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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 3, 2004

Prostitution is the sale of sexual services for money or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. A person selling sexual favors is a prostitute, a type of sex worker. Most prostitutes are women offering their services to men. Male customers of prostitutes are known as johns in the United States or punters in the United Kingdom. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 4, 2004

Cladistics is a branch of biology that determines the evolutionary relationships between living things based on derived similarity. Cladistics differs from phenetics, which groups organisms based on overall similarity, and from more traditional approaches based on "key characters". Willi Hennig is widely regarded as the founder of cladistics. (more...)

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


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 5, 2004

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and the first President from the Republican Party. He has often been praised for successfully restoring the federal unity of the nation by defeating the secessionist Confederate States of America in the U.S. Civil War and along the way, playing in an important role in ending chattel slavery in the United States. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 6, 2004

There are many different methods of spacecraft propulsion used to change the velocity of spacecraft and artificial satellites. All current spacecraft use chemical rocket engines (bipropellant or solid-fuel) for launch. A few use some sort of electrical engine for stationkeeping. Interplanetary vehicles mostly use chemical rockets as well, although a few have experimentally used ion thrusters with some success. (more...)

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Allen Jakovich

Allen John Jakovich (born 21 March 1968) is a retired Australian rules football player. Jakovich was a prolific full forward and is notable for kicking 208 goals in his 54 Australian Football League matches, an average of 3.85 per game, for Melbourne and Footscray. He and his younger brother, Glen Jakovich, both began their AFL careers in the 1990 AFL draft.

Jakovich grew up in Western Australia and has also played football with clubs in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Victoria. He is of Croatian descent.

Early career
Allen Jakovich was the second of three sons for Darko and Mary Jakovich. Allen represented Western Australia in 1983 for the Secondary Schools U15 competition. He played alongside Chris Lewis, Andrew McGovern, Paul Peos and Chris Waterman who would also go on to play AFL.

Allen also played in the 1985 Teal Cup football team for Western Australia. Allen played alongside future West Coast Eagles players Chris Lewis, Paul Peos, Guy McKenna, Chris Waterman, Scott Watters, Peter Sumich and John Worsfold in what was Western Australia's first TEAL cup win. Although playing well in Western Australia's first two games against Queensland and NSW, Allen Jakovich only scored a single goal in the final against Victoria and was replaced halfway through the 3rd quarter.

Allen followed his older brother Garry (3 Senior Games in 1984) and began his senior career with South Fremantle in the West Australian Football League. Over the 1985 and 1986 seasons, Allen played 7 games in the seniors and kicked 22 Goals at an average of 3.14 goals per game. As of 2015 this was the 15th best goals per game average for the club. Allen kicked 62 goals for the Colts 1984 season and was an important part of the Bulldogs premiership victory. In Round4 of the 1985 Season for the Colts, Allen kicked 10 goals against Subiaco.

Jakovich left the club in 1987.

He then played in towns in outback Western Australia such as Port Hedland and Kalgoorlie. It was while playing at Port Hedland that Allen Jakovich met Brian Hood who was the Coach of the NTFL team Southern Districts. Brian convinced Allen to join Southern Districts for the 1988/1989 season.

NTFL career
He then played in the Northern Territory Football League, including the 1988/89 season in which he kicked 104 goals for Southern Districts.

SANFL career
Jakovich later moved to South Australia and played in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). In the 1990 season, he kicked 101 goals for Woodville. It was this performance that drew the attention of Melbourne Football Club talent scouts.

AFL career
1991 Season

He debuted in the seniors in round 1 against the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco but was quickly dropped for the following week. Jakovich played in the Melbourne reserves and dominated the reserves competition in the first half of the 1991 season.

In the second half, though, he burst out convincingly and big hauls came on an almost weekly basis for the rest of the season making a big impression in the league with his confident playing style. A high point was a near single handed defeat of North Melbourne where he kicked 11 goals (including a miraculous scissor kick out of mid-air from twenty metres out, a certain goal of the year candidate), 8 behinds and one out on the full. This effort also earned Jakovich the distinction of being the fastest player to score his first fifty goals, taking only nine games to do so. He finished with 71 goals for his debut season; becoming one of a handful of players in VFL/AFL history to kick 50 goals in both the senior competition and now defunct 'reserves' league within the same season.

1992 Season

He kicked his 100th career goal in his 21st game, equalling the record held by John Coleman.

1993 Season

He kissed his brother Glen during a match between Melbourne and the West Coast Eagles at the MCG.

1994 Season

Over the past three years at Melbourne he balanced some mercurial performances with fitness problems and indifferent form. He was let go at the start of 1995, due to a persistent back injury. 1995 Season

He spent the year out of the game recovering from a back injury before being drafted by the Footscray Football Club.

1996 Season

An ill-fated comeback that lasted barely half a season.

In his AFL career, he kicked 208 goals and 173 behinds.

Statistics

! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1991 ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1992 ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1993 ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1994 ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1996 ! colspan=3| Career ! 54 ! 208 ! 173 ! 537 ! 58 ! 595 ! 313 ! 12 ! 3.9 ! 3.2 ! 9.9 ! 1.1 ! 11.0 ! 5.8 ! 0.2 ! 15
 * - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
 * style="text-align:center;"|
 * 13 || 14 || 71 || 57 || 177 || 10 || 187 || 92 || 3 || 5.1 || 4.1 || 12.6 || 0.7 || 13.4 || 6.6 || 0.2 || 10
 * style="text-align:center;"|
 * 13 || 11 || 40 || 37 || 115 || 9 || 124 || 66 || 1 || 3.6 || 3.4 || 10.5 || 0.8 || 11.3 || 6.0 || 0.1 || 1
 * - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
 * style="text-align:center;"|
 * 13 || 9 || 39 || 34 || 93 || 18|| 111 || 57 || 3 || 4.3 || 3.8 || 10.3 || 2.0 || 12.3 || 6.3 || 0.3 || 3
 * style="text-align:center;"|
 * 13 || 13 || 51 || 31 || 123 || 17 || 140 || 82 || 5 || 3.9 || 2.4 || 9.5 || 1.3 || 10.8 || 6.3 || 0.4 || 1
 * - style="background-color: #EAEAEA"
 * style="text-align:center;"|
 * 13 || 7 || 7 || 14 || 29 || 4 || 33 || 16 || 0 || 1.0 || 2.0 || 4.1 || 0.6 || 4.7 || 2.3 || 0.0 || 0
 * - class="sortbottom"
 * }

Post-football career
He has largely been out of the public eye since the late 1990s, except for a one-off appearance on The Footy Show. and in a wide-ranging interview on the Demonland podcast in 2017 and also two appearances on The Front Bar in 2018.

title: Allen Jakovich


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 7, 2004

Batman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939. He first appeared in the title Detective Comics, and is currently the lead character of a number of comic books published by DC Comics. Batman and Superman are DC Comics' two most popular and recognizable characters. In most versions of the Batman mythos, Batman is the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne, a millionaire industrialist who was driven to fight crime after his parents were murdered by a mugger when he was a child. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 8, 2004

Thailand is divided into 76 provinces which are grouped into 5 groups. The name of each province is the same as that of its capital city, which is sometimes preceded with a Mueang to avoid confusion with the province. With the exception of Songkhla the capital is also the biggest city in the province. Bangkok has both the greatest population and the highest population density. Each province is administrated by a governor, who is appointed by the Ministry of the Interior. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 9, 2004

The European Union is an international organisation of 25 European states, established in 1992. It originates from the Coal and Steel Community, founded in 1951 by Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries. However, the French-German politician Robert Schuman presented his proposal of a united Europe, known as the Schuman declaration, already in 1950, which is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union. The Union has many activities, the most important being a common single market, consisting of a customs union, a single currency, a Common Agricultural Policy and a Common Fisheries Policy. (more...)

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RJD2

Ramble Jon Krohn (born May 27, 1976), better known by his stage name RJD2, is an American musician and record producer based in Columbus, Ohio. He is the owner of record label RJ's Electrical Connections. He has been a member of groups such as Soul Position, MHz Legacy, and Icebird. His stage name derives from the popular Star Wars droid R2-D2.

Life and career
Born in Eugene, Oregon, Krohn was raised in Columbus, Ohio. He began making music in 1993.

In 2002, RJD2 signed to El-P's record label Definitive Jux and released his debut solo studio album, Deadringer, to much acclaim. RJD2 later collaborated with rapper Blueprint under the name Soul Position, releasing 8 Million Stories on Rhymesayers Entertainment in 2003.

He released his second solo studio album, Since We Last Spoke, on Definitive Jux in 2004. Soul Position's second album, Things Go Better with RJ and AL, was released in 2006 under Rhymesayers Entertainment. 2006 also saw the release of Magnificent City, his collaborative album with rapper Aceyalone. Magnificent City includes "A Beautiful Mine", which features in the title sequence of Mad Men.

In 2007, RJD2 released the solo studio album, The Third Hand, on XL Recordings. In 2010, he released his fourth solo studio album, The Colossus, on his own label RJ's Electrical Connections. In 2011, he released the album, We Are the Doorways, under the pseudonym The Insane Warrior.

RJD2 formed Icebird with Aaron Livingston, vocalist of a Philadelphia-based band called The Mean. The duo's debut album, The Abandoned Lullaby, was released in 2011. In 2013, RJD2 released his fifth solo studio album, More Is Than Isn't, on RJ's Electrical Connections.

In 2015, RJD2 released a collaborative album with rapper STS, titled STS x RJD2. His sixth solo studio album, Dame Fortune, was released in 2016.

In 2020, he released his seventh solo studio album, The Fun Ones, on RJ's Electrical Connections. It features guest appearances from Aceyalone, Homeboy Sandman, Jordan Brown, Khari Mateen, and STS.

He released a course on sampling and arranging, RJD2: From Samples to Songs, with online music school Soundfly on July 27, 2021.

