelona. The GEO is a member of the ATLAS Network, that includes all the national police tactical units of European Union countries and some countries outside the European Union.

History
With the intention of fighting against terrorism and several organized crime groups from Spain in the 1970s, in November 1977 the third section of Spanish military staff announced for members of the Policía Nacional vacancies which could be accessed freely for the newly formed Grupo Especial de Operaciones. The first training course began in March 1978.

A select group who had been months before in the GSG 9 base in San Agustín del Guadalix was selected to train this new unit. Colonel Ulrich Wegener, along with some members of his unit, took care of the equipment, the training and techniques which this new special unit in Spain would use.

The first access course of the GEO ended on 19 January 1979, with a ceremony attended by Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain. On 23 February of that year, the unit was announced to the press.

Its first planned operation took place at Madrid Barajas International Airport in August 1978 but they did not have to enter into action because the conflict was solved before their arrival. The GEO's first action took place in Bilbao, 7 February 1981, in which five hostages were freed from two armed criminals in a branch office of the bank then known as Banco Bilbao Vizcaya. None of the criminals, hostages or police officers were hurt during the mission.

GEO was responsible for rescuing Dr. Iglesias Puga, father of singer Julio Iglesias as well as foiling an attempt by ETA to attack the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Aside from that, the GEO has disarmed several organized crime groups, arrested forty-one armed members of different terrorist groups, freed 424 persons who had been kidnapped or taken as hostages and boarded twenty ships used to carry narcotics to seize their load and arrest their crew.

During the 27 years, it has been active, five members of the GEO have died. The unit has had only one casualty in combat, which occurred during the assault on the Leganés flat where the suspected perpetrators of the Madrid train bombings of 11 March 2004 were hiding. Having realized that they were trapped, the terrorists detonated bombs in the flat killing themselves and GEO Subinspector Francisco Javier Torronteras Gadea. This fatality was probably caused by the fact that the agents who entered the flat didn't know that the terrorists could have explosives.

As of 2005, the GEO was having problems with the number of members, which was below the necessary quantity. This meant that riot control units had to be sent to guard the Spanish embassy in Baghdad instead of GEO members, as originally intended.

On 17 August 2017, an unconfirmed amount of GEO operators were sent to Barcelona after the ramming of multiple people in the Cataluna section of the city.

Organization
The GEO reports to the General Operative Subdirector of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía and its commander is a police superintendent. Its 110 members are divided into an Operative Section and a Support one.

GEO's Operative Section is formed by two Operative Action teams, a group of Training and Specialities and a Techniques and Experiences team. The action teams are called 40 and 50 and are under the command of an inspector.

Each group, led by a Subinspector, is split into two subgroups formed by three operative commandos of five men each. Every operative commando includes two snipers, a lock picking specialist, an explosives expert, a combat diver and a special environment technician.

The Training and Specialities operative team features the instructors of the training and refresher courses. The Techniques and Experiences team tests new equipment and looks for new possible terrorist objectives.

Administrative, medical and transport personnel act as members of the Support Section. The vehicles of the GEO depend on this section.

Access and training
Joining the GEO is accomplished by approximately 3% of the candidates every year. To join the GEO it is necessary to have been a member of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía for two years, and to have at least one of the following skills: expertise in a martial art, scuba diving, being a marksmanship instructor, is an explosives expert and having worked in one of the operative groups the Police has in some province capitals.

The trial features both physical fitness and psychological tests. Its physical fitness test includes arm flexions on a bar, vertical jump, an obstacle course, running three kilometers in eleven minutes and a half, fifty meters of freestyle swimming, a strength test, a speed race and the last challenge which tests the candidates' decision-making capacity. On the psychological and intelligence test the mental capabilities of the candidates are checked.

Specialization
After having passed the access trial, GEO potential members go through a specialization course in Guadalajara which is not passed by all candidates.

There are four areas that candidates must master: instrumental, juridical, socio-professional, and police sciences and techniques. Police science and technique features high-speed and off-road driving, lock picking techniques, abseiling and climbing techniques, maneuvers with helicopters, transmissions, explosives and knowledge about terrorist groups. Instrumental area deals with physical aptitudes such as marksmanship, obstacle courses, martial arts, physical fitness, swimming, sniping, diving, and proficiency with motorcycles. The remaining areas are focused on the rights of terrorist groups and exchanging experience with members of similar groups of other countries.

Equipment
The uniform of the GEO includes: anorak, jacket, sweater, t-shirt, pants, boots and beret. Overalls are used as a complementary clothing piece. During summer, GEO members use a short-sleeved shirt instead of the sweater and the jacket. Aside from their uniform, GEO members use protective gear which features helmets, Bolle Commando protective goggles, balaclava, Draeger gas mask, ballistic vest, Safariland sheaths for SIG P226 and gloves. They also use vision-enhancing devices such as MATIS thermographic cameras, daylight thermographic cameras, binoculars, PalMIr 250 night vision cameras, Philips BM8028A1 binocular night vision goggles, ITT AN/AVS-9 binocular night vision goggles, ITT Pocket F6010 night vision visor and laser rangefinders.

To communicate between them they use the Matra SIRDEE (Sistema Integral de Radiodifusión Encriptada del Estado), Motorola MXR-1000 and MXR-2000 models and VHF/UHF portable repeaters.

For operations underwater they use other special gear. It includes: neoprene suits, dry suits for dives in contaminated water, "twin-hose" and "single-hose" open-circuit scubas, dive computers, underwater robots for dives up to 200 meters and dive support equipment.

The vehicles used include cars and bikes, special boats, Police helicopters and CH-47 Chinook heavy helicopters of the Spanish Army.

Weapons
The most common sniper rifles used by the group are the Mauser SP66, Heckler & Koch PSG1, AMP DSR-1, Sako TRG-41 and TRG-21, SAKO A-II (silenced) and Heckler & Koch G3SG/1. Their assault rifles are the SG 551 SWAT and SG 552, Heckler & Koch G41TGS and HK33. They use Franchi, Remington and Heckler & Koch shotguns. MP5 and FN P90 are the submachine guns of choice. Their pistols are the SIG P226 (9×19mm Parabellum) and the USP Compact. GEO members also employ electroshock weapons, which caused some controversy when Amnesty International denounced the use of such weapons by the Policía Nacional.