Studio albums

 * Deadringer (2002)
 * Since We Last Spoke (2004)
 * Magnificent City (2006) (with Aceyalone)
 * The Third Hand (2007)
 * The Colossus (2010)
 * We Are the Doorways (2011) (as The Insane Warrior)
 * The Abandoned Lullaby (2011) (with Aaron Livingston, as Icebird)
 * More Is Than Isn't (2013)
 * STS x RJD2 (2015) (with STS)
 * Dame Fortune (2016)
 * Tendrils (2018) (as The Insane Warrior)
 * The Fun Ones (2020)
 * Escape from Sweet Auburn (2022) (with STS)
 * Visions Out Of Limelight (2024)

Compilation albums

 * In Rare Form: Unreleased Instrumentals (2004)
 * The Third Hand Instrumentals (2007)
 * Inversions of the Colossus (2010)
 * In Rare Form, Vol. 2 (2018)

Mix albums

 * Your Face or Your Kneecaps (2001)
 * Loose Ends (2003)
 * Lobster and Scrimp (2003)
 * Constant Elevation (2005)

EPs

 * Pryor Convictions (2000) (with Poppa Hop, as The Dirty Birds)
 * The Horror (2003)
 * The Mashed Up Mixes (2004)
 * Tin Foil Hat (2009)
 * The Glow Remixes (2011)

Singles

 * "June" / "The Proxy" (2001)
 * "Rain" / "Find You Out" (2002)
 * "Here's What's Left" (2002)
 * "Let the Good Times Roll" (2002)
 * "The Horror" / "Final Frontier (Remix)" (2003)
 * "Sell the World" / "Ghostwriter (Remix)" (2003)
 * "1976" (2004)
 * "Through the Walls" (2004)
 * "Exotic Talk" (2004)
 * "Fire" (2005) (with Aceyalone)
 * "Superhero" (2006) (with Aceyalone)
 * "You Never Had It So Good" (2007)
 * "No Helmet Up Indianola" (2020)

Guest appearances

 * Pigeon John – "The Last Sunshine" from And the Summertime Pool Party (2006)
 * Lushlife + CSLSX – "Toynbee Suite" from Ritualize (2016)

Productions

 * Aesop Rock – "Kill 'Em All Remix" (2001)
 * Cage – "Among the Sleep" from Movies for the Blind (2002)
 * Mos Def/Diverse/Prefuse 73 – "Wylin Out (RJD2 Remix)" (2002)
 * Souls of Mischief – "Spark" (2002)
 * El-P – "Lazerfaces' Warning (RJD2 Remix)" from Fandam Plus (2002)
 * Massive Attack – "Butterfly Caught (RJD2 Remix)" (2002)
 * Murs – "Sore Losers" from The End of the Beginning (2003)
 * Viktor Vaughn – "Saliva" from Vaudeville Villain (2003)
 * The Weathermen – "5 Left in the Clip (RJD2 Remix)" from The Conspiracy (2003)
 * Cage – "Weather People" from Weatherproof (2003)
 * Nightmares on Wax – "70s 80s (RJD2 Remix)" (2003)
 * Elbow – "Fugitive Motel (RJD2 Mix)" (2003)
 * Tame One – "Up 2 No Good Again" from When Rappers Attack (2003)
 * CunninLynguists – "Seasons" from SouthernUnderground (2003)
 * Diverse – "Certified", "Uprock", "Big Game", "Explosive" and "Under the Hammer" from One A.M. (2003)
 * Aceyalone – "Lost Your Mind" and "Moonlit Skies" from Love & Hate (2003)
 * Babbletron – "The Clock Song" from Mechanical Royalty (2003)
 * Vast Aire – "9 Lashes (When Michael Smacks Lucifer)" from Look Mom... No Hands (2004)
 * Leak Bros – "Gimmesumdeath" from Waterworld (2004)
 * Hikaru Utada – "Devil Inside (RJD2 Remix)" (2004)
 * Leela James – "Music (RJD2 Remix)" (2005)
 * Cage – "Shoot Frank" from Hell's Winter (2005)
 * Astrud Gilberto – "The Gentle Rain (RJD2 Remix)" from Verve Remixed 3 (2005)
 * The Go! Team – "Huddle Formation (RJD2 Remix)" from Ladyflash Remixes (2006)
 * Pigeon John – "The Last Sunshine" from And the Summertime Pool Party (2006)
 * Cool Calm Pete – "Black Friday" from Lost (2006)
 * Aceyalone – "Never Come Back", "Angelina Valintina" and "Impact" from Grand Imperial (2006)
 * Jack Peñate – "Learning Lines" from Matinée (2007)
 * Yo La Tengo – "Here to Fall (RJD2 Remix)" from Here to Fall: Remixes (2010)
 * J-Live – "Great Expectations" from S.P.T.A. (2011)
 * CunninLynguists – "The Format" from Strange Journey Volume Three (2014)
 * Son Little – "Cross My Heart (RJD2 Remix)" from Things I Forgot (2014)
 * Tycho – "Apogee (RJD2 Remix)" from Awake Remixes (2016)
 * Homeboy Sandman – "Gumshoe" from Kindness for Weakness (2016)

title: RJD2


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Analysis of flows

In theoretical physics, an analysis of flows is the study of "gauge" or "gaugelike" "symmetries" (i.e. flows the formulation of a theory is invariant under). It is generally agreed that flows indicate nothing more than a redundancy in the description of the dynamics of a system, but often, it is simpler computationally to work with a redundant description.

Flows in the action formalism
Classically, the action is a functional on the configuration space. The on-shell solutions are given by the variational problem of extremizing the action subject to boundary conditions.

While the boundary is often ignored in textbooks, it is crucial in the study of flows. Suppose we have a "flow", i.e. the generator of a smooth one-dimensional group of transformations of the configuration space, which maps on-shell states to on-shell states while preserving the boundary conditions. Because of the variational principle, the action for all of the configurations on the orbit is the same. This is not the case for more general transformations which map on shell to on shell states but change the boundary conditions.

Here are several examples. In a theory with translational symmetry, timelike translations are not flows because in general they change the boundary conditions. However, now take the case of a simple harmonic oscillator, where the boundary points are at a separation of a multiple of the period from each other, and the initial and final positions are the same at the boundary points. For this particular example, it turns out there is a flow. Even though this is technically a flow, this would usually not be considered a gauge symmetry because it is not local.

Flows can be given as derivations over the algebra of smooth functionals over the configuration space. If we have a flow distribution (i.e. flow-valued distribution) such that the flow convolved over a local region only affects the field configuration in that region, we call the flow distribution a gauge flow.

Given that we are only interested in what happens on shell, we would often take the quotient by the ideal generated by the Euler–Lagrange equations, or in other words, consider the equivalence class of functionals/flows which agree on shell.

Flows in the Hamiltonian formalism

 * First class constraints
 * Second class constraints
 * BRST formalism
 * Batalin–Vilkovisky formalism

title: Analysis of flows


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 10, 2004

Chess is a board game for two players, which requires 32 chesspieces. The board is a great square overall consisting of eight rows (ranks) by eight columns (files) of individual squares which alternate in color orthogonally (traditionally as white and black). Hence, there are a total of 64 individual squares. The object of the game is to put the opponent's king in checkmate. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 11, 2004

Taiwanese is the home language for about 60 percent of the population of Taiwan. Native speakers of Taiwanese are known as Hō-ló. The language, a tonal one with extremely extensive tone sandhi rules, is similar to the speech of the southern part of Fujian in China. There are special literary and art forms in Taiwanese such as Chhit-jī-á, a poetic meter where each verse has 7 syllables; and koa-a-hì, Taiwanese opera. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2004

The Western is one of the classic American film genres. Westerns are arts works (films, books, television shows) devoted to telling romanticized tales of the American West usually involving cowboys and outlaws. The fundamental plots of Westerns are simple. Life is reduced to its elements: there are none of the complications and technology of modern life. You have the clothes on your back, your gun, and possibly a horse. The art of the Western takes these simple elements and uses them to tell simple morality stories, setting them against the spectacular scenery of the American West. (more...)

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Main Plot

The Main Plot was an alleged conspiracy of July 1603 by English courtiers to remove King James I from the English throne and to replace him with his cousin Lady Arbella Stuart. The plot was supposedly led by Lord Cobham and funded by the Spanish government. In a state trial, the defendants accused of involvement in the Main Plot were tried along with those of the Bye Plot. It is referred to as the "main" plot, because at the time it was presented as the principal ("main") plot of which the secondary (or "bye") plot was a minor component.

In the version of the plot presented at trial, Cobham was negotiating with the Count of Aremberg to contact the Spanish court in order to obtain a very large sum of money (approximately £160,000). He was to travel to Brussels, then to Spain, collect the money, and go back to England via Jersey, where Sir Walter Raleigh was governor. Raleigh and Cobham were then to divide up the money and decide how best to spend it in furtherance of sedition.

Investigation
The plot was discovered during an investigation of the Bye Plot in which Sir George Brooke, the brother of Lord Cobham, was implicated. The effort of examining the evidence gathered from suspects questioned in the far-fetched Bye Plot fell to William Waad. He teased out the "main" or serious plot, as he saw it and involving the highly placed Raleigh, from the rest of the "bye" plot; and presented his findings to Sir Robert Cecil and the Privy Council.

Consequences
Cobham and Raleigh were both imprisoned in the Tower of London as was Sir Griffin Markham. Raleigh was released after thirteen years, but was eventually executed in 1618. The sick Cobham was released in the same year, dying some months later.

title: Main Plot


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Víctor Paz Estenssoro

Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro (2 October 1907 – 7 June 2001) was a Bolivian politician who served as the 45th president of Bolivia for three nonconsecutive and four total terms from 1952 to 1956, 1960 to 1964 and 1985 to 1989. He ran for president eight times (1947, 1951, 1960, 1964, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1985) and was victorious in 1951, 1960, 1964 and 1985. His 1951 victory was annulled by a military junta led by Hugo Ballivián, and his 1964 victory was interrupted by the 1964 Bolivian coup d'état.

Founding of the MNR and early political years (1941–1952)
In 1941 Víctor Paz Estenssoro co-founded (along with Hernán Siles and others) the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, MNR), originally a reformist revolutionary movement and later a centrist party. Paz became an influential member in the cabinet of Colonel Gualberto Villarroel (1943–1946), but was forced out of that government as a result of pressure emanating from Washington. The United States was at the time involved in World War II, and suspected some members of the MNR leadership of harboring pro-fascist sympathies. Paz Estenssoro nonetheless ran for president in 1947, earning 3rd place, and again in 1951, when the MNR surprisingly won the electoral contest, despite the fact that the laws of that time confined the vote to a small, propertied stratum of the citizenry. The elections, however, were unilaterally annulled by the ultra-conservative government of Mamerto Urriolagoitía, and the MNR at that point went underground, coming to power after a popular national revolution the next year.

The 1952 Revolution, First Paz Estenssoro government (1952–1956)
Among the many important structural reforms adopted by the popular Paz Estenssoro government was the extension of universal suffrage to all adult citizens (natives and illiterates included), the nationalization of the largest tin-mining concerns, and an extensive program of land distribution (agrarian reform). Much of the military, which had served so well the interests of the economic elites prior to the Revolution, was dismantled and re-organized as a virtual arm of the MNR party. Clearly, the idea was to fashion a hegemonic party in the image of Mexico's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI). The crucial difference between the MNR and PRI was the decidedly de-centralised structure of the country's new military power (i.e., armed workers and peasants), which was largely overseen by the left-wing minority bloc in the MNR, headed by the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB) leader, Juan Lechín.

Paz Estenssoro's temporary retirement and polarization of the MNR (1956–1960)
Paz was not allowed to run for another consecutive term, and Hernán Siles was elected, serving as President from 1956 until 1960. During the Hernán Siles administration, the MNR began to polarize and fragment, with a conservative wing led by Wálter Guevara and an increasingly assertive left-leaning faction commanded by the charismatic COB leader Lechín. To prevent the fracturing of his party, Paz returned from London (where he had been serving as Bolivian ambassador) and ran for re-election in 1960, winning with an ample majority of the votes. His choice as vice-presidential running mate was the increasingly hard-to-manage Juan Lechín, an action that prompted the defection from the MNR of Wálter Guevara, who felt he had been stepped over.

Second and third Paz Estenssoro governments, 1960–1964
The second Paz Estenssoro administration was plagued by violence, dissent, and continued hemorraghing of the original leadership. Of great importance during this period was the thorny issue of disarming the miners and workers' militias who had combatted in the 1952 Revolution and who had been for the most allowed to keep their weapons since. They had served as a useful counterbalance to the possibility of a conservative or military reassertion against the Revolution, but by 1960 were serving the interests of the party's radical left vice-president Lechín. Of Marxist political persuasion, the latter opposed the disarming of the militias and the reconstitution of the traditional military, urged the passing of more far-reaching reforms. Paz Estenssoro disagreed and, continuing the policies started by Siles, increasingly leaned on the "new" armed forces for support. This produced the inevitable final rift, and Lechín was expelled from the party prior to the 1964 elections.

Increasingly unable to control events, and considering himself the only man who could keep the MNR coalition together, in 1964 Paz decided to amend the constitution to allow himself to run for re-election. Traditionally, attempts such as these (known as "prorroguismo") have been strongly condemned by the Bolivian political elites, many of whose members may have been waiting for their turn to occupy the presidential palace for years. This was no exception, and Paz's move ended up being his undoing. To symbolize Paz's steady rightward drift, he chose the charismatic commander of the Bolivian Air Force, General René Barrientos, as his running mate. To be fair, Paz's increased reliance on the armed forces was to some extent influenced by Washington's constant demands that the military be fully reconstituted and equipped to fight possible Cuban-style Communist insurgencies. In any case, the René Barrientos choice was a final act of folly, as Paz did not seem to have noticed the deep resentment of the outwardly loyal commanders of the "new, revolutionary" military toward the MNR's manipulation of the armed forces for political ends.

The 1964 coup d'état and exile
On 4 November 1964, the MNR government was overthrown in a military coup led by vice-president René Barrientos and Alfredo Ovando, commander of the army. Paz flew to a long exile to Lima, Peru, bitter toward René Barrientos' betrayal and unhappy that the "Revolution" had taken such a sad turn. It was not until 1982 (with minor and very temporary exceptions) that military rule ended. By this time Paz and Hernán Siles Zuazo had split, with Siles supporting more leftist policies. Wálter Guevara, for his part, had supported Barrientos and served in his administration. In 1969 Barrientos died and new, populist military governments of progressive bend gained power in Bolivia (1970–1971).

Support for Banzer and erosion of support (1971–1978)
When the "excesses" of the left-leaning Torres military government (1970–71) became unbearable to most civilian elites of centrist and conservative persuasion, Torres was overthrown in a bloody coup d'état led by then-Colonel Hugo Banzer with the MNR's full support. This too was a move that would cost Paz and his party dearly in the years to come, especially in future elections. Paz was apparently under the impression that Banzer would rule for a year or two before calling elections. Presumably, since the MNR was still by some distance the largest party in the country, this would allow Paz to return to the presidency. However, Banzer had other ideas. He broke with the MNR in 1974, exiled Paz, and proceeded to rule only with military support until 1978.

The turmoil of 1978–1985
While Paz had tarnished his image by associating himself with the reviled Hugo Banzer dictatorship, Hernán Siles was turning steadily to the left and gaining adherents at Paz's expense. When at long last elections were called in 1978, it was apparently Hernán Siles who won it (there were vast irregularities and the elections were annulled), with Paz getting only third place. It was a major decline from what the MNR had been used to obtaining in the 1950s and early 1960s. Elections were rescheduled for 1979, and when they took place Hernán Siles won again but this time Paz got second place. The elections again proved inconclusive, however, in as much as none of the candidates polled the required 50% of the vote to win direct election, and thus the outcome was to be decided by Congress. Partisan intransigences prevailed and the latter could not agree on any of the candidates, eventually settling on naming as provisional President the head of the senate, Wálter Guevara, then in alliance with Paz's MNR. He was charged with calling elections again in 1980. Those elections reconfirmed Hernán Siles' victory and Paz's second place, but the military intervened rather than allow Hernán Siles (now associated with parties deemed to be from the "far left") to take office. General Luis García Meza grabbed the reins of power in the bloody coup d'état of 17 July 1980, and Paz once more flew to exile. In 1982, the beleaguered military finally left the Palacio Quemado and confirmed the results of the 1980 elections, making Hernán Siles president.

Paz's MNR opposed Hernán Siles on every front, as his administration plunged the country into a hyperinflationary spiral. In fact, this was Bolivia's most serious economic crisis in its history, one largely prompted by the collapse of international tin prices and the onset of the Latin American debt crisis. The gravity of the situation prompted Congreso Nacional (National Congress) to prevail upon Hernán Siles to call early elections in 1985. Paz again came second (this time to former dictator Hugo Banzer) but was elected president by Congreso Nacional since, as usual, none of the parties had attained the 50% threshold for direct election. It was in fact the first time an opposition party gained power peacefully in a free election, even though there had long been multi-party competition in elections.

Fourth and last Paz Estenssoro presidency (1985–1989)
The now-nearly octogenarian Paz began his fourth (and final) term as President in 1985. The economic situation was indeed dire, but Paz and his aides had a radical neo-liberal plan. Through Decree 21060 important economic reforms designed to curb galloping hyperinflation (inherited from Hernán Siles) were instituted, the labor unions were repressed in order to reestablish government authority, and 30,000 miners were expunged from state payrolls to reduce the size of the government. Up until the economic restructuring was announced, Paz and his planning team had not informed the rest of his cabinet or the public of the direction in which they were moving, knowing that it would be met with mass protest and strike action. One member of Paz's economic team compared their approach to the bombing of Hiroshima with nuclear weapons. The reforms were in many ways the opposite of what Paz had represented to his voters. As a result, the policies were met with protest. In the months following the announcement of Decree 21060, a curfew was imposed on citizens, travel throughout the country restricted, universities and opposition meetings were raided, and hundreds of union leaders were kidnapped and taken to prison camps in the Amazon until strikes were called off.

The readjustment policies—conducted to a large extent by Paz Estenssoro's vigorous Minister of Planning, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who was later to serve as President of Bolivia—came to be known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). The latter restructured the bulk of the hitherto-statist Bolivian economy and transformed it into a neo-liberal, privatization-oriented one, and successfully contained hyperinflation. However, Bolivia remained the poorest country in South America and anti neo-liberal forces began to grow as a result of his liberal economic policies leading to the election of socialist Evo Morales in 2005.

Paz finished his term and finally retired from politics upon leaving office in 1989. He died by his home in Tarija on 7 June 2001.

title: Víctor Paz Estenssoro


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2004

A floppy disk is a data storage device that comprises a circular piece of thin, flexible magnetic medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic wallet. The fact that the exterior aspect is neither circular nor floppy confuses some novice users. Floppy disks were ubiquitous in the 1980s and 1990s, being used on home and personal computer platforms such as the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, and IBM PC to distribute software, transfer data between computers, and create small backups. In March of 2003, Dell made the decision to make floppy drives optional on its higher-end desktop computers, a move hailed by some as the end of the floppy disk as a mainstream means of data storage and exchange. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2004

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a two-dimensional figure with three vertices and three sides which are straight line segments. Elementary facts about triangles were presented by Euclid in books 1-4 of his Elements in around 300BC. In Euclidean geometry, the sum of the angles α + β + γ is equal to two right angles (180° or π radians). This allows determination of the third angle of any triangle as soon as two angles are known. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 15, 2004

The Montreal Canadiens are a National Hockey League team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. With the possible exception of baseball's New York Yankees, no North American sports team has had as storied and as successful a history as the Montreal Canadiens. They have won 24 Stanley Cups, far more than any other team. Before there was an NHL, there were Montreal Canadiens. They became a charter member of the league's forerunner, the National Hockey Association, in 1909. (more...)