To increase shooting accuracy they employ shooting support devices such as the holographic weapon sight, AMT reflex sights, Schmidt & Bender 1.5 – 6 x 42 daylight sights, Simrad KN250F night vision sights, Zeiss Diavari daylight sights, Varo AN/PVS-4 night vision sights, EDS laser sights and Sure-Fire flashlights.

title: Grupo Especial de Operaciones


text: Category:Friends (1994 TV series) characters


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Roma Street railway station

Roma Street railway station is located in the Brisbane central business district, Queensland, Australia. It is the junction station for the North Coast, Main, Gold Coast and NSW North Coast lines. The station is one of four inner city stations that form a core corridor through the centre of Brisbane.

Although not easily visible to the public, the original 1873 Roma Street railway station building still exists within the modern complex and is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.

1800s to 1940s
The construction of a railway station on Roma Street was part of a plan to extend the Main Line to Brisbane. An iron station building designed by Sir Charles Fox & Sons was to be imported from the United Kingdom for this purpose, but economic problems in Queensland led to the order being cancelled. In 1873, the Superintendent of Public Buildings Francis Stanley designed a smaller station for the site, with construction beginning in the same year under John Petrie. The station was officially opened on 14 June 1875 as Brisbane at the same time that the Main Line opened to Indooroopilly.

A goods and carriage shed were added shortly after. In 1882, Roma Street became a junction station with the North Coast line opening to Sandgate. With the opening of Central station as Brisbane's principal station on 18 August 1889, the station was renamed Roma Street. As traffic grew, so did the Roma Street precinct with a locomotive shed added.

In 1911, the precinct was rearranged with the locomotive and carriage sheds relocated to Mayne near Bowen Hills.

On 30 November 1940, Roma Street again became the principal station for long-distance services with new platforms built to the south of the existing platforms.

1970s to early 2000s
Following the opening of the Merivale Bridge on 18 November 1978, Roma Street was also served by Beenleigh line services. On 21 June 1986, it became a dual gauge station with the extension of the standard gauge NSW North Coast line from South Brisbane. In October 1986, the Brisbane Transit Centre opened to the south of the station.

As part of the quadruplication of the North Coast line to Bowen Hills, the station was rebuilt. On 1 November 1995, a new Platform 10 was opened on the station's north side as the platform for long-distance services; these services had previously used Platforms 2 and 3. Platforms 7, 8 and 9 opened on 11 June 1996 while refurbished Platforms 4, 5 and 6 reopened in January 1997.

In 2001, Roma Street Parkland opened to the north of the station on the site of the former Roma Street goods yards. Visitors not travelling on Queensland Rail services can obtain a free pass to transit through the station concourse from Roma Street to the parklands.

Platform 1 became part of the Roma Street busway station on 19 May 2008, with the construction of the Inner Northern Busway.

Cross River Rail and Brisbane Metro Projects
Roma Street Station will be affected by both the Cross River Rail and Brisbane Metro projects.

The Brisbane Transit Centre complex was planned to be demolished in 2020. Businesses in the existing buildings were closed down between late 2018 and early 2019, with reports of controversy surrounding claims for compensation by small business tenants.

According to the Cross River Rail Construction plan, new underground platforms will be constructed to service Cross River Rail services. The next stations for the Cross River Rail services will be Albert Street (southbound) and Exhibition (northbound).

The proposed Brisbane Metro Line 1 services will terminate at Roma Street Station, with the previous station being King George Square. Brisbane Metro Line 2 services will continue through Roma Street following the existing Northern Busway route, with the next stations being Normanby (northbound) and King George Square (southbound).

Due to the anticipated demolition of the Brisbane Transit Centre, a temporary long-distance bus terminal was constructed on the opposite side of Roma Street Station (near Platform 10) and opened in September 2019.

The Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) Else broke through into the new Roma Street station cavern on the 6 August 2021. The second one, TBM Merle, arrived on 23 August 2021.

Services
Roma Street station is served by all suburban and interurban City network lines.

It is also the terminus station for long-distance Traveltrain services   and NSW TrainLink's service to Sydney. A motorail loading dock was previously located on Platform 10 but it was removed in 2015.

Transport links
Adjacent to the station lies the Roma Street busway station that is served by the buses of Transport for Brisbane, Crisps Coaches, Bus Queensland, Greyhound Australia, Murrays, NSW TrainLink and Premier Motor Service long-distance coach services.

title: Roma Street railway station


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António Costa

António Luís Santos da Costa (born 17 July 1961) is a Portuguese lawyer and politician who served as the 118th prime minister of Portugal from 2015 to 2024, presiding over the XXI (2015–2019), XXII (2019–2022) and XXIII Constitutional Governments (2022–2024). Following this, Costa will take up the post of President of the European Council in December 2024.

Previously, he was Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs from 1995 to 1997, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs from 1997 to 1999, Minister of Justice from 1999 to 2002, Minister of Internal Administration from 2005 to 2007, as well as Mayor of Lisbon from 2007 to 2015. He was elected Secretary-General of the Socialist Party in 2014, a post he held until early 2024.

On 7 November 2023, Costa resigned following an investigation involving members of his government in connection with alleged corruption and malfeasance in handling lithium mining and hydrogen projects in the country.

The President of Portugal decided to dissolve Parliament and called for a snap election, held in 10 March 2024. Costa stayed as Prime Minister in a caretaker capacity until his successor, hitherto leader of the opposition Luís Montenegro, was sworn-in on 2 April 2024.

Early life and education
Costa was born in 1961 in Lisbon, Portugal, the son of writer Orlando da Costa and journalist Maria Antónia Palla. Orlando da Costa was half French-Mozambican and half Indian; his father was born in Maputo, Mozambique, to a Goan family. In Goa, Costa is affectionately known as Babush, a word in Konkani meaning a young loved one.

Costa graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon in the 1980s, when he first entered politics and was elected as a Socialist deputy to the municipal council. He completed the mandatory military service in 1987 and later practiced law briefly from 1988, before entering politics full-time.