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Naked Cowboy

Robert John Burck (born December 23, 1970), better known as the Naked Cowboy, is an American street performer, singer, songwriter, and occasional actor. He is best known for singing regularly in New York City's Times Square. Burck is also a regular in the streets of the French Quarter during the New Orleans Mardi Gras season. He wears only cowboy boots, a hat, and white briefs, with a guitar strategically placed to give the illusion of nudity.

On October 6, 2010, Burck formally announced that he was running for President of the United States in the 2012 U.S. election as a candidate representing the U.S. Tea Party movement.

Background
Burck was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended Our Lady of the Rosary elementary school in nearby Greenhills, Ohio. He later earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences in 1995. He began busking in December 1997, and first appeared on Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

He is best known as a fixture of Times Square in New York City, where he has appeared almost daily since September 1999. He made an appearance in Donnybrook, Dublin, Ireland, on January 25, 2009, where he performed his theme song "I'm the Naked Cowboy" at a Leinster Rugby game before 18,000 spectators. In May 2014, Burck temporarily switched from his usual briefs to boxer briefs, after being sponsored by Fruit of the Loom.

On November 11, 2020, while Burck was performing in New York in front of a few tourists, a person pulled down and ripped his briefs.

Music
Burck has made appearances in three music videos, including Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket", Tyler Hilton's "When It Comes", and Nickelback's "Rockstar". In 2007, Burck released an album of his own, signing to 4Sight Music Productions and recording the pop-rock album Year of the Cowboy produced by Lee Evans and producer Dante Lattanzi at JAMBOX Recording Studios in New York City. The album was featured on MTV News.

Politics
On July 20, 2009, it was announced that Burck would challenge Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the 2009 New York City mayoral election. In response, Jonny Porkpie, the self-proclaimed "burlesque Mayor of NYC" announced that he would run against him. On September 5, 2009, Burck withdrew from the race.

On September 29, 2010, he announced his intentions to challenge President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. At his announcement, Burck stated that he has a "very conservative policy" and that he had an "unapologetic commitment to our borders, our language and our culture", borrowing a well-known catchphrase of radio host Michael Savage. He changed his appearance by wearing a dress suit and had his hair cut. On October 6, 2010, Burck officially declared his presidential candidacy at a press conference in Times Square. He stated that he was neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but rather "an American" and that he intended to lead the U.S. Tea Party movement into the Oval Office.

Bloomberg referenced the Naked Cowboy during the tenth 2020 Democratic primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 25, 2020. When asked whether he would support expanding his signature soda ban policy nationwide, Bloomberg stated that what is right for one city is not necessarily right for every city, "otherwise every town would have a Naked Cowboy."

According to The Wall Street Journal in December 2020, Burck is "a big Trump supporter." He participated in a rally in Washington, D.C., prior to the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Mars Inc.
Mars, Incorporated created a short animation of the Blue M&M's character playing a guitar while dressed in a white cowboy hat, cowboy boots and underpants on the electronic animation display that hangs outside the M&M's store at Times Square. Burck, who owns registered trademarks to the Naked Cowboy name and likeness, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Mars Incorporated on February 15, 2008.

Burck alleged that the ads infringe on his trademark by "using his likeness, persona, and image for commercial purposes without his written permission and by falsely suggesting that he endorses M&M's candy." The Cowboy's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, requested an injunction stopping Mars from using the Naked Cowboy's likeness to advertise M&M's products, up to $100 million in punitive damages, and attorney's fees. On June 23, 2008, the court issued a decision that dismissed a portion of the suit relying on New York law but rejected a motion by the defendants to dismiss the trademark claims. Burck and Mars Incorporated settled the lawsuit in November 2008, the terms of which were never disclosed.

CBS
Burck filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against CBS in February 2011, saying the network's use of a 'Naked Cowboy'–like figure in an ad for a television show demeaned his image with CBS's "drunk and sexually charged" portrayal of his likeness.

Personal life
On February 15, 2013, Burck married Patricia Burck, a woman from Mexico City who was 25 at the time. Patricia is a professional belly dancer and group fitness instructor, is also a licensed Naked Cowgirl franchisee.

Burck is a resident of Queens.

Arrest
On March 6, 2021, Burck was arrested in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he was appearing at Daytona Beach Bike Week. He was arrested on charges of panhandling and resisting an officer without violence, as his act violated Daytona Beach's panhandling policies. After spending a night in jail, Burck entered a plea of no contest to the resisting an officer without violence charge.

Following his plea, the judge involved in Burck's case withheld adjudication on the resisting arrest charge, making it not appear as a conviction on his criminal record, dropped the panhandling charge, and sentenced Burck to time served. Following his release, Burck reportedly received a "hero's welcome" from attendees at Daytona Beach Bike Week after he returned and a local music store, along with Takamine, donated him a new acoustic guitar to replace the one that was damaged during his arrest. In May 2021, it was reported that Burck had asked a judge to allow him to withdraw his no contest plea and that his attorney sent a letter stating that he plans to sue the Daytona Beach Police Department over the arrest. On July 20, 2022, Burck, having sued the city and the two arresting police officers, received a $90,000 settlement.

title: Naked Cowboy


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 16, 2004

The Sino-Soviet split was a conflict between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, beginning in the late 1950s, reaching a peak in 1969 and continuing in various ways until the late 1980s. It led to a parallel split in the international Communist movement, although it was as much about Chinese and Soviet national interests as it was about Communist ideology. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 17, 2004

Bob Dylan is regarded by some to be America's greatest popular songwriter. Much of his best known work is from the 1960s when his musical shadow was so large that he became a documentarian and reluctant figurehead of American unrest. More broadly, Dylan is credited with expanding the possible vocabulary of popular music, moving it beyond the traditional territory of boy-and-girl into the heady realms of politics, philosophy, and a kind of stream-of-consciousness absurdist humor that defies easy description. (more...)

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Glaresis

Glaresis is a genus of beetles, sometimes called "Enigmatic scarab beetles", in its own family, the Glaresidae. It is closely related to, and was formerly included in, the family Scarabaeidae. Although its members occur in arid and sandy areas worldwide (except Australia), only the nocturnal adults have ever been collected (typically at lights), and both the larvae and biology of Glaresis are as yet unknown. Due to their narrow habitat associations, a great number of these species occur in extremely limited geographic areas, and are accordingly imperiled by habitat destruction.

These beetles are small, 2.5–6 mm long, and have the stocky appearance typical of fossorial scarabs, with short, heavy, spurred legs. Color ranges from tan to dark brown, and the back is covered with short setae.

Efforts to raise glaresids in the laboratory were undertaken in the 1980s by C. H. Scholtz and others, but were unsuccessful.

Glaresis was originally classified with Trogidae (originally a subfamily within Scarabaeidae), and has many characteristics of "primitive" scarabaeoids, but no affinities to any of the other primitive groups; recent work suggests that they may in fact belong in Trogidae. Scholtz argued that Glaresis is the most primitive type of scarabaeoid, but more recent research indicates that the Pleocomidae hold this position. The species in North, Central, and South America have been revised by Robert Gordon and Guy Hanley, January 2014, in the journal Insecta Mundi.

Species

 * Glaresis alfierii
 * Glaresis arabica
 * Glaresis arenata
 * Glaresis australis
 * Glaresis bajaensis
 * Glaresis bautista
 * Glaresis beckeri
 * Glaresis caenulenta
 * Glaresis california
 * Glaresis canadensis
 * Glaresis carthagensis
 * Glaresis cartwrighti
 * Glaresis ceballosi
 * Glaresis celiae
 * Glaresis clypeata
 * Glaresis confusa
 * Glaresis contrerasi
 * Glaresis costaricensis
 * Glaresis costata
 * Glaresis dakotensis
 * Glaresis dentata
 * Glaresis desperata
 * Glaresis donaldi
 * Glaresis ecostata
 * Glaresis exasperata
 * Glaresis falli
 * Glaresis foveolata
 * Glaresis franzi
 * Glaresis freyi
 * Glaresis fritzi
 * Glaresis frustrata
 * Glaresis gineri
 * Glaresis gordoni
 * Glaresis handlirschi
 * Glaresis hespericula
 * Glaresis hispana
 * Glaresis holmi
 * Glaresis holzschuhi
 * Glaresis howdeni
 * Glaresis imitator
 * Glaresis impressicollis
 * Glaresis inducta
 * Glaresis kocheri
 * Glaresis koenigsbaueri
 * Glaresis limbata
 * Glaresis lomii
 * Glaresis longisternum
 * Glaresis mandibularis
 * Glaresis maroccana
 * Glaresis mauritanica
 * Glaresis medialis
 * Glaresis mendica
 * Glaresis methneri
 * Glaresis minuta
 * Glaresis mondacai
 * Glaresis montenegro
 * Glaresis namibensis
 * Glaresis obscura
 * Glaresis ordosensis
 * Glaresis orientalis
 * Glaresis oxiana
 * Glaresis paramendica
 * Glaresis pardoalcaidei
 * Glaresis pardoi
 * Glaresis penrithae
 * Glaresis phoenicis
 * Glaresis porrecta
 * Glaresis quedenfeldti
 * Glaresis rufa
 * Glaresis smithi
 * Glaresis subulosa
 * Glaresis texana
 * Glaresis thiniensis
 * Glaresis tripolitana
 * Glaresis tumida
 * Glaresis villiersi
 * Glaresis walzlae
 * Glaresis warneri
 * Glaresis yanegai
 * Glaresis zacateca
 * Glaresis zarudniana
 * Glaresis zvirgzdinsi

Fossil species

 * †Glaresis burmitica Cai and Huang 2018 Burmese amber, Myanmar, Cenomanian
 * †Glaresis orthochilus Bai et al. 2010 Yixian Formation, China, Aptian
 * †Glaresis tridentata Bai et al. 2014 Yixian Formation, China, Aptian

"Glaresis" cretacea Nikolajev 2007 from the Aptian aged Zaza Formation in Russia is considered questionable, with Cai and Huang 2018 considering it to have no diagnostic characters of the family.

title: Glaresis


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 18, 2004

A comet is a relatively small object similar to an asteroid but composed largely of ice. In the Solar System the orbits of comets extend past that of Pluto; of the comets which enter the inner Solar System, most have relatively highly elliptical orbits. Often described as "dirty snowballs", comets are composed largely of frozen carbon dioxide, methane and water with dust and various mineral aggregates mixed in. Comets are thought of as debris leftover from the condensation of a solar nebula. (more...)

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The Charterhouse of Parma

The Charterhouse of Parma (La Chartreuse de Parme) is a novel by French writer Stendhal, published in 1839. Telling the story of an Italian nobleman in the Napoleonic era and later, it was admired by Balzac, Tolstoy, André Gide, Lampedusa, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway. It was inspired by an inauthentic Italian account of the dissolute youth of Alessandro Farnese. The novel has been adapted for opera, film and television.

The title refers to a Carthusian monastery, which is only mentioned on the last page of the novel and does not figure significantly in the plot.

Plot summary
The Charterhouse of Parma chronicles the adventures of the young Italian nobleman Fabrice del Dongo from his birth in 1798 to his death. Fabrice spends his early years in his family's castle on Lake Como, while most of the rest of the novel is set in a fictionalized Parma (both locations are in modern-day Italy).

The book begins with the French army sweeping into Milan and stirring up the sleepy region of Lombardy, which was allied with Austria. Fabrice grows up surrounded by intrigues and alliances for and against the French — his father the Marchese comically fancies himself a spy for the Viennese. It is broadly hinted at that Fabrice may have actually been fathered by a visiting French lieutenant. The novel's early section describes Fabrice's rather quixotic effort to join Napoleon when the latter returns to France in March 1815 (the Hundred Days). Fabrice at seventeen is idealistic, rather naïve, and speaks poor French. However, he will not be stopped and leaves his home on Lake Como to travel north with false papers. He wanders through France, losing money and horses rapidly. He is imprisoned as a spy, but escapes with the aid of the jailer's wife who develops a fondness towards Fabrice, donning the uniform of a dead French hussar. In his excitement to play the role of a French soldier, he wanders onto the field at the Battle of Waterloo.

Stendhal, a veteran of several Napoleonic campaigns (he was one of the survivors of the retreat from Moscow in 1812), describes this famous battle as a chaotic affair: soldiers gallop one way and then another as bullets plow the fields around them. Fabrice briefly joins the guard of Field Marshal Ney, randomly comes across the man who may be his father (he commandeers Fabrice's horse), shoots one Prussian cavalryman while he and his regiment flee, and is lucky to survive with a serious wound to his leg (inflicted by a retreating French cavalryman). He eventually returns to his family's castle, injured, broke, and still wondering, "was I really in the battle?" Fabrice is quickly forced to flee since his older brother - sickly and dull - denounces him. Towards the end of the novel, his efforts, such as they are, lead people to say that he was one of Napoleon's bravest captains or colonels.

The novel now divides its attention between him and his aunt Gina (his father's sister). Gina meets and befriends the Prime Minister of Parma, Count Mosca. Count Mosca proposes that Gina marry a wealthy old man, the Duke Sanseverina, who will be out of the country for many years as an ambassador, so that she and Count Mosca can be lovers while living under the social rules of the time. Gina responds, "But you realize that what you are suggesting is utterly immoral?" Nevertheless, she agrees, and so a few months later, Gina is the new social eminence in Parma's rather small aristocratic elite.

Gina (now the Duchess Sanseverina) has had very warm feelings for her nephew ever since he returned from France. Since going to join Napoleon was officially illegal, she and Count Mosca try to plan out a successful rehabilitation for the young man. Count Mosca's plan has Fabrice go to seminary school in Naples, with the idea that when he graduates he will come to Parma and become a senior figure in the religious hierarchy, and eventually the Archbishop, as the current office holder is old. The fact that Fabrice has no interest in religion (or celibacy) matters not to this plan. Fabrice reluctantly agrees and leaves for Naples.

The book then describes in great detail how Gina and Count Mosca live and operate in the court of the Prince of Parma (named Ranuce-Erneste IV). Stendhal, who spent decades as a professional diplomat in northern Italy, gives a lively and interesting account of the court, though all of what he describes is entirely fictional, as Parma was ruled by Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma during the time of the novel. (Marie Louise was Napoleon's second wife.)

After several years of theology school in Naples, during which he has many affairs with local women, Fabrice returns to Parma. Fabrice had been afraid that he could never fall in love, and he is surprised when he develops romantic feelings towards Gina; the omniscient narrator tells us that she shares the same feelings although the characters never discuss them.

Fabrice becomes involved with a young actress whose manager/lover takes offense and tries to kill Fabrice. In the resulting fight, Fabrice kills the man and flees Parma for Bologna, fearing correctly that he will not be treated justly by the courts. After returning to Parma surreptitiously, Fabrice returns to Bologna, spending much time trying to form a relationship with an attractive soprano, Fausta; in the meantime, the judiciary have found him guilty of the murder. Distressed by these developments indicating that Fabrice may be executed, Gina goes to the Prince to plead for Fabrice's life stating she will leave Parma if he is not. While the Prince is alienated by Gina's dignity and independence, he fears that his court will become boring without her and that she will speak poorly about his dominion when she departs. He communicates his willingness to free Fabrice and yields to Gina's demand that he sign a note to release him. But the Count, in an effort to be diplomatic, omits the crucial phrase: "this unjust procedure will have no further effect." The following morning, the Prince connives to have Fabrice imprisoned for twelve years by signing an order affixed with a date preceding the note purporting to release him.

For the next nine months, Gina schemes to have Fabrice freed and manages to get secret messages relayed to him in the tower, in part by means of an improvised semaphore line. The Prince keeps spreading rumors that Fabrice is going to be executed as a way to put pressure on Gina. Meanwhile, Fabrice is oblivious to his danger and is living happily because he has fallen in love with the commandant's daughter, Clélia Conti, whom Fabrice can see from his prison window as she tends her caged birds. They fall in love, and after some time he persuades her to communicate with him by means of letters of the alphabet printed on sheets ripped from a book.

The happy Fabrice resists Gina's plans to escape. But Gina finally persuades him and has Clélia smuggle three long ropes to him. The only thing that concerns Fabrice is whether he will be able to meet Clélia after he escapes. But Clélia – who has feelings of guilt because the plot involved giving laudanum to her father, which she perceived as poison – promises the Virgin that she shall never see Fabrice again and will do anything her father says.

Gina puts in motion a plan to have the Prince of Parma assassinated. This plot is carried out by a poet/bandit/assassin Ferrante who has fallen in unrequited love with Gina. Count Mosca stays in Parma, and when the Prince does die (it is strongly implied that he was poisoned by Ferrante) he puts down a revolt by some local revolutionaries and installs the son of the Prince on the throne. The new Prince (only 21 years old) falls in love with Gina. When the prosecutor's indictments come close to the truth behind the uprising, Gina persuades the Prince to burn the documents.

Count Mosca, committed to installing Fabrice as the Vicar General, persuades Gina and Fabrice that Fabrice voluntarily return to be acquitted. Instead of going to the town jail, Fabrice voluntarily returns to the Farnese Tower to be close to Clelia. Seeking revenge, General Conti attempts to poison Fabrice, but Clelia keeps him from eating the poisoned food. A distraught Gina seeks the Prince's intervention to have him transferred, and he agrees to do so on the condition she gives herself to him. Gina so promises in duress. After three months, the Prince proposes marriage to Gina but is rejected. Gina submits to his physical demands and leaves immediately afterward. Gina never returns but marries Count Mosca. Clélia marries the wealthy Marchese her father has chosen for her, and Clelia and Fabrice live unhappily.

Once acquitted, Fabrice assumes his duties as the Vicar General in the Catholic Church, and his sermons become the talk of the town. The only reason he gives these sermons, Fabrice says, is in the hope that Clélia will come to one, allowing him to see her and speak to her. After fourteen months of suffering for both, she agrees to meet with him every night, on the condition that it is in darkness, lest she break her vow to the Madonna to never see him again and they both be punished for her sin. A year later she bears Fabrice's child. When the boy is two years old, Fabrice insists that he should take care of him in the future, because he is feeling lonely and worries that his own child will not love him. The plan he and Clélia devise is to fake the child's illness and death and then establish him secretly in a large house nearby, where Fabrice and Clélia can come to see him every day. After several months the child actually does die, and Clélia dies a few months after that. After her death, Fabrice retires to the titular Charterhouse of Parma (a Carthusian monastery), where he spends less than a year before he also dies. Gina, the Countess Mosca, who had always loved Fabrice, dies a short time after that. The novel ends with the epithet "To the Happy Few."

Characters
The characters in the novel are frequently referred to only by their title of nobility and sometimes by their last name. Furthermore, both of these change during the course of the novel due to marriages and acquisition of titles.

The del Dongos
 * Fabrice (aka Fabrizio) del Dongo, second son of the Marchese del Dongo from castle Grianta on Lake Como in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. Later referred to as Monsignor. He assumes several aliases and uses false passports, including Vasi (a dealer in barometers), Boulot (a deceased French hussar), Giletti, and Giuseppe Bossi.
 * Marchesa del Dongo, Fabrice's mother, referred to as the Marchesa.
 * Marchese del Dongo, Fabrice's father, a cold and reactionary figure.
 * Contessa Gina Pietranera, Fabrice's aunt and lifelong benefactor, referred to as the Contessa and later as the Duchessa Sanseverina (Sanseverina-Taxis) or simply the Duchessa. (Note: Gina is the Marchese del Dongo's sister. Since he is not Fabrice's biological father, Gina and Fabrice are not truly related to one another, though neither character understands this).