Political career
Costa's first role in a Socialist government was as Minister of Parliamentary Affairs under Prime Minister António Guterres between 1997 and 1999. He was Minister of Justice from 1999 to 2002.

Costa was a member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Party (PES), heading the list for the 2004 European elections after the death of top candidate António de Sousa Franco. On 20 July 2004 he was elected as one of the 14 vice-presidents of the European Parliament. He also served on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

Costa resigned as an MEP on 11 March 2005 to become Minister of State and Internal Administration in the government of José Sócrates following the 2005 national elections.

Mayor of Lisbon
António Costa resigned all government offices in May 2007 to become his party's candidate for the municipality of Lisbon, Portugal's capital city. He was elected as Lisbon's mayor on 15 July 2007 and reelected in 2009 and 2013, with a bigger majority each time. In April 2015 he resigned his duties as a mayor, while he was already the secretary general of the Socialist Party and the party's candidate for Prime Minister, so that he could prepare his campaign for the October 2015 general elections.

Candidate for prime minister
In September 2014, the Socialist Party chose Costa as its candidate to be prime minister of Portugal in the 2015 national elections. In a ballot to select the party's candidate, gaining nearly 70 percent of the votes, he defeated party leader António José Seguro, who announced his resignation after the result. By April 2015, he stepped down as mayor to focus on his campaign.

During the campaign, Costa pledged to ease back on austerity and give more disposable income back to households. He proposed to boost incomes, hiring and growth in order to cut the budget deficits while scrapping austerity measures and cutting taxes for the middle and lower classes, asserting that would still allow deficits to reduce in line with the Euro convergence criteria. Also, he pledged to roll back a hugely unpopular hike in value added tax on restaurants and reinstate some benefits for civil servants.

First term (2015–2019)

On 4 October 2015, the conservative Portugal Ahead coalition that had ruled the country since 2011 came first in the elections winning 38.6% of the vote, while the Socialist Party (PS) came second with 32.3%. Passos Coelho was reappointed Prime Minister the following days, but António Costa formed an alliance with the other parties on the left (the Left Bloc, the Portuguese Communist Party and the Ecologist Party "The Greens"), which altogether constituted a majority in Parliament, and toppled the government on 10 November (the People–Animals–Nature party also voted in favour of the motion of rejection presented by the left alliance). After toppling the conservative government, Costa was chosen as the new prime minister of Portugal by President Cavaco Silva on 24 November and assumed office on 26 November.

By March 2017, polls put support for Costa's Socialists at 42 percent, up 10 points from their share of the vote in the 2015 election and close to a level that would give them a majority in parliament were the country to vote again. In the 2017 local elections, Costa further consolidated power in Portugal as his party captured a record haul of 158 town halls out of the country's 308 cities and towns; nationwide, the Socialists’ vote share topped 38 percent, again up from their result in the 2015 parliamentary election. During his tenure, Portugal experienced its deadliest wildfires ever, firstly in Pedrogão Grande in June 2017 (65 dead) and later across the country in October 2017 (41 dead). In October 2017, the opposition People's Party (CDS) launched a motion of no-confidence in Costa's government over its failure to prevent the loss of human lives in the lethal Iberian wildfires, the second such disaster in four months; the motion was largely symbolic as the minority Socialist government continued to be backed in parliament by two left-wing parties.

In April 2018, Reuters reported that, "Since coming to power, Costa's government has managed to combine fiscal discipline with measures to support growth, while reversing most of the austerity policies imposed by the previous center-right administration during the 2010–13 debt crisis.

In early 2019, Costa's government survived another opposition motion of no confidence lodged over a wave of public sector strikes. Ahead of the 2019 national elections, Costa ruled out a coalition government with the hard left if, as expected, his governing party won the election but fell shy of a parliamentary majority. Instead, he indicated he favored a continuation of the current pact in parliament with the Communists and/or the Left Bloc – rather than any formal coalition in which they would have government ministers.

Second term (2019–2022)
Costa's second government was sworn in on 26 October 2019, the biggest government in Portuguese democracy, with 70 members: 20 ministers, including the Prime Minister, and 50 secretaries of state. This government would prove to be very unstable due to the lack of an agreement between the left-wing parties, and, in the vote of the 2020 budget, BE and CDU abstained while the Socialists were the only party voting in favour.

Despite the political instability from the lack of an agreement, the XXII government was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first case appeared on 2 March 2020, and shortly after, the government declared a state of emergency, that was signed by the President, and a lockdown was also issued. The lockdown and restrictions were lifted in June 2020, but new measures would be enacted in the following months as infections and deaths rose. By mid 2022, Portugal had become one the worst affected countries in the world by the pandemic, with a death rate of 25.8 per 1 million, and an infection rate of 1,090 per 1 million. The Covid vaccination campaign in Portugal, led by Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, which was nominated by the government, was a major success with more than 28 million vaccines given and nearly 9 million people fully vaccinated (85% of the population), one of the biggest rates in the world.

Between 1 January and 30 June 2021, António Costa presided the Council of the European Union. In the 2021 local elections, the Socialist Party remained the largest party in the country, but suffered heavy loses in several cities, especially Lisbon which was lost to a center-right coalition. The results were seen as a "yellow card" to António Costa. At the same time, the left-wing parties, BE and CDU, were threatening to reject the 2022 budget if Costa's government didn't made more concessions. The President warned that budget rejection would lead to snap elections, which ultimately happened as the left-wing parties joined forces with the right-wing and rejected the 2022 budget, the first rejection in democracy. Snap elections were called for 30 January 2022.

Third term (2022–2024)
Costa was re-elected in the 2022 Portuguese legislative election, with the PS winning 120 seats, up from 108 seats, in a surprise outright majority in the Assembly. In the weeks leading up to the election, polling suggested that Costa and the Socialist party would retain their status as the largest party in the Assembly but would need the help of other parties to achieve a majority. In his victory speech, Costa thanked voters for giving him "an increased responsibility" and promising to govern "with and for all Portuguese". This gave him the mandate to form the XXIII Constitutional Government of Portugal.