The Political Aristocracy of Parma
 * Prince Ranuccio-Ernesto IV, the ruler of Parma, referred to as the Prince.
 * Prince Ernesto V, the son and successor of Ernesto IV, also referred to as the Prince.
 * Princess of Parma, Clara-Paolina, wife of Ernesto IV and the mother of Ernesto V, referred to as the Princess.
 * Conte Mosca, often referred to as the Conte, Prime Minister of Parma, Minister of Police and several other titles, long time lover of Gina.
 * General Fabio Conti, governor of the citadel and prison of Parma.
 * Fiscal General Rassi, known as the Fiscal Rassi or Chief Justice, an incompetent and reactionary politician, "a man without honour and without humour."
 * Marchesa Raversi, referred to as the Raversi, Conte Mosca's opponent and Rassi's co-conspirator, "a consummate intriguer"
 * Father Landriani, Archbishop of Parma

Fabrice's Lovers, Friends, and Enemies
 * Marietta, a comic actress, Fabrice's first lover.
 * Giletti, a traveling comic actor, Marietta's abusive lover, killed by Fabrice.
 * Fausta, a volatile opera singer, Fabrice's lover.
 * Clelia Conti, daughter of General Fabio Conti, Fabrice's last and truest love.
 * Marchese Crescenzi a wealthy aristocrat engaged to Clelia.
 * Ferrante Palla a genius poet, revolutionary, and perhaps lunatic, living in self-imposed poverty. An ally of Gina with whom he is enthralled.
 * Priore Blanès, parish priest of Grianta and astrologer, Fabrice's early mentor who made predictions about Fabrice's life.
 * Ludovico, Fabrice's lifelong servant and friend.

Translations
The best-known English translation The Charterhouse of Parma is by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (Boni and Liveright, 1925) and translated the French names of Italian characters in the original to Italian equivalents. Thus Fabrice becomes Fabrizio. The translation by Margaret Mauldon (Oxford University Press, 1997) retained the French names, while that by Richard Howard (Modern Library, 1999) uses the Italian names. According to Daniel Mendelsohn of the New York Times, this "obscures the important narrative conceit that this whole tale is one we're hearing from a Frenchman who has, in turn, heard it from Italians who knew the principals. It is a book about Italians, but one seen through French eyes." Mendelsohn goes on to say that the translation "moves with admirable rapidity, fully conveying what James called the 'restlessness' of Stendhal's 'superior mind' by means of a number of subtle but quite concrete choices on Howard's part, not least of which is his rendering of French verbs more crisply and colloquially than has been done before.". The translator's notes in John Sturrock's translation (Penguin, 2006), while echoing Mendelsohn on a personal level, found "precedent in the end to be too strong" as "previous translators ... seem all of them to have settled on Fabrizio, and I have done the same" (pp. xxv-xxvi).

Literary significance
While in some respects it is a "romantic thriller", interwoven with intrigue and adventures, the novel is also an exploration of human nature, psychology, and court politics.

The novel is cited as an early example of realism, a stark contrast to the Romantic style popular while Stendhal was writing. It is considered by many authors to be a truly revolutionary work; Honoré de Balzac considered it the most significant novel of his time, Tolstoy was heavily influenced by Stendhal's treatment of the Battle of Waterloo in his depiction of the Battle of Borodino, forming a central part of his novel War and Peace. André Gide described it as the greatest of all French novels, while Henry James ranked it "among the dozen finest novels we possess".

Criticism
Stendhal wrote the book in just 52 days (from November 4, 1838, to December 26 of the same year). As a result, there are some poorly introduced plot elements (such as the poet-bandit-assassin Ferrante who suddenly appears in the story; even the author admits that he should have mentioned Ferrante's relationship to Gina earlier in the story).

Adaptations

 * An opera on the subject, with libretto by Armand Lunel and music by Henri Sauguet, was premiered in Paris in 1939.
 * The novel was filmed in 1948, directed by Christian-Jaque and starring Gérard Philipe as Fabricio, Maria Casares as Gina Sanseverina, and Renée Faure as Clelia Conti.
 * Bernardo Bertolucci claimed to have based his 1964 film Prima della rivoluzione (Before the Revolution) on the novel.
 * In 1981, the novel was turned into a TV series, , directed by Mauro Bolognini, an Italian-French-German co-production.
 * In 2012, a joint Italian-French TV miniseries  was directed by Cinzia Th. Torrini.

title: The Charterhouse of Parma


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 19, 2004

Buckinghamshire is an administrative county in south central England. It has an area of 727 sq. mi. (1883 km²) and a population of 590,000; its county town is Aylesbury. Buckinghamshire is divided into four districts: Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe. In the local government reform of 1974, Buckinghamshire lost Slough and Eton to Berkshire; these areas have been administered under the unitary authorities of Slough and Windsor and Maidenhead since 1998. It has fertile agricultural lands, with many landed estates, especially those of the de Rothschild family in the 19th century. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 20, 2004

A fancy cancel is a postal cancellation that includes an artistic design. Although the term may be used of modern machine cancellations that include artwork, it primarily refers to the designs carved in cork and used in 19th century post offices of the United States. When postage stamps were introduced in the US in 1847, postmasters were required to deface them to prevent reuse. A number of offices began to use cork bottle stoppers dipped in ink. These worked well, but would tend to blot out the entire stamp making it difficult to check the denomination, and so clerks began to carve a groove across the middle of the cork, making two semicircles. The carving process seems to have sparked the creativity of clerks across the country, and soon thousands of designs appeared, ranging from shields to skulls to stars, geometrical shapes, animals, plants, and devils with pitchforks. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 21, 2004

Crash test dummies are full-scale replicas of human beings, weighted and articulated to simulate the behavior of a human body in a vehicle mishap, and instrumented to record as much data as possible on variables such as speed of impact, crushing force, bending, folding, or torquing of the body, and deceleration rates during a collision. In modern times, they remain indispensable in the development of new makes and models of all types of vehicles, from family sedans to fighter aircraft. (more...)

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Hernán Siles Zuazo

Hernán Siles Zuazo (21 March 1914 – 6 August 1996) was a Bolivian politician who served as the 46th president of Bolivia twice nonconsecutively from 1956 to 1960 and from 1982 to 1985. He also briefly served as interim president in April 1952, and as the 27th vice president of Bolivia from 1952 to 1956.

Early life
Hernán Siles was the illegitimate son of the last Republican Party president of Bolivia, Hernando Siles Reyes and Isabel Zuazo Cusicanqui. Siles was raised by his mother. His half-brother Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was president for five months in 1969.

In 1931 Siles graduated from the American Institute in La Paz. He served in Bolivian army and was decorated for injury sustained while fighting in the Chaco War of 1932–35. After the war he finished San Andres University with a degree in law.

Siles was married to Maria Teresa Ormachea del Carpio and had three daughters, Marcela, Ana Maria and Isabel.

Formation of the MNR and the 1952 Revolution
In 1940 Siles was elected in the Chamber of Deputies. Gravitating toward the reformist side of the political spectrum (even though his father had been one of the pillars of the Old Regime), in 1941 he founded along with Víctor Paz Estenssoro and others, the influential Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, or MNR).

The MNR was behind the coup that installed the progressive military administration of Gualberto Villarroel (1943–46), but was forced from power due to U.S. pressure and also by Villarroel's overthrow in 1946 after which Siles was exiled to Argentina. There he worked as a correspondent for Associated Press from November 1947 until September 1948. In 1949, Siles returns to Bolivia to stand for election to the Bolivian legislature, which he wins. However, he is soon arrested for continuing aggitation against the government in power and sent to the island prison of Coati on Lake Titicaca. He escapes from the island prison together with a number of fellow political prisoners and is able to reach Peru where he is granted political asylum. In October 9, 1949, he returns clandestinely to Bolivia and appears in the Bolivian congress at his assigned bench demanding his back pay--this public relations coup cements his image as a leader of the resistance against a tyrannical government.

In the 1951 elections Paz Estenssoro run for presidency with Siles as his vice-presidential running mate, and won the contest with 42.9% of the vote. However, the ultra-conservative government of Mamerto Urriolagoitía refused to recognize the results and instead turned over the presidency to the commander of the Bolivian army, general Hugo Ballivián. At that point the MNR party went underground and on 9–11 April 1952 led the historic Bolivian National Revolution, aided by defections from the armed forces to the rebel cause (key among which was general Antonio Seleme). Siles played a major role in the revolutionary uprising, along with Juan Lechín, since the MNR leader Paz Estenssoro was at the time in exile in Argentina.

Vice President (1952–1956)
Having defeated the military and toppled the Ballivián government, Siles served as provisional president from 11 April 1952 until 16 April 1952, when Estenssoro returned from exile. The 1951 electoral results were upheld, and Paz Estenssoro became constitutional president of Bolivia with Siles as his vice-president.

During the MNR's first 4 years in the office, the government instituted far-reaching reforms, including the establishment of the universal vote, nationalization of the largest mining concerns in the country, and the adoption of a major agrarian reform. In 1956 Estenssoro left the office, as the Bolivian Constitution forbade a sitting president from running for another consecutive term. Siles, his logical successor, easily won the elections of 1956 and became President of the Republic on 6 August 1956.

First presidency (1956–1960)
The first Siles' administration was more contentious and difficult than revolutionary Estenssoro's had been. During this time MNR began to fragment along personal lines and due to growing disagreements over policy.

The economy was in deep trouble, as food and mineral production had plummeted; consequently, inflation soared, and the United States conditioned any further aid and support on the adoption of an economic program of its own prescription (the so-called Eder plan) in late 1956. Siles accepted these conditions, receiving North American aid in return for cutting government expenses and social programs.

Siles also had to tackle the difficult issue of disarming the worker and miner militia members who had fought in the 1952 Revolution and who had been allowed to keep their weapons. They had served as a useful counterbalance to the possibility of a conservative or military coup against the Revolution, but were by now serving the growing ambitions of the head of the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB) Juan Lechín. Meanwhile, the Falange Socialista Boliviana party schemed to topple the MNR from power, causing a rather disproportionate repressive backlash that diminished MNR's (and Siles') popularity.

Break with the MNR and exile (1960–1978)
After the end of Siles' term in 1960, Estenssoro again ran for president in 1960 elections and, upon being elected, sent Siles as ambassador to Uruguay until 1963 and as ambassador to Spain (1963–64). In 1964 Siles broke with Estrassoro over the latter's decision to run for another consecutive term.

Siles initially supported the November 1964 coup d'état by vice-president, General René Barrientos and army chief Alfredo Ovando — but was later exiled when it became apparent that the military intended to manipulate 1966 electoral results to perpetuate itself in power. Except for a five-month interlude during which his half-brother held the presidency, the armed forces remained in control of the Presidential Palacio Quemado until 1982.

In 1971 Siles opposed the right-wing coup of general Hugo Banzer, prompting an irreversible break with Estenssoro, who supported the coup. In 1971 Siles formed the Leftwing Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda, MNRI), beginning a steady leftwards drift.

The 1978–1982 democratic false starts
After the 1978 democratic opening, Siles returned to Bolivia and formed a grand alliance of the left with the Revolutionary Left Movement, the Communist Party, and others. Together, they formed the Democratic and Popular Union (UDP), which triumphed in the 1978, 1979, and 1980 general elections, mostly as a result of a serious erosion of support for Estenssoro.

The 1978 election was annulled due to massive fraud in favor of the official military candidate, General Juan Pereda, though exit polls showed Siles would have won handily had the election been conducted honestly. The 1979 contest remained inconclusive because no candidate received 50% of the vote, and Congress elected Wálter Guevara a temporary president.

Siles finished first in 1980, but came up short of a majority. Days before Congress was due to convene to choose a winner, the army launched the bloody coup of 17 July 1980, which installed a reactionary (and cocaine-tainted) dictatorship of General Luis García Meza. Siles escaped to exile in Peru by crossing Lake Titicaca on a boat. He returned in 1982, when the military's experiment had run its course and the Bolivian economy was on the verge of collapse.

Second presidency (1982–1985)
With its reputation badly damaged by the excesses of the 1980–82 dictatorship, the military faced two options—call new elections, or accept the 1980 results. By this time, however, it was obvious that the country would crumble into civil war before new elections could be held. Under the circumstances, the military announced in September 1982 that to spare the expense of new elections and avoid further unrest, it would reconvene the legislature elected in 1980 and accept whomever it chose as president. Congress reconvened on 23 September and reconfirmed the 1980 election results. On 5 October, it overwhelmingly elected Siles as president. He was sworn into his second term on 10 October, with the MIR's Jaime Paz as his vice-president.

In 1983, Siles Zuazo reopened relations with Cuba after the relationship ended twenty years previous. Cuban doctors began reorganizing the Bolivian health system.

On 30 June 1984 he was abducted from his home and held for ten hours during a failed military coup. 60 members of the army and police force sought to bring about a coup. According to the Bolivian government, members of the elite narcotics unit, the Leopardos, were involved in the abduction. The commanding officer of the unit was arrested.

The economic situation was dire, with growing hyperinflation. Siles had great difficulty in controlling the situation, and received scant support from the political parties or members of Congress, most of whom were eager to flex their political muscles after so many years of military authoritarianism. The unions, led by their old leader Juan Lechín, paralyzed the government with constant strikes, and even the vice-president, Jaime Paz, deserted the sinking ship when Siles' popularity sank to an all-time low.

The 1982–86 hyperinflation would end up being the fourth largest ever recorded in the world. Still, Siles refused to adopt extra-constitutional measures, preferring instead to consolidate the hard-earned Bolivian democracy regardless of the personal cost to him. He even went on a hunger strike as a desperate way to gain public sympathy. Finally, he agreed to shorten his own term and Congress moved the presidential election forward by a year.

One bright point in the Siles administration was the 1983 extradition to France of the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon. He had been living in Bolivia since the late 1950s or early 1960s, after being smuggled out of Europe with the assistance of the United States, and was often employed by the 1964–82 dictatorships as an interrogation specialist. Following his extradition he was condemned for his crimes and died in a French prison.

Later life
By 1985 the government's impotence prompted Congress to call early elections, citing the fact that Siles had been originally elected five long years before. His old rival, MNR's Víctor Paz Estenssoro was elected president, and Siles left for Uruguay, a country where he had lived before in exile and for which he held special affection. He died in Montevideo, Uruguay in August 1996 at the age of 82.

title: Hernán Siles Zuazo


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 22, 2004

Star Trek is a science fiction television franchise created by Gene Roddenberry in 1966 that tells the tale of the crew of the starship USS Enterprise and of their adventures "to boldly go where no man has gone before". The original show was cancelled in 1969 due to low ratings, but became phenomenally popular in syndication. To date, four additional TV series and ten motion pictures set within the Star Trek universe have been released. It is, along with Star Wars, the most popular science fiction franchise of the late 20th century. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 23, 2004

An enclave is, in human geography, a piece of land which is totally enclosed within a foreign territory. Enclaves may be created for a variety of historical, political or even geological reasons. Since living in an enclave can be very inconvenient and many agreements have to be found by both countries over mail addresses, power supply or passage rights, enclaves tend to be eliminated; many cases that existed in the past have now been resolved. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 24, 2004

Rembrandt van Rijn is generally considered one of the greatest painters in Western art history, and the most important Dutch painter of the 17th century. Rembrandt was also a proficient engraver and made many drawings. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age (roughly equivalent to the 17th century), in which Dutch culture, science, commerce, world power and political influence reached their pinnacles. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 25, 2004

The British East India Company was founded by a Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600. Over the next 250 years, it became one of the most powerful commercial enterprises of its time. The British East India Company's business was centered on India, where it also acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions which came to overshadow its commercial activities. India was often referred to as the Jewel in the Crown. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 26, 2004

Single malt Scotch is a type of Scotch whisky, distilled by a single distillery, using malted barley as the only grain ingredient. This is in contrast to blended whisky, which consists of a mixture of single malt whiskies and whiskies derived from other grains. All single malt Scotch must be produced using a pot still, and be distilled, aged, and bottled in Scotland. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 27, 2004

A submarine is a specialized boat that travels under water, usually for military or scientific purposes. Most major navies of the world employ submarines. Submarines are also used for marine and freshwater science and for work at depths too great for human divers. U-boat is the abbreviation of Unterseeboot, the German name for submarines (first commissioned in WWI). Another underwater device for use in underwater exploration and salvage is the diving bell. (more...)

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text: Country codes: C

title: Country codes: C


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Andrey Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky

Andrey Petrovich Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (Андре́й Петро́вич Семёнов-Тянь-Ша́нский) (9 June 1866 – 8 April 1942) was a Russian entomologist specializing in beetles. He was the son of Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky. He was among the first entomologists to consider the protection of insects and the risk of their extinction.

Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky was the son of the famous explorer Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky and was born in St. Petersburg where he graduated from the 8th St. Petersburg gymnasium in 1885. At home he was trained in music and illustration. He could also speak Latin. He then joined the St. Petersburg University. Apart from his father, he was influenced by N. A. Severtsov and the entomologist August Feodorovitsh Morawitz (1837–1897). In 1888 and 1889 he traveled to the Trans-Caspian and Turkestan regions in search of insects, then in 1890 became a curator of entomology at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. He worked at the museum only until 1896 and then worked at his home. He studied mainly the Hymenoptera and Dermaptera. Citations of this author most frequently bear the Germanized spelling Semenov-Tian-Shanskij (e.g. ). He also took an interest in the poetry of Pushkin, the protection of nature, and a range of other subjects. He lost his vision at the age of 55 but continued to work, making use of his memory and assistants to help describe species, which he then transcribed. He died from pneumonia during the siege of Leningrad and his death date is uncertain, noted as 7 March or 8 April according to sources.

title: Andrey Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 28, 2004

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-born philosopher who contributed several groundbreaking works to modern philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic and the philosophy of language. Although numerous collections from Wittgenstein's notebooks, papers, and lectures have been published since his death, he published only one philosophical book in his own lifetime—the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; his second magnum opus, Philosophical Investigations, was published posthumously. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 29, 2004

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. Vowels usually form the peak or nucleus of a syllable, whereas consonants form the onset and coda. Some languages allow sounds that wouldn't normally be classified as vowels to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the sound of m in the English word prism, or the sound of r in the Czech word vrba (="willow"). Sometimes vowels are defined by the criterion of whether they form the nucleus of a syllable, and by that criterion these sounds are vowels, but usually the sounds that can form the nucleus of a syllable are called sonorants. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 30, 2004

Chinatown is a general name for an urban region containing a large population of Chinese people within a non-Chinese society. Chinatowns are most common in Southeast Asia and North America, but growing Chinatowns can be found in Europe and beyond. Chinatowns were formed in the 19th century in many areas of the United States and Canada as a result of discriminatory land laws which forbade the sale of land to Chinese outside of a restricted geographical area and which promoted the segregation of people of different ethnicities. However, the location of a Chinatown in a particular city may change over time. (more...)

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Andrei Semenov (fighter)

Andrei Vladimirovich Semenov (Андрей Владимирович Семенов, also sometimes transliterated as Andrei Semyonov; born June 17, 1977) is a Russian mixed martial artist and Sambo practitioner. He has also made forays into acting.

Semenov has fought within the UFC middleweight division, in M-1 events and Pride Bushido, with an overall MMA record of 34 wins, 9 losses and 2 draws. He has been fighting in Mixed Martial Arts since 1998, and is famed for excellent throws, strong submission defense, superior stamina and being very resilient and hard to finish.

M-1 Global
Three years after retiring in 2008, Semenov returned to MMA and fought Luigi Fioravanti at M-1 Challenge: 25 on April 28, 2011. Though a considerable underdog on media scoring websites, Semenov won the fight via unanimous decision. After another hiatus, Semenov returned on December 8, 2012, facing Michele Verginelli at M-1 Challenge: 36. He won via unanimous decision.