Costa’s third term was marred by a wave of scandals and resignations that affected his popularity negatively in the opinion polls. 11 ministers and secretaries of state left their roles, over allegations of corruption and past misconduct or questionable practices. The most significant scandal was the TAP scandal where Costa’s government has been involved. Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos submitted his resignation in December 2022, following a public backlash over a hefty severance pay a secretary of state received from state-owned TAP, which fell under his remit.

Costa replaced Santos with João Galamba who submitted his resignation in May 2023 as the TAP scandal widened. Opposition parties said that Galamba concealed from parliament that he had proposed that then TAP CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener meet Socialist lawmakers to prepare for a parliamentary hearing about her severance package. Widener was later fired after an official inspection found that the severance was illegal. Galamba initially said the preparatory meeting was TAP's idea, but acknowledged it was he who had told Widener that, if she wanted, she could attend the meeting where his advisors would also be present.

Galamba added that one of his advisors, who took notes on what was discussed at the meeting, had been fired, and taken a laptop with confidential information with him. The laptop was later recovered by the national intelligence service SIS, leading to accusations from the opposition of a government overreach since such cases were a police matter. Costa denied that neither he nor any member of the government had given orders to SIS to recover the laptop. He added that he would reject the resignation of Galamba, keeping him in the job against president Marcelo Rebelo De Sousa's and the opposition’s request. President Rebelo de Sousa responded by issuing a warning that Costa's government needed to work on preserving its credibility, while refraining from using his power to dissolve parliament.

Resignation
On 7 November 2023, Portuguese prosecutors detained Costa's chief of staff Vítor Escária and named João Galamba a formal suspect in an investigation into alleged corruption in lithium mining, green hydrogen production and a data centre deals. Over 40 searches were carried out, some of which in government and local government buildings, including Escária's office, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Action. Costa was also under suspicion of enabling the lithium and green hydrogen deals, and was to be inquired by the Supreme Court of Justice.

In a televised statement in the afternoon, Costa announced his resignation from the position of prime minister, saying that "the dignity of the functions of prime minister is not compatible with any suspicion about his integrity, his good conduct and even less with the suspicion of the practice of any criminal act".

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, accepted Costa's resignation on the same day. However, the resignation of Costa and his government was only made official on 8 December, in order to have the State Budget for 2024 approved. The Assembly of the Republic was also dissolved. The president scheduled early elections to be held on 10 March 2024. Costa's government remained in office in a caretaker capacity until the new government (led by Luis Montenegro) was sworn in after the elections.

The investigation has since attracted criticism after the prosecutors admitted several mistakes, including confusion between the names of António Costa and then Minister of Economy António Costa Silva in the transcript of a wiretap.

President of the European Council
In the aftermath of the 2024 European Parliament election, Costa was seen as the frontrunner candidate for the Presidency of the European Council. On 27 June 2024, António Costa was elected as President of the European Council, one of the three most important leadership posts of the European Union, by the 27 EU member state leaders.

Personal life
In 1987, Costa married Fernanda Maria Gonçalves Tadeu, a teacher. The couple have a son and a daughter. Costa also holds an Overseas Citizenship of India.

Costa is a supporter of the football club S.L. Benfica, and was a frequent spectator at their matches while mayor of Lisbon. He also accompanied Benfica to both UEFA Europa League finals, in 2013 and 2014.

National honours

 * PRT Order of Prince Henry - Grand Cross BAR.svg Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry (1 March 2006)

Foreign honours

 * 🇧🇷 Brazil:
 * Grand Cross of the Order of Rio Branco (29 May 2023)
 * Commander of the Order of Rio Branco (19 May 2014)
 * 🇨🇱 Chile: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (31 August 2010)
 * 🇪🇪 Estonia: Third Class of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (16 July 2010)
 * 🇬🇷 Greece: Grand Cross of the Order of Honour (21 April 2017)
 * Holy See: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (3 September 2010)
 * 🇯🇵 Japan: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (16 February 2015)
 * 🇱🇹 Lithuania: Grand Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (16 July 2010)
 * 🇱🇺 Luxembourg: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (28 June 2019)
 * 🇳🇴 Norway: Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit (25 September 2009)
 * 🇵🇱 Poland:
 * Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (16 February 2015)
 * Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (18 July 2012)
 * Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Grand Cross of the Order pro merito Melitensi (23 November 2010)
 * 🇪🇸 Spain: Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (25 November 2016)

Other awards

 * 🇮🇳 India: Pravasi Bharatiya Samman for Public Services (2017)

title: António Costa


text: Category:Friends (1994 TV series) episodes


text:
Logie

Logie may refer to:

Places in Scotland

 * Logie, Dundee, a residential area in the City of Dundee
 * Logie, Fife, a village and parish of east Fife
 * Logie Coldstone, an Aberdeenshire village north of the River Dee

By surname

 * George Logie-Smith (1914–2007), an Australian conductor, music examiner, and music educator
 * Gus Logie (born 1960), a Trinidad and Tobago cricketer and former wicketkeeper for the West Indies cricket team
 * John H. Logie, Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan from 1992 to 2003
 * Jimmy Logie (1919–1984), Scottish footballer
 * Willie Logie (1932–2016), Scottish footballer
 * Willy Logie, a retired Belgian professional darts player
 * W. S. Loggie

By given name

 * James Logie Robertson (1846–1922), a literary scholar, editor and author, who also used the pen name Hugh Haliburton
 * John Logie Baird, the inventor of television
 * Logie Bruce Lockhart (1921–2020), a British writer and journalist, formerly a Scottish rugby union player and headmaster of Gresham's School
 * Thomas Logie MacDonald (1901–1973), Scottish astronomer and politician and eponym of lunar crater McDonald

Other uses

 * Logie Awards, the Australian television industry awards
 * "The Laird O Logie", children's ballad
 * Logie, a House in Wallace High School, Stirling

title: Logie


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The Sandman: Endless Nights

The Sandman: Endless Nights is a graphic novel written by Neil Gaiman as a follow-up to his Sandman series. The book is divided into seven chapters, each devoted to one of the Endless, a family of siblings who are physical manifestations of the metaphysical concepts Dream, Death, Desire, Destruction, Delirium, Despair and Destiny. It was published by DC Comics in 2003. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative. It is also the first comic book to ever be on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Each tale is stylistically different, and illustrated by a different artist. Most of the tales are independent of each other; however, Destruction's tale relates to and immediately follows Delirium's. Destruction and Delirium's tales are the only ones that take place after the events of the Sandman series.

In line with all the other Sandman comics, the cover, logo and book designs were created by Dave McKean.

Endless Nights was preceded by The Wake.

Chapter 1: Death - Death and Venice
Art by P. Craig Russell

This story deals with the idea of quality versus quantity of life. It is split between two views: the lives of a group on an island off the coast of Venice protected by magic from Death versus the memories and thoughts of a young American (the conclusion suggests he is a special forces soldier) who has never forgotten his childhood encounter with her.

The story is narrated by a man in his late twenties/early thirties who seems to be disillusioned with the world around him. He walks around Venice speaking of time, illusion and trickery before seguing into an extended flashback of his childhood trip to Venice. While playing hide and seek he gets lost and meets Death of the Endless before a locked gate. She asks him to open it, which he attempts to do until finally he is found by his cousins hours later. They return to Venice with him in disgrace. The remaining story is his return to that gate, subsequent dealing with Death, musings on the facade of reality, his obsession with Death, and his general melancholy.

The name is derived from Thomas Mann's 1912 novella Death in Venice. The magician's desire on how to die from the beginning of the story was originally stated by Boris the bodyguard in Death: The Time of Your Life. The events in this story seem to be heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque Of The Red Death". The island itself seems to be partially based on the real abandoned island of Poveglia.

Chapter 2: Desire - What I've Tasted of Desire
Art by Milo Manara

The title is probably taken from a line in Robert Frost's poem Fire and Ice. Gaiman himself has said that the story is based on a historical anecdote told by George MacDonald Fraser. A woman named Kara, living in an apparently pre-Roman Britain, becomes enamored of Danyal, a handsome neighbour. Danyal travels to the coast while his father goes to negotiate an exchange of hostages; upon the latter's failure, Kara sets out to tell the former that his father is dead. On the way she meets Desire, who promises to inspire an unbreakable longing in Danyal. As a result, he courts her for three months, until she consents to marry him. Unfortunately, he is killed soon afterward, and his killers come asking Kara for shelter, which she grants in obedience to cultural tradition. Upon seeing her husband's severed head, she manipulates his killers' desire for her and has them perform contests of strength, skill, and wit, distracting them until her own warriors return the following morning to kill them all. Thereafter, she no longer desires anything. She eventually remarries and dies of old age.

Chapter 3: Dream - The Heart of a Star
Art by Miguelanxo Prado

Near the beginning of the habitability of the universe, Dream and his new paramour Killalla of the Glow travel to a meeting of astronomical phenomena, wherein Killalla is astonished to identify the delegates as the very stars, galaxies, and dimensions which comprise the cosmos. At an encounter with her world's own sun, Sto-Oa, Killalla and the star fall in love at the behest of Desire, while Dream watches. Here, Death acts cold and imperious and Delight has not become Delirium; whereas the defection of Killalla begins Dream's long-standing rivalry with Desire. The first aspect of Despair also appears in the story, quite different in appearance and more sociable than her latter aspect.

In addition, other DC comics characters appear: the character Killalla originates from the planet Oa (although technically from planet Maltus), and is an ancestor of the Guardians of the Universe, who form the Green Lantern Corps; able to manipulate their characteristic green energy, but with incomplete control. Despair has a conversation with a red giant star named Rao about the creation of life on an unstable world and the possibility of a lone survivor to continually mourn the destruction of that world: this is an allusion to the history of Superman, in that Rao is the red giant sun around which Superman's homeworld of Krypton orbited, as well as the Kryptonian God. (The colors of the stars in the story follow the DC Universe's standards, not the actual star life cycle.) The story is narrated by the Sun (here identified by his Latin name of Sol) to the Earth before the evolution there of life.

Elements of "Brief Lives" appear as well: the statement that the palace and its chambers will dissolve into light shows that "matter and light are interchangeable" (one of the reasons that Destruction abandoned his realm and responsibilities); Destruction also plays a "creator" role (elsewhere, he suggests that he and his siblings are both themselves and their polar opposites); Desire provokes distrust and hatred in Dream's heart; Death is declared inevitable (a reference to "The Illusion Of Permanence" in "Brief Lives"); and Delight's speech has already begun to resemble that of Delirium. In both "The Heart Of A Star" and "Brief Lives", characters comment on Destiny's blindness and, in both stories, it is shown that there are questions Destiny cannot answer (in the former, he asks Killalla if she loves Dream and, in the latter, he is unable to tell why Delight changed to Delirium).

Chapter 4: Despair - Fifteen Portraits of Despair
Art by Barron Storey, designed by Dave McKean

This collection of fifteen very short vignettes illustrates different aspects of Despair, either the character herself, the emotion in abstract, or people in a state of despair. One is about an unemployed man who's feeding cats, only to have them end up eating each other to survive when he goes on an extended leave for work. Another is about a priest who's being forcibly defrocked due to a molestation scandal, despite the fact that he can prove the allegations false. A third is about a woman who, after committing suicide to escape her pain, sits on the side of the road waiting for the happiness to begin.

In the Introduction, Neil Gaiman states that he had originally planned to write twenty-five "Portraits of Despair", but said "I think, on reflection, that it is probably a good thing that we only created fifteen".

Chapter 5: Delirium - Going Inside
Art by Bill Sienkiewicz

This story is about several mentally unbalanced people who are brought together on a quest to save Delirium from herself. It's possible at the end of this story that Delirium is somewhat healed in some fundamental way; at least two of the people involved in her rescue are also at least partly healed. Daniel/Dream, Dream's raven Matthew, and Barnabas (Delirium's dog protector on indefinite loan from Destruction), also appear as part of the rescue mission. One of the adventurers is based loosely on Henry Darger.

Chapter 6: Destruction - On the Peninsula
Art by Glenn Fabry

This is a story about a team of archaeologists who uncover and explore a peninsula from many years in the future. Chronologically, this takes place after Delirium's "Going Inside", the chapter preceding this one, featuring Delirium herself. Dialogue between Delirium and a human character indicate that the rift between Destruction and the rest of the Endless has been partially healed. The story is narrated by a female archaeologist who has constant dreams and waking dreams of the world in many post-apocalyptic forms, indicating that she belongs to Destruction's realm; this is echoed in the events of the story as she becomes deeply attracted to him while uncovering artifacts on the peninsula. According to Delirium, the artifacts the archaeologists uncover on the peninsula are not from the future, but a distortion of reality caused by Delirium and/or Destruction's presence in the area. In the end, the peninsula is mysteriously destroyed. The facts that Destruction may have caused the distortion of reality, that he has agreed to talk to his family again, and that the peninsula is ultimately destroyed may imply that he has come back to his functions and responsibilities.

Chapter 7: Destiny - Endless Nights
Art by Frank Quitely

This short story is simply a wander through Destiny's garden of forking paths. Based on the clothes of Delirium's statue in one of the panels and the posture of Dream's statue, it seems to be taking place during The Kindly Ones. This story was originally to be illustrated by Moebius. Neil Gaiman knew that, because of his age and health, the artist would not be able to give much of a time commitment so he designed this story to be short and full of full page pictures. In the end, sickness prevented Moebius from working on the story and Frank Quitely filled in.

title: The Sandman: Endless Nights


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Nels Cline

Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been a guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004.

In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex, a percussionist. He has worked with musicians in punk and alternative rock such as Carla Bozulich and the Geraldine Fibbers, Mike Watt and Thurston Moore. He leads the Nels Cline Singers, Nels Cline Trio, and the Nels Cline 4.

Cline was named the 82nd greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in November 2011.

Career
Cline began to play guitar at age 12 when his twin brother Alex Cline started playing drums. The brothers developed together musically, playing in a rock band called Homogenized Goo. Both graduated from University High School. Cline cites hearing a recording of Jimi Hendrix performing "Manic Depression" as a defining moment in his decision to become a guitarist.

Cline has performed on over 150 albums in jazz, pop, rock, country, and experimental music. He was featured in a cover story by Guitar Player magazine for his work with the rock band Wilco.

Personal life
Cline is married to Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto. Their wedding was in Honda's hometown in Japan in November 2010. They met through Mike Watt when he assembled the group Floored by Four. Cline joined Honda as a guest guitarist in the Yoko Ono Plastic Ono band for their tour in 2010. Cline joined Honda and her band Cibo Matto at the 2015 Solid Sound Festival.

As leader
With Acoustic Guitar Trio

With Banyan

With Quartet Music

With Wilco

With other bands

title: Nels Cline


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Jerry Meyers

Jerry Meyers (born March 8, 1965) is an American college baseball coach and former pitcher, who is the current head coach for the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.

Meyers attended the Iowa State University from 1984-1987 before starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant at South Alabama. Later he was an assistant coach at Gulf Coast Community College, UNC-Wilmington, and Old Dominion. Prior to the 1996 season he joined the coaching staff at University of South Carolina as the pitching coach the under Ray Tanner.

Old Dominion
Meyers spent eight seasons at South Carolina before being named the head baseball coach at Old Dominion University after the 2004 college baseball succeeding Tony Guzzo. During his time at ODU Meyers compiled an overall record of 167-158 in six seasons. He was named the 2006 CAA Coach of the Year and in 2008 he was the pitching coach for Team USA.

Second stint at South Carolina
After six seasons Meyers left Old Dominion for USC in 2010 where he now coaches pitchers again.

Jerry Meyers coached some of the best college pitchers at South Carolina, including 2000 Golden Spikes Award winner Kip Bouknight. One common theme for the successful Gamecock pitching staffs under his leadership was the presence of a dominating closer.

Two of these closers rank in the top 10 all-time in single season saves, with one more being in the top 15.

Personal
Meyers and his wife Christina have two daughters, Jaye Riley and Audrey Reese.

title: Jerry Meyers


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin joseph vasquez

Other than that, the world is kinda going slow for him. Evidently. Let's make things exciting and waste this vanity page. Ianb 22:23, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Delete. But it gave me a giggle. Joyous 23:15, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: I loved, "His last known whereabouts are unknown."  Ben should meet Ian. Geogre 00:15, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete vanity. "His last known whereabouts are unknown"  -- I wonder if that was intentional.  :-)  SWAdair | Talk  03:48, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete simple vanity. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:34, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I disagree- it's too badly written to be simple- it's complex vanity. ;} Let's delete it. -FZ 13:04, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)


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Krantikari Samyavadi Party

Krantikari Samyavadi Party (translation:Revolutionary Communist Party) was an Indian political party in the state of Bihar, originated as a splinter group from Communist Party of India.

History
In the 2000 Bihar Legislative Assembly election KSP won two seats backed by Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD while contesting with seven candidates.

The relation with Rashtriya Janata Dal was later broken. In the Lok Sabha elections 2004 KSP had launched a candidate in Madhubani, who got 6948 votes (1% of the votes in that constituency). KSVP participates in the Confederation of Indian Communists and Democratic Socialists.

title: Krantikari Samyavadi Party


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Andrew C. Greenberg

Andrew Clifford Greenberg (born 1957) co-created Wizardry with Robert Woodhead, which was one of the first role-playing video games for a personal computer. He was also involved with the production of the game Q-Bert and several of the later Wizardry games in the 1980s. He is a graduate of Cornell University, where he did his first work on role-playing video games. He also is a proficient tuba player.

With Rick Dutton, Walter Freitag, and Michael Massimilla he created Star Saga One: Beyond the Boundary & Star Saga: Two - The Clathran Menace, in 1988 and 1989 respectively. Both were released by Masterplay Publishing.

The name of the evil wizard in the first Wizardry game is Werdna, Andrew spelled backwards.

After working as a patent attorney with Carlton Fields, a law firm in Tampa, Florida, Andrew moved to San Francisco, California where he serves as an executive and general counsel for a renewable energy company. Greenberg is a past Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee for the IEEE, and has received the Institute's National Citation of Honor.

title: Andrew C. Greenberg


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Paul Fauconnet

Paul Fauconnet (March 13, 1874 in Saint-Denis – 1938) was a French sociologist who is best known as a contributor to the L'Année Sociologique.

Fauconnet aggregated in philosophy in 1892 and earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1895. He also earned a further doctorate in law in 1920, although his interest in the law was purely scholarly and he never practiced as a lawyer. He became a professor at the faculty of letters in 1907 at the University of Toulouse and later chargé de cours (lecturer) at the faculty of letters in 1921 in Paris, obtaining a chair in 1932. His dissertation was entitled La responsabilité: Etude de sociologie (Paris: Alcan, 1920; 2nd edn 1928). It adopts and develops Emile Durkheim's teachings on the nature of criminal justice and punishment.

Durkheim's definition of sociology as "the science of institutions, of their genesis and functioning" was derived from Fauconnet's contribution on sociology, coauthored with Marcel Mauss, to La Grande Encyclopédie in 1901.

Further reference

 * Roger Cotterrell, Emile Durkheim: Law in a Moral Domain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press / Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999) pp. 106–109.

title: Paul Fauconnet


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I Love Bees

I Love Bees (also known as ilovebees or ILB for short) was an alternate reality game (ARG) that served as both a real-world experience and viral marketing campaign for the release of developer Bungie's 2004 video game Halo 2. The game was created and developed by 42 Entertainment. Many of the same personnel had previously created an ARG for the film A.I. titled The Beast. I Love Bees was commissioned by Microsoft, Halo 2's publisher and Bungie's ultimate parent company at the time.

I Love Bees was first advertised by a hidden message in a Halo 2 trailer; players who investigated the titular website discovered that the pages appeared to be hacked by a mysterious intelligence. As players solved puzzles, audio logs were posted to the ilovebees.com site which gradually revealed more of the fictional back-story, involving a marooned artificial intelligence stranded on Earth and its attempts to put itself back together.

250,000 people viewed the ilovebees website when it was launched in July 2004, and more than 500,000 returned to the site every time the pages were updated. More than three million visitors viewed the site over the course of three months, and thousands of people around the world participated in the game. I Love Bees won numerous awards for its innovation and helped spawn numerous other alternate reality games for video games.

Overview
Alternate reality games or ARGs are designed to involve fans of video games or other media in a form of viral marketing which CNET described as encompassing "real-life treasure hunting, interactive storytelling, video games and online [communities]". I Love Bees began when jars of honey were received in the mail by people who had previously participated in alternate reality games. The jars contained letters leading to the I Love Bees website and a countdown. At around the same time, theatrical trailers for Halo 2 concluded with the Xbox logo and a URL, Xbox.com, that quickly flashed a link to ilovebees.com, ostensibly a hacked site related to beekeeping.

Both events, not connected publicly for several weeks, caused the curious to visit the website ilovebees.co. The site, which appeared to be dedicated to honey sales and beekeeping, was covered in confusing random characters and sentence fragments. Dana, the ostensible webmaster of the ilovebees site, created a weblog stating that something had gone wrong with her website, and the site itself had been hacked. Suspecting that this was a mystery that could be unraveled, Halo and ARG fans spread the link and began to work on figuring out what was going on.

The gameplay of I Love Bees tasked players around the world to work together to solve problems, with little or no direction or guidance. For example, the game presented players with 210 pairs of global positioning system coordinates and time codes, with no indications to what the locations referred to. Players eventually figured out the coordinates referred to pay phones and the times to when the phones would ring; one player in Florida stayed by a phone while Hurricane Frances was minutes away in order to recite answers to prerecorded questions. Other phone calls were made by a live person known as the "operator," voiced by veteran voice actor Kristen Rutherford; these calls allowed players to interact with the characters of the games in spontaneous and occasionally humorous ways. Other players treated the corrupted data on ilovebees.com as encrypted files to decipher, or used image files found on the web server to solve puzzles. After players completed certain tasks, they were rewarded with new installments to an audio drama which revealed the reasons for the ilovebees.com malfunction.

Over time, the game's mechanisms for contacting players grew more complex. Players were sent messages via email, called on their cell phones, and travelled to arranged meetings between players and characters. The game culminated by inviting players of the game to visit one of four cinemas where they could get a chance to play Halo 2 before its release and collect a commemorative DVD.

Plot
The game's plot begins with a military spaceship crashing to Earth in an unknown location, leaving the craft's controlling artificial intelligence or AI damaged. This AI, known as the "Operator" or "Melissa", is not alone; other AI programs share its system. In an effort to survive and contact any surviving allies, Melissa transfers herself to a San Francisco-area web server, which happens to host a bee enthusiast website known as I Love Bees. To the distress of Dana Awbrey, the website's maintainer, Melissa's attempts to send signals began to appear largely as codes, hidden in images or other text, interfering with the operation of the I Love Bees site and corrupting much of the content.

Dana, attempting to regain control over the corrupted website, accidentally erases data which comprises part of Melissa's memory. Furious, Melissa lashes out at the webmaster, obtaining pictures of her using the webcam on her computer and promising to take revenge. Alarmed, Dana announces that she is removing herself from the situation and is taking a previously planned trip to China earlier than expected.

All AI units contain a program called SPDR, short for System Peril Distributed Reflex. As SPDR attempts to fix Melissa, random dumps from Melissa's memory began to spill into the website, largely detailing Melissa's history and revealing the presence of a malicious Trojan-horse virus known as the "Pious Flea." The Spider tries to erase the Flea but is outwitted, as Melissa erases the Spider instead of the Flea. The Flea continues to overwrite Melissa's programming with its own mysterious goals, with it eventually being revealed that it is actually an espionage AI more properly called the Seeker, built by the Covenant.

With the assistance of other characters revealed by audio chapters, the fictional protagonists break into a secure military installation and manage to deactivate a Forerunner device which is implied to begin the firing sequence of the Halo installations. However, the price paid for the deactivation is a powerful energy transmission alerting the Covenant to the location of Earth. Whole again, Melissa sees how she has been manipulated by the Pious Flea, and returns to her time. I Love Bees ends with the Covenant invading Earth, corresponding to a major plot point in Halo 2.

Due to Bungie's commitment to the development of Halo 2 during I Love Bees' run, they were unable to assist 42 Entertainment with story creation, and so the ARG's story is only tangentially related to the main Halo storyline. The events of I Love Bees were, therefore, originally not considered to be Halo canon. In a 2006 interview, however, Bungie's content manager Frank O'Connor expressly confirmed that I Love Bees is part of "things that we embrace as canon." References to elements of I Love Bees have since appeared in the 2006 Halo Graphic Novel and the 2009 Halo Encyclopedia, both of which are official canon.

Development
I Love Bees' developer, 42 Entertainment, was founded by Jordan Weisman, the former creative director for Microsoft's Xbox division. 42 Entertainment had previously created the first ARG, The Beast, which had been used to promote the movie A.I.. Other members of the I Love Bees team included Sean Stewart, a World Fantasy Award-award-winning author who served as I Love Bees writer, and Jim Stewartson, I Love Bees technical lead who produced the first commercial 3D game delivered by the internet. Weisman stated that the goal of I Love Bees was to utilize every person who interacted with the game, and to use any electronic resource to do so: "If we could make your toaster print something we would. Anything with an electric current running through it. A single story, a single gaming experience, with no boundaries. A game that is life itself."

42 Entertainment conceived I Love Bees as a radio drama, and used the pay phones as a way to excite players. Chris Di Cesare, Microsoft's director of marketing, stated that the radio drama's similarities with War of the Worlds was intentional, and that "[ILB] remains true to the radio drama tradition of Orson Welles that we were shooting for and also allowed us to tell the story in an unorthodox way." In order to prevent non-players from being scared by the sounds of gunfire from the pay phones, 42 Entertainment established passwords that had to be repeated. Stewart described writing for the game as more enjoyable than writing printed fiction, both for the money and the unique experience of ARGs as opposed to other media:

"The audiences that we built for those campaigns are having a different experience. They're having a collective experience in which they literally bring different pieces, one to the next, swap them back and forth, gossip about them. They have an element of cocreation and a collaborative nature that doesn't really have an analog that I've been able to think of in the arts."

Reception
I Love Bees is credited with helping drive attention to Halo 2; former Electronic Gaming Monthly editor Dan Hsu stated in an interview that "I Love Bees really got existing gamers and other consumers talking about the universe of [Halo]." Billy Pidgeon, a game analyst, noted that I Love Bees achieved what it had been designed to do: "This kind of viral guerrilla marketing worked ... Everyone started instant messaging about it and checking out the site." I Love Bees not only received coverage from gaming publications, but attracted mainstream press attention as well. At its height, ilovebees received between two and three million unique visitors over the course of three months. 9,000 people also actively participated in the real-world aspects of the game. The players of I Love Bees themselves were quite varied. The target demographic for the promotion was younger males, but one player noted that even middle-aged men and women were engaged in the game.

I Love Bees received several awards for its innovation. The design team was one of the recipients of the Innovation Award at the 5th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. I Love Bees was also announced as the winner of a Webby Award in the Game-Related category, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Legacy
Along with 42 Entertainment's previous ARG known as The Beast, I Love Bees is credited with bringing greater attention to the fledgling marketing form; I Love Bees not only helped assuage fears by marketers about the costs of ARG failure, but attracted interest from other game developers in using alternate reality games to promote their own products. Before I Love Bees, The Guardian stated that "ARGs were destined to join Letsbuyit.com and Barcode Battlers in the e-dustbin of nice ideas that never really caught on"; the explosion of broadband internet access and a renewed interest in codes allowed I Love Bees to become wildly successful. Bungie would later use another ARG called "Iris" to promote Halo 2's sequel, Halo 3.

I Love Bees also attracted attention in the wider discussion of user-based marketing and cooperation. Author Charles Leadbeater argued that I Love Bees was an example of "We-Think" collective thinking; Leadbeater noted that after the "puppet masters" began the game, I Love Bees "displayed all the characteristics of a mass movement, propelled into existence in a matter of weeks simply by collective enthusiasm guided by a few cyberspace 'avatars'". The game proved successful with gamers, as well as attracting nontraditional players who had no experience with Halo before joining the game.

In a 2016 Bandcamp interview, artist Ramona Andra Xavier, known for pioneering the Vaporwave musical genre under the pseudonym Vektroid (among others), claimed to be acutely influenced by "I Love Bees," in its use of "hacked" websites, internet communities and IRL tasks to blur the lines between reality and fiction.

title: I Love Bees


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John Schneider (stage actor)

John Schneider is an American actor, theatre director, playwright, and musician based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is currently the Arts and Entertainment Editor for the Shepherd Express and a theatre arts professor at Marquette University.

Career
He was one of the founding members of Theatre X, has appeared in hundreds of the group's productions since 1969, and was its artistic director and resident playwright until the group disbanded in 2004. His plays, produced by Theatre X and other companies around the world, include Acts of Kindness, An Interest in Strangers, and numerous literary adaptations.

Since 1988, Schneider has also performed as a cabaret singer, tap dancer, and leader of the John Schneider Orchestra, a touring jazz/swing group. He has also appeared on film, as a narrator in Wisconsin Death Trip.

title: John Schneider (stage actor)


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BTR–EMS–AKG Janakeeya Vedi

BTR–EMS–AKG Janakeeya Vedhi (BTR-EMS-AKG People's Forum) was a political group in the South Indian state of Kerala, a splinter group of Communist Party of India (Marxist). The group was led by expelled CITU-leader V.B. Cheriyan. In 2005 the group merged into the Marxist Communist Party of India (United). In the Lok Sabha elections 2004 BTR–EMS–AKG Janakeeya Vedi had formed a front together with Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag.

Popular culture
Long live EMS, AKG and Soundariya, as Puchalapalli Sundarayya is chanted by a man in the Oru Thekkan Thallu Case

title: BTR–EMS–AKG Janakeeya Vedi