Semenov fought on October 20, 2013, defeating Gregor Herb at M-1 Challenge 42. He was then scheduled to face Ramazan Emeev at M-1 Challenge 47 on April 4, 2014, however in the weeks leading up to the event, the bout was cancelled for unknown reasons.

Ultimate Fighting Championship
With a 20-2 record, Semenov made his UFC debut on January 11, 2002, against notable BJJ black-belt Ricardo Almeida at UFC 35. Semenov won via TKO (punches).

He returned four months later on May 10, 2002, facing Ivan Salaverry at UFC 37. Semenov lost via TKO, and following the fight, Semenov left the UFC and returned to the M-1 Global promotion.

Championships and accomplishments
Mixed Martial Arts
 * M-1 Global
 * Champion M-1 Global - Middleweight GP

Filmography
Among the films in which he has acted is the 2004 Russian film Dark Night (Темная ночь).

title: Andrei Semenov (fighter)


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 31, 2004

Helium is the chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol He and atomic number 2. A colorless, odorless noble gas, helium has the lowest boiling point of any element and can only be solidified under great pressure. This element occurs as a monatomic gas. It is for practical purposes chemically inert. It is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. It is found in the Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts from the decay of certain minerals and is present in some mineral waters. Helium occurs in economically extractable amounts in certain natural gases and is used as a lifting gas for balloons and blimps, as a cryogenic cooling liquid for superconducting magnets. (more...)

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Category:Central America

 * Note that not all countries in Central America are part of Latin America. Central America is a central geographic region of the Americas and is geographically part of the continent of North America.

title: Category:Central America


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Talk:Spathi

Evil Ones
Were the Evil Ones really harmless to the Spathi? They certainly are to us, but some conversations in the game (according to the Spathi, they ran from continent to continent in their world, and only developed space flight because that was not enough, and they talk a lot about how they were eaten in large numbers - in the past tense), in addition to the fact that it was the Umgah who put the EO there, leads me to believe that the EO actually ate mollusks like the Spathi... Dehumanizer 07:33, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I think it was a rather central point about the Evil Ones that, while they may have harmed a few Spathi (as they did kill crew members if your lander wasn't upgraded and you ran over them), the Spathi were greatly exaggerating the harm caused them. Also note that they were completely still. I don't remember that the Umgah had put them there, though. As for spaceflight, I was under the (probably mistaken) impression that the rise of the Evil Ones was a relatively more recent occurence, and that the Spathi got spaceflight in response to other creatures. Not sure if this really makes any sense. Andre 08:53, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I have specifically said that some of the fans BELIEVE that it were the Umgah. There is no indication in the game about the source of the Evil Ones. I am rather confident that the Spathi have indeed suffered bad losses to them. The Evil Ones are sessile (they don't move) but the Melnorme comments on it, saying something to the effect of "Don't be afraid, human flesh doesn't appeal to them the way Spathi flesh does". When Lander actually comes in touch with the Evil Ones, they are extermely deadly, rivaling the most voracious predators in the game (aside, of course, the VUX Beast). Please note that when asked about the Spathi History, the Safe Ones specifically say that they lived happily in their ignorance until the Evil Ones arrived. Hope that this has answered your doubts. Rogue, 08:40PM, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

BUTT (weapon 2) expansion
Backward-Utilized Tracking Torpedo? (and it did indeed track!) or, Backward-Utilized Thrusting Torpedo? (as it was in the manual?)

I'm sorry to submit a sticky wicket, but revisionist history has sanitized the submissive Spathi a smidge.

later2besigned —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.214.108.212 (talk) 07:38, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Backwards-Utilized Tracking Torpedo. I'm pretty damn sure about it though for some reason I cannot recall WHERE it was stated. the use of "thrusting" would not make sense in this acronym

And yeah, they track. not very well but they do. --Moonshadow Rogue (talk) 00:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Spathi.png
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Spathi


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 1, 2004

The Byzantine Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire which remained in existence after the fall of the west. The empire is commonly considered to have existed from AD 395 to 1453. The empire reached its height under the Macedonian emperors of the late 9th, 10th and early 11th centuries. The Fourth Crusade had a devastating effect on the empire, and it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 2, 2004

Crushing by elephant was a common capital punishment throughout south and southeast Asia for over 4,000 years. The Romans and Carthaginians also used this method on occasion. Most rajahs kept execution elephants for the purpose of death by crushing and the executions were often held in public to serve as a warning to any who might transgress. The last person to be officially executed by an elephant was put to death in India in April, 1947. (more...)

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authors: ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 3, 2004

Joshua Abraham Norton was a famous, impoverished and highly eccentric citizen of San Francisco, California in the mid-to-late 19th century. Among his many celebrated and curious activities, he most famously anointed himself as "Emperor of the United States" in 1859, becoming Emperor Norton I. Other notable activities include his ordering the dissolution of the United States Congress and his numerous (and prophetic) decrees that a bridge be built across San Francisco Bay. The King in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is reportedly modeled after him. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 4, 2004

The Platypus is a small, semi-aquatic mammal endemic to the eastern part of Australia, and one of the four monotremes (mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young). The Platypus looks rather like a beaver: the body and broad, flat tail are covered with brown fur, but it has webbed feet and a large, rubbery snout that led to its being known for a time as the "Duckbilled Platypus". The Platypus is a carnivore. It feeds on worms, insect larvae, freshwater shrimp, and yabbies (freshwater crayfish) that it digs out of river beds with its snout or catches while swimming. (more...)

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Lesser roadrunner

The lesser roadrunner (Geococcyx velox) is a large, long-legged bird that is a member of the cuckoo family, Cuculidae. It is found in Mesoamerica. Its Latin name means "swift earth-cuckoo". Along with the greater roadrunner, it is one of two species in the genus Geococcyx.

Description
The lesser roadrunner is a slender bird that reaches a length of 46 to 51 cm (18 in), the tail itself accounting for about 24 cm. Its average length is 46 cm. The male weighs 174 –, while the female weighs 162 –.

The crown, crest and neck of the lesser roadrunner are black with a bronze glow and small light brown spots. The back neck is black-brown, with feathers are lined with a pale brown, so that a brown-white dashes arises. The plumage of the upper body is dark brown with light speckles and lightens to maroon towards the rump, and its breast is white. The rectrices are black with a dark purple luster. Young roadrunners resemble adults, but have ocher-colored lines, and duller skin around the eye.

The iris is yellow to brown, with a yellow to silvery-white ring surrounding the pupil. The eye ring is pale lavender to bright blue. The area behind the eye extends to a narrow band that turns into a bright red color on the neck, which is mostly covered by feathers. The upper beak is gray, while the lower beak is bluish-gray.

The lesser roadrunner resembles the greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) in appearance and habit but is smaller, with a less streaked throat and chest, brownish on the rump and on the outer wings and yellowish undersides. The lesser roadrunner also has a significantly shorter bill.

Habitat
The lesser roadrunner occurs in arid lowlands of Mesoamerica up to 3,000 m in altitude. It inhabits open ground areas, with scrub and thorny bushes. They can be found in higher elevations of stratovolcanoes such as Conchagua, San Miguel, Santa Ana and San Salvador, in semi-open areas above the treeline. They also adapt to cultivated land such as henequen and corn fields.

Its breeding range is in southwestern Mexico, north into the western side of the Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northern Central America and a disjunct range in the northern Yucatán Peninsula. It overlaps with the range of the greater roadrunner in a small area in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Michoacán.

Behavior
The lesser roadrunner can run up to 20 mph. It spends most of its time on the ground, running in open areas, along roads or under cover. and is capable of limited flight, perching in bushes or low trees.

Roadrunners bask in the early morning, on a fence post or bush. They cock their tail and droop their wings, then turn their back towards the sun, raising the scapular feathers and exposing their black skin which absorbs heat. They may preen themselves as well.

The bird's call is a series of soft "cooing", about one note per second, made three to seven times on a descending scale.

Diet
The lesser roadrunner is an opportunistic feeder, which eats seeds, fruit, small reptiles and frogs. It forages around roadsides for large insects and roadkill. Grasshoppers make up a significant portion part of its diet, as do caterpillars.

Nesting
Breeding is reported from Mexico between April and July, and in El Salvador in August.

The lesser roadrunner builds its nest in a low tree, a thorn bush or an Opuntia cactus, about 2 m off the ground. Its eggs, which are white and 35 × in length, are laid in clutches of 2 to 4. Their nests are smaller than those of the greater roadrunner, but are stronger and more compact, built in the shape of a cup with sturdy grass stems and twigs, with a diameter of c. 14.5 cm. Both male and female roadrunners incubate.

Lesser roadrunner clutches show less variation in size than those of the greater roadrunner, and from observation, all eggs appear to hatch around the same time.

title: Lesser roadrunner


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 5, 2004

A fountain pen is a writing instrument, more specifically a pen, that contains a reservoir of water-based ink that is fed to a nib through a "feed" via a combination of gravity and surface tension. Refilling ink either involves replacing an ink cartridge, filling with an eyedropper, or using one of a variety of internal mechanisms to suck ink from a bottle. The fountain pen was commonly used in the past but has become more of a status symbol and collectible since the mass production of the ballpoint pen and other easier-to-use pens in the mid 20th century. (more...)

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text: Category:Caribbean

title: Category:Caribbean


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 6, 2004

Buddhism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BCE. This religion originated in India and gradually spread throughout Asia, to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, as well as the East Asian countries of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Buddhism is unusual among world religions because it does not involve the worship of gods or other higher beings. For the Buddha, the key to liberation was mental purity and correct understanding, and for this reason he rejected the notion that we can gain salvation by petitioning a distant deity. (more...)

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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 7, 2004

Chariot racing was one of the most popular ancient Greek and Roman sports. It is unknown exactly when chariot racing began, but it may have been as old as chariots themselves. It is known from artistic evidence on pottery that the sport existed in the Mycenaean world, but the first literary reference to a chariot race is the one described by Homer in Book 23 of the Iliad. In Rome the main centre of chariot racing was the Circus Maximus in the valley between Palatine Hill and Aventine Hill. (more...)

